Linux And HP-UX?

suwalski writes: "I have a question for all of the mklinux Gods out there. At work I'm forced to use HP-UX, which is all nice and good, but I prefer Linux. I went looking around and found that mklinux is supposed to run on HPPA (which is the type of CPU my HP-712/100 has). I haven't been able to find any useful information on how to go about this, and I'd be very happy to hear comments and tips from anyone who uses Linux on HP's regularly."

Comments

I tried MkLinux for HP, it... sort of works...

[brion]

The HPPA MkLinux port hasn't been maintained since... 1997 or so I believe, so Beware! I put it on an old 735/125 after the university's IT dept pulled the plug on supporting old SunOS and HPUX versions, allegedly due to Y2K issues.

It sort of works, but you're stuck with an old 2.0 kernel and the compiler/libs seem... flakey at best. It wouldn't read from the CD, had mysterious hangs when you scrolled up in 'less', and I could never even get ssh compiled on the thing. It worked okay as a glorified X terminal though.

Others have mentioned the Puffin Group's native Linux port to PA-RISC. Last I checked they were up to booting, loading a shell, and then crashing, but they may be farther along now...

If they're not usable yet, I'd recommend limping along on HP/UX with some gnu stuff installed, you'll have more luck actually running anything that way than with MkLinux.

Why MK-Linux?

[RedDirt]

Last I checked, the Puffin Group was making a native version of Linux for the PA-RISC processors which should (I think) include yours.

Re:HP-UX

[Zurk]

and :
6. install bash.
7. go to the hp/ux freeware page and d/l all the stuff.
8. HP maintains a JDK if youre into java. look on hp.com...
9. ssh ssh ssh. install ASAP and comment out the crap in /etc/inetd.conf
i've got a A9000 HP/UX 11.0 box without a video card..text terminals suck. try and get a video card from hp if you dont have one. also note that ssh cant authenticate via passwords if you set the trusted base option in HP/UX. use RSA authentication. the trusted stuff also breaks things...so make sure you have at least a text terminal when you install it.

You might be able to make it run...

[bconway]

but why would you want to? The MKLinux project has had a lot of problems in the past, and when the other option is HP's UNIX, there's really no reason to switch. Sure, it might not stand up as well to Digital UNIX or Solaris, but it has all the qualities of a professional UNIX, and I think you'd be severely disappointed if you went with MKLinux. Just my $0.02.

Linux/PA-RISC project

[Lish]

I am currently working with the Linux/PA-RISC project, a native port of Linux to PA. The kernel is still definitely "developer-release," but I can boot it on my 712/80 and do some basic stuff. If you'd like to try it out and/or contribute to the project the web site is www.thepuffingroup.com/parisc. Lots of info there.

HP-UX

[Alex Belits]

HP-[s]UX is a very weird system, however I doubt that mklinux will be any better on HP-PA. I can offer just few tips that can make things easier.

1. Use gcc instead of native compiler, especially for C++ -- last time I have seen their native C++ compilers, they didn't work with HP-UX include files, returned "Assertion failed" and otherwise behaved in some braindamaged manner.
2. When writing for HP-UX look at the manual page for mallopt() function -- malloc() on HP-UX has very inefficient defaults, and I had horrible performance of C++ programs until I've set its limit for "small blocks".
3. Install your favorite shell, gnu tools, widgets library, etc. -- they will all compile on HP-UX, and you will need them.
4. Fix terminal settings if you don't like them, and put them into login scripts.
5. Use Linux box as X terminal with its own window manager and ssh, or compile your favorite window manager on HP-UX box -- CDE sucks.