The Holy Grail of Linux Binary Compatibility: Musl and Dlopen

https://github.com/quaadgras/graphics.gd/discussions/242

Comments

ameliusJan 26, 2026, 9:47 AM
Is there a tool that takes an executable, collects all the required .so files and produces either a static executable, or a package that runs everywhere?
TheDongJan 26, 2026, 10:00 AM
There are things like this.

The things I know of and can think of off the top of my head are:

1. appimage https://appimage.org/

2. nix-bundle https://github.com/nix-community/nix-bundle

3. guix via guix pack

4. A small collection of random small projects hardly anyone uses for docker to do this (i.e. https://github.com/NilsIrl/dockerc )

5. A docker image (a package that runs everywhere, assuming a docker runtime is available)

6. https://flatpak.org/

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(software)

AppImage is the closest to what you want I think.

mdavid626Jan 26, 2026, 9:51 AM
You can "package" all .so files you need into one file, there are many tools which do this (like a zip file).

But you can't take .so files and make one "static" binary out of them.

formerly_provenJan 26, 2026, 10:22 AM
I don't think you can link shared objects into a static binary because you'd have to patch all instances where the code reads the PLT/GOT, but this can be arbitrarily mangled by the compiler, and turn them back into relocations for the linker to then resolve them.

You can change the rpath though, which is sort of like an LD_LIBRARY_PATH baked into the object, which makes it relatively easy to bundle everything but libc with your binary.

edit: Mild correction, there is this: https://sourceforge.net/projects/statifier/ But the way this works is that it has the dynamic linker load everything (without ASLR / in a compact layout, presumably) and then dumps an image of the process. Everything else is just increasingly fancy ways of copying shared objects around and making ld.so prefer the bundled libraries.

aa-jvJan 26, 2026, 10:09 AM
AppImage comes close to fulfilling this need:

https://appimage.github.io/appimagetool/

Myself, I've committed to using Lua for all my cross-platform development needs, and in that regard I find luastatic very, very useful ..

marksugarJan 26, 2026, 9:53 AM
[dead]
athrowaway3zJan 26, 2026, 9:58 AM
I'd never heard of detour. That's a pretty cool hack.
MenethJan 26, 2026, 9:57 AM
That seems mostly useful for proprietary programs. I don't like it.
einpoklumJan 26, 2026, 9:17 AM
This seems interesting even regardless of go. Is it realistic to create an executable which would work on very different kinds of Linux distros? e.g. 32-bit and 64-bit? Or maybe some general framework/library for building an arbitrary program at least for "any libc"?
quesomaster9000Jan 26, 2026, 9:35 AM
Cosmopolitan goes one further: [binaries] that runs natively on Linux + Mac + Windows + FreeBSD + OpenBSD + NetBSD + BIOS on AMD64 and ARM64

https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/

oguz-ismail2Jan 26, 2026, 9:49 AM
>Linux

if you configure binfmt_misc

>Windows

if you disable Windows Defender

>OpenBSD

only older versions

iberatorJan 26, 2026, 10:11 AM
Yup. Just compile it as static executable. Static binaries are very undervalued imo.
flohofwoeJan 26, 2026, 10:24 AM
The "just" is doing a lot of heavylifting here (as detailed in the article), especially for anything that's not a trivial cmdline tool.
sambuccidJan 26, 2026, 10:01 AM
Appimage exists that packs linux applications into a single executable file that you just download and open. It works on most linux distros
greywJan 26, 2026, 10:07 AM
I vaguely remember that Appimage-based programs would fail for me because of fuse and glibc symbol version incompatibilties.

Gave up them afterwards. If I need to tweak dependencies might as well deal with the packet manager of my distro.

SplizardJan 26, 2026, 9:34 AM
Check out Cosmopolitan C, you can compile a single native binary that targets Linux, Windows & Mac OS (even multiple architectures) it includes its own libc.