Re: please explain in layman terms ...
On Wed, Oct 06, 1999 at 10:24:31PM -0400, Daniel Burrows wrote:
> Hmmm. I think that some of the stuff I read said that this was planned for
> the future. I think they're trying to get it to stop falling over and eating
> its filesystems first :)
I read that :)
The latest hurd package 19991004 seems to be fine, btw.
> It doesn't involve drawing strange diagrams in chalk on
> the floor or sacrificing chickens, though.
No, only a black cat and some ladders. *grin*
> I'm curious about Linux binaries, actually. I originally thought there was
> simply no chance it would run them; however, it occurs to me now that the only
> real difference between the platforms is in libc and possibly some other
> low-level libraries.
Indeed.
> As far as I know, they both use the same executable format
> and have the same interfaces exported by libc.
Yesno. The interface exported is currently slightly different. We will be
ABI compatible when we are reasonable sure that Linux programs will work
(requires posix threads and use of libio, I think).
> So Linux programs that don't
> do weird things like assembly-level syscalls or /proc access might actually
> work.
Having a procfs server in the Hurd for emulation might work, too, but it's
certainly not needed, as only few programs depend on this.
Syscalls can be trapped and emulated, where needed.
> (hmm, ldd on a Hurd binary gives me "invalid dynamic linker option" :(
Yes. Use `objdump --private-headers * | grep NEEDED`
> So I guess it isn't using ELF? file says /gnu/bin/ls is ELF. Hmm.) But this
> is all total speculation and could be complete nonsense.
We are using ELF, I don't know why the linux ldd fails. Does the Hurd ldd
work on Linux programs?
> Note that although Linux *binaries* will not run on the Hurd, Linux *programs*
> will. Often this is simply a matter of recompiling, although sometimes bad
> stuff in the code has to be fixed or hacked around. Also, many Debian programs
> will now compile in unaldulterated form on the Hurd (I don't know how many,
> though. Do you have a figure, Marcus?)
See http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-devel-debian. It's not complete,
but I would say about 100. Other packages I simply didn't try yet. We will
soon have the autobuilder (how often did I say this :) and then we will
have a mailing list for the build logs and get better figures.
> apt does not, unfortunately, work on the Hurd yet, but
Grrrrrrrrr.
> dpkg-ftp (the previous automated download/install system in Debian) has been
> reported to work, I believe.
Yes, with latest fileutils. I did a mas upgrade on the uatobuilder
yesterday, and it ran through updating 27 MB of packages without a glinch.
Thanks,
Marcus
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