linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86: Deprecate a.out support

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Date:   Mon, 11 Mar 2019 22:12:50 +0000
From:   Måns Rullgård <mans@...sr.com>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Matt Turner <mattst88@...il.com>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Alan Cox <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
        Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        "the arch\/x86 maintainers" <x86@...nel.org>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Richard Weinberger <richard@....at>,
        Anton Ivanov <anton.ivanov@...bridgegreys.com>,
        linux-alpha <linux-alpha@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-m68k <linux-m68k@...ts.linux-m68k.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86: Deprecate a.out support

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> writes:

> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:34 PM Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de> wrote:
>>
>> 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 _really_ main version was that I decided to make my life easier
> for the initial alpha port by trying to run basic (tested) OSF/1
> binaries directly.
>
> Netscape may have been one of the binaries people actually ended up
> using, but it's probably not a reason any more, since the internet has
> moved past that anyway.
>
>> Looking at the system call table in the kernel
>> (arch/alpha/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl), we seem to support a
>> specific subset that was required for a set of applications, and
>> not much more.
>
> Yeah, it never supported arbitrary binaries, particularly since
> there's often lots of other issues too with running things like that
> (ie filesystem layout etc). It worked for normal fairly well behaved
> stuff, but wasn't ever a full OSF/1 emulation environment.
>
> I _suspect_ nobody actually runs any OSF/1 binaries any more, but it
> would obviously be good to verify that. Your argument that timeval
> handling was broken _may_ be an indication of that (or may just mean
> very few apps care).

Does it count if I fire up an Alpha and run a few OSF/1 binaries right
now? :-)

-- 
Måns Rullgård