These are compilers for the obsolete Linux a.out binary format. A bit of history... a.out used to be the main Linux binary format, but was phased out in favor of ELF (which is better for a lot of reasons) in late 1995. There are still a few a.out binaries floating around on the net, and for now Slackware retains a set of a.out shared libaries in the A series for backward compatability with these binaries, as well as two sets of a.out X shared libraries (oldlibs5.tgz and oldlibs6.tgz) in Slackware's X series. But, as of Slackware 3.5 the compilers for this format are being officially depricated and will probably not be maintained much after this. In fact, if you've got a special need for a.out you might want to let me know, because it's possible these may eventually disappear altogether unless someone tells me they still require support for a.out. (maybe there are some old commerical a.out libraries still in use that were never released in ELF format? ...I'm not aware of any, though) To make a.out binaries, install these packages with 'installpkg', and then use 'gccaout' as your compiler. For most non-Linux-historians, installing these packages is probably a waste of drive space. -- Pat Feast of Fools, April 1, 1998