I'd be surprised if commercial app developers would do this for platforms
like Solaris - the swmtool and package manager are too tightly
interwoven with the rest of the subsystem. Even the patches are
added via pkgadd in some places!
Anyway, I have just learnt how to generate Solaris packages,
does that mean I now have to do the same for RPM?!
I would then have to have *two* package databases to monitor...
> As an aside, the commercial UNIX vendors are under
> increasing pressure as people run Linux at home and question
> why the commercial UNIX environment at work lacks the same
> rich functionality.
Haha! I'd best not throw my hat in the ring here ;)
I'm a Solaris bigot. A "rich functionality" is purely in the eye
of the beholder. Linux does not support Adobe Display Postscript
in it's graphic environment for example ;)
Running Solaris, Linux and WinNT side by side, it is easy to see which fonts
are rendered the best - even with the fontsmoother in NT/Win95 ;)
> Witness the incorporation of large
> amounts of freeely-distributable software into the last few
> versions of Digital UNIX.
Any of which is freely available on the net, or in ready-to install
CD packs. All my Solaris systems use plenty of that free stuff!
> In much the same way as the BSD set the pace for commercial
> UNIX implementors, Linux is increasingly setting the pace
> now.
Partly agreed, but Linux itself is fragmenting,
that's why I am moving away from it now, myself....
That is the key problem with UNIX though - it is a fragmented product.
There are literally 100's of ways of doing the same thing, from the
command line to the most sophisticated windowing environment.
The only big advantage that the gates-virus has over UNIX is the CUA paradigm