[Bug 1515159] Re: libfl.so contains text instead of ELF code

[Alexander Steffen]

I've got a binary, that is linked against libfl.so.2 (in this case a
pre-built toolchain from Arch Linux ARM:
http://archlinuxarm.org/builder/xtools/x-tools7h.tar.xz). If try to run
that binary on Ubuntu with libfl-dev (>=2.5.39) installed, I get this
result:

$ ./arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf-ar
./arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf-ar: error while loading shared libraries: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfl.so.2: invalid ELF header

ldd shows the same message:
$ ldd arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf-ar
./arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf-ar: error while loading shared libraries: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfl.so.2: invalid ELF header

If I replace /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfl.so.2.0.0 with the corresponding file for example from Arch Linux (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/flex/), everything works:
$ ldd arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf-ar
        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff0f059000)
        libfl.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfl.so.2 (0x00007f3543573000)
        libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f354335a000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f3543156000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f3542d91000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f3542a8b000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f3543775000)


I took a look at what other major (non-Debian-based) distributions do with regard to libfl.so. Many do not seem to provide libfl.so at all, but those that do provide a binary file, not a linker script. So it seems to me that Ubuntu is doing something strange here, that is not compatible with other distributions. Is it for backwards compatibility or how should I interpret your quote?

Arch Linux: binary libfl.so (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/flex/download/)
Fedora: no libfl.so (https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/flex-devel/)
Gentoo: no libfl.so (www.portagefilelist.de/site/query/listPackageFiles/?category=sys-devel&package=flex&version=2.5.39-r1&do)
openSUSE: no libfl.so (https://software.opensuse.org/package/flex)
Slackware: binary libfl.so (http://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slackware-current/slackware/d/flex-2.5.39-i486-1.txz)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1515159

Title:
  libfl.so contains text instead of ELF code

Status in flex package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  All variants of the package libfl-dev (from precise to xenial, for
  both amd64 and i386) available from http://packages.ubuntu.com/
  contain a broken libfl.so or libfl.so.2.0.0. The file does not contain
  ELF code, but readable text (a GNU ld script according to the text).
  Trying to use a binary that relies on this shared library then
  obviously fails with "error while loading shared libraries:
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfl.so.2: invalid ELF header".

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