Very Computer

The company has bought a Xenix program for use in its ships, yet it
has to run a copy at the base, which has SCO Unix. Is there any way
SCO UNIX could run it or do we have to install Xenix here too?

Regards,
 - Alex

P.S. Please reply via e-mail too.

My understanding is that Xenix binaries run well under Unix.  However,
not all do.  Why not install the Xenix application under Unix, and
find out.

Good luck

Harry Fine

Harry Fine
Toronto, Canada

Quote:Alexander Karelas writes:

> Is there any way I can put this Xenix program we have to work on SCO
> Unix?

Quote:> The company has bought a Xenix program for use in its ships, yet it
> has to run a copy at the base, which has SCO Unix. Is there any way
> SCO UNIX could run it or do we have to install Xenix here too?

--

I would like to think that you are correct, and I know of your
credentials.  I am currently upgading from Xenix 2.3.4 to Unix OS5
Enterprise.  You may have seen a few of my queries on the Compuserve
forums lately.  I phoned Wordperfect, to see if I could continue using
WP for Xenix, 5.0 when I make the switch.  They tell me that I can't.
I will probably be buing the GUI version WP 6/5.2+, so it doesn't
matter much anyways since I will have the text-based 5.2, but I was
wondering which was true.

I use Real World Software for accounting, and it uses a runtime module
for Cobol, which I was also told by the vendor will PROBABLY run under
Unix, but that I might have to buy the new Unix Cobol Runtime Module
which is optimized for the Unix kernel.  I guess I won't know till I
try it all.  As always, thanks for your comments.

Harry Fine

Harry Fine
Toronto, Canada

        Installation programs that check for specific releases of
        Xenix/UNIX.

        Programs that are expecting certain files (that they have no
        business to :-) to be in certain places.

In general, filling in the blanks for these programs works.

Of course, in many cases, upgrading to the newer release of the application,
if available, will cure many ailiments.
--
Jim Sullivan                            
SCO Canada, Inc. Toronto, Ontario        UNIX is a registered trademark of

416 960 4042 (922 8397 for fax)               "The Dust has Settled"
--
Jim Sullivan

   In general, yes, SCO Unix can run Xenix binaries.  There are a
few exceptions, but most programs, probably including this unknown
program your company has bought, will work.
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen M. Dunn, CNE, ACE, Sr. Systems Analyst, United System Solutions Inc.
104 Carnforth Road, Toronto, ON, Canada M4A 2K7          (416) 750-7946 x251

   I'm not sure if there are any bits of the Xenix ABI which are
not carried over to Unix ... even if Unix provides a 100% faithful
implementation of the Xenix ABI (more on that later), it's still easy
to write a program which will refuse to run properly on Unix if you
really want to.

   For example, some utilities may be in a different directory
on the two operating systems.  Look for "more" sometime on Xenix
and on Unix, for example; if memory serves, it's in /usr/bin
on Xenix and /bin on Unix.  All I have to do is write a program
which is hard-coded to expect that more is in /usr/bin, rather
than looking down the path for it, and it won't work properly on
Unix.  Yes, it would be a stupid decision to write such a
program, but it's a very trivial example of a Xenix program which
doesn't work quite like you'd expect on Unix.

   A somewhat less silly example might be a program which expects
to do odd things with the print spooler.  I personally don't like
such programs, and I do recall WordPerfect wants to know far
more about print spooling than it ought to, but I don't remember just
how much it wants to know.  I think there are some differences in the
print spooling system between the two OSes, aren't there?  It's
been a while since I did a Xenix->Unix upgrade and had to worry
about this.

   Or you could write some program which, you decide, needs
to read directory entries directly, rather than using standard
APIs for it.  Write such a program to understand the Xenix
filesystem, and try running it on an EAFS filesystem with symbolic
links and long filenames, and see what happens.

   See?  There are lots of ways you can write a Xenix program which
technically runs properly on Unix (as in it uses all correct API
calls) but which includes some broken assumptions which make it
not run as you'd expect.

   I have an old manual here from Unix 3.2.2.  Its release notes
say that there is support for
- binaries developed for Xenix System V/386, release 2.2.0 or
  later
- binaries developed for Xenix System V/286, release 2.0 or later
- binaries developed for Xenix System V/8086, release 2.0 or later

   It also says that there are differences in the ptrace(),
ulimit(), and uname() system calls function somewhat
differently on Unix and on Xenix.

   So all in all, it looks like the ABI support is very close to,
but not quite, 100% in that old version of SCO Unix.
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen M. Dunn, CNE, ACE, Sr. Systems Analyst, United System Solutions Inc.
104 Carnforth Road, Toronto, ON, Canada M4A 2K7          (416) 750-7946 x251

You might want to tame the WP printing system, because out of the box it
wants to interact with the lp-spooler. The trick is to use the external
spooler option. Let WP process the data and deliver the processed data
to "lp -dprintername -oraw". Make sure the "raw" options just passes the
data to the printer, without further processing. This has one drawback:
WP can't tell you the status of the printjob and you can't manage the
printqueue from within WP. You have to use lp for that.

I'm not sure, but I seem to remember there were a few subtile changes to
SCO-Ansi between Xenix and Unix. If so, you will have to incorporate these
changes in the SCO-Ansi term definition WP uses.

--

                                             |
ECHELON consultancy and software development | phone: +31 (0)53 48 36 585
PO Box 545, 7500AM Enschede, The Netherlands | fax:   +31 (0)53 43 37 415

a.) vi   - works under Unix
b.) crypt - works under Unix
c.) isql ( Informix SQL database engine ) - fails under Unix

    dies with "unknown message number ###"

I guess it depends what system calls ( how a program requests services
from the operating system ) a program uses and if a Xenix program issues
a system call which is different or not present under Unix your programs
will crash or produce unpredicted results.

To make a statement about this you would need to know more about your
application - what program language, compiler, system calls etc. etc.

I would strongly recommend against running an application compiled under
Xenix, just copy to Unix and expect it to run.

Regards,

Samartha

But programs which are using system calls like semaphore locking, file
locking or messages between processes