[1077] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: ELF migration. (Go lemmings go!)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Thu Oct 5 16:21:10 1995
To: eichin@MIT.EDU
Cc: jered@MIT.EDU, linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 05 Oct 1995 11:47:14 EDT."
<199510051547.LAA24136@tweedledumber.cygnus.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 16:20:28 EDT
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
I think the first goal of this project (Linux-ELF) would be to provide
a simple upgrade-path for users who wish to run ELF binaries. This
would entail running a script that would mkdir /lib/elf, install the
new libs, and install the new ld.so programs. This would be a simple
upgrade-path for a.out users to allow them to run enjoy the new
features in ELF.
The next question is support... How do we support both a.out and ELF
programs? Presumably, we would no longer build new programs in a.out
format. Ok, thats easy. But what about bug-fixing the old a.out
code? Perhaps we have two build environments? An a.out build
environment and an ELF build environment? (We might be able to ask
DCNS to use speed-queen as an a.out build engine).
I really don't like the idea of making a new AFS @sys value for
linux-elf. Its not that user programs are incompatible per se,
they are just not backwards compatible. But we are providing a
migration path... Too many questions. Not enough answers.
If jered doesn't get to it, I plan to write a simple script to do ELF
migration -- load the ELF libraries and ld.so... I'll also be in town
this weekend, so perhaps some of this discussion can take place
in-person.
I just feel that ELF provides a lot of good features that don't exist
in a.out, and we should start encouraging people to upgrade.
-derek
