Tuesday, April 16, 2024

What is an Application Binary Interface (ABI)?

After someone mentioned Alma Linux to me, it seemed similar to Rocky Linux, and I wondered why there would be two Linux distros doing the same thing (picking up from CentOS and remaining RHEL compatible).

I read that "Rocky Linux is a 1-to-1 binary to RHEL while AlmaLinux is Application Binary Interface-compatible with RHEL".

Wow. Now, not only did I learn about a new Linux distro, but I also have to run down what an Application Binary Interface, or ABI is.

Referring to this, Stack Exchange post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2171177/what-is-an-application-binary-interface-abi, I liked this "oversimplified summary":

API: "Here are all the functions you may call."

ABI: "This is how to call a function."

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