orca/docs/reference/linux-glibc-compatibility.md

Linux glibc Compatibility

Orca's Linux builds target stock Ubuntu 20.04 and newer — glibc 2.31 and libstdc++ GLIBCXX_3.4.28 (also Debian 11, RHEL 9), on both x64 and arm64. Packaging enforces this floor automatically; keep it in mind when adding or upgrading native dependencies. (The optional speech feature is the one exception — see below.)

Why this needs attention

A native module (.node) links against the glibc of the machine that compiled it. Our release CI compiles node-pty from source on GitHub's ubuntu-latest runner, whose glibc rises over time as the image is bumped. A binary compiled on a newer glibc can reference symbol versions that do not exist on an older target, and the dynamic loader then refuses to load it:

/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.34' not found (required by .../pty.node)

Because the Orca main process loads node-pty at startup, that failure crashes the whole app before a window appears — this is exactly what shipped in v1.4.150 and broke launch on Ubuntu 20.04 (#9902).

The specific trap is glibc's 2.32–2.34 "libpthread/libutil merge", which moved several long-stable functions into libc under brand-new symbol versions:

Symbol	New version	node-pty use
pthread_sigmask	GLIBC_2.32	reset child signal mask
openpty	GLIBC_2.34	allocate the pty
forkpty	GLIBC_2.34	fork the shell

Electron itself (glibc 2.25) and the other bundled native modules (sherpa-onnx, @parcel/watcher, both prebuilt on old glibc) stay well under the floor, so node-pty was the sole blocker.

How we keep the floor

1. Pin the relocated symbols (the fix). config/patches/node-pty@1.1.0.patch adds a .symver shim in src/unix/pty.cc that binds openpty, forkpty, and pthread_sigmask to their pre-merge version node — GLIBC_2.2.5 on x64, GLIBC_2.17 on arm64 (each architecture's baseline glibc). glibc still ships those as compatibility aliases, so the reference resolves on both new build hosts and old targets.

The catch: gcc defaults to --as-needed and, since the pinned symbols now resolve from libc's compat aliases at build time, it drops libutil/libpthread from DT_NEEDED. On the target those libraries are where the symbols actually live, so the patch's binding.gyp ldflags force -Wl,--no-as-needed,-l:libutil.so.1,-l:libpthread.so.0 back into DT_NEEDED. The shim is guarded by #if defined(__linux__); macOS and Windows are untouched.

2. Gate packaging (the regression guard). config/scripts/verify-linux-glibc-floor.cjs runs in the electron-builder afterPack hook for Linux. It reads every bundled native binary's version needs (objdump -p "Version References" — the authoritative load-time list, which also captures symbol-less markers like GLIBC_ABI_DT_RELR) and fails the build if any strong GLIBC_/GLIBCXX_/ CXXABI_ node is newer than stock Ubuntu 20.04 provides, naming the file and the offending node. Weak needs are ignored (the loader tolerates them). It also asserts the flip side of the .symver fix: any binary that imports openpty/forkpty must keep libutil.so.1 in DT_NEEDED — otherwise the pinned openpty@GLIBC_2.2.5 resolves from libc's compat alias at build time (so the version check passes) yet fails to load on 20.04, where those functions live only in libutil. A future runner bump, a new native dependency, or a dropped ldflag therefore fails the release build instead of shipping a Linux app that crashes on launch.

The gate is a static invariant, not an integration test. The load path was verified by hand for this fix (real Ubuntu 20.04, x64 + arm64: require node-pty and spawn a shell). A CI smoke test that loads the packaged pty.node in a glibc-2.31 container and spawns a shell is the recommended follow-up — it would make the load path self-verifying and stay valid even if the build ever moves to an old-glibc sysroot.

The one carve-out is the sherpa-onnx speech prebuilt, which already requires GLIBCXX_3.4.29 (GCC 11). It loads lazily in the speech worker (src/main/speech/stt-worker.ts), never at app launch, so it is exempt from the libstdc++ floor — its glibc needs are still checked. Speech-to-text therefore needs a host with libstdc++ from GCC 11+ (Ubuntu 21.10 / 22.04 LTS or newer); the app itself still launches on stock 20.04.

3. Check before loading, on hosts that ship without a compiler (orcad). The two gates above protect the packaged desktop app, where the binary is built and verified by the same pipeline. orcad is deployed to hosts Orca never built on, so it adds a runtime precondition (src/main/orcad/node-pty-precondition.ts), run from main.ts before anything requires node-pty. It loads the addon in a child process, so a binary the loader refuses — or one that aborts outright — is data rather than this process's death, and the operator gets a sentence naming the host's libc, its Node ABI, its prebuild slot and the command to run. A proven-unloadable binary exits 78 (EX_CONFIG) instead of reaching the require; a probe that never answered is reported as unverifiable and boots anyway, because a silent probe is not evidence. Whatever it finds is published in status.get's degradations[] under terminal_unavailable.

4. Ship the binary, built from patched sources. config/scripts/build-orcad-prebuilds.mjs (pnpm run build:orcad-prebuilds, after build:orcad) compiles node-pty for the current host and files it under out/orcad/prebuilds/<slot>/, where a slot is linux-{x64,arm64}-{glibc,musl} or darwin-{x64,arm64}. libc is part of the slot name because node-pty's own loader falls back to prebuilds/<platform>-<arch> and cannot tell glibc from musl — a glibc binary parked there is loaded on Alpine and dies at dlopen. The script refuses to compile a tree where config/patches/node-pty@1.1.0.patch is not applied: without the patch the prebuilt is a #9902 crash shipped as an artifact rather than a first-connect error. CI runs it once per slot inside the matching container (--slot= forces the label), merges the trees, and --require-slots fails a release with a hole in the matrix.

Adding or upgrading a native dependency

• Prefer packages that ship prebuilt binaries compiled against an old toolchain (manylinux / glibc 2.17-class), like @parcel/watcher.

• For a module we compile from source, if the gate flags it, either pin the offending symbols the way node-pty does, or build it in an old-glibc container.

• To check locally on a Linux host, list what a binary requires (skipping the weak 0x02-flagged needs the loader tolerates):

  objdump -p path/to/module.node | sed -n '/Version References/,/^$/p'
  

  No strong GLIBC_ node may exceed 2.31, and no GLIBCXX_/CXXABI_ node may exceed 3.4.28/1.3.12 — what stock Ubuntu 20.04 ships.