*BSD News Article 38342


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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!newshost.marcam.com!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!deshaw.com!christos
From: christos@deshaw.com (Christos Zoulas)
Subject: Re: ELF and dynamic loading (Re: 386BSD vs Linux)
Message-ID: <Czu7u5.D7J@deshaw.com>
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Organization: D. E. Shaw & Co.
References: <CzM9tE.C83@info.swan.ac.uk> <3aqs7t$cp3@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <CztKMo.K4A@info.swan.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 19:08:29 GMT
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In article <CztKMo.K4A@info.swan.ac.uk> iialan@iifeak.swan.ac.uk (Alan Cox) writes:
>In article <3aqs7t$cp3@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:
>>Ahh, but in the case of NetBSD/FreeBSD/Linux, there is not always a
>>mapping of functions one to another.  The functions are different, and
>>have different API's which would require OS specific libraries.  And,
>>because of this it is MUCH more work to determine on a OS by OS basic
>>what is required than to just grab all of the shared libraries and
>>install them.
>
>Almost everything maps neatly. There are a few obscure calls that don't
>really matter - things like sysctl(), ps are rarely portable as binaries.
>Real applications should map simply. The worst bit is probably mappings
>between the (obsolete) pre posix BSD terminal ioctl()'s and termios. The
>real thrust anyway should be towards iBCS2. Thats the common standard and
>the one that counts - at least until people like WP jump on the native linux
>application bandwagon.
>

Actually the problem is not the ioctl's! These are simple to implement on
top of the existing terminal driver. The problem is missing subsystems
such as streams, tli, etc. which are used to implement the networking code.
And you need the networking code to run any X application...
Another problem is pty implementation; fortunately only a handful of
applications use ptys.

christos