Re: libtool, -fPIC and .so libraries

[Michel LESPINASSE]

On Tue, Nov 14, 2000 at 03:21:58AM -0200, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> Try libtool 1.3.5, or some CVS version.  I'm pretty sure the
> restriction on not linking .a files into shared libraries was lifted
> for GNU/Linux on some architectures such as x86.  It won't work on
> *all* OSs, though.

The documentation at http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool talks about a
--without-pic option. its not in any released libtool though.

I'm not sure exactly what the option does or if it is implemented in
unreleased versions or whatever, but I know what I'd like it to do. It
should compile without pic whenever possible, and with pic if
absolutely necessary on the system we run on.

> > For the mpeg decoder on x86, -fPIC is about a 10% speed hit...
> Poor x86, such a register-starved machine :-)

Heh. I dont particularly like it either. But its used by enough people
to deserve an efficient support...

> But it's not legal on all versions of GNU/Linux/x86, it's certainly
> not legal on all platforms supported by GNU/Linux, and it's not legal
> on a couple of other operating systems and architectures.

Yes. Well, this is why I use libtool instead of gcc -shared, right ? :)

-- 
Michel "Walken" LESPINASSE - Development Engineer at Wind River Systems
Of course I think I'm right. If I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind.