Hello.
I am currently trying to port my fasm win32 projects to linux, but I'm not sure how to import from shared objects. Doing it with gcc etc. should be easy, but can I do it with just fasm?

No you can't*, only "format ELF" is the way.

*Unless you write a raw binary with fasm so you can import shared libraries by hand.

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That's what I thought, but my curiosity has the better of me.
How does manual importing actually work?
What makes it so much harder than for PE, that fasm can't do it itself?

I doubt it is a matter of difficulty, but more a matter of need. Clearly it is not yet considered requested enough to warrant spending time to write the necessary code.

But I have a suggestion. You can help everyone that is in your situation with SOs. Write some code for the fasm formatter and/or macros (whatever is appropriate) to generate the SO data sections and then submit it here for Tomasz to consider including it in the standard download. Already some other pieces of fasm have been included in this way so it wouldn't be the first time.

I need something useful to do...
Anyone happen know where I can find more information on the ELF format?

Have a look at my website, it has much useful information relating to your question above. Hehe, sorry, couldn't resist, don't take any offence.

I knew you'd say that. Google is good, real people are better. This could take a while.

Hehe, I guess I am just too predictable, or you query was too obvious, or both. Not always true. Depends upon what you are trying to achieve at the time.

Well, I found a good documentation of the ELF format. I forgot the address, but I can post the PDF if anyone's interested.
It's not much use: ld is part of the specification. Whoever designed ELF couldn't decide on how to implement shared libraries, so they left it to the linker. There's no fixed standard.