willis@cs.athabascau.ca (Tony Willis) (04/11/91)
Can AIX be considered either Sys V or BSD Unix compliant? I gather that its really neither, and that IBM has decided to essentially develop its own independent version of Unix, but I'd appreciate comments from those who are more in the know than I am. Thanks, Tony Willis twillis@drao.nrc.ca
richard@locus.com (Richard M. Mathews) (04/12/91)
willis@cs.athabascau.ca (Tony Willis) writes: >Can AIX be considered either Sys V or BSD Unix compliant? I gather >that its really neither, and that IBM has decided to essentially >develop its own independent version of Unix, but I'd appreciate >comments from those who are more in the know than I am. IBM had not developed "its own independent version of Unix." AIX does have some unique features, but it is built on top of a merged SysV/BSD/POSIX system. I believe the following applies to all AIX platforms, but I am more certain about the PS/2 and 370 than the RT and 6000. AIX passes some level of SVVS (System V Verification Suite). I'm not sure if that is Release 2 or 3 these days. There is no real standard against which one can test BSD compliance, but AIX does claim to be "consistent" with BSD, including job control, utilities, sockets, system calls, libraries, signals, long file names, and C shell. I port stuff from SysV and from BSD often, and I rarely have trouble. Disclaimer: This is based on my opinions and my occasionally faulty memory. I do not speak for Locus or IBM. Richard M. Mathews D efend richard@locus.com E stonian-Latvian-Lithuanian lcc!richard@seas.ucla.edu I ndependence ...!{uunet|ucla-se|turnkey}!lcc!richard
allender@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Mark Allender) (04/12/91)
In article <977@vax.cs.athabascau.ca>, willis@cs.athabascau.ca (Tony Willis) writes: |> Can AIX be considered either Sys V or BSD Unix compliant? I gather |> that its really neither, and that IBM has decided to essentially |> develop its own independent version of Unix, but I'd appreciate |> comments from those who are more in the know than I am. |> |> Thanks, |> Tony Willis |> twillis@drao.nrc.ca As far as I know, AIX is neither BSD or SYSV, and is both BSD and SYSV. I have installed applications where I have had to define BSD, and others where I have had to define SYSV, and still others where there was a #define RS6000. Go figure....this kind of thing is really annoying.... -Mark Allender -University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign -Conversation Builder Project -allender@cs.uiuc.edu
mbrown@testsys.austin.ibm.com (Mark Brown) (04/12/91)
> Can AIX be considered either Sys V or BSD Unix compliant? I gather > that its really neither, and that IBM has decided to essentially > develop its own independent version of Unix, but I'd appreciate > comments from those who are more in the know than I am. AIXv3.1 meets SVID (Base); it also meets 1003.1 and XPG3. Essentially, this makes it a SysV-style system. While there is no such thing as "BSD Unix compliant" (does Berkeley do verification testing?), V3.1 has a *lot* of BSD stuff added in - including separate libraries to handle routines that differ/conflict with SysV (wait(), signal()...). We are adding more even as we go along. I still have complaints cross my desk of the form "ps sorts things the ATT way, not the BSD way, so even though ps has the BSD options it isn't BSD"...but I'm not at all ashamed of our BSD abilities, given we started with a SysV.2 system. Mark Brown IBM PSP Austin, TX. (512) 823-3741 VNET: MBROWN@AUSVMQ MAIL: mbrown@testsys.austin.ibm.com OR uunet!testsys.austin.ibm.com!mbrown Which came first: The Chicken or the Legba? DISCLAIMER: Any personal opinions stated here are just that.
shore@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Melinda Shore) (04/13/91)
In article <6620@awdprime.UUCP> mbrown@testsys.austin.ibm.com (Mark Brown) writes: >While there is no such thing as "BSD Unix compliant" (does Berkeley do >verification testing?), Mindcraft (aka Mindcruft) has a BSD verification suite which uses the 4.3 manuals as a reference point. I believe they may now have a tahoe suite as well. It would be interesting indeed to run these against AIX. CSRG doesn't need to do compliance testing, of course, because BSD is whatever they say it is. -- Software longa, hardware brevis Melinda Shore - Cornell Information Technologies - shore@theory.tn.cornell.edu
jsalter@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (04/13/91)
In article <1991Apr12.141503.8691@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> allender@cs.uiuc.edu (Mark Allender) writes: >In article <977@vax.cs.athabascau.ca>, willis@cs.athabascau.ca (Tony >Willis) writes: >|> Can AIX be considered either Sys V or BSD Unix compliant? I gather >|> that its really neither, and that IBM has decided to essentially >|> develop its own independent version of Unix, but I'd appreciate >|> comments from those who are more in the know than I am. >|> Tony Willis >|> twillis@drao.nrc.ca >As far as I know, AIX is neither BSD or SYSV, and is both BSD and SYSV. I have >installed applications where I have had to define BSD, and others where I have >had to define SYSV, and still others where there was a #define RS6000. Actually, AIX v3 has it's roots in System V, and passes the conformance test for SVID Issue 2 (I think this means Sys V Rel. 3.2, correct me if I'm wrong). Because of the industry standards that came out at the time, the order of importance could be considered: POSIX (1003.1) > X/Open Issue 3 (XPG3) > ANSI-C > System V > BSD (with some others like AIX RT, ... thrown in, too). Because of the amount of interest for BSD programs, much of the functionality for BSD was integrated into the system. The files: /usr/lpp/bos/bsdport - Porting BSD programs to AIX Version 3 and /usr/lpp/bos/bsdadm - BSD System Administration for AIX Version 3 If these don't explain your problems, please post to let us know. By the way, the proper define for AIX on the 6000 is _IBMR2 and _AIX (defined in the compiler's setup file: /etc/xlc.cfg). RS6000 is probably not the thing to use. >-Mark Allender >-allender@cs.uiuc.edu jim/jsalter IBM PSP, Palo Alto T465/(415)855-4427 VNET: JSALTER at AUSVMQ Internet: jsalter@slo.awdpa.ibm.com UUCP: ..!uunet!ibmsupt!jsalter "IBM part #23521, aka Lt. Commander Data" The stuff above is on my own.
jonathan@cs.pitt.edu (Jonathan Eunice) (04/15/91)
Mark Allender writes:
As far as I know, AIX is neither BSD or SYSV, and is both BSD and
SYSV. I have installed applications where I have had to define BSD,
and others where I have had to define SYSV, and still others where
there was a #define RS6000.
Go figure....this kind of thing is really annoying....
Well, porting software is really annoying. To any system, from any vendor.
I have had software, including X, GNU, etc (esp. GNU is very BSD) port
auto-magically, and I have had to go "the hard way" on other software.
But it's the same porting to DEC's ULTRIX, Sun's SunOS, etc. TANSTAFL.
As to it being neither BSD nor SysV, and yet both, that's exactly
true. Just like SunOS, SVr4, ULTRIX, DG/UX, IRIX, HP-UX, etc. Various
merges seem to be the way of things these days. None of them, of
course, do the merge in quite the same way. Btw, even SysV != SysV,
when you move from release to release--especially to SVr4 and some of
its {nice,necessary} extensions.