Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pcrat!rick From: rick@pcrat.uucp (Rick Richardson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: UNIX 3.2 compatibility Message-ID: <1990Mar28.015811.29745@pcrat.uucp> Date: 28 Mar 90 01:58:11 GMT References: <912@n3dmc.UU.NET> Reply-To: rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) Organization: PC Research, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ Lines: 43 In article peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >Some are, some aren't. For some reason ISC (and I think ESIX) uses a >slightly different structure in /etc/conf, and a slightly different >set of predefined system calls, than the Intel/AT&T baseline. There doesn't appear to me to be any difference in the structure of /etc/conf in ISC from the stock AT&T structure except for the presence of the kconfig.d directory. Our software, which includes a couple of device drivers, comes in standard AT&T ID format and installs and builds under ISC, AT&T, and SCO. Note that you and any device driver packages that you install can ignore what is in the kconfig.d directory under ISC UNIX if you always use the AT&T idbuild (rather than ISC's kconfig) to build new kernels. A device driver that wants to be fully compatible with either method of kernel build under ISC needs to add a single line to the end of kconfig.d/description. In fact, in my opinion, a 3.2 variant that is not downwards compatible with the AT&T ID format isn't worth a dime. I only know of one system like this, which is 3.2 stuff Unisys is selling. To be fair, they have run time loadable drivers; (something I was disappointed didn't make it into everybodies 3.2) but they started and didn't finish the job of making them coexist within the ID format. The grey areas with drivers are with the internal driver support functions. You can depend on the standard ones that have been around since V7. But when you get into less well known areas, each vendor diverges with their own 'invented here' method. To have any chance of portability, a driver writer needing these functions must use the ones that AT&T provides in their 3.2 and hope that the variant UNIX vendor hasn't deleted support for that call. We've been burned by this approach only recently, again with Unisys (they apparently aren't found of 3rd party SW). -Rick -- Rick Richardson | Looking for FAX software for UNIX/386 ??? Ask About: |Mention PC Research,Inc.| FaxiX - UNIX Facsimile System (tm) |FAX# for uunet!pcrat!rick| FaxJet - HP LJ PCL to FAX (Send WP,Word,Pagemaker...)|Sample (201) 389-8963 | JetRoff - troff postprocessor for HP LaserJet and FAX|Output