problem with big endian binutils..?

problem with big endian binutils..?

[atul srivastava]

Have anybody confirmed stability of binutils for big endian 
mips?
while little endian gives me no problem
but i am simply unable to make a working big endian ramdisk.

specific problem is in identifying the e_type and e_machine fields 
in elf header of executables.
expected value of e_type is 0x2(ET_EXEC) amd e_machine is 
0x8(EM_MIPS)
but those are read as 0x200 and 0x800 respectivly ..this is 
obviously the endianness problem.

I have tried big endian ramdisk from 
ftp://ftp.ltc.com/pub/linux/mips/ramdisk/ramdisk
and also tried compiling one using uclibc package , both
failed because of same reason.

when i run file command on those executables after mounting the 
ramdisk on my host i get o/p like

ELF 32-bit LSB executable, MIPS R3000_BE - invalid byte order, 
version 1, statically linked, stripped

though i see lot of mails regarding "invalid byteorder" but I 
didn't find specific suggestions.

if somebody has experienced similar problems , pls. give me 
guidance.

Best Regards,
Atul


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problem with big endian binutils..?

[atul srivastava]

Have anybody confirmed stability of binutils for big endian 
mips?
while little endian gives me no problem
but i am simply unable to make a working big endian ramdisk.

specific problem is in identifying the e_type and e_machine fields 
in elf header of executables.
expected value of e_type is 0x2(ET_EXEC) amd e_machine is 
0x8(EM_MIPS)
but those are read as 0x200 and 0x800 respectivly ..this is 
obviously the endianness problem.

I have tried big endian ramdisk from 
ftp://ftp.ltc.com/pub/linux/mips/ramdisk/ramdisk
and also tried compiling one using uclibc package , both
failed because of same reason.

when i run file command on those executables after mounting the 
ramdisk on my host i get o/p like

ELF 32-bit LSB executable, MIPS R3000_BE - invalid byte order, 
version 1, statically linked, stripped

though i see lot of mails regarding "invalid byteorder" but I 
didn't find specific suggestions.

if somebody has experienced similar problems , pls. give me 
guidance.

Best Regards,
Atul


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Re: problem with big endian binutils..?

[Daniel Jacobowitz]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 01:25:12PM -0000, atul srivastava wrote:
> Have anybody confirmed stability of binutils for big endian 
> mips?
> while little endian gives me no problem
> but i am simply unable to make a working big endian ramdisk.
> 
> specific problem is in identifying the e_type and e_machine fields 
> in elf header of executables.
> expected value of e_type is 0x2(ET_EXEC) amd e_machine is 
> 0x8(EM_MIPS)
> but those are read as 0x200 and 0x800 respectivly ..this is 
> obviously the endianness problem.

Binutils is just fine.  This is a problem with whatever's reading them.

> I have tried big endian ramdisk from 
> ftp://ftp.ltc.com/pub/linux/mips/ramdisk/ramdisk
> and also tried compiling one using uclibc package , both
> failed because of same reason.
> 
> when i run file command on those executables after mounting the 
> ramdisk on my host i get o/p like
> 
> ELF 32-bit LSB executable, MIPS R3000_BE - invalid byte order, 
> version 1, statically linked, stripped
> 
> though i see lot of mails regarding "invalid byteorder" but I 
> didn't find specific suggestions.

It's normal.  The 'file' output is outdated.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer

Re: problem with big endian binutils..?

[Ralf Baechle]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 01:22:57PM -0000, atul srivastava wrote:

> Have anybody confirmed stability of binutils for big endian 
> mips?
> while little endian gives me no problem
> but i am simply unable to make a working big endian ramdisk.
> 
> specific problem is in identifying the e_type and e_machine fields 
> in elf header of executables.
> expected value of e_type is 0x2(ET_EXEC) amd e_machine is 
> 0x8(EM_MIPS)
> but those are read as 0x200 and 0x800 respectivly ..this is 
> obviously the endianness problem.

Possibly a problem in your reader.  Are you using od to look at the
header?  Od is dumping in the byteorder of the machine it's running on.

> I have tried big endian ramdisk from 
> ftp://ftp.ltc.com/pub/linux/mips/ramdisk/ramdisk
> and also tried compiling one using uclibc package , both
> failed because of same reason.
> 
> when i run file command on those executables after mounting the 
> ramdisk on my host i get o/p like
> 
> ELF 32-bit LSB executable, MIPS R3000_BE - invalid byte order, 
> version 1, statically linked, stripped

The error message you're seeing simply means byte 5 of the ELF file is
zero that is unset that is not specifying any endianess.

> though i see lot of mails regarding "invalid byteorder" but I 
> didn't find specific suggestions.

It's a tool bug but a fairly harmless one.

  Ralf