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From: Peter Mutsaers <plm@lucent.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: ELF?
Date: 29 Apr 1997 11:15:37 +0200
Organization: Lucent Technologies, Indian Hill
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>> On 28 Apr 1997 14:00:39 GMT, schweikh@rubin.noc.dfn.de (Jens
>> Schweikhardt) said:
JS> # I was a Linux user at the time of the switch from a.out to ELF, and
JS> # I've never understood the fuzz about it. The transition was smooth and
JS> # easy, and I don't see the problem when BSD would switch.
JS> I was a linux user at that time, too. The switch to ELF was
JS> *the* reason to drop it and go FreeBSD. At that time I used to
JS> recompile just everything on my linux box. There was some
JS> software that used assembler magic which only worked for a.out
JS> and not for ELF (due to the prepended underscores, IMSMC). It
JS> just wouldn't compile as an ELF executable.
I also recompiled everything myself. Aren't you talking about some
graphics library (libsvga); I vaguely remember the same. Indeed
removing the underscores helped. A little while later the maintainter
of the library made that standard.
ELF and a.out existed side by side of almost 2 years (and you still
can have a.out if you want). There was no urgent need to switch
everything to ELF from one day to the other.
After a while of all libraries etc. you could choose in the Makefile
whether you wanted the a.out or the ELF version. For the user the
whole thing was pretty trivial.
JS> Switching a link format *is*not* a trivial task. I hope the
JS> FreeBSD folks think long and hard about the cost/benefit ratio
JS> before going for it. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the
JS> ports broke (without further frobnication).
With FreeBSD's tighly controlled distributions and maintenance, a
switch should be even more trivial (for the end users, that is) as it
was for Linux.
--
Peter Mutsaers Lucent Technologies, Network Systems
plm@lucent.com Huizen, the Netherlands