diff --git a/src/cmd/link/internal/ld/dwarf.go b/src/cmd/link/internal/ld/dwarf.go
index 36e11cc0d2..19db1b5573 100644
--- a/src/cmd/link/internal/ld/dwarf.go
+++ b/src/cmd/link/internal/ld/dwarf.go
@@ -1513,16 +1513,6 @@ const (
 	COMPUNITHEADERSIZE = 4 + 2 + 4 + 1
 )
 
-// appendSyms appends the syms from 'src' into 'syms' and returns the
-// result. This can go away once we do away with sym.LoaderSym
-// entirely.
-func appendSyms(syms []loader.Sym, src []sym.LoaderSym) []loader.Sym {
-	for _, s := range src {
-		syms = append(syms, loader.Sym(s))
-	}
-	return syms
-}
-
 func (d *dwctxt) writeUnitInfo(u *sym.CompilationUnit, abbrevsym loader.Sym, infoEpilog loader.Sym) []loader.Sym {
 	syms := []loader.Sym{}
 	if len(u.Textp) == 0 && u.DWInfo.Child == nil && len(u.VarDIEs) == 0 {
@@ -1551,12 +1541,12 @@ func (d *dwctxt) writeUnitInfo(u *sym.CompilationUnit, abbrevsym loader.Sym, inf
 	// This is an under-estimate; more will be needed for type DIEs.
 	cu := make([]loader.Sym, 0, len(u.AbsFnDIEs)+len(u.FuncDIEs))
 	cu = append(cu, s)
-	cu = appendSyms(cu, u.AbsFnDIEs)
-	cu = appendSyms(cu, u.FuncDIEs)
+	cu = append(cu, u.AbsFnDIEs...)
+	cu = append(cu, u.FuncDIEs...)
 	if u.Consts != 0 {
 		cu = append(cu, loader.Sym(u.Consts))
 	}
-	cu = appendSyms(cu, u.VarDIEs)
+	cu = append(cu, u.VarDIEs...)
 	var cusize int64
 	for _, child := range cu {
 		cusize += int64(len(d.ldr.Data(child)))
diff --git a/src/cmd/link/internal/loader/loader.go b/src/cmd/link/internal/loader/loader.go
index 4d0b497d8e..617c6ba65a 100644
--- a/src/cmd/link/internal/loader/loader.go
+++ b/src/cmd/link/internal/loader/loader.go
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ var _ = fmt.Print
 
 // Sym encapsulates a global symbol index, used to identify a specific
 // Go symbol. The 0-valued Sym is corresponds to an invalid symbol.
-type Sym uint32
+type Sym = sym.LoaderSym
 
 // Relocs encapsulates the set of relocations on a given symbol; an
 // instance of this type is returned by the Loader Relocs() method.
diff --git a/src/cmd/link/internal/sym/compilation_unit.go b/src/cmd/link/internal/sym/compilation_unit.go
index 3bad5bf3f4..3d6cc3cf93 100644
--- a/src/cmd/link/internal/sym/compilation_unit.go
+++ b/src/cmd/link/internal/sym/compilation_unit.go
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ import "cmd/internal/dwarf"
 
 // LoaderSym holds a loader.Sym value. We can't refer to this
 // type from the sym package since loader imports sym.
-type LoaderSym int
+type LoaderSym uint32
 
 // A CompilationUnit represents a set of source files that are compiled
 // together. Since all Go sources in a Go package are compiled together,