Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hpfcso!mike From: mike@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Mike McNelly) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: BSD and HPUX, The Questions Continue... Message-ID: <7370390@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> Date: 7 May 91 23:24:04 GMT References: <1991May2.202710.5152@odin.diku.dk> Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA Lines: 75 Only commenting on the things I can check easily or that I have some knowledge about: > ... > > I like many things about HPUX. It has some of the best facilities from > BSD, and its not that hard to make a HPUX feel *almost* like a > BSD-system. But why, Oh why, doesn't HPUX go more of the way? > > I would be much happier with HPUX if > - chmod had an -R option The 8.0 manpage shows a -R option now. Lots of these types of commands have a recursive option as of this release. > - man used the PAGER and MANPATH environment-variable The 8.0 manpage shows that both of these environment variables are supported. S300/400 had it as of release 7.4 at least but I don't think it was documented. > - diff could make context-diffs! The 8.0 manpage shows that diff -c (context diff) is now supported. > - I could include as well as > - checklist was called fstab > - ls -g showed the group On both S700/S800 release 8.0 it does. It also does on S300/S400 release 7.4. I haven't tried it on earlier systems. > - sam could use fully qualified domainnames > - libBSD included some more functions (Why can't they be in libc?) An ongoing problem. In some cases BSD semantics conflict with SYSV, particularly with signals. > - /usr/include/arpa contained some more files > - quota existed on HPUX-filesystems > - remsh was called rsh The name rsh was already used for "restricted shell" by ATT, I believe. > - SIGWINDOW was called SIGWINCH (and some program used it) > - > - ... > > Most of these are just minor annoyances, but when they come in these > great numbers, they become a nuisance. I have bumped into all of the > above misfeatures without really digging into HPUX, so I'm concerned > with what I am going to discover if we convert to HPUX. > > Are HPUX going to be better? Is HPUX 8.0? Will OSF/1 be? We hope so. I like it now (but I'm not impartial). > > Worse than nearly all the above is the different versions of HPUX for > the 300- and the 800-series. The "One disk -- One partion (Section?)" > for the 300-series are terrible. Will this ever change? > > BTW: Is it possible to get a bug-list of known bugs in HPUX? I know > Sun provides such a list, but then again, they need to do it with > that code :-) Ask your sales rep for a Software Status Bulletin. It's published quarterly, I believe. Gory details are shown there. It's a pamphlet so the cost shouldn't be much. > > BTNW: Is it possible to get sources to HPUX, and if so, will I get > them in my lifetime? Yes, but a source license is more expensive than a binary license. > > Regards > Carl-Lykke > > PS: Thanks to all the HP-folks who helps us in this newsgroup, and to > those people who have ported usefull software (like emacs, top, > tcsh, perl ...) to HPUX. Mike McNelly mike@fc.hp.com (An employee, but not a spokesperson for HP)