On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 12:51:34AM +0100, John Gay wrote: > > >> This was my understanding as well. As I understand the situation, -fPIC > is > >> preferable to the non-PIC code which was there before. > > > >It's not quite that simple. This is about static libraries, which policy > >requires to be built without -fPIC. The problem arises when linking them > >into shared objects, for which there's xlibs-pic, like other -pic > >packages. > > > Ah! I see, Ted. (Do you really, Dougal? Uhm, No, not really.) > > Can you tell that I only know about PIC from a course in O/S's? I'd be > really interested in a proper explaination for this. > > I know that PIC code is 'supposed' to be better in that it can be loaded > into memory without regard to the actual location or layout. Why should > static libraries be built without -fPIC, and who's policy is it anyway?
Because if you do PIC, you use up one register. on i386 this mean that you only have 7 (6 ?) registers left, which is a problem for this already register starven architecture. Friendly, Sven Luther
