Re: elf, a.out and debian 1.*
What exactly does it mean to ``support both ELF and a.out'' ? I don't
think anyone has suggested making a system that is incapable of
running a.out binaries. Every system, practically, will be a mixed
ELF and a.out installation. Who's not going to run an a.out netscrape
(as much as I dislike it)? So I guess you mean ``support a.out ONLY
systems, as well as mixed ELF and a.out systems''?
If that's what you meant, I don't think it's a good idea. If that's
not what you meant, could you clarify? I don't understand how the
under-construction release 1.1 doesn't support a.out enough.
As I can attest first-hand, upgrading willy-nilly from a.out to ELF
can cause problems. A few packages have to be upgraded in a
particular order, and you have to make sure that your kernel has
built-in support for ELF. But with even sketchy release notes,
this is a non-issue. If worse comes to worst, the Debian folks could
make an upgrade package that does the right thing in the right order to
get ELF kernel, init, and libc[45] installed. After that, ELF
packages are no different from a.out ones to a user.
Bill Gribble
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