Linking of ARM-elf object files

[Philip Blundell]

>  OS/ABI:                            <unknown: 61>

This is the "new ABI" tag used by recent binutils.

> Could someone please give some explanation into this?  There are some
>clues in the Linux/ARM webpages saying that the current binutils have
>broken the compatability with the arm-linux-gnu target... But I haven't
>seen anywhere any notes about the plain-vanilla arm-elf being 'under
>construction' and the linker in them being now totally unusable, as my
>experiences since trying the 991130 sanapshots have shown...

The ABI used by the arm-elf version of binutils changed several times in 
1999, owing to a variety of fairly uninteresting reasons.  As part of the 
most recent change, the OSABI identifier was switched from 0 to 97 (0x61) 
to distinguish "new" from "old" binaries.  This isn't actually related to 
the incompatibility that the Linux page alludes to.

I don't anticipate the ABI changing again without an extremely compelling 
reason; the ARM ELF support in GNU binutils is fairly mature now and I
wouldn't consider it `under construction'.  (There are a fair number of 
systems now out in the field for which it would be extremely painful to make
another incompatible change.)  I am not 100% sure what the state of play is 
with regard to the ARM SDT and its compatibility with the GNU tools right 
now.

I think Nick Clifton is on this mailing list and he may be able to shed more 
light.

BTW, none of these changes are especially recent.  The new OSABI value was 
added on 29th May.

> Or is the problem somehow tied to the Linux-libc5 ?  I haven't tried
>other hosts yet (Linux-libc6 and Win32 are possible).

No, it has nothing to do with the host system.

p.



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