From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Nov 9 22:30:55 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA16985 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Mon, 9 Nov 1998 22:30:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from troutmask.apl.washington.edu (troutmask.apl.washington.edu [128.95.76.54]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA16980 for ; Mon, 9 Nov 1998 22:30:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sgk@troutmask.apl.washington.edu) Received: (from sgk@localhost) by troutmask.apl.washington.edu (8.9.1/8.8.8) id WAA12678; Mon, 9 Nov 1998 22:34:38 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sgk) From: Steve Kargl Message-Id: <199811100634.WAA12678@troutmask.apl.washington.edu> Subject: Re: linux software installation and uname In-Reply-To: <199811100432.VAA09970@mt.sri.com> from Nate Williams at "Nov 9, 1998 9:32:40 pm" To: nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 22:34:38 -0800 (PST) Cc: kkennawa@physics.adelaide.edu.au, nate@mt.sri.com, dnelson@emsphone.com, rivers@dignus.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG According to Nate Williams: > > > Ahh, but what happens when I have to run the same applications in the > > > same shell? Do I have to modify my environment everytime I run a > > > different application? Do I have to remember which 'emulated OS' the > > > application runs? > > > > That's where the proposed "commercial ports" category would come in. Someone > > could provide wrappers for installation, executing, etc, which handle all the > > messy work of setting environment variables and so forth to get the thing to > > run, for things which require a 'tweaked' emulation environment. > > Is there an echo in the room? Isn't this what I initially proposed as a > better alternative to hacking up the uname(1) sources? > There's no echo, just a bunch of deaf hackers. I happen to disagree with the viewpoint that writing custom scripts for each commerical vendor is a better solution. There may be only a handful of scripts to write this month, but next month we will have more custom scripts. If linux continues to gain in popularity among commerical vendors, then we'll have to maintain a large collection of scripts. There is a point of "diminishing returns" with respect to maintain a large collection of scripts, particularly when a 4 line change to uname(1) will accommodate the majority of the vendor supplied scripts. -- Steve finger kargl@troutmask.apl.washington.edu http://troutmask.apl.washington.edu/~clesceri/kargl.html To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message