[geeks] Irix binary compatibility in NetBSD

Greg A. Woods woods at weird.com
Tue Aug 13 12:16:04 CDT 2002


[ On Monday, August 12, 2002 at 23:43:40 (-0400), Joshua D Boyd wrote: ]
> Subject: [geeks] Irix binary compatibility in NetBSD
>
> http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2002/08/08/irix.html
> 
> Woah!  Didn't expect to see that.

Huh?  What do you mean?  The fact that the article was written and
published, or the fact that the compatability layer was implemented in
NetBSD?  If the latter then you've obviously not been paying enough
attention to NetBSD.  One of its primary stated goals is
"Interoperability with other systems".  To quote the web page:

               Interoperability with other systems

   Good design and correct implementation are only part of the
   story. NetBSD is also highly interoperable with other systems.

Binary emulation

   NetBSD provides a binary emulation system, which permits directly
   running binaries for other UNIX-like operating systems, including
   FreeBSD, HP-UX, Interactive UNIX, Linux, OSF/1, SCO UNIX, SunOS,
   System V Release 4, Solaris and Ultrix on the same CPU type. For
   example, any NetBSD/m68k based platform can run SunOS binaries for
   Sun 3 and 3x systems (but not SunOS binaries for SPARC or UltraSPARC
   systems), while NetBSD/sparc can run SunOS and Solaris binaries for
   SPARC systems. [Note: for dynamically linked binaries, the dynamic
   linker and libraries from the emulated operating system are usually
   required.]

   In addition, the WINE package and doscmd package permit running of
   Windows and MS-DOS applications, and the Linux version of Executor
   can be used to run MacOS applications.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;           <woods at robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>



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