[Numpy-discussion] Should I use pip install numpy in linux?

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 7:41 PM, Robert McGibbon <rmcgibbo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Doesn't building on CentOS 5 also mean using a quite old version of gcc?
>
> I have had pretty good luck using the (awesomely named) Holy Build Box,
> which is a CentOS 5 docker image with a newer gcc version installed (but I
> guess the same old libc). I'm not 100% sure how it works, but it's quite
> nice. For example, you can use c++11 and still keep all the binary
> compatibility benefits of CentOS 5.

They say they have gcc 4.8:
https://github.com/phusion/holy-build-box#isolated-build-environment-based-on-docker-and-centos-5
so I bet they're using RH's devtools gcc. This means that it works via
the labor of some unsung programmers at RH who went through all the
library changes between gcc 4.4 and 4.8, and put together a version of
4.8 that for every important symbol knows whether it's available in
the old 4.4 libraries or not; for the ones that are, it dynamically
links them; for the ones that aren't, it has a special static library
that it pulls them out of. Like sewer cleaning, it's the kind of very
impressive, incredibly valuable infrastructure work that I'm really
glad someone does. Someone else who's not me...

Continuum and Enthought both have a whole list of packages beyond
glibc that are safe enough to link to, including a bunch of ones that
would be big pains to statically link everywhere (libX11, etc.).
That's the useful piece of information that goes beyond just CentOS5 +
RH devtools + static linking -- can't tell of the "Holy Build Box" has
anything like that.

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org