9fans archive / 1999 / 01 / 25 /    prev next

From: forsyth@cal... forsyth@cal...
Subject: [9fans] executable file format, bootable (sparc)
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:37:02 GMT

it is ages since i booted a sparc with plan9, but i believe
the sparc plan 9 boot format is a sun a.out format that sun's
sparc tftpboot rom (of the time) was willing to load.
it probably does strip the header.
only the debuggers (both programs and humans), size, nm, etc
use the symbols and pc/line number map.
neither kernel nor applications need them (including ps).