Re: i586-unknown-linux-gnu?

[Zefram <zefram@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>]

>The new autoconf indentifies linux as linux-gnu.  Unfortunately that can
>break startup scripts depending on $OSTYPE.  I'd like to know what do you
>think about changing OSTYPE from linux to linux-gnu.

Oh dear.  I was hoping that they'd learn from the reaction to "lignux"
when they modified Emacs' configure code.  ("They" == RMS, of course.)
Having checked the new config.sub code (which is too pushy and will
break several of my scripts), I recommend that we retain the old name.
I will certainly be doing so in all autoconfed packages that I
maintain.

I think it's quite amusing that they had to add special-case code to
accept things like "i386-linux-gnu", which had a different
interpretation under the old system.  Mr Foot, meet Mr Hole.

>                     I really do not understand why FSF is so annoyed with
>i586-unknown-linux.

RMS is annoyed.  He thinks that Linux users are unaware of the
importance of GNU software in the system they are using, and thinks
that changing the name of the operating system will help.  He describes
Linux systems as "Linux-based GNU" systems.  I'd expected him to stop
when the Hurd was released, and he had a system of his own to call GNU,
but it seems that he wants to take credit for two OSes now.

>                     It would be more logical to call elf linux with
>libc.so.5 to linux as before, and linux-gnu can mean linux with the new GNU
>libc.so.6.

Not really.  The distinction between "linuxaout" and "linux" (or
"linuxelf") is a distinction of binary format.  libc6 will not change
that.  It would be most logical to stick to the existing names.

-zefram