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SubjectRe: Dropping a.out support
Date
 ----
From: Michael Brennen <mbrennen@fni.com>
To: Peter Mutsaers <plm@lucent.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
Date: Friday, May 02, 1997 8:51 AM
Subject: Re: Dropping a.out support

>
>I have a copy of ViaCrypt PGP that is a.out format, and they only supply
>binaries. Sure, I might be successful beating on PGP, Inc. to get an ELF
>version, but I might not; they barely support Linux anyway (at least a
>year ago). I need to run this on the main Web server, and it is not an
>option to keep running old software on such a platform. Bugs get fixed
>and features added that require the kernel updates.
>
>After all this time one does not gain stability by removing a.out. The
one
>"efficiency" I can think of to dump the a.out format is kernel size
>because it doesn't need the a.out loader any more. How much does that
>take? If you don't want it, just don't compile it in your kernels.

I compile a.out as a module and use kerneld to autoload it.. it's only in
memory while a.out programs are running... so it's not so much the size of
the kernel.. I would appreciate someone explaining what the "advantages"
are to removing it.

>
>One can hide many things behind the label "for the sake of progress". I
>fail to see that any is made in this case.
>
> -- Michael
>
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