Re: elf, a.out and debian 1.*
From: Raul Miller <rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu>
> There's two classes of problems.
>
> (1) it's a new system (for linux), you have to shake out bugs in a new
> system. If you want stability, don't make everything change all at
> once. Limit your free variables if you want to isolate problems.
OK, so where are the problems that we're trying to isolate? I
remember Eric Youngdale announcing that he had run ELF binaries
sometime in 1994. ELF has been under development and testing for quite
some time. If there are real problems, then caution is certainly
advisable, but your concerns sound like FUD. That's not intended as a
slander, because I know you're not FUD'ing on purpose.
> (2) ELF is not yet as capable as a.out at sustaining upgrades without
> losing compatability with old code. This is being worked on and
> should be available "Real Soon Now". It's not something we can
> completely rely on this month.
I can't parse this. What is ``compatibility with old code'' in this
context? Are you saying that folks could update to an ELF package,
and then suddenly old binaries would stop working or something? I
don't believe that. Please give an example of where this is a
problem. Or do you mean that the Debian a.out packages cannot yet be
smoothly upgraded to the Debian ELF packages? I disagree. With a few
exceptions, namely sysvinit which requires a ELF-enabled kernel and
libc[45] which require you to pay attention to installation order,
upgrading a.out packages to ELF has been totally seamless.
> I think ELF is a great idea. I think some people are still having
> problems with it, and may continue to do so for some indeterminate
> time.
Who is having what kind of problems, and how do they relate to Debian?
Please elaborate... I'm serious. I just looked through the debian-devel
and debian-user archives, and I couldn't find any problems that were serious
enough to say ``back off on ELF.'' Several people (including myself)
proceeded incautiously and got bit, but as I've said before even rudimentary
documentation would have fixed this, and I don't think anyone's proposing
to release this stuff without release notes.
If it's pointless to keep discussing this, please let me know and I'll shut
up. But I think it's a bit silly to force a.out as well as ELF packages
when there's no reason for it. Moving to ELF is not that big of a deal.
Let's do it and keep moving.
Bill Gribble
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