GNUPG 2.* and AIX - questions

[Neal H. Walfield]

At Sun, 15 Feb 2015 12:16:58 +0100,
Michael Felt wrote:
> My key question is about the difference between v1.X and v2.X - are there
> security elements in v2 that are missing/weaker in v1 - or are the
> differences mainly that v2 supports/is always GUI while v1 is always CLI.

gpg2 is a more extensible rewrite of gpg classic.  gpg2 supports some
crypto algorithms that gpg does not support (e.g., ECC starting with
version 2.1).  gpg2 is still for the CLI and makes some CLI operations
easier than gpg.

> The first wall I run into with gnupg-2.0.26 is that it wants gnu threads -
> so, the question is: is there something inherently wrong with POSIX
> threads, or even specifically with AIX pthreads that configure does not
> attempt to use them (by default).

npth uses cooperative threading rather than preemptive threading.
This has the advantage of simplifying code: if you don't explicitly
yield (or use a function that yields), then you can't be preempted.
This can significantly reduce synchronization bugs.

Neal