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I have an application, say gedit, which is dynamically linked and I don't have the source code. So I can not compile it as I like. what I want to do is to make it statically linked and move it to the system which doesn't have the necessary libraries to run that application. So is it possible to do it and how?
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They might perform better than statically linked programs if several programs use the same shared routines at the same time. By using dynamic linking, you can upgrade the routines in the shared libraries without relinking. This form of linking is the default and no additional options are needed.
Statically-linked files are 'locked' to the executable at link time so they never change. A dynamically linked file referenced by an executable can change just by replacing the file on the disk. This allows updates to functionality without having to re-link the code; the loader re-links every time you run it.
Dynamic linking has the following advantages over static linking: Multiple processes that load the same DLL at the same base address share a single copy of the DLL in physical memory. Doing this saves system memory and reduces swapping.
You can't statically link a shared library (or dynamically link a static one). The flag -static will force the linker to use static libraries (. a) instead of shared (. so) ones.
It is theoretically possible. You basically have to do the same job that the dynamic linker does, with some modifications, i.e.
So objdump, readelf, and objcopy will be some of your friends.
The task is not easy and the result will be neither automatic, nor (probably) stable.
You may want to check out this code by someone else that tried the same, by actually intercepting the dynamic linker (i.e. all steps above, except the last) and dumping the results to disk.
It is based on this tool, so it's anyone's bet whether it works on the newest kernels.
(It probably doesn't - and you need at least to patch it to reflect the new structures. This is my attempt at doing so. Caveat emptor).
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