IBCS

10/30/2004

intel Binary Compatibility Standard(iBCS) -- The acronym applies to a Standard for binary compatibility between various x86 Unixes. However, the iBCS module in Linux generally refers to an extension to the Linux kernel that allows many non-Linux Unix binaries to run under Linux. It goes well beyond the actual iBCS standard. It reflects several different iBCS implementations as well as extensions to iBCS.

Although iBCS resembles an emulator in some respects, it really is more of a set of translators that convert software invocations designed for one OS to the format of another OS (Linux). Using iBCS It is perfectly possible to run programs simultaneously under Linux that were originally compiled Linux and/or SCO and/or BSD and/or some other Linux variant. Both intel 386 and 286 memory management are supported as are several binary formats (A.OUT, ELF, etc) for many x86 Unix variants.

This iBCS extension is available for most Linuxes. It may or may not be installed by default. In some cases, tt may be necessary to recompile iBCS source with the new kernel.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050405083031/www.purplet.demon.co.uk/linux/ibcs//