On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:34 PM Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 8:47 PM Måns Rullgård <mans@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 11:08 AM Måns Rullgård <mans@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The latest version I have is 5.1, and that uses ECOFF.
ECOFF _is_ a.out as far as Linux is concerned.
So Linux basically treats ECOFF as "regular a.out with just some
header extensions".
We don't have any specific support for ECOFF.
I _think_. Again, it's been years and years.
Right, which is why killing a.out entirely would have the unfortunate
effect of also removing the OSF/1 compatibility on Alpha.
If we are to support Alpha as an architecture at all, it makes sense to
support the things people actually use it for.
Now, personally I can live without it. I just don't like to see
features removed without due consideration.
The main historic use case I've heard of was running Netscape
Navigator on Alpha Linux, before there was an open source version.
Doing this today to connect to the open internet is probably
a bit pointless, but there may be other use cases.
The best use case I know of is to run their C compiler. Måns sent
patches in fact to make it work.
There is a Linux version of the same compiler but I have a vague
memory that it's broken in various ways that the Tru64 version is not.
