gtk version--importance of version 2.12 versus 2.10?

[Paul Johnson]

Here's a problem driven by the use of "Enterprise Linux".  Supposedly
more "stable", also harder to keep up-to-date!

pspp INSTALL file says that gtk2 >= 2.12 is required, along with
libglade > 2.6.

In RedHat/Centos 5.4, the included version of libglade is sufficient
(libglade2-2.6.0-2), but unfortunately the  version of the gtk2
libraries is ancient:

gtk2-2.10.4-20.el5
gtk2-devel-2.10.4-20.el5

My first try at this was last Friday.  I've had a somewhat strange
experience.  I was building pspp from the Fedora repository SRPM.
That SPEC file requires libglade 3, but that is a mistake ( 2.6 would
suffice).  However, the newer gtk2 is needed.  I built a series of rpm
packages that were needed to use a newer gtk2, including glib2,
pango, libthai, gsl, gnutls, and some others I can't name.

I was able to build & use pspp, but I caused some deep, deep trouble
on that one workstation.  There were no RPM system warnings once I
simultenously upgrades the packages (no "force" required).
"Upgrading" glib & gtk2 seems to cause the system to become quite
unstable--apps running on the screen randomly lose connection with the
keyboard/mouse.   (gtk2-2.10 and 2.12 seem to use the exact same so
names on shared libraries, so programs don't notice the mismatch??)
The symptom of the problem is sometimes referred to as a "soft
freeze," programs on the screen don't respond at the keyboard, but one
can ssh into the machine and reboot or restart gdm. There is no
evidence of a kernel freeze and no errors in the logs.  I suspected a
hardware failure (sounds like bad RAM or MOBO to me), but diagnostics
found nothing.  In the Internet, I found many complaints about random
hangups with this particular kind of computer (DELL Optiplex 760), but
I do not have any reason to say.  I re-mastered the operating system
and now it does not hang any more.  That seems like pretty good
evidence that the libraries were at fault.

I can install the pspp RPM I built with gtk2-2.12 on a system that
only has version 2.10, and psppire appears to run well enough.  There
are no warnings about gtk version mismatches in the stderror. I
include the ldd output below from that system, where the shared
library set *appears* OK.

That makes me wonder what elements in gtk+ 2.12 are needed in new-ish
pspp, and why one needs 2.12 to compile, but only 2.10 to run pspp.

This is from the pspp built against gtk2-2.12 but installed into the
system that only has 2.10

$ ldd /usr/bin/psppire
       linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x003e5000)
       libreadline.so.5 => /usr/lib/libreadline.so.5 (0x05d24000)
       libpsppwidgets.so.0 => /usr/lib/pspp/libpsppwidgets.so.0 (0x0079a000)
       libglade-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libglade-2.0.so.0 (0x05d04000)
       libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x003e6000)
       libxml2.so.2 => /usr/lib/libxml2.so.2 (0x0553a000)
       libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x00b39000)
       libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00110000)
       libatk-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libatk-1.0.so.0 (0x00250000)
       libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 (0x00237000)
       libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 (0x0029d000)
       libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so.0 (0x0019d000)
       libcairo.so.2 => /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2 (0x002a6000)
       libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00d9f000)
       libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x001dc000)
       libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00b1a000)
       libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00c7d000)
       libncurses.so.5 => /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5 (0x05df2000)
       libgsl.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgsl.so.0 (0x047d6000)
       libgslcblas.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgslcblas.so.0 (0x00805000)
       libpq.so.4 => /usr/lib/libpq.so.4 (0x053c2000)
       libplot.so.2 => /usr/lib/libplot.so.2 (0x049a9000)
       libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00af1000)
       libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x009aa000)
       libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00b59000)
       libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x001df000)
       libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x00c6b000)
       libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x00de0000)
       libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXinerama.so.1 (0x00deb000)
       libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXi.so.6 (0x0020e000)
       libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2 (0x00df0000)
       libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1 (0x00216000)
       libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/libXfixes.so.3 (0x00df6000)
       libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 (0x0026c000)
       libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00d1d000)
       libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0x00313000)
       libpixman-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpixman-1.so.0 (0x00339000)
       librt.so.1 => /lib/librt.so.1 (0x00b4e000)
       /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0098c000)
       libssl.so.6 => /lib/libssl.so.6 (0x059b1000)
       libcrypto.so.6 => /lib/libcrypto.so.6 (0x05725000)
       libkrb5.so.3 => /usr/lib/libkrb5.so.3 (0x0568d000)
       libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x05d64000)
       libresolv.so.2 => /lib/libresolv.so.2 (0x007f0000)
       libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x007d7000)
       libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00b20000)
       libXaw.so.7 => /usr/lib/libXaw.so.7 (0x04ad0000)
       libXmu.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXmu.so.6 (0x00905000)
       libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x05f4a000)
       libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x007a8000)
       libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x0077e000)
       libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x00c5e000)
       libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00c63000)
       libexpat.so.0 => /lib/libexpat.so.0 (0x00366000)
       libgssapi_krb5.so.2 => /usr/lib/libgssapi_krb5.so.2 (0x05868000)
       libcom_err.so.2 => /lib/libcom_err.so.2 (0x00948000)
       libk5crypto.so.3 => /usr/lib/libk5crypto.so.3 (0x00959000)
       libkrb5support.so.0 => /usr/lib/libkrb5support.so.0 (0x00933000)
       libkeyutils.so.1 => /lib/libkeyutils.so.1 (0x00954000)
       libXpm.so.4 => /usr/lib/libXpm.so.4 (0x008f2000)
       libselinux.so.1 => /lib/libselinux.so.1 (0x00387000)
       libsepol.so.1 => /lib/libsepol.so.1 (0x0039f000)

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas