From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 27 23:24:59 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C7DD16A4CF for ; Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:24:59 +0000 (GMT) Received: from tower.berklix.org (bsd.bsn.com [194.221.32.7]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C25143D49 for ; Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:24:58 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jhs@flat.berklix.net) Received: from js.berklix.net (pD950E022.dip.t-dialin.net [217.80.224.34]) (authenticated bits=0) by tower.berklix.org (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i8RNOkhB019089; Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:24:47 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from jhs@flat.berklix.net) Received: from laps.jhs.private (laps.jhs.private [192.168.91.56]) by js.berklix.net (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i8RNOgd5003254; Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:24:42 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from jhs@flat.berklix.net) Received: from laps.jhs.private (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by laps.jhs.private (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id i8RNOfds008071; Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:24:41 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from jhs@laps.jhs.private) Message-Id: <200409272324.i8RNOfds008071@laps.jhs.private> To: John Von Essen In-Reply-To: Message from John Von Essen <6ACEE66C-10B6-11D9-A5BE-0003933DDCFA@essenz.com> Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:24:41 +0200 From: "Julian H. Stacey" X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 14:53:52 +0000 cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: hacking SCO.... X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:24:59 -0000 John Von Essen wrote: > Unfortunately, I have inherited a Intel P200 with SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 > with a 4Gb SCSI drive. Condolences ! SCO is Horrible to work on, & a waste of time, erase ASAP ! ........ > SCO is of no help, they cant provide replacement boot floppy, only sell > me complete distribution version 5.0.7 for $100. > Any ideas on how I should go about this. All I need to do is get that > data from the tape onto the disk and I should good to go. > SCO is of no help, they cant provide replacement boot floppy, only sell > me complete distribution version 5.0.7 for $100. SCO used to give away licences free for 5.0.4 &/or 5.0.5 for restricted use. One could legally download cdrom images & burn them. Good denough to rescue data & then erase SCO & install BSD If you can't rescue the data while running FreeBSD, either: Non Commercial solution: Look around find someone near who has a 5.0.4 or 5 cdrom, (maybe even SCO site somewhere) get a copy, (cdrom contains floppy images too I recall), rescue data, delete SCO very quickly from your machine, (before you discover the pain of running SCO, (& if you really must run SCO then Do get their Skunkware CDROM too (yes that's it's real name! it's full of FSF/GNU stuff & free & makes using SCO rather less unpleasant (not unpleasant, just rather less). Commercial solution. Pay the $100, if its for a commercial job it's cheap. No point quibbling. SCO used to cost about 2000 German Deutschmarks, for end users, (& was the Unix I found most crippled. BSD is cheaper, but if it's for business, & it's their legal right, cheap enough. There's SCO forums somewhere, but probably the wrong route. Their manuals used to just present work-rounds for obsolete old software everyone else wasn't using anymore eg at one stage they were SVR3 & all other vendors were SVR4 based. Last time I was contracted to work on SCO, I just kept tossing more modern source eg X11R6 & lesstif & GNU src/ on top of the base obsolete SCO, till obsolete SCO libraries no longer broke my project. Reading SCO manuals was a waste of time, better to just to rip it out & replace it with better software, either per utility that annoys, or per whole OS. - Julian Stacey. Unix,C,Net & Sys. Eng. Consultant, Munich. http://berklix.com Mail in Ascii, Html dumped as Spam. Ihr Rauch = mein allergischer Kopfschmerz.