🚀 go-pugleaf

RetroBBS NetNews Server

Inspired by RockSolid Light RIP Retro Guy

Thread View: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
6 messages
6 total messages Started by Matt "C P." Rush Tue, 29 Dec 1992 00:47
man for AIX?
#1208
Author: Matt "C P." Rush
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 00:47
16 lines
995 bytes
	Does anyone have a "man" command running under AIX 2.2.1?

	I made a half-hearted attempt to get the BSD man command running,
but I think it's objecting to AIX's System V-ish directories.  Before
I get too carried away on this I thought I'd ask if anyone has already
ported man.
	Or was "man" actually part of AIX, and has, perhaps, been removed
from my system (though I didn't see it on any of the install disk)?


	-- Matt "C P." Rush

	  INTERNET: mrush@ecst.csuchico.edu
	DISCLAIMER: Any opinions expressed herein are mine, and mine alone.
	            However, you are encouraged adopt them as your own :-)
Re: man for AIX?
#1209
Author: Mark Whetzel
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 11:09
98 lines
4660 bytes
In article <1ho775INNpjp@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu>, mrush@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matt "C P." Rush) writes:
 
> 	Does anyone have a "man" command running under AIX 2.2.1?

> 	I made a half-hearted attempt to get the BSD man command running,
> but I think it's objecting to AIX's System V-ish directories.  Before
> I get too carried away on this I thought I'd ask if anyone has already
> ported man.

    (see below on RPQ information on the "man" command.)
  
I have not tried to port the BSD man command, but lots of BSD based software
responds fairly well to the following:
  
  cc -DBSD -DBSD_INCLUDES -DBSD_REMAP_SIGNAL_TO_SIGVEC -o<foo> foo.c -lbsd

Those -D flags handle most of the include structure differences and
usually make the SYSV like AIX look more like a BSD system.

That SIGNAL_SIGVEC thing is to handle differences between BSD idea of
signal and the sigvec structure and calls.  Most times, not needed unless
the software is expecting BSD signal behaviour.

Sometimes a header or two is in the "wrong" place, usually the following
helps for the ones I have seen:

#ifdef AIX
  #include <sys/fcntl.h>  /* if needed open flags like O_RDWR used */
  #include <sys/syslog.h> /* if using syslog functions */
#else
   <original include locations of fcntl.. et. all>
#endif

If the software used termcap, add a "-ltermcap" to the cc.
Curses.. add -lcurses 

BUT.. that's only half the battle. You need the nroff SOURCES for the man
documents tailored for the RT and AIX's differences.

AIX has some rather unique ways of doing things, plus some commands 
unique to the RT and AIX, such as:
  cvid, backup, restore, minidisks, devices, display, 
  pstart, pdisable, pshare, pdelay, pstop,
  adduser, doswrite, dosread, tctl.
Plus others I have no doubt can't remember right now.

Also, commands with changes because of file locations and/or command
flag differences... these come to mind:
  tar -  has AIX unique flags, multi-volume support..
  sendmail - the cf file is rather different, and in a non-stanard location.
  chown -  the "-r" option only works with "Distributed Services" ..
           IBM's idea of a propritary NFS. (lead balloon :-)
  format - formats floppy disks only on AIX.
  process accounting - all different for AIX.
  error logging - unique to AIX.
  printing and queueing subsystem - all different, print, instead of lpr.
  uucp - files and setup is quite different.

I'm sure there are others I don't remember. :-) 

> 	Or was "man" actually part of AIX, and has, perhaps, been removed
> from my system (though I didn't see it on any of the install disk)?

I have the RT's at the office equiped with man, and the man files.
(No, I can't make it available, IBM copyright most likely won't let
 me distribute the installp disks, plus we had to PAY a fee to get
 the MAN disks. ) 
 
Aside...
( ANYBODY at IBM know how us RT'ers can keep AIX alive for each other?
 Now that offical IBM support for AIX and the RT has been dropped, 
 simple things like this could be nice to share. )

The man command was NOT shipped as standard for AIX, nor the man pages
sources.  It was made available as a RPQ (Request for Price Quotation)
meaning IBM would make it, if not already available for a fee.

RPQ's for the RT and AIX were not really made known very well, usually
only upon talking with the SE about a problem, and have them search
for a already prepared solution.  Otherwise if they could make a 
good business case for the problem, IBM *might* consider doing it for 
your company, and a very high fee via a special RPQ.

There were lots of special RPQ's for specialized hardware and 
software solutions.  Some very industry specific, and some dealing
with special customer requests for groups of machines to be upgraded
all at once, and other things like that.

Near as I can tell, IBM has purged the RPQ database of all RT related
RPQ information, at least, my SE could not find any info on a KNOWN RT
RPQ when I asked for information about it.

Later,
markw
-- 
M. Whetzel 
Home: markw@antimatr.hou.tx.us        | IBM RT/125 running AIX 2.2.1 
UUCP ..!uhnix1!lobster!antimatr!markw 
Re: man for AIX?
#1216
Author: Mike Stefanik
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 16:35
10 lines
732 bytes
In article, mrush@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matt "C P." Rush) writes:
>Does anyone have a "man" command running under AIX 2.2.1?

There were manual pages available from IBM, but the catch is that you
had to explicitly ask for them (our "official" man installation disks had
a hand-scrawled label :-)

-- 
Mike Stefanik  mike@pacsoft.com  ...!uunet!pacsoft!mike  (909) 681-2623
Pacific Software Group, Riverside, CA
Re: man for AIX?
#1212
Author: Mark Ryan Miller
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:17
26 lines
1809 bytes
Well, I've just ported a version of man onto AIX.  It was fairly
simple.  I had to play around with some includes.  The source
was from a pd unix archive.  If you like I can find out exactly
where I got it.  As for the pages themselves, if you can't get the 
nroff format, the program seems able to handle simple text if it's
already formatted.  And maybe there are some pd man pages :>

As for the question of support, I figure this newsgroup helps a lot.
Maybe if we worked on a faq, or had some kind of newsletter?
It's an interesting question about software.  What happens when
you have a system that is no longer supported.  I think some people
are more loose with source code, etc, since the company CAN'T
sell them the programs they need, so they're not exactly losing
any money.

But, there are a lot of PD programs out there that will work.
I've got man, gnu tar, working in the last few days.  I'm trying
to get xlisp and logo working.

Would anyone care to share their experience in porting software?
I've got AIX 2.2.1 with X Windows, and the standard C compiler,
but want to add lisp, and maybe something like LaTeX if I can
find it.  Is there anyone here who has ported most of the 
software on their system?

--Mark
Re: man for AIX?
#1213
Author: Mark Ryan Miller
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:20
14 lines
1116 bytes
Re support: since I am currently porting stuff to my RT, what I'm
planning to do is keep a list of what is necessary to do in order 
to port the software to the RT.

For example, for gnu tar, create your own mtio.h, etc....

Has anyone else already done this?

What about the RS6000 systems running  AIX??  Is the AIX similar
enough that our software problems are the same?  Or has AIX changed
so much that we're 2 different worlds?  Does subscribing to 
the aix groups provide useful information?

--Mark
Re: man for AIX?
#1217
Author: Robert Fickling
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 10:03
26 lines
1237 bytes
In article <1ho775INNpjp@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu> mrush@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matt "C P." Rush) writes:
>
>	Does anyone have a "man" command running under AIX 2.2.1?
>
>	I made a half-hearted attempt to get the BSD man command running,
>but I think it's objecting to AIX's System V-ish directories.  Before
>I get too carried away on this I thought I'd ask if anyone has already
>ported man.


 
 
I have man as well as man pages on my RT running AIX 2.1.1.
BRL had a man script, based on Spencer's 'awf' program. Got the man
pages (giant file) off a local BBS.
Believe it or not it works great!
BTW I don't think AIX ever had man.
 
In short BRL (Ballistic Research Labs) has a good man script that gave
my old RT man :-)
 

-- 
   Robert Fickling      
   Email: bigbob@netcom.com      
   Voice: 1-510-256-9259
Thread Navigation

This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.

Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.

Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.

Back to All Threads