Albert Gold (bgold at ktb.net) wrote:
: Readers of this note probably know that GCG's Wisconsin Package is
: supported by only a limited number of Operating Systems. None of these
: to my knowledge runs on an inexpensive Pentium or Power-Mac. machine.
: Reading the back of one of the 'Partition Magic' -like software boxes
: today (boot level OS option), I came upon the word 'Solaris' as an
: OS possibility.
: I know that SUN apparently makes an OS which clearly will run
: upon Pentium machines, called X86, but that system is
: NOT Solaris.
: I know from taking these newsgroups seriously that SunOS was originally
: based upon BSD, but apparently 'Solaris' departed from this initiative
: and moved to incorporate several DEC Fortran extensions, which GCG
: relies upon. Solaris 2.3 and 2.4 are supportable GCG Operating Systems.
There are several good books and an infinite number of net-avaliable
articles covering S5R4 unix and it's differences from BSD.
Yes, in theory at least, programs that compile on Sun sparc solaris should
compile with little problem on the X86 version of solaris. my recollection
of my CD for Intel Solaris is that it *is* called X86 Solaris. Be aware
that there is not binary compatibility between the two OS platforms; a
binary compiled on sparc solaris won't run on X86, therefore GCG would
need to recompile (since they no longer supply source) on the X86
platform. I recall suggesting this a few years back in this group when Sun
dropped the price of X86 Solaris from over $1000 to $99 for academics.
However, in retrospect, this would further abstract GCG away from the
direction that it should already be going in; Macs running MacOS and PC's
running windows, possibly using client type software of the kind developed
by Don Gilbert. If they continue to develop bloated X interface platform
compatibility, they will be cutting their own business throats in a market
area that appears to be starting to take off.
