The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it

This article missed a critical point which is "the right way" to select a glibc ABI version: see binutils ld documentation, second part of the page related to VERSION support. This must include glibc internal symbols.

This will allow to craft ELF binaries on a modern distro which will run on "older" distros. This is critical for games and game engines. There is an significant upfront only-once work in order to select an "old" glibc ABI.

The quick and dirty alternative being having a toolchain configured to link with an "old" glibc on the side.

This article missed the -static-libstdc++ critical option for c++ applications (the c++ ABI is hell on earth), but did not miss the -static-libgcc and the dynamic loading of system interface shared libs.

Which works if you use binutils ld. Does it work with mold or gold? And then how do you use this with languages other than c++/c like Go or Rust?

Rust toolchain has already a bug since 2015: it cannot link statically libgcc, namely it does not have "-static-libgcc" option since 2015.

I got the bug with "TinyGlade" video game (extremely good BTW), which is written in rust, and with the dev we hit that bug. Namely... better have a libgcc with the right ABI... and I can tell you, this has a been a HUGE issue since valve started to distribute games more than a decade ago.