Re: Bug#1059870: aboot: Please help testing dropping a.out.h support
On Tue, 2 Jan 2024 at 17:48, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
<glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Dimitri!
>
> On Tue, 2024-01-02 at 17:37 +0000, Dimitri John Ledkov wrote:
> > a.out support has been dropped in upstream kernel. However a.out.h
> > header is still being using by abootimg tool via objstrip.c. It has
> > support for both a.out image types and ELF. I have blidly dropped
> > a.out.h support and made ELF support mandatory in
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20231123180246.750674-2-dimitri.ledkov@canonical.com/
> > but I have no way to build it for alpha or test if everything still
> > works. Upgrades, installed systems, and cd-boot.
> >
> > Could you please consider the attached NMU, build it and test it, and
> > let me know if everything still works. Cause then a.out.h header can
> > be removed from upstream linux kernel on all architectures.
>
> I have actually already looked into patching aboot myself to deal with the
> aout.h issue since I want to make the bootloader fully cross-buildable [1].
>
For cross building, as far as I can tell one needs to build the tool
twice - once for the BUILD architecture and once for HOST
architecture, use one during the build and package the other one into
the deb.
> I will most likely just copy the relevant definitions out of aout.h, both
> the generic and the alpha-specific stuff in order to both be able to drop
> reliance on aout.h in the kernel as well as make the package fully cross-
> buildable.
But why? as far as I can tell, the a.out code path is never executed
as it seems like Debian has been using ELF based vmlinuz since like
before 2009. Are you sure that the a.out codepath of objstrip.c is
needed or executed at all?
Or am I missing something, and like objstrip.c portions are executed
against some other a.out formatted things which are not Linux kernel?
Should I provide a patch that adds printfs during a.out codepath
block, to see if it actually is ever executed?
>
> I would also prefer to get all relevant changes upstreamed.
>
Upstream has policy of not carrying dead code, which in this case its
what it is for kernels built in like last decade.
> Thanks,
> Adrian
>
> > [1] https://github.com/mattst88/aboot/issues/5
>
> --
> .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
> : :' : Debian Developer
> `. `' Physicist
> `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
--
Dimitri
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