Linux Standard Base

binaries portable LSB was designed to be binary-compatible and produced a stable application binary interface (ABI) for independent software vendors. To provide backward compatibility, the LSB adopted an interface deprecation policy to give application developers enough time to adapt in case an interface was removed from LSB. An interface that is to be removed would first be marked as deprecated in an LSB release; that interface would still be supported in that release and at least two subsequent LSB releases. This allowed the developer to rely on every interface in LSB for a known time and also to plan for changes. LSB 5.0 was the first major release that broke backward compatibility with earlier versions, as it removed Qt 3; applications dynamically linked with Qt 3 libraries were not guaranteed to run on all LSB 5.0-compliant distributions. ==Version history==

• 1.0: Initial release June 29, 2001. • 1.1: Released January 22, 2002. Added hardware-specific specifications (IA-32). • 1.2: Released June 28, 2002. Added hardware-specific specifications (PowerPC 32-bit). Certification began July 2002. • 1.2.1: Released October 2002. Added Itanium. • 1.3: Released December 17, 2002. Added hardware-specific specifications (Itanium, Enterprise System Architecture/390, z/Architecture). • 2.0: Released August 31, 2004 • LSB is modularized to LSB-Core, LSB-CXX, LSB-Graphics, and LSB-I18n (not released) • New hardware-specific specifications (PowerPC 64-bit, AMD64) • Synchronized to Single UNIX Specification (SUS) version 3 • 2.0.1: Released October 21, 2004, ISO version of LSB 2.0, which included specification for all hardware architectures (except LSB-Graphics, of which only a generic version is available). • 2.1: Released March 11, 2005. • 3.0: Released July 1, 2005. Among other library changes: • GNU C Library version 2.3.4 • C++ ABI is changed to the one used by gcc 3.4 • The core specification is updated to ISO POSIX (2003) • Technical Corrigenda 1: 2005 • 3.1: Released October 31, 2005. This version has been submitted as ISO/IEC 23360:2006. • 3.2: Released January 28, 2008. This version has been submitted as ISO/IEC 23360:2006. • 4.0: Released November 11, 2008. This version contains the following features: • GNU C Library version 2.4 • Binary compatibility with LSB 3.x • Easier to use SDK • Support for newer versions of GTK and Cairo graphical libraries • Java (optional module) • Simpler ways of creating LSB-compliant RPM packages • Crypto API (via the Network Security Services library) (optional module) • 4.1: Released February 16, 2011: • Java removed • "Trial Use" modules from LSB 4.0, covering multimedia (ALSA), security (NSS) and desktop miscellaneous (xdg-utils) have been promoted as required submodules • Updated GTK+, Cairo and CUPS libraries • Three new test suites added • 5.0: Released June 2, 2015, This version has been submitted as ISO/IEC 23360:2021 • GNU C Library version 2.10 (for psiginfo) • First major release that breaks backward compatibility with earlier versions (compatible with LSB 3.0, and mostly compatible with LSB 3.1 and later, with some exceptions) • Incorporates the changes made in FHS 3.0 • Qt 3 library has been removed • Evolved module strategy; LSB is modularized to LSB Core, LSB Desktop, LSB Languages, LSB Imaging, and LSB Trial Use ==ISO/IEC standard==

