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Zeiss Ikon
Asked: 2019-10-03 04:02:51 +0800 CST

What will I break if I install a newer version of a library?

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I'm currently using Ubuntu MATE 16.04.3 LTS.

I'm a Kerbal Space Program player, trying to use a particular game mod called Principia to better model multi-body and non-uniform body orbits. The current version of Principia for KSP versions 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7, designated Fibonacci, requires libc++ and libc++abi -- which I have, at version 3.7.something, but this game mod requires version 6.0-2.

This version is available in Ubuntu 18.04.2; I can install it by setting up the correct repository and installing those libraries and their dependencies. However, nothing stands alone (in Linux, as in life): what else is likely to break if a couple C++ libraries are substantially ahead of what the system expects?

I'd prefer not to upgrade my Ubuntu, because due to third part software there's not an actual reliable upgrade path; I wind up having to do a clean install and reinstall my third party and non-standard packages

upgrade libraries

1 Answers

  1. After asking in a couple other places and doing some digging based on the partial answers I got in one of them (the Kerbal Space Program forums, about the program for which an add-on prompted the question in the first place), I found a solution.

    Although the required version of libc++ and libc++abi isn't available from any of the Canonical repositories in a form compatible with Xenial, I was able to find a ppa for llvm-toolchain-8 that was backported to Ubuntu 16.04. It doesn't completely support clang 8 because a couple minor items had to be disabled for compatibility, but it does include libc++-8-dev and libc++abi-8-dev, the library version required by the very newest (released today) version of the Principia add-on for KSP. And, because the libraries were built on Ubuntu 16.04, they are compatible with the install I already have; I've installed them, and verified both that my Ubuntu continues to run, and that Principia works in my KSP game.

    Problem solved, at least for another year and a half.

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