Subject: ECOFF

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 15:47:12 +0200

Does anybody still rely on the linker support for ECOFF binaries?  I'd
like to drop the ECOFF emulations (mipsbig and mipslittle) from ld.

  Ralf

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From: Warner Losh <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 16:45:59 -0600

In message <[email-masked]> Ralf Baechle writes:
: Does anybody still rely on the linker support for ECOFF binaries?  I'd
: like to drop the ECOFF emulations (mipsbig and mipslittle) from ld.

Doesn't LILO for the little endian ARC machines require this?

Warner

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 00:49:44 +0200

> Doesn't LILO for the little endian ARC machines require this?

You mean Milo ...  Milo needs to be ECOFF but our compiler produces ELF
output.  Furthermore since we need relocatable ECOFF binaries for the
SNI firmware (actually the specs require it, but only on SNI we really
need it) we have to link PIC code to ECOFF.  And that is way too strong
stuff for ld to cope with.  That's why we're using elf2ecoff which is
now included with every Linux kernel.

  Ralf

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:30:43 +0200

On Mon, Aug 23, 1999 at 12:09:26PM +0200, Tom Woelfel wrote:

> Ralf Baechle writes:
> I still have an Indy with the "very old boot prom" problem (it's 5.3
> in your HOWTO ;-). I don't have an idea if this in any way related to
> this. But if so (and in case "old prom Indy's" will then not boot)
> it seems to me a good idea to put a hint or a workaround in the HOWTO.

No problem, that's why we have elf2ecoff as part of the kernel sources.
Directly linking elf to ecoff is too strong stuff for ld anyway, at
least for some of the ultra hairy case we have to handle.

  Ralf