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You can run a.out files from 1992 on Linux too, so what.
by antocv 13y ago
You can run a.out files from 1992 on Linux too, so what.
- dredmorbius 13y agoWithout recompiling or hunting for old libs? I know there were a couple of pretty significant glibc upgrades, and IIRC the binary format changed at some point from something earlier to ELF. Hrm. "something earlier" seems to have been the a.out format, based on Eric Youngdale's 1995 Linux Journal article: The ELF Object File Format: Introduction http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1059 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1059
- vetinari 13y agoYes, without recompiling. That's the point, a.out is a binary format and if you recompile with current toolchain, you will get ELF. You will need the original shared libraries and linker, though. They will run.
- dredmorbius 13y agoThanks.
- vertex-four 13y agoWhile the kernel developers never break compat, userland developers are much happier to, which leads to all sorts of issues. Even if your a.out file is statically linked, it might depend on a service that's since been replaced.
- pantalaimon 13y agoThis is why when it comes to old (2000 era) Linux games, it's much easier to just run the Windows version in wine than to go through all the hoops to gather old libraries and get the sounds working.
- vetinari 13y agoOld Linux games use OSS, which you may get to run. They may also require obsolete Xfree extensions for direct framebuffer access, which the modern hardware will not allow though. If you are extra unlucky, they may require direct console framebuffer access and unless you have also the old hardware with old drivers, you are going to get it on modern system.