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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!in2.uu.net!tcsi.tcs.com!agate!reason.cdrom.com!usenet From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux emulation (Re: Bravo, Soeren Schmidt!) Date: 5 Sep 1995 18:41:33 GMT Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM Lines: 42 Message-ID: <42i5kt$9bl@reason.cdrom.com> References: <ARNULF.95Sep4210535@arnulf.dialup.fu-berlin.de> <42fph9$qe6@kadath.zeitgeist.net> <42hetg$3sf@gate.sinica.edu.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: time.cdrom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) X-URL: news:42hetg$3sf@gate.sinica.edu.tw taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw (Brian Tao) wrote: > Instead of expending valuable life points trying to convince >companies producing Linux software to port them to FreeBSD, we should >concentrate on improving FreeBSD's Linux binary compatibility. The >iBSC2 compatibility is already good enough to run WordPerfect under X >(something the Linux folks are still waiting for). I would love see >an ad that says "FreeBSD - Better Linux Than Linux". ;-) Hear hear! I see no reason to reinvent the wheel, and for what it's worth I've even seen this same sad story played out before! It's always been a truism that ISVs generally hate UNIX and they hate it for good reason, too. They hate it because in order to get good coverage across "the UNIX market" for their products, they have to do something like *seven* different ports (SCO, Solaris, Unixware, OSF/1, AIX, HP/UX, SunOS) meaning seven different QA cycles, seven release platforms, seven extra ulcers for the marketing department who doesn't even really have a CLUE what sorts of people they need to try to reach for those markets, it's a mess. A really big mess. And all because every version of UNIX out there declared itself too studly to even think of running "someone else's binary" (always said in tones of loathing and disgust, as if asked to use someone else's used hankerchief). That would be an admission that your own particular UNIX Just Wasn't Virile Enough or something! Well fie on that, I say. Sure, I'm smart enough to see the appeal of "native apps" on the buzzsheet as much as the next guy, but I've also seen it from the ISVs perspective and from their perseptive they'd *MUCH* rather we got our SCO and Linux acts really together enough so that we could simply run their SCO or Linux versions. Why do more work if you don't have to? John Dyson has almost finished integrating the new ext2fs filesystem into FreeBSD-current. This will be expanded upon until we have the ability, no doubt, to boot from an ext2fs file system. Once we have that, you'll be able to simply extract FreeBSD on your running Linux box in /FreeBSD or something and dual-boot FreeBSD or Linux right out of the same filesystem. If you can run all of the Linux binaries as well then you're talking "ease of transition" and that's definitely of no small importance! Jordan