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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:6634 comp.os.linux:12697 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!torvalds From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.linux Subject: Re: Binary compatibility question... [Summary] Message-ID: <1992Oct15.092205.28084@klaava.Helsinki.FI> Date: 15 Oct 92 09:22:05 GMT References: <1992Oct13.223537.11949@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> <1992Oct14.014146.20610@tfs.com> <1992Oct14.193014.537@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> Organization: University of Helsinki Lines: 25 In article <1992Oct14.193014.537@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> ngoh@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (NGO HIEN D) writes: > >From: Cameron Spitzer 764-6339 <camerons@nad.3com.com> > >There *is* an "Application Binary Interface" for System V on the [34]86. >I was real disappointed to find out Linux doesn't use it. Don't know why he >doesn't either. The simple reason linux isn't even close the the intel ABI is that I simply hadn't got a clue about how it looked - intel never contacted me about it :-) and I certainly didn't want to go to any unnecessary trouble over it. As it turns out, the linux-ss project might be helped by linux following the intel ABI or at least being a bit closer (ie lcall 7,$0 for system calls), so I might put in some hooks for it - I'll take a look at the xenix emulator when I get some time. Making linux run most normal i386 ABI binaries would probably be pretty simple: you'd just need a simple wrapper around the system calls mechanism. To get more complete support, the signal handler stack frame would have to be changed etc, but very few programs care about that anyway. Linus