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crtc-demos / newlib-ia16

Newlib port for IA16
GNU General Public License v2.0
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musl? #1

Open staalmannen opened 7 years ago

staalmannen commented 7 years ago

Would it be possible to port/use musl instead of newlib for ia16?

just curious ;)

reenigne commented 7 years ago

If I understand correctly, musl is a Linux libc whereas newlib is bare metal. When making a new (or resurrected) toolchain like this one, it's easier to get bare metal working first. There is actually a Linux for 16-bit x86 (ELKS) but it has its own libc which is part of dev86 (bcc toolchain). I haven't actually used ELKS but I think its libc is much more minimal than musl, since the entire system fits in 640kB. I'm sure it would be possible to port musl to ELKS, but it'd probably be quite a lot of work and I'm not sure what you'd really gain (practically speaking) unless there's some specific application you want to use on ELKS that requires a more advanced libc than the dev86 one.