From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailserv2.iuinc.com (qmailr@mailserv2.iuinc.com [206.245.164.55]) by puffin.external.hp.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id CAA12356 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 02:42:36 -0600 Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 10:42:28 +0200 From: Matthew Wilcox To: John David Anglin Cc: Alex deVries , parisc-linux@thepuffingroup.com Subject: Re: [parisc-linux] It's finally sunk in: bye bye elf32 Message-ID: <19990614104228.F31472@mencheca.ch.genedata.com> References: <3762F4BE.C09B5CA9@thepuffingroup.com> <199906131702.NAA28988@hiauly1.hia.nrc.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <199906131702.NAA28988@hiauly1.hia.nrc.ca>; from John David Anglin on Sun, Jun 13, 1999 at 01:02:58PM -0400 List-ID: On Sun, Jun 13, 1999 at 01:02:58PM -0400, John David Anglin wrote: > > So, I'm going to spend some time making the kernel build on HPUX. I > > know there's quite a few changes to make. But I'll keep the elf > > specific work, it'll help later on. > > The discussion about the merits/limitations of SOM and ELF over the > last couple of days has been extremely useful. As Alex says, there is > a lot of work to be done on the kernel before it is usable. However, > in the long run, the port must be a complete self contained system. > That is, it must support a linker capable of generating executables > and the kernel. [...] > If this does not work out, then we must fall back to ELF32 and devote > enough effort to get elf32-hppa working at an acceptable level. The long term goal is to support: * HP-UX binaries * parisc/elf32 Linux binaries * parisc/elf64 Linux binaries (on parisc 2.0 hardware) The binfmt_som kernel support is necessary in both the short term (to get a working shell for free) and long term which is why I decided to do it first. Once the kernel is built, we can then run the HPUX linker on it, but we have a `small' bootstrap problem. As Jeff says though, it's worth throwing away the whole of parisc/elf32 and starting again from scratch. We were just hoping to not have to do that for a while.. -- Matthew Wilcox "Windows and MacOS are products, contrived by engineers in the service of specific companies. Unix, by contrast, is not so much a product as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture." - N Stephenson