No, that's not the same. The difference is exactly that you used apt to _replace_ glibc with another version. As the two versions were ABI compatible, that is the default action (that way old applications can use newer libs without explicitly knowing about them)...

Yes, I already said how in my previous post See dpkg --inst and LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but be aware that you are mixing gcc versions, compiler switches, cpu options, etc.

In answer to the original poster, yes. When I got my N900 I had a good root through all the particular available developer workflows (Pluthon, Scratchbox, MADDE, even Vala) and I've decided that MADDE + Qt is going to be the thing for me.

I had varying levels of success with sorting out various Python dependencies, but I think I was unluckily in the middle of various release cycles so it wasn't easy. In the end I found Qt 4.6 most attractive, and I'm more a C-style guy than Python anyway. (I was/am working on a London Tube Map application.)

Very shortly after, I totalled my device by accident, so after reflashing thought I'd wait for everything to settle down and align a little so my toolchain was more stable before I began again in earnest. I'm fairly sure that wait will soon be over.