[SunRescue] Shells

[James Lockwood]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Peter Koch wrote:

> I had troubles compiling bash on Sol 7, but tcsh did build out of the box.
> But you guys are surely asking for already compiled programs, aren't you?
> 
> Solaris doesn't have ANY GNU program we're so used to. That's one of the
> magics Linux gives us for free.
> 
> Take this: For every new version of Solaris i undertake the following
> procedure: Grab the newest gcc, tcsh, flex, bison, less, gmake, patch.
> perl, apache, squid, sendmail, mysql, samba, cap, netpbm, ssh, X11,
> ... (anything else? sure i forgot a lot)...

Generally speaking, you don't need/want to recompile X11.  Solaris X11 is
now (since the Solaris 2.4 days) based off of MIT/TOG X11 with
enhancements (Display Postscript, better acceleration, OpenGL and support
for many more framebuffers).

Keep in mind that the considerable majority of the programs you have
listed will not benefit from recompilation with new OS revs.  gcc is the
only one you list that really requires it, and even that is debatable. 
Solaris has gone to great lengths to preserve userland compatability and
as long as the program isn't intimately tied to the internals of the OS
(like lsof or top) or benefits from new OS features (largefiles, ipv6) 
there isn't a need to recompile. 

"Linux" gives you nothing for free but the kernel.  Userland is set up by
people like you and me who go through all the trouble of compiling and
testing software for the environment.

Programs that require gmake are broken.  Period.  mysql I'm still trying
to recover from.

> Then i need a week to compile all these things and make MY Solaris
> a complete system. I'm not a friend of grabbing precompiled packages,
> because i can (and it's my job and it's fun) build the stuff myself.

Then why compare it with Linux distributions where you don't recompile
software?  There is no functional difference between grabbing a Linux
distribution that happens to include a grab bag of software and grabbing a
bunch of precompiled applications for Solaris.

If you like compiling all your apps for Solaris, why don't you just grab a
Linux kernel and compile userland from scratch?

-James