On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 22:42, R P Herrold wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, Russell Hires wrote:
>
> > what is ABI? I know what API is, but ABI is a new one for me...what does it
> > mean?
>
> Application Binary Interface is one usage I have seen
>
> -- Russ Herrold
Application Binary Interface is probably the correct answer to your
question. An ABI is a "standard" way of running non-native application
binaries from another platform (but same CPU architecture). Mapping
non-native executable formats (like COFF) with library remapping and
other environmental support, an application may be made to run somewhere
it might not usually do so. In a way, Wine is an ABI, albeit a complex
one.
In the context of Linux, it typically refers to running other Unix
binaries from the same CPU architecture on the Linux platform (using the
"Linux ABI" project, the iBCS-2 replacement).
http://pcunix.com/Linux/linuxabi.html
http://linux-abi.sourceforge.net/
There are some rather interesting commercial applications published on
the Sco platform that are rather fun to run natively. Things like
"Microsoft Office for Sco v5.1" and versions of FoxPro, etc., will
actually run under Linux. Unfortunately, packages such as this are
rather old and crufty now.
As for a kernel driver ABI (for cross platform Unix hardware drivers),
I'm actually secretly hoping that the UDI spec gets a foothold at some
point. Yeah, the drivers are going to be slower (which is an anti-Linux
mindset), but it would mean real vendor support for hardware drivers
that would run under any UDI compliant Unix platform.
http://www.projectudi.org/
http://projectudi.sourceforge.net/
Linus isn't very keen on the idea though. Nor are many of the Linux
Kernel Maintainers.
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net> <ian@blenke.com>
http://ian.blenke.com
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