ubuntu 8.04, ifort 10.1.015 and seg faulting debugger

[etowie]

Hello all,

I have been using Intel Fortran for a couple of years now on Ubuntu and have had little problems with the compilers and the bundled debugger.

Recently though, I have been getting some really annoying problems with the packaged Intel debugger. Whenever I go to debug some code the debugger throws a seg fault and dies. Seemingly, it seems to be struggling with the libc version that is supplied with Ubuntu 8.04.

I previously had an up-to-date version of Ubuntu 7.10 installed (which I had upgraded from 7.04), and this had originally shown the seg fault problem. I thought it might have been an OS install problem so I clean-installed 8.04 which had no effect on this problem.

The seg fault the debugger throws is:

Intel Debugger for applications running on Intel 64, Version 35 caught signal "Segmentation fault" (11).
This is an unexpected condition and may indicate the presence of a defect.
If you wish to report this, please include the stack trace that follows.
/lib/libc.so.6 [0x2ac05c1f9100]
idb-e(_ZN14CmdListLadebug5do_itER19CmdExecutionContextRN10BaseForCmd9CmdResultE+0x83a) [0xc37a5e]
idb-e(_ZN10BaseForCmd7executeEb+0xcbf) [0xc05241]
idb-e [0xcafd8f]
idb-e(_Z15ProcessCommandsv+0x47) [0xcaf46f]
idb-e(_Z7idbMainiPPKcS1_+0x159) [0xcaee29]
idb-e(main+0x3c) [0xb87a98]
/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf4) [0x2ac05c1e51c4]
idb-e(_ZStlsISt11char_traitsIcEERSt13basic_ostreamIcT_ES5_c+0x5a) [0x7ba02a]
Fatal error: Segmentation fault

I should say that I am running the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 8.04 on AMD Opterons, with the Intel64 version of the linux Intel Fortran 10.1.015 compiler.

Any ideas would be appreciated, as without a debugger code devel. is a bit of a pain in the ass!

Also, does anyone have any recommened visual debuggers which work in Gnome and Ubuntu 8.04 that I can use in the mean time??

Thanks,

Ewan

[etowie]

OK, after speaking to some Intel support people they are telling me that using the Intel compilers with any version of libc above 2.3.5 is not recommended.

I must say that the compiler seems to operate just fine but of course the debugger does seg fault at any particular moment.

It turns out that Ubuntu 8.04 seems to be shipped with libc version 2.7 and is not guaranteed to work with the Intel compilers.

Given that it seems that most linux distro's are starting to be shipped with libc 2.7, one wonders how long it will be before Intel update the compilers for compatability?

In the meantime, it looks as though I am am back to using 3rd party debuggers. I have found one which utilises gdb under the hood but offers a reasonable gui in DDD (Data Display Debugger).

If anyone finds a way to work around this seg fault issue in Ubuntu then please post up the details, I really liked the bundled debugger!!

Good luck, Ewan

[Steven_L_Intel1]

It's a constant battle - new versions of Linux distros come out that break binary compatibility, and we then try to figure out how to restore it. In fast-moving distros such as Ubuntu, we get no chance to test in advance. We do try to keep up as best we can.

My advice is, as always: stick to the specific distributions and versions listed in the System Requirements. Using any other version is asking for trouble. This is the Linux way.

By the way, lots of people are finding that Ubuntu 8.04 causes general application problems. I've seen the advice to wait on new Ubuntu releases for at least two months.

[Tabrez_Ali]

That is why I always use Debian stable. Never had a problem :)

[etowie]

Typical really, I only updated from Ubuntu 7.04 because I was having problems with LessTif and some other applications. :(

Path of Reasoning:

- 7.04 was great and stable, but was having problems with Mathematica which I thought was the OS's fault.

- Upgraded to 7.10 to discover that it wasn't the OS's fault to only then find that I had broken the Intel debugger.

- Blamed the OS upgrade for the breakage, so clean installed with the newly released Long -Term Support version of Ubuntu (8.04). Then realised that in fact the reason that the Intel debugger was crashing was that libc had been updated and I should have stuck with 7.04.

So in resolution, Ubuntu isn't really all that bad, it is just the lowest common denominator to blame when I break things! :{

If I ever learn how to break the built -in desire to upgrade & update as soon as things look a little different....