bug#9396: make fails with undefined reference to '__sched_cpucount'

[Feuerbacher, Alan]

Howdy,

I'm trying to compile coreutils-8.12 in a Dell Xeon workstation environment 
that runs Redhat 5 (RHEL5). After some time, make fails with:

+verbatim+
../lib/libcoreutils.a(nproc.o): In function `num_processors_via_affinity_mask':
/home/afbacher/GCC/coreutils-8.12/lib/nproc.c:137: undefined reference to 
`__sched_cpucount'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [nproc] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/afbacher/GCC/coreutils-8.12/src'
make[2]: *** [all] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/afbacher/GCC/coreutils-8.12/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/afbacher/GCC/coreutils-8.12'
make: *** [all] Error 2
-verbatim-

I tracked the problem down to the fact that the RHEL5 system uses 
/lib64/libc.so.6 which apparently is version 2.5 of the GNU C Library, but this 
version does not contain "__sched_cpucount" - whatever that is. Apparently only 
version 2.6 and later contain this stuff.

One problem is that I'm not the sysadmin for this system, and I don't think 
this can be updated without breaking a lot of other stuff. How do I get around 
this? I'm only trying to compile a bunch of programs for my own use, not for 
the entire system.

I'm actually trying to compile glibc-2.14 for various reasons, along with a 
bunch of other basic GNU software (like gcc-4.6.), and I found that when 
glibc's installer installs various coreutils programs like rm, as soon as these 
get installed the programs quit working because of incompatible ABI's and such. 
That's why I thought I needed to install the latest coreutils.

I'm probably missing something badly, but I more than a bit confused about the 
order in which the various sets of software need to be installed in order to 
keep it all consistent.

One thing I've done is to make my $PATH contain the path to my newly built 
programs. That's why, when the glibc installer installs rm and such, various 
other programs quit working, because there's a lot of interdependence. So 
what's my best approach with all this?

Alan Feuerbacher