Re: Unix binaries
On Sun, 30 Aug 2009, Roedy Green wrote:
The last time I looked, circa 1985, it seemed most Unix software
typically arrived as C source, and you compiled it. A ton of
pre-processor statements embedded in the code tuned it for your
platform. Nobody wrote to the assembler API the way you did in DOS.
What do you mean by "the assembler API"?
1. Are there now binary standard exe formats for the various chips?
There always have been standard formats for each unix. Both executable
formats, ABIs and APIs. Are they the same across all unices? No. I think
most unices now use the ELF format, and all of those which run on the x86
use the SysV ABI (?), but things like system call tables are different.
2. Would i86 Linux binaries run on NetBSD, especially the JRE.
Possibly. Not natively, but the BSDs have binary compatibility layers,
which basically re-map another OS's system call table onto BSD. Linux is
one of the emulated OSs:
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/compat.html#ports
However, the emulation is not necessarily perfect, and whether something
of the intricacy of the JVM would run successfully, i don't know. A NetBSD
newsgroup would be the place to ask.
3. Isn't Solaris a flavour of Unix?
Yes.
tom
--
this news group concentrate the debil of usenet -- uk.local.london motto