From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Feb 26 16:45:54 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id QAA02511 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 16:45:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from covina.lightside.com (covina.lightside.com [198.81.209.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA02506 for ; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 16:45:47 -0800 (PST) Received: by covina.lightside.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0trDXo-0009YiC; Mon, 26 Feb 96 16:45 PST Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 16:45:22 -0800 (PST) From: Jake Hamby To: Terry Lambert cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD ports to NT (was Win32...) In-Reply-To: <199602262336.QAA03092@phaeton.artisoft.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Mon, 26 Feb 1996, Terry Lambert wrote: > The FS call themselves don't care about / vs \ and the directory > lookup is case insensitive, so I don't know what you are seeing. Apparently, you haven't seen the POSIX subsystem of Windows NT. These are NOT Win32 programs, they run in a separate protected subsystem which has its own limited API (basically a subset of "libc") that enforces case sensitivity and / for directory pathnames. It also has no provision for graphics or network calls. The particular POSIX utilities I'm referring to are on the NT 3.51 Resource Kit CD-ROM in a POSIX subdirectory. > > Oh, and of course, these programs don't work under Windows 95... > > Compliant Win32 programs will run on both systems. As I said above, I was referring to POSIX subsystem programs which are NOT Win32. I hope Microsoft realized their mistake with the whole subsystem idea since neither the OS/2 1.x nor POSIX subsystems are very useful, and Win16 and DOS are included inside the Win32 subsystem, so in retrospect, they didn't need subsystems after all! Now, if somebody were to make a MacOS or FreeBSD-binary-emulation subsystem, that would be a different story! :-) > CVS is already ported. There is a Windows95 (WIN32) client, and a > Windows NT server. Good, one less thing for me to do! I'd like to accumulate pointers to existing ports on my Web page, so ideally it'd be a repository of information on integrating Unix utilities into Win32 and vice versa. > Actually, I'd like to see a help file compiler and X and command line > readers for BSD. 8-). > > Something like the SDK's HCW.EXE ("Help Workshop"). 8-). TWIN has its own WinHelp viewer, and Bristol sells a commercial version. Personally, I like the SGML/HTML format for help the best, but it is too inconvenient (not to mention slow!) to start up Netscape within your application just to view online help. That's one of the problems with programming for Unix, there is no standardization for help, even though Motif says every program must have it, they don't say how! :-( > > Shells: I'd like to see tcsh (primarily for interactive use) and bash > > (for interactive use and shell scripts). They should be able to spawn > > Win32, Win16, and DOS programs just like CMD.EXE.. > > Shells are hard; specifically, the interface to the DOS virtual machine > is a pain. All I can say is "good luck". 8-(. I figured as much. If there is source code for any of the CMD.EXE alternatives floating around, I would like to see it. Also, I understand there is the Hamilton csh for Win32, but the demo version is very restricted. By the way, my plan is for these utilities to be free during the Beta test period (possibly they will have a time bomb to encourage people to get the latest version, a la Netscape), then the final version will be non-crippled, reasonably priced, shareware. Of course if you run FreeBSD on your PC, I will be kind enough to waive the shareware fee! :-) ---Jake