Re: [PATCH] x86: Deprecate a.out support

Måns Rullgård
2019-03-11T16:26:06Z

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 2:37 PM Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not aware of a reason to keep a.out support on alpha.
>
> Hmm. I was looking at removing a.out support entirely, but it's
> actually fairly incestuous on alpha.
>
> For example, arch/alpha/boot/tools/objstrip.c very much has some a.out
> support in it. Maybe it can just be removed entirely.
>
> There's also an a.out.h include in arch/alpha/kernel/binfmt_loader.c.
>
> Finally, note that CONFIG_OSF4_COMPAT also no longer makes sense
> without a.out support.

Anyone running an Alpha machine likely also has some old OSF/1 binaries
they may wish to use. It would be a shame to remove this feature, IMO.

--
Måns Rullgård