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

Matt Turner
2019-03-11T22:12:10Z

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:34 PM Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 8:47 PM Måns Rullgård <mans@mansr.com> wrote:
> > Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:
> > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 11:08 AM Måns Rullgård <mans@mansr.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> The latest version I have is 5.1, and that uses ECOFF.
> > >
> > > ECOFF _is_ a.out as far as Linux is concerned.
> > >
> > > So Linux basically treats ECOFF as "regular a.out with just some
> > > header extensions".
> > >
> > > We don't have any specific support for ECOFF.
> > >
> > > I _think_. Again, it's been years and years.
> >
> > Right, which is why killing a.out entirely would have the unfortunate
> > effect of also removing the OSF/1 compatibility on Alpha.
> >
> > If we are to support Alpha as an architecture at all, it makes sense to
> > support the things people actually use it for.
> >
> > Now, personally I can live without it. I just don't like to see
> > features removed without due consideration.
>
> The main historic use case I've heard of was running Netscape
> Navigator on Alpha Linux, before there was an open source version.
> Doing this today to connect to the open internet is probably
> a bit pointless, but there may be other use cases.

The best use case I know of is to run their C compiler. Måns sent
patches in fact to make it work.

There is a Linux version of the same compiler but I have a vague
memory that it's broken in various ways that the Tru64 version is not.