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Informix Native FreeBSD Port
AC wrote in to say, "It seems that Informix are considering a port
to FreeBSD. Cindy Munns at Informix has written to comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
asking for people interested in a port to e-mail her with your name, your
company, the number of users, and so on." I've seen this message,
but it doesn't seem to have hit Deja yet. However, I've tracked down
a variant from Cindy in comp.databases.informix. Informix
for Linux already works under FreeBSD's Linux ABI, but it's great that
they're considering a native version. And remember, there's no point
mailing them if you're not genuinely interested...
This shouldn't take too much work, right guys?
;)
(remember "I just typed 'make'"?
Linux could use to learn a thing or two from this... Wouldn't it be great when people said "We're considering doing a Linux port of XYZ Commercial Software", it ran on platforms besides x86? Now, a lot of apps do, but there's nothing wrong with a few more.
Being locked permanently into x86 binary compatibility would suck (although the Crusoe sounds pretty cool here), just as being locked into Linux binary comatibility would suck.
It reminds me of a fortune (the specs are somewhat dated, but multiply by the relevant ones by 16 or so and bear with me):
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has
a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
What's the first question that the computer community asks?
"Is it PC compatible?"
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I'm glad someone's starting to test the BSD waters. Far too many companies are ignoring the popular UNIX variants and just putting all their efforts into Linux. I'm all for diversity among operating systems, and so I notice there is simply too much attention given to one platform. Finally, someone's starting to notice the world doesn't revolve around either Linux or Windows.
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Remember when "Truth, Justice, & the American Way" wasn't contradictory?
How does BSD "steal from linux"? Anyone selling non-free BSD software will probably port it to linux, because the linux market is so much bigger. On the other hand, any free software which is written for BSD can be adapted to Linux.
Free unices are (pretty much) source-compatible. By expanding the free unix market, BSD attracts more free software development, which *helps* linux.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
OpenBSD and NetBSD are almost exactly the same OS, but configured differently.
/dev is quite different to Linux. BSD doesn't have /proc.
They are more similar to FreeBSD than any of the three are to Linux.
BSD
The biggest cause of differences is differing versions of the standard C libraries. All GNU/Linuxes, and GNU/HURD, use glibc. BSD has its own libc. This means that a fair few standard functions work quite differently. In particular, GNU extensions, like the %a flag for scanf, will be missing from BSD.
Porting between unixes is often a matter of spending a bit of time tweaking bits of code here and there. Porting to/from something else, like Mac, Windows or VMS, is usually a major task and probably requires a complete rewrite. But of course this depends upon the program. hello-world.c will work anywhere.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
You might want to rephrase that as "at least for server apps"; GUI apps are probably unlikely to port very well at all (unless the OpenStep folk turn themselves into the OpenCocoa folk, complete with a Display PDF implementation - and perhaps unless an OpenCarbon group starts up as well).
(That's probably what you meant, but people sometimes seem to move from "Darwin has a BSD API and a lot of BSD code" to "therefore it's easy to port MacOS X applications to BSD" or "...to UNIX".)
The Mainstream media havent discovered *BSD yet, simple as that. Driven by all the coverage and the "Windows alternative" hype, Linux distributors have done their best to make Linux installable by means of of 5 mouse clicks. They are leaving your disk cluttered with hundreds of packages that you just dont need, running dozens of processes you dont know, and start up in a twisted fashion noone can comprehend. To turn such a Linux box into a respectable server, youll have to work your way through all those SysV-Init scripts, which are being filled with variables from nebulous places, to finally disable the daemons you dont need. When youve done that, a fresh FreeBSD install will look so clean to you, it will instantly turn you into a believer.
Linux may make a nice Workstation, but on the server side, Ive made the change to BSD:
And Linus says fragmentation is OK.
He said that at LinuxWorld.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!