The LSB, version 3.1, is registered as an official ISO/IEC international standard. The main parts of it are: • ISO/IEC 23360-1:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 1: Generic specification • ISO/IEC 23360-2:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 2: Specification for IA-32 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-3:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 3: Specification for IA-64 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-4:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 4: Specification for AMD64 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-5:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 5: Specification for PPC32 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-6:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 6: Specification for PPC64 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-7:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 7: Specification for S390 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-8:2006 Linux Standard Base (LSB) core specification 3.1 — Part 8: Specification for S390X architecture There is also ISO/IEC TR 24715:2006 which identifies areas of conflict between ISO/IEC 23360 (the Linux Standard Base 3.1 specification) and the ISO/IEC 9945:2003 (POSIX) International Standard. The LSB, version 5.0, is also registered as an official ISO/IEC international standard. • ISO/IEC 23360-1-1:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 1-1: Common definitions • ISO/IEC 23360-1-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 1-2: Core specification generic part • ISO/IEC 23360-1-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 1-3: Desktop specification generic part • ISO/IEC 23360-1-4:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 1-4: Languages specification • ISO/IEC 23360-1-5:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 1-5: Imaging specification • ISO/IEC TS 23360-1-6:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 1-6: Graphics and Gtk3 specification • ISO/IEC 23360-2-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 2-2: Core specification for X86-32 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-2-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 2-3: Desktop specification for X86-32 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-3-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 3-2: Core specification for IA64 (Itanium™) architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-3-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 3-3: Desktop specification for IA64 (Itanium TM) architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-4-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 4-2: Core specification for AMD64 (X86-64) architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-4-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 4-3: Desktop specification for AMD64 (X86-64) architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-5-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 5-2: Core specification for PowerPC 32 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-5-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 5-3: Desktop specification for PowerPC 32 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-6-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 6-2: Core specification for PowerPC 64 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-6-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 6-3: Desktop specification for PowerPC 64 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-7-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 7-2: Core specification for S390 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-7-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 7-3: Desktop specification for S390 architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-8-2:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 8-2: Core specification for S390X architecture • ISO/IEC 23360-8-3:2021 Linux Standard Base (LSB) — Part 8-3: Desktop specification for S390X architecture ISO/IEC 23360 and ISO/IEC TR 24715 can be freely downloaded from ISO website. ==Reception==

While LSB was a standard and without a competitor, it was followed only by few Linux distributions. For instance, only 21 distribution releases (versions) were certified for LSB version 4.0, notably Red Flag Linux Desktop 6.0, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, and Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope); even fewer were certified for version 4.1. The LSB was criticized for not taking input from projects, most notably the Debian project, outside the sphere of its member companies. Choice of the RPM package format LSB specified that software packages should either be delivered as an LSB-compliant installer, or (preferably) be delivered in a restricted form of the RPM Package Manager format. This choice of package format precluded the use of other existing package formats not compatible with RPM. To address this, the standard did not dictate which package format the system must use for its own packages, merely that RPM must be supported to allow packages from third-party distributors to be installed on a conforming system. Limitations on Debian Debian included optional support for LSB early on, at version 1.1 in "woody" (3.0; July 19, 2002), 2.0 in "sarge" (3.1; June 6, 2005), 3.1 in "etch" (4.0; April 8, 2007), 3.2 in "lenny" (5.0; February 14, 2009) and 4.1 in "wheezy" (7; May 4, 2013). To use foreign LSB-compliant RPM packages, the end-user needs to use Debian's Alien program to transform them into the native package format and then install them. The LSB-specified RPM format had a restricted subset of RPM features—to block usage of RPM features that would be untranslatable to .deb with Alien or other package conversion programs, and vice versa, as each format has capabilities the other lacks. In practice, not all Linux binary packages were necessarily LSB-compliant, so while most could be converted between .rpm and .deb, this operation was restricted to a subset of packages. By using Alien, Debian was LSB-compatible for all intents and purposes, but according to the description of their lsb package, the presence of the package "does not imply that we believe that Debian fully complies with the Linux Standard Base, and should not be construed as a statement that Debian is LSB-compliant." However, this effort ceased around July 2015 due to lack of interest and workforce inside the project. In September 2015, the Debian project confirmed that while support for Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) would continue, support for LSB had been dropped. Ubuntu followed Debian in November 2015. Quality of compliance test suites Additionally, the compliance test suites were criticized for being buggy and incomplete—most notably, in 2005 Ulrich Drepper criticized the LSB for poorly written tests which can cause incompatibility between LSB-certified distributions when some implement incorrect behavior to make buggy tests work, while others apply for and receive waivers from complying with the tests. He also denounced a lack of application testing, pointing out that testing only distributions can never solve the problem of applications relying on implementation-defined behavior. ==See also==