From wiki Executable and Linkable Format:
The segments contain information that is necessary for runtime execution of the file, while sections contain important data for linking and relocation. Any byte in the entire file can be owned by at most one section, and there can be orphan bytes which are not owned by any section.
But what is the difference between section and segment?
In an executable ELF file, does a segment contain one or more sections?
Exactly what you quoted: the segments contain information needed at runtime, while the sections contain information needed during linking.
A segment can contain 0 or more sections. Example:
Here,
PHDRsegment contains 0 sections,INTERPsegment contains.interpsection, and the firstLOADsegment contains a whole bunch of sections.Further reading with a nice illustration: