I honestly don't really care how "unreliable" you think shared libraries are, using entirely static linking is how we get gigantic 500MB monoliths that waste disk space and RAM, don't integrate with the rest of the system properly due to mismatched library versions, and also don't get security patches from the system unless you manually update the binary itself.
Static linking may be "easier", but as programmers, it's our job to use the *right* solution, not just the easiest one.
@makeworld also shit like Qt, if you use your own version instead of the system's it doesn't integrate with the rest of the system for e.g. themes
@keith good points, but it feels like those are more the exception than the rule. Having to package all my dependencies for many Linux distros to distribute my Go applications would be a nightmare.
@makeworld That's what distro maintainers and package managers are for. Use those. Don't reinvent the wheel.
Static linking can also help squeeze out some performance if you do PGO and LTO. I managed to shave off a few framedrops from mpv+ffmpeg this way.
It can also *save* disk space in some situations: if a program doesn't use an entire library, only the relevant bits get linked into a static binary. Again, PGO can really help reduce binary size here. If you compare a standard mpv package with all its ffmpeg/libass and encoder/decoder libs with a 44mb statically-linked PGO'd mpv, it's not much of a contest. A statically linked mpv and mpd on my system actually use less disk space than their dynlinked alternatives (including shared libs).
@Seirdy @makeworld
- PLEASE never statically link code with major security implications into your programs under any circumstances, if the distro stops packaging updates or a user doesn't install them because it doesn't look like a security patch, they're fucked
- Static linking saves disk space if only a couple programs use small parts of a library, true, but that's not something you can guarantee is the case for everyone
@Seirdy @makeworld Also, programmers deciding to reinvent the wheel and use [XYZ fancy replacement for libraries that are already provided by the system] in their software has caused nothing but trouble for me in terms of stability lol. I've almost never had an issue with dynamically linked libraries, but I've had tons with smart-ass developers bundling in random shit because they think they know better than the distro maintainers
@makeworld yeah but I don't think anyone has statically linked OpenSSL or the like into highly popular programs yet. if that was the case we'd be fucked