Porting Unix Software (Nutshell Handbook) - Softcover

Lehey, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565921267 ISBN 13: 9781565921269

Publisher: O′Reilly, 1995

Synopsis

If you work on a UNIX system, a good deal of your most useful software comes from other people -- your vendor is not the source. This means, all too often, that the software you want was written for a slightly different system and that it has to be ported. Despite the best efforts of standards committees and the admirable people who write the software (often giving it away for free), something is likely to go wrong when you try to compile their source code. But help is now here!Problems can crop up at any stage in porting. Special configuration is often required before you compile. The source code could call functions that you've never heard of. Some programs make assumptions about the hardware they're running on or the terminals they interact with. And you may even have trouble with the documentation, if it's in a format you're not used to.This book deals with the whole life cycle of porting, from setting up a source tree on your system to correcting platform differences and even testing the executable after it's built. The book exhaustively discusses the differences between versions of UNIX and the areas where porters tend to have problems.The assumption made in this book is that you just want to get a package working on your system; you don't want to become an expert in the details of your hardware or operating system (much less an expert in the system used by the person who wrote the package!). Many problems can be solved without a knowledge of C or UNIX, while the ones that force you to deal directly with source code are explained as simply and concretely as possible.Topics covered in this book include:

• Unpacking the software
• Common configuration tasks
• Incompatibilities in makefiles and compilers
• Building documentation
• Variations in system calls, file systems, terminal handling, and other kernel features
• Commonly used libraries
• Compiler and assembler files

About this title

From the Publisher

This book deals with the whole life cycle of porting, from setting up a source tree on your system to correcting platform differences and even testing the executable after it's built. It exhaustively discusses the differences between versions of UNIX and the areas where porters tend to have problems.

About the Author

Greg Lehey is an independent computer consultant specializing in UNIX. Born in Australia, he was educated in Malaysia and England before studying chemistry in Germany and chemical engineering in England. He has spent his professional career in Germany, where he worked for computer manufacturers such as Univac and Tandem, the German space research agency, nameless software houses, and a large user before deciding to work for himself. In the course of over 20 years in the industry he has performed most jobs you can think of, ranging from kernel support to product marketing, systems programming to operating, processing satellite data to programming gasoline pumps. About the only thing he hasn't done is write commercial software. He is currently engaged in the production of CD-ROMs of ported free software, and this book is one result of his experience in this area. He is available for short-term contracts and can be reached by mail at grog@lemis.de.

Edition details

• Publisher: O′Reilly
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1565921267
• ISBN 13: 9781565921269
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 515