Does a cross-platfrom compiler that can compile a native executable that can be run both in linux windows exist? Could it exist?

Question

I remember a few years ago(2002) there was a multipartite virus that could be run natively on linux and windows. I don't know if a compiler could be specially craft an executable so that it could be read as both ELF and PE, so that the os would start executing at different entry points. Or a program that could merge two programs, one compiled using mingw, one compiled in native linux, to one program.

I don't know if such a program exists, or could it exist, and I'm know this could be implemented in Java or some scripting language, but that's not a native program.

Imagine the possibilities, I could deploy a program with linux and window (and perhaps os/x)libraries, and one main executable that could be run on any os. The cross-platform support would compensate the bigger size.

Answer 1

No.

Windows and Linux use vastly different binary file formats. See Portable Executable (Windows) and Executable and Linkable Format (Linux).

Something like WINE will run Windows executables on Linux but that's not the same thing.

Answer 2

This is actually a really terrible idea for multiple reasons.

1. Cross-compiling across operating system boundaries is extremely difficult to do properly.
2. If you go for the second route (building separate PE binaries on Windows and ELF on Linux, and then somehow merging them) you have to maintain two machines, each running a different OS and the full build stack, and you'd have to make sure that you tested both versions separately before gluing them together.
3. Dynamic linking is already a pain to properly manage, on Windows and on Linux; static linking can generate binaries that are much more inconvenient to deal with than whatever imaginary benefits you get from providing one single file type to your end-user.

If you want to run the same binary executable file on multiple OSes, your options are Java, Mono, and potentially NativeClient, the browser plug-in Google's developing to work around the "webapps are too slow" problem.

Answer 3

Windows programs have a DOS stub in the beginning, and I just ran an ELF executable through debug.com, which said that the first instruction of this exe was JG 0x147. Just maybe something could be done with this...