Re: elf, a.out and debian 1.*

[Raul Miller <rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu>]

William Gribble:
   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''?

Actually, I was presuming the current base setup, which is capable of
supporting both elf and a.out.  Sorry I didn't make this idea clear.

I meant we should support parallel instances of a.out and elf binary
packages.  Currently, we're pretty much oriented on having only one
instance of a package available.  Until elf is really ready (which
means, stable api, tested on a wide variety of platforms, and stable
for a while) it could be a real lifesaver to be able to back off and
use a (hopefully) working a.out imlementation.

I've dropped debian-user from follow-ups, this looks like it's shaping
up as a -devel item.

-- 
Raul