[18572] in Athena Bugs
linux 8.4.17: netscape
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karl Ramm)
Sun Dec 3 09:28:23 2000
Message-Id: <200012031428.JAA09128@alice-whacker.mit.edu>
To: bugs@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 09:28:20 -0500
From: Karl Ramm <kcr@MIT.EDU>
System name: alice-whacker.mit.edu
Type and version: i686 8.4.17 (with mkserv)
Display type: XFree86 3.3.6 Mach64
Shell: /bin/sh (/bin/athena/bash?)
Window manager: unknown
What were you trying to do?
Access some "flash-enhanced" websites from linux-athena machines.
http://www.thexfiles.com is a reasonable example. (although it does
something *really* obnoxious if flash fails to crash it, so perhaps there's
a public service lurking here.)
What's wrong:
Some flash sites crash netscape with the following error (under linux):
/var/athena/infoagents/arch/i386_linux22/MIT-only/netscape/netscape: can't resolve symbol '__bzero'
The flash plugin uses __bzero, which is defined by linux libc 6, but not
linux libc 5 (easily verifiable with nm). Unfortunately the version of
netscape 4.75 in the infoagents locker for linux is not the "supported by
netscape inc." release for Linux 2.2 / libc 6, but evidently one of the
"unsupported" linux 2.0 / libc 5 builds.
If you download the linux 2.2 / libc6 version of netscape 4.7.5 from
ftp.netscape.com, it works fine.
What should have happened:
Either someone should've given up on flash, found a libc5 version of the
plugin, or given up on supporting netscape on libc5 systems; they're
definitely in the deserves-to-lose category at this point.
Please describe any relevant documentation references:
