Postinst or prerm script issue related to GLIBC version

[Roden Deng Luo]

Hi,

I am reporting an installation issue and my (a bit awkward) solution.

After downloading " ucsf-chimerax_1.9ubuntu24.04_amd64.deb
<https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimerax/cgi-bin/secure/chimerax-get.py?file=1.9/ubuntu-24.04/ucsf-chimerax_1.9ubuntu24.04_amd64.deb>"
from https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimerax/download.html, executing `sudo apt
install ~/Downloads/ucsf-chimerax_1.9ubuntu24.04_amd64.deb`, I got an
error message:

chimerax: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.38' not found
(required by /usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax/bin/../lib/libpython3.11.so.1.0)

At this stage, the previously working ChimeraX 1.7 is not working anymore.
I figure this Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS is using GLIBC 2.35-0ubuntu3.9. I could
not install another ChimeraX version because of the same error. I also
could not `sudo dpkg --remove --force-all ucsf-chimerax` because of the
same error.

I had to do the following.

mkdir ~/chimerax-scripts-backup
cd /var/lib/dpkg/info/
sudo mv *chimerax* ~/chimerax-scripts-backup
sudo dpkg --remove --force-all ucsf-chimerax
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get autoremove
dpkg -l | grep ucsf-chimerax

And then reinstall a lower Ubuntu version's ChimeraX via `sudo apt install
./ucsf-chimerax_1.9ubuntu22.04_amd64.deb`.

Best,
Roden

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[Eric Pettersen]

Reported by Roden Deng Luo

[Greg Couch]

So it sounds like I should be able to reproduce this by trying to install the Ubuntu 24.04 version on Ubuntu 22.04. Is that correct?

[Roden Deng Luo]

I believe so, unless your Ubuntu 22.04 is having a GLIBC_2.38 version. This
should also be triggered by any machine that does not satisfy the GLIBC
version requirement. "ldd --version"  will give the machine's version.

I hit this issue by accidentally downloading the wrong version.

On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 3:20 AM ChimeraX <ChimeraX-bugs-admin@cgl.ucsf.edu>
wrote:

>
>

[Greg Couch]

Change the Ubuntu and Red Hat packages to specify a minimum version of the C library, so they can't be accidentally installed on older systems.