RE: i386-linux-aout

[Carl Miller <chaz at energoncube dot net>]

>   I'm surprised to hear that there's any such thing as an a.out-based Linux,
> Linux is not my speciality but I thought all Linux used ELF ?

Nope.  Back in the pre-2.0 days, a.out was the dominant format.  Sometime
during the 1.2.x tree, linux-elf was deemed ready for prime time, and there
was a big push to get everybody converted to it, and leave linux-aout to an
ignoble end.  The elf libc that people were switched to at that time was
called "libc5", thus why glibc2 is common called "libc6" when installed
on an ix86-linux system -- it succeeded "libc5".

> > Wrong. Linux uses Glibc, regardless of where you put your
> > Linux system in the end. The equation "newlib==embedded" is
> > wrong; newlib is a C library that throws out most of the
> > bloat of Glibc, and is designed to work with no operating
> > system, so it makes it arguably suitable for embedded.

Well, to be absolutely correct, Linux uses glibc, or libc5, or libc4
(the native libc of linux-aout, as Chris mentions)...

> Linux aout used a thing called libc4. I don't know whether
> it was a hacked glibc or something completely different.

My recollection was that it was something completely different.  I believe
it was cobbled together and maintained by H.J. Lu, current maintainer of
binutils.  Anyway, it was abandoned and left as a footnote to history long
ago.  But since I've kept a Linux box since those days, and upgraded my
libc manually several times, I've kept a copy of the last official
releases of libc4 and libc5 handy.  Sorry that I've only got binary
distributions; it was rare that I build large packages from source in those
days.  Also note that these are packaged for installation in a native
system.  You'll have to move everything around to get the libraries and
headers into a suitable place for cross-development.  But if you're
interested, go ahead and grab:

ftp://ftp.energoncube.net/pub/linux/libs/libc-4.7.6.bin.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.energoncube.net/pub/linux/libs/libc-5.4.46.bin.tar.gz

Rocko, it's libc4 you'd want if you really want to build up a proper
linux-aout system.  I'm mentioning libc5 merely as a curiosity.  Hmmm,
as I'm poking around, I've also found that I've got....

ftp://ftp.energoncube.net/pub/linux/libs/linux-aout-libs.tar.gz

This is a snapshot of my /usr/ix86-linuxaout/lib and
/usr/ix86-linuxaout/include directories from when I last used my
ix86-linux-libc5 ==> ix86-linux-aout cross compiler, which was several
years ago.  But if you want to snag that and see where it gets you, be
my guest.

                         ------Carl
                               (chaz@energoncube.net)

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