[plug] xorg modules now .so?

[Craig Ringer]

simon wrote:

>Hi all
>
>Can any X gurus out there explain the reasons behind moving from .o modules to
>.so modules in the latest versions of xorg, what the basic differences are
>etc?
>
>I cant load the matrox mga_drv.o anymore :(
>
XFree86 and earlier XOrg versions used to use their own custom module 
loader (donated to the project IIRC). I think they did this so they 
could produce driver modules that would work across multiple operating 
systems, independent of local shared library formats and so on. The 
loader also works on OSes without support for shared libraries. Yes, 
they still exist.

I think that the XOrg people decided that was not worth the pain it 
caused, and wasn't getting enough use, so they ditched it in favour of 
using the system's support for runtime library loading. This results in 
a driver format change - your drivers must now be shared libraries, and 
yours is a plain object file, so it won't work.

I could be wrong about this of course, it's just vague memory from when 
it all happened. Try asking Google for details.

--
Craig Ringer