From owner-freebsd-alpha  Wed May 14 02:17:46 1997
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To: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca>
cc: John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com>, Warner Losh <imp@village.org>,
        freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 01:31:46 MST."
             <Pine.NEB.3.93.970514012725.408J-100000@gnostic.cynic.net> 
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 17:16:32 +0800
From: Peter Wemm <peter@spinner.DIALix.COM>
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Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Wed, 14 May 1997, Peter Wemm wrote:
> 
> > John Polstra wrote:
> > > > : ... NetBSD-current is using ELF on
> > > > : the Alpha now.
> > > 
> > > FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker.
> > 
> > I saw this..  Have you had a look at what they've done?  Is it enough to 
> > call "complete"?
> 
> What do you mean by `complete'? Both the alpha and the pmax ports
> are completely ELF-based, and I use the former as my main server
> at home. PowerPC also uses ELF, and there's been a bit of work on
> an m68k version, I understand.
> 
> What does FreeBSD need here that NetBSD doesn't?

Relax, it was just a question...  I just wanted to know if it was complete 
(ie: fully functional with no missing parts, eg, 'ar' support).  Does it 
use elf-style shared libray versioning (ie: symlinks and internal names) 
or does it use a runtime ld.so.cache major.minor[.micro] a.out style 
system?  The rtld that John released with ElfKit only supported the 
elf-style DT_SONAME shared library system.

I realise this is a touchy subject with the person from the 
"other BSD" camp doing what was done with Chris's elf work at cygnus.


Cheers,
-Peter