[chuckz]

I am trying to run an old version of Netscape (Netscape 4.76) on
Slackware 9.1 because it is an older machine and doesn't run Netscape 6 or 7. It runs fine on a very old linux distribution using a 2.0.x kernel and libc5. After installing all the old libraries it needs from the old distribution under /oldlinux, adding /oldlinux to /etc/ld.so.conf, and running ldconfig, ldd shows everything found, including the proper libc and X libs from the old linux distribution, except for libg++.so.27 and libstdc++.so.27. But 'ldconfig -v' reports libg++.so.27 and libstdc++.so.27 from the old system are found. I did get some other programs needing libg++.so.27 and libstdc++.so.27 from the old distribution to run on Slackware 9.1, but I had to first run the ldconfig from the old distribution. But, as expected, the old ldconfig is not compatible and breaks many programs on Slackware 9.1. Why won't ldd report libg++.so.27 and libstdc++.so.27 are found when 'ldconfig -v' reports they are found?

[horndude]

Hmmmmmmmm.........thats a tough one, dunno for sure, but what you are trying to do is tough to overcome from my experience in linux.The dynamic linking process is pretty version/library dependent..........trying to do both even with the old and necessary libraries installed is often impossible from my experience anyway.I tried something similar awhile back, and had zero luck or good answers from some folks that are really really good with linux.

[chuckz]

I suspected that it would be difficult to do this, but I know it is not impossible because I did get the old netscape running in the new distribution with a very ugly hack: I ran the old ldconfig just before launching the old netscape program and it linked and executed fine, and then I immediately restored the normal dynamic linking system by rerunning the standard ldconfig program in an xterm that was already open before I ran the old ldconfig. I had to have an xterm already open before running the old ldconfig because xterm would not link after running the old ldconfig.

[chuckz]

After much playing around, I did get it to link using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable instead of /etc/ld.so.conf and ldconfig. Perhaps this is a bug in the glibc-2.3.2 that comes with Slackware-9.1.