Linux Flavors question... the Angstrom-distribution.org site

I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the difference between a "distribution" like debian or arch or fedora, and the binary packages that they each include.

Question: What determines whether a particular binary will run if opened on a particular distribution? I do know that it must have been compiled for the hardware's architecture, but should a binary compiled for armv5te on a debian distribution run OK on the arch linux distribution? If it is, as I suspect, "it depends" what does it depend on?
If it has been statically built, then I would think that it should just run fine...

This comes up as I have discovered the rather impressive Angstrom site.

http://narcissus.angstrom-distribution.org/

Behind this impressive build your own distribution page there are many different "feeds" that can be used for ipkg installation. So, should the files under
http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv5te/
have binaries that can run under the original dockstar/pogoplug kernel?

TJ

AFAIK any binary compiled against the same libraries must work on both systems. Angstrom is an exception cause it uses eglibc instead of glibc, therefore all binaries are NOT compatible with glibc systems (debian,arch,slackware,fedora...)

Ah, thanks. That explains why none of the Angstrom "packages" worked and all complained about glibc!!!

They have a pretty slick roll your own system gadget set up though.

It also finally dovetails the things I've picked up about static vs shared linking. I wonder if an Angstrom static linked binary would run anywhere with the same architecture...

TJ