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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!darkstar.UCSC.EDU!news.hal.COM!olivea!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!csusac!csus.edu!netcom.com!netcomsv!hood.paros.com!metro.atlanta.com!henri.mindspring.com!usenet From: rsanders@mindspring.com (Robert Sanders) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux's primitive C library (was Re: 386BSD Remarkable?) Date: 30 Aug 1994 18:11:00 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Lines: 63 Message-ID: <RSANDERS.94Aug30141100@hrothgar.mindspring.com> References: <FOO-MAN.94Aug23191512@raven.raven.csrv.uidaho.edu> <Cv5u8o.CEn@calcite.rhyolite.com> <1994Aug27.175807.20821@cs.brown.edu> <RSANDERS.94Aug28172938@hrothgar.mindspring.com> <1994Aug29.024254.14252@cs.brown.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hrothgar.mindspring.com In-reply-to: mhw@cs.brown.edu's message of Mon, 29 Aug 1994 02:42:54 GMT On Mon, 29 Aug 1994 02:42:54 GMT, mhw@cs.brown.edu (Mark Weaver) said: > In terms of BSD compatibility, it leaves a lot to be desired. > There are a lot of missing header files, for example. The bottom Missing, or different? Some of the more esoteric networking headers aren't included in the standard libc distribution (a real omission, I admit), but I certainly don't have any trouble compiling J. Random Program. > line is really that I can compile just about anything "out of the > box" on NetBSD, but most things need to be ported to Linux. NetBSD's > libc does a good job of both BSD and POSIX, so it's great for now > and for the future. I get "out of the box" behavior for most programs, especially those that were developed under Linux. I'm sure you can say the same for *BSD :-) Linux has a very BSD-compatible libc (it's derived from glibc), although I think some of the new 4.4BSD additions haven't yet found their way in. > Strictly speaking, this isn't Linux's "fault". It's just that BSD > has been around a lot longer. But if you don't want to waste a > lot of your time porting programs, Linux can be a pain. Most people find it relatively painLESS. It's certainly much less a pain than porting to HP-UX, Solaris, or SCO. Besides, there's a relatively large Linux community out there doing whatever work needs doing for you. I find Linux ports of some of the strangest programs -- for example, the Concurrent Clean functional language compiler. > NetBSD is busy refining their libc while Linux is still getting > their's fully functional. I have full confidence that the Linuxers I disagree. Linux's libc is fully functional, and being "refined" as well. What functionality isn't there? > Their curses library sucks because it has no optimization to speak > of. Nvi, which uses curses, redraws the entire screen every time > it scrolls a line. nvi under Linux uses its own curses, the one from 4.4BSD. The behavior you see may be the fault of an incomplete termcap entry, or it may be BSD curses' fault. I'm certainly not pointing fingers. > Also, they're using gdbm. Am I correct in suspecting that Berkeley's > new dbm is better? For some tasks, yes. I find that gdbm is somewhat more compact, and comparably fast for everything I do. The new BSD db library is nice, but all the big complaints about ndbm (fixed key and datum sizes, for example) are addressed quite well by gdbm. BSD db really wins if you have to share db files between machines of differing byte-order. I think it doesn't leave holes in the files, either, but that's not so big a deal. BSD db is available for Linux, it's just not part of the shared C library. For most people, stuffing it in isn't worth the loss of binary compatibility or the addition of another major shared library revision. -- Robert