Dell System V.4

[James Van Artsdalen]

Disclaimer: I am not in the unix group here at Dell: I can't speak
officially for them.  But I can answer some questions on the state of
SysVr4 support in a couple of FSF projects.

In <335 at srchtec.UUCP>, mra at srchtec.uucp (Michael Almond) wrote:

> I've heard some people mention that Dell's Unix has then GNU code
> already up and running.  Does anyone know if Dell released their
> changes back to GNU?

We have signed over the changes I have made to gcc (miscellaneous bug
fixes so far, Weitek support and maybe OS/2 masm support in gcc v2).
We don't ship gcc with any product at this time.  Ron Guilmette has
donated gcc/ELF support to FSF - once this is stable, we'll probably
ship gcc.  gcc 1.38 will include a minimalist no-debug configuration
for SysVr4/i386.  Ron's work will supplant this in gcc v2.

We have also signed over the emacs changes I made.  FSF is about to
release 18.56, which will include a minimalist SysVr4 configuration
(no PTYs for example).  emacs v19 will include full SysVr4 support.
Dell is shipping 18.55 modified for full SysVr4 support.

Our gdb work was done here by Dave McCraken.  We have not yet signed
the papers on it, but will do so.  We have not yet begun cleansing the
port for submission to FSF - RMS is a real sticker on format,
indentation, comments, etc.
--
James R. Van Artsdalen          james at raid.dell.com       "Live Free or Die"
Dell Computer Corporation  9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759  512-338-8789