Issue 2828 and building against atomics.

[Alan DeKok]

On Nov 15, 2019, at 2:35 PM, Matthew Schumacher <matt.s at aptalaska.net> wrote:
> 
> Backstory:
> https://github.com/FreeRADIUS/freeradius-server/issues/2828
> 
> This patch:
> https://github.com/FreeRADIUS/freeradius-server/commit/5a7df325116a3c2e995e5b37d8f77665336f1caf
> 
> Fixes a build issue on Debian where it needs to link against atomics to compile.  On slackware, that patch also causes the build system to link against libatomics, but as that library is in the gcc-5.5.0 tarball, slackware includes it in the gcc package thus making the freeradius binary require the entire gcc build suite package on this platform.

  The point of libatomics is that it's a library used by programs at run-time.  Not just at compile time.

> If I revert the patch, it doesn't link against libatomic and thus I no longer have this dependency.  Alan suggested installing libatomic as the solution, and while I can make a package for that, I don't understand what I would be loosing by omitting -latomic from the linker and building without it.  Can someone explain why I shouldn't just revert the patch in my build script and eliminate this dependency?

  If you revert the patch and it still works, go for it.

  But many platforms require libatomic in order to do atomic operations.

  Alan DeKok.