Hi, Folks,

I am making a major move toward ELF. You have to run a kernel with the
ELF support before you do anything below.

0. ld-link.so.1 and libld.so have been moved to the ld.so package.
   You have to install the pre-compile binaries in ld.so first. 
   As of the time when libc 5.0.9 was released, the current version
   of ld.so was 1.6.6.
1. Make libc 5.0.9 for ELF only, which is libc 4.6.30 + new stuff.
2. Make libc 4.7.2 for a.out only, which is libc 4.6.27 + minimal
   bugs fixes.
3. A new set of the gcc/binutils binary releases based on the latest
   snapshots. I have modified the configuration files such that
   i486-linux means ELF and i486-linuxaout means a.out. I had to
   use i486-linuxaout since that was the only one supported by
   both gcc and binutils. The new gcc binaries will include

   a. An ELF compiler in ELF.
   b. An a.out compiler in ELF. You can invoke it by using
      "gcc -b i486-linuxaout". It expects the a.out as in
      /usr/i486-linuxaout/bin and the *.o, *.a and *.sa files
      in /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib.

   The new binutils binaries will include ar, encaps, gprof, ld,
   nm, objcopy, objdump, ranlib, size, strings and strip in ELF,
   which supports ELF, a.out and COFF. They will be installed
   under /usr/bin. The ELF as will be in /usr/bin and the a.out
   one will be in /usr/i486-linuxaout/bin.

   The patches for the snapshot sources will be provided with
   the binaries.
4. The shared ELF C, math, curses and termcap libraries are in
   /lib. Other ELF *.o, *.so* and *.a files will be installed in
   /usr/lib. For people who have installed the previous ELF shared
   libraries, those libraries other than libc.so, libm.so,
   libcurses.so, libtermcap.so, libdl.so and dynamic linker have
   to be move to /usr/lib.
5. We need to move all the a.out *.o, *.a and *.sa files to
   /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib.
6. The header files from libc 4.7.2 will be installed in
   /usr/i486-linuxaout/include.
7. Modify /etc/ld.so.conf to reflect the changes.
9. We need patches for kernel and modules to compile them in
   ELF.
10. The old tools 2.16 won't work with patches. I don't think we
   should use it anymore.

We need a plan to migrate to ELF. Most of users may not be able
to do it on their own. A fool-proof script would be nice.

Here is the procedure I used. I may have missed something.

0. any symlinks which cannot be moved *must* be deleted and remade at
   the new place.
1. mdkir -p /usr/i486-linuxaout/bin
   mdkir -p /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib
2. Move all the a.out *.o, *.a, *.so.* and *.sa from /usr/lib and
    other places, like /usr/local/lib ..., to
   /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib:

   cd /usr/lib
   mv *.o *.a *.so.* *.sa /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib

2a. Do NOT move files out of /lib, else you may be hosed!

3. Remove /usr/lib/ldscripts if there is any.

4. Remove all the unnecessary files in /lib/elf:

   cd /lib/elf
   rm -f libbfd* libdb* libg* libios* libstd*

   You should only keep libc.so*, libm.so*, libcurses.so*,
   libtermcap.so*, libdl.so* and ld-linux.so* in /lib/elf.

5.
   cd /usr/i486-linux/lib
   rm *.so
   mv *.o *.so* *.a /usr/lib

   You also need to make a few symlinks from *.so.? to *.so to keep
   the linker happy.

6. Remove /usr/i486-linuxelf:

   rm -rf /usr/i486-linuxelf

7. Edit /etc/ld.so.conf to include /usr/i486-linuxaout/lib.
   Mine has:

----
/lib/elf
/usr/X11R6/lib
/usr/local/lib
/usr/i486-linuxaout/lib
----

8. Backup all your old a.out ld and as which are in /usr/bin. Don't
   put them in /usr/i486-linuxaout/bin. Then remove them.

9. Install the Linux binutils 2.5.2l.15 or newer.

10.Backup all your old compiler binaries which should be in
   /usr/lib/gcc-lib. The directories should look like i486-linux
   and i486-linuxelf. Then remove the old compilers:

   cd /usr/lib/gcc-lib
   rm -rf i486-linux
   mv i486-linuxelf i486-linux
   cd /usr/bin
   rm -f gcc-elf g++-elf gcc-ss

11. For the first stage, there are 2 compilers are provided:

	a. gcc 2.6.3 in ELF to generate ELF binaries.
	b. gcc 2.6.3 in ELF to generate a.out binaries.

  You should install them all. I have used all of them to compile
  the Linux kernel 1.2.8 in a.out and ELF without much
  problems. You need to apply my kernel ELF patch first.

12. Install ld.so.1.6.6 or above.  After running the install script,
  check to make sure the executables actually got installed.

13. Remove `cc', `c++', `gcc' and `g++' symlinks in /usr/bin.
  Then install libc-5.0.9 or above from the binary package.

14. many libraries (at least those using the now incompatible library
  calls) must be rebuild before they one can use them to link new
  executables.
 
After you have done all these above, you have converted yourself to
ELF.


05/20/95