GoKawiilFor some reason, during TacoSprint 2026 I decided to see if we could tackle relocatable binaries in Nix.
I enjoy these lofty goals to push Nix and the surrounding ecosystem forward. I am bold if not stupid.
I left the last earlier post with one potential idea of how to get there:
We could patch the Linux kernel so that $ORIGIN is supported in PT_INTERP and the shebang.
I waded through the complexity of sending patches over email (turns out I actually enjoy this workflow!), and sent a proposal to the Linux kernel mailing list.
My first attempt here proposed simply adding direct support for $ORIGIN in the Virtual File System (VFS) subsystem.
I waited nervously. I was expecting the result from what I had come to read about online; someone non-politely telling me to F$#CK OFF because there is something I missed, misunderstood or did not consider. 🤬
The result was completely different. 😲
Christian Brauner, the maintainer for VFS responded to me in good faith, asking for the rationale for the change and eventually proposing some ways in which such a support could make it into the subsystem.
Note It definitely helped having someone like John Ericson chime in and advocate why having a non-fixed interpreter ( PT_INTERP ) is useful to Nix and other use-cases (i.e. Buck & Bazel).
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