The problem is glibc: https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/stdlib/exit.c https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/stdlib/exit.c And by extension, t

The problem is glibc: https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/stdlib/exit.c https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/stdlib/exit.c And by extension, the rather complex set of POSIX exit() semantics: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/exit.html http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/exi... Using something like musl should save you some bloat, or simply call "return 0;" instead of exit().