Subject: Re: dynamic loading & shared libs ?
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG, dolecek@ics.muni.cz>
From: Ross Harvey <ross@teraflop.com>
List: current-users
Date: 05/12/1998 10:38:34
Jaromir Dolecek <dolecek@ics.muni.cz>:
>
>>From what I've heard:
>
>Dynamic loading is available on all but Alpha & mips & PowerPC,
>shared libs are not on PowerPC (yet). Is this right ?
>
>Why dynamic loading doesn't work on alpha & mips ? I recall someone
>saying dynamic loading on alpha & mips doesn't work with Perl only
>or something like this.

Are you talking about dynamic libraries for things built in pkgsrc?
Or specifically about dynamically loading things into perl and
python interpreters?  Or about shared and dynamic loading in general?

Anyway, the situation is about like this:

	Alpha supports dynamic loading in general and shared libraries
	in general just fine, in fact, it is "ahead" of most ports: it is
	completely ELF.

	However, the pkg system and many individual packages do not always
	correctly deal with alpha when putting together things like perl,
	python, and pkg tree libraries. These are really bugs and limitations
	at the application level: we have completely support for dynamic
	and shared images on NetBSD/alpha.

For examples, look at the system libraries, images, and X11.
-----------
Ross Harvey