*BSD News Article 38655


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From: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: ELF and dynamic loading (Re: 386BSD vs Linux)
Date: 21 Nov 1994 19:25:49 GMT
Organization: Montana State University, Bozeman  Montana
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <3aqs7t$cp3@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
References: <3albdp$rcf@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <CzJ6p3.7Gv@kithrup.com> <3alnmi$57g@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <CzM9tE.C83@info.swan.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bsd.coe.montana.edu

In article <CzM9tE.C83@info.swan.ac.uk>,
Alan Cox <iialan@iifeak.swan.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <3alnmi$57g@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:

>>>It could, for
>>>example, load in /usr/libexec/netbsd-ld.so, which would know to look in
>>>/usr/lib/netbsd for all of the shared libraries it wants, instead of
>>>/usr/lib.
>>Which would require having a complete set of NetBSD shared libraries,
>>and SCO shared libraries, and Linux shared libraries, etc...
>
>No. It requires a set of 'host' ELF libraries and a set of convertor ELF
>libraries that use the host library having played with any relevant
>functions to hide differences (eg mapping BSD terminal ioctls onto POSIX).

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.


Nate

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