Subject: re: netscape on sparc?
To: None <eeh@netbsd.org, mrg@eterna.com.au>
From: None <eeh@netbsd.org>
List: port-sparc
Date: 01/31/2001 01:45:12
32 bit binaries require a much more complete emulation layer, that
translates significantly more sizes... see "compat/netbsd32" for the
generic netbsd code (i wonder if this can be used for this.. perhaps,
if we convert 32bit svr4 binaries to netbsd32 binaries, and then handled
them that way, would it work? can syscall emulations be later like that?
No, I don't think it will work. The purpose of emulations is
to do syscall conversion. If we make it run under netbsd32
then it will use those conversion routines. What we need to
do is convert SVR4 emulation. Any of the syscalls that are
the same can then call netbsd32 entry points, but SVR4 (or sunos)
conversions need to occur before the netbsd32 are called.
well, this is basically what i meant by layering :-) once you
convert the svr4 calls to 32 bit netbsd calls, the rest of the
work is done... this could actually almost be simple.
Yes, but in order to convert the svr4 calls you need a
svr4-32->netbsd32 converter when all we have is a
svr4-64->netbsd64 converter. I suppose it might be
possible to create a svr4-32->netbsd32 with some sort
of cpp magic, but i doubt it would be very easy. And
the overhead of going through two layers of emulation,
each using the stackgap, would be very expensive.
Eduardo