glibc

brew install glibc v2.39 GPL-2.0-or-later AND LGPL-2.1-or-later keg-only

GNU C standard library providing POSIX system calls and C runtime for Linux systems.

Why you might care

glibc is keg-only because it shadows the system C library; use it only when you need a specific glibc version for compilation or runtime (e.g., cross-compilation, testing against multiple glibc versions, or when system glibc is too old). Most Homebrew users never install this directly—it's primarily a build dependency.

Alternatives

musl uclibc

15.6k

30-day installs · #274

35.4k

90-day · #349

144.0k

365-day · #340

Runtime dependencies

linux-headers@6.8

Caveats

The Homebrew's Glibc has been installed with the following executables:
  $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/glibc/bin/ldd
  $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/glibc/bin/ld.so
  $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/glibc/sbin/ldconfig

By default, Homebrew's linker will not search for the system's libraries. If you
want Homebrew to do so, run:

  cp "$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/etc/ld.so.conf.d/99-system-ld.so.conf.example" "$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/etc/ld.so.conf.d/99-system-ld.so.conf"
  brew postinstall glibc

to append the system libraries to Homebrew's ld search paths. This is risky and
**highly not recommended**, because it may cause linkage to Homebrew libraries
mixed with system libraries.

Keg-only reason

it can shadow system glibc if linked

Blurb generated by claude-haiku-4-5 on today.

Raw metadata

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}