More on 32bit/64bit ABIs under Linux

[H.J. Lu]

> 
> On Apr 21, 1999, hjl@lucon.org (H.J. Lu) wrote:
> 
> > 3. Add "-prefix /ABI32" to ld. It adds the prefix, "/ABI32" to all
> > search paths if appropriate.
> 
> How do you decide the `if appropriate' part?  Would the user be forced

You don't want to prepend "-L../foo". We only prepend things like
"-L/foo"

> to install libraries of a given ABI into a particular tree?  I

Yes or No. For one package, if you only want to install binaries
for one ABI, you can just install it normally. If it is 32bit, you
have to make some symlinks in "/ABI32".

> wouldn't appreciate such a policy.  It's might be ok for libraries
> included in a distribution, but not for user-installed ones.  And
> then, for the distribution case, gcc can be taught which linker flags
> to use when given a -mabi switch.
> 
> > 3. Modified ldconfig.c to append /ABI32 to each entry in
> > /etc/ld.so.conf if necessary and add them to /etc/ld.so.cache.
> 
> Wouldn't it be better to extend ld.so so that one could have a
> different .conf file for a different ABI.  For example,
> /ABI32/etc/ld.so.conf, or /etc/ld.so.conf-ABI32 ?
> 

No, since files under /ABI32 may be just symlinks for the linker and
the real 32bit binaries are in the normal places.

-- 
H.J. Lu (hjl@gnu.org)