386 Unix (In)compatibilities Summary

[Greg Woods]

[ I'm getting VERY tired of rn stripping the "Toronto.EDU" from my
address, and putting ".UUCP" there.  This is WRONG. ]

In article <802 at vsi.UUCP> sullivan at vsi.UUCP (Michael T Sullivan) writes:
> The two are compatible.  We have been running the uPort package on the 6386
> for several weeks and it is running just fine.  The concensus was that
> since uPort and 386/ix were based on Intel's port of Unix, the binaries
> should be compatible.  This appears to be the case.
> 
> > 	2) How does this relate to the whole ABI concept?
> 
> To paraphrase someone who responded, ABI is planned compatibility--this
> (uPort vs. 386/ix compatiblity) is just coincidence.  

I wouldn't call it coincidence.  I would have been VERY suprised if
something didn't work.  Anything using "standard" device drivers, and
SVID calls/routines (ie no sysi86()!), and ignoring incompatabilities
possible between version of shared libraries, should work.  In other
words, anything that was written on a 68K, for Sys V, and only needed a
re-compile to port to the 386, should work, irregardless of on which
version it was compiled on.  After all they are the SAME kernel (?).  If
it also worked on the Sun 386i, I'd be somewhat suprised.  That isn't
the same kernel, though, knowing Sun, they probably do have binary
compatability for the Sys V/386 stuff.

> > 	3) (Just to be picky) Why doesn't Informix know whether they are
> > 	   or not?  I assume they should be much more in touch with these
> > 	   things than some sleazy programmers in Santa Ana.
> 
> Who knows.  We had the salesperson check with the techie people (allegedly)
> and they were still unsure.  Guess we're not so sleazy after all (I'd like
> to think I still am, though :-).

Because Informix is to cheap to buy a copy of each and try it?
-- 
						Greg Woods.

UUCP: utgpu!woods, utgpu!{ontmoh, ontmoh!ixpierre}!woods
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