From owner-freebsd-stable Wed Feb 3 13:34:35 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA26899 for freebsd-stable-outgoing; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 13:34:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from alcanet.com.au (border.alcanet.com.au [203.62.196.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA26894 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 13:34:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from peter.jeremy@auss2.alcatel.com.au) Received: by border.alcanet.com.au id <40390>; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 08:24:30 +1100 Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 08:34:24 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy Subject: Re: 3.0-19990202-SNAP a.out problem To: myke@ees.com Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Message-Id: <99Feb4.082430est.40390@border.alcanet.com.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mike Holling wrote: >> a.out will be gone from FreeBSD as of 3.1, and is disabled by default in >> 3.0. This would be fine except for the 3rd party a.out binaries...like >> Netscape. One hopes Netscape will switch to ELF before a.out is gone >> (hah). > >I suspect that this decision will be reversed, or a huge majority of the >-stable crowd will stick with 2.2.8 forever. It's pretty unlikely that >everything can be recompiled for ELF that quickly. The initial statement was referring to _development_tools_ only: 3.1 (and later) will lose the capability to build a.out executables. The kernel will still be able to execute pre-existing a.out executables (assuming you have installed the shared libraries which are part of the 2.x compatibility package). The only problem area in the transition is 3rd-party libraries (eg Motif). To link and/or execute a new application, you'll need an ELF version of the library. (But you'll still need an a.out shared lib for an a.out executable). a.out executables _will_ be supported for the foreseeable future. (And it's worthwhile noting that recent 2.x kernels can execute ELF binaries (at least 2.2.7 does)). Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message