*BSD News Article 51659


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux or FreeBSD
Date: 18 Sep 1995 00:01:34 +0200
Organization: Private FreeBSD site, Dresden.
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References: <409iah$inf@galaxy.ucr.edu> <40alp5$psg@agate.berkeley.edu> <41ogs7$jui@park.uvsc.edu> <1995Sep7.221221.28091@state.systems.sa.gov.au>
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 <chdemgt@state.systems.sa.gov.au> wrote:

>A lot of the FreeBSD software is broken.  That even includes sh, which
>can't handle the config scripts for some common packages.  And make.  You
>need to chuck it out and install GNU make.  And a few other very basic
>things.

sh is as broken as bash wrt. Posix.  The only shell Posix has blessed
(including all its illnesses) is The Only True Korn Shell.

While the feature of FreeBSD 2.0.5's make to barf about lines
containing solely of a TAB has been removed now, it made it apparent
how many _Makefiles_ are actually broken in this way!  Go, read the
Posix docs.  They are weird.  After reading them, you won't know
exactly whether a line consisting of a TAB would has to be executed
"as if it were by sh -c" or not. :-) Anyway, don't forget: it's
basically the Makefiles that are braindead (what the heck should a
line consisting only of a tab be?  i guess it's vi(1) cruft).
-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)