mc1@torch.UUCP (Mark Cook) (06/20/89)
Apologies if this question has been asked before but I'm new to the net. What I need to know is, has anyone out there tried to port Unix software to OS/9 and, if so, what was involved. For example, how did you achieve the effects of a Unix fork() call ? Is is possible to implement an arrangement similar to sockets ? How close in form is OS/9 to Unix ? How many of the system calls are similar ? Are the filesystems similar ? Are there any commercially available libraries that can help ? I realise this is a big question but any answers (however large or small) will be gratefully received. Thanks. Mark Cook, Torch Technology Ltd, Cambridge, UK +44 223 841000
dibble@cs.rochester.edu (Peter C. Dibble) (06/24/89)
If you are porting to OS-9/6809, you can expect hard work. The Microware 6809 C compiler is K&R compliant, not UNIX-like. If you are porting to OS-9/68000, and you have the latest Microware C compiler, the port may take no effort at all. For perspective: I ported hack several years ago with an almost 6809-like version of the C compiler. It took more than a week of evenings. I ported Bison, flex, egrep, and gnu awk in less than an hour each. One of them, probably Bison, involved about 5 minutes of messing with the make file, and that was all. Low-level stuff like fork and settty's take some effort, (the ioctls were a problem for ports of sz/rz and pcom) but most programs don't do stuff like that. So. Advice: * Get the latest compiler. The one they just released is best. * There are some UNIX-compatibility libraries around. I don't use them much, but they do make ports a bit faster. * If the programs include _very_ long lines, or macros that expand to very long lines, do something about it. The C preprocessor and the compiler will both crash unpleasantly if you feed them oversized lines. * Get the varargs package for OS-9 or look for all functions that take a variable number of arguments and "do something" about them. Ask about the software you mean to port. One of us may already have ported it. Peter
jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) (07/06/89)
In article <373@torch.UUCP> mc1@torch.UUCP (Mark Cook) writes: >Are there any commercially available >libraries that can help [with porting Unix software to OS-9]? Sigh. When I first posted a reply to this, I forgot about TOP. There is a group of European OS-9 users who have ported various software to OS-9, and who have written a set of functions that appear to duplicate the function of some Unix library functions. I believe they posted said functions to comp.os.os9 a while back--I have them, though Mr. Cook may find it easier to get them more directly from TOP in Munich. TOP stuff appears to have a GNUoid copyleft attached. For the record, a disclaimer--I haven't used these functions, so I can't vouch for them. (Not to denigrate them, either, just trying to make sure folks know what's what.) James Jones