On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 11:40:05AM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: >On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 10:49:32AM +0100, Luca Boccassi wrote: >>On Fri, 12 May 2023 at 09:40, Steve McIntyre <st...@einval.com> wrote: >>> >>> On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 07:40:00AM +0200, Ansgar wrote: >>> > >>> >The core issue as I see it is as follows: >>> > >>> >- Debian has decided to support only merged-/usr, including possibly >>> > moving /bin/sh to /usr/bin/sh or using /usr/lib*/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 >>> > as the interpreter in binaries. >>> >>> WTF? *Nobody* has been talking about breaking ABI like this, that I've >>> seen. The interpreter must *not* be changed willy-nilly. >> >>Nothing's happening 'willy-nilly'. We are discussing a bunch of >>seemingly crazy options, as in, "what would _actually_ explode if we >>do this or do that?", on this very d-devel thread. I posted a longer >>version here some days ago: >> >>https://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc/2023/05/msg00030.html > >Oh holy fuck. > >You're talking about changing ABI by doing this. That *is* utterly >crazy. No.
People have asked me to expand on this further... I've been involved in defining ABI before, specifically for armhf. It's not a quick and easy process. It needs buy-in from all sides to make things work, and people *really* value the interoperability that it enables. The interpreter path is one of the most important parts of the ABI spec, the bit that makes binaries compatible between all the various stakeholders: compiler/tools people, distros, software vendors, etc. Lots of the rest of the details downstream of this can be changed, and people do this all the time - compare multilib to multi-arch for example. That all works fine *so long as* the runtime linker can be located and started OK. Changing the interpreter path would mean moving to a Debian-specific ABI, breaking that compatibility. Hand-waving that away with (and I quote): "The vast majority of distros today ship the loader in /usr/lib as /lib is just a symlink, so it would be interoperable." is appalling arrogance. No. You do *not* get to break ABI with that argument. The point of the ABI spec is that *everybody* follows it. You don't change it just because you think it'll make your life a little easier when bootstrapping a system. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. st...@einval.com Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
