gentoo-overlay/metadata/news/2016-09-26-migration-to-sys-libs_uclibc-ng/2016-09-26-migration-to-sys-libs_uclibc-ng.en.txt

Title: Migration to sys-libs/uclibc-ng
Author: Anthony G. Basile <blueness@gentoo.org>
Content-Type: text/plain
Posted: 2016-09-26
Revision: 1
News-Item-Format: 1.0
Display-If-Installed: sys-libs/uclibc
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/uclibc/amd64
Display-If-Profile: hardened/linux/uclibc/amd64
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/uclibc/arm/armv7a
Display-If-Profile: hardened/linux/uclibc/arm/armv7a
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/uclibc/mips
Display-If-Profile: hardened/linux/uclibc/mips
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/uclibc/mips/mipsel
Display-If-Profile: hardened/linux/uclibc/mips/mipsel
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Display-If-Profile: default/linux/uclibc/x86
Display-If-Profile: hardened/linux/uclibc/x86

Upstream development of uClibc has been stalled since July 2015 and
there hasn't been a proper release since May 2012 [1].  New patches
addressing important issues have been submitted but these have not been
reviewed nor have they been committed to the master branch.  Also,
backporting even those patches which have been committed to master is
now impractical as too many intermediate layers of patches conflict.
For all intents and purposes, upstream uClibc is dead.

Fortunately, a fork called uClibc-ng [2] was begun by Waldemar Brodkorb
in February 2015 and is actively being maintained.  Accordingly,
Gentoo's Hardened uClibc project will be migrating to uClibc-ng as its
libc provider.  Currently stage3 tarballs based on sys-libs/uclibc-ng
are available for all supported arches at [3] and these will become the
default after October 5, 2016.  Older stage3s based on sys-libs/uclibc
will be removed.

Unfortunately, migrating a production system from uclibc to uclibc-ng
is not straightforward owing to the central role played by libc.  A
migration guide is provided at [4].  This has been tested on live
systems with success, but the user is cautioned to plan a backup and
recovery plan should something go wrong.

Refs.
[1] https://git.uclibc.org/uClibc/log/
[2] http://uclibc-ng.org/
[3] http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/
[4] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Hardened_uClibc#Migration_to_uClibc-ng