Subject: Re: Arm-linux

From: "Neil A. Carson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 13:16:23 GMT

Hi,

> > I spent the weekend looking at binutils. Arm support seems to be
> > reasonable complete. You mentioned that it was buggy. Could you please
> > supply more details. I also spent time looking at gcc, I still don't
> > think it supports position independent code but Mark's reply would
> > suggest other wise I will ask ( If I am going to make a fool of myself I
> > may as well do a good job).

> Not off the top of my head.  I think most of the binutils bugs were quite
> small -- things like the linker reporting unresolved symbols wrongly, and
> I have a feeling there was a problem with the assembler screwing things up
> occasionally (it dumped literals in the middle of the code). 

> When I get time I'll have a proper look at the binutils and try to draw up
> a wish list.  I think you're right about gcc not having support for PIC on
> the ARM -- Mark was probably talking about NetBSD in general using PIC for
> shared libraries, not specifically the ARM port. 

To clear this one up (what Mark actually meant): gcc on the ARM does not at
the moment have support for position independant code. This will be changing
though we can't say when or how at the moment (not allowed). NetBSD in general
does indeed use PIC for the shared libraries, rather than the linux-style fixed
address ones, and is supported on lots of other ports of the OS, so clearly
we will be fixing this soon to avoid the binary-bloat.

	Yours aye,

	Neil

--
* Neil A Carson
* The Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham
* e-mail [email-masked]
* Address: Kitchener Mess, RMCS, Shrivenham SN6 8LA. Tel: (0370) 593183