Thanks, this actually answers my original question in regard to the kernel's part of it. I'll take a look at what names and signatures libc has, and if they're

Thanks, this actually answers my original question in regard to the kernel's part of it. I'll take a look at what names and signatures libc has, and if they're still like that then the question is readdressed to libc—though I guess the answer then would be “because that's how it is in the kernel”. P.S. Come to think of it, I sorta knew about the interrupt business, and vaguely about the later but fundamentally similar method (but not that there are many interrupts for syscalls, though thinking about eight-bit registers clears this up quickly). Guess I just forgot that libc is kept separate from the kernel, in the Linux world.