I apologise if this is a dumb question, but given the fact that
SUN are presently knocking out Solaris 2.4 X86 (ie. Solaris UNIX for
IBM PC machines + clones) for $99 a pop, I am wondering whether the
folk at GCG have thought about compiling it to run on X86. Obviously,
the licensing arrangements would presumably be different (X86
is often used for single users....actually this may be a complete
minefield for licensing), but would overcome network access
problems. Users would be able to sit down at a PC and use GCG locally,
and also use MS-Windows programs via SUN's excellent and stable
WABI program (which is part of the X86 package)...the only UNIX
operating system that would currently be able to offer this
combination.
My understanding is that code that compiles cleanly with
solaris 2.4 for sparc will compile on solaris 2.4 X86. I assume that
the source distribution for Solaris that is currently being shipped
will not compile in X86 because of the need for the necessary GCG
lib files in architecture-specific form, but I am not sure.
Additionally, the UNIX OS Linux is taking off like wildfire, and
this is free. Several molecular biology programs have already been
ported to it (eg. GDE). Same question....is a GCG port
likely/desirable/possible?
