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    SubjectRe: [PATCH] x86: Deprecate a.out support
    Date
    Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

    > On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:34 PM Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> wrote:
    >>
    >> The main historic use case I've heard of was running Netscape
    >> Navigator on Alpha Linux, before there was an open source version.
    >> Doing this today to connect to the open internet is probably
    >> a bit pointless, but there may be other use cases.
    >
    > The _really_ main version was that I decided to make my life easier
    > for the initial alpha port by trying to run basic (tested) OSF/1
    > binaries directly.
    >
    > Netscape may have been one of the binaries people actually ended up
    > using, but it's probably not a reason any more, since the internet has
    > moved past that anyway.
    >
    >> Looking at the system call table in the kernel
    >> (arch/alpha/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl), we seem to support a
    >> specific subset that was required for a set of applications, and
    >> not much more.
    >
    > Yeah, it never supported arbitrary binaries, particularly since
    > there's often lots of other issues too with running things like that
    > (ie filesystem layout etc). It worked for normal fairly well behaved
    > stuff, but wasn't ever a full OSF/1 emulation environment.
    >
    > I _suspect_ nobody actually runs any OSF/1 binaries any more, but it
    > would obviously be good to verify that. Your argument that timeval
    > handling was broken _may_ be an indication of that (or may just mean
    > very few apps care).

    Does it count if I fire up an Alpha and run a few OSF/1 binaries right
    now? :-)

    --
    Måns Rullgård

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