Comment by matheusmoreira

> libc isn't really getting in the way here.

It depends. For the standard set of system calls, the libc is pretty great. For Linux-specific features, it could take years for glibc to gain support, if it ever does. All the libcs will get in the way if you try to use something like the clone system call:

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10311

> Ulrich Drepper 2009-06-22 19:35:54 UTC

> If you use clone() you're on your own.

My obsession with Linux system calls started years ago when I read about an episode where glibc literally got into Linux's way. The LWN wrote extensively about the tale of the getrandom system call and the quest to get glibc to support it:

https://lwn.net/Articles/711013/

A kernel hacker wrote in an email:

> maybe the kernel developers should support a libinux.a library that would allow us to bypass glibc when they are being non-helpful

That made a lot of sense to me. I took that concept and kind of ran with it. Started a liblinux project, essentially a libc with nothing in it but the thinnest possible system call wrappers. Researched quite a bit about glibc's attitude towards Linux to justify it:

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/liblinux#why

The more I used this stuff, the more I enjoyed it. I was writing freestanding C and interfacing directly with the kernel. The code was so clean. No libc baggage anywhere, not even errno. And I knew this could do literally anything when I wrote a little freestanding program to print my terminal window dimensions. When I did that I knew I could write code to mount disks too if I really wanted to. I was talking to the kernel.

Eventually I discovered Linux was already doing the same thing with their own nolibc.h file which they were already using in their own tools. It was a single file back then, by now it's become a sprawling directory full of code:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/tools/include/...

Even asked Greg Kroah-Hartman on reddit about it once:

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/fx5e4v/im_greg_kroah...

Since the kernel was already developing their own awesome headers, I decided to drop liblinux and start lone instead. :)