C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof

Re:C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof by vetinari on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @04:46AM (#18448684)

> Linux desperately needs to get past the notion that libc is the only gateway to the kernel,

Are you sure about that? Linux doesn't have that notion, it keeps the syscal ABI stable, and anyone can use it directly, like Go does. There's no need to go through blessed syscall library, which on their respective systems are the only gateway to the kernel.

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Re:C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof by masklinn on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @08:03AM (#18449513)

The biggest advantage is that it lets other OS easily impersonate linux e.g. SmartOS or Windows can provide kernel-level "linux persona" and have an unmodified linux userland run on top.

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Re:C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof by int0x80 on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @10:15AM (#18450405)

They can do right now. Both the API and ABI are very rarely (read never but very problematic bugs or similar) broken in a backwards way.

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Re:C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof by masklinn on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @11:26AM (#18451058)

That's my point. It's only possible with Linux because Linux provides a stable kernel ABI. You can't impersonate Windows or OSX the same way.

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Re:C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof by int_19h on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @06:35PM (#18455322)

But you can impersonate Windows by providing your own implementation of the Kernel32 API. What's the essential difference between that, and emulating syscall API?

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Re:C library system-call wrappers, or the lack thereof by int0x80 on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @11:30AM (#18451096)

Ahh sorry, I understood the other way around :)

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