Re: IRIX binary compatibility (Was: Re: X VNC server compiled on Hardhat!!)

["William J. Earl" <wje@fir.engr.sgi.com>]

Ralf Baechle writes:
 > On Sun, Jun 13, 1999 at 09:37:23PM -0700, digital convergence wrote:
 > 
 > > btw, how well is native IRIX binary loading supported? I wish to run a
 > > copy of BMRT on my farm of indy's under linux, but it won't let me
 > > execute any of the binaries (they're R4000 optimised old style linkage
 > > bins)....
 > 
 > Only a limited number of syscalls and other interfaces is supported at
 > all and I haven't received any reports about the IRIX compatibility
 > stuff in ages.  Anybody interested in maintaining this facility?

       IRIX 4.* binaries are COFF binaries, not ELF, and have a very
different ABI from IRIX 5.* binaries.  The present support is really
for IRIX 5 binaries, which are much closer in interface semantics to
Linux native binaries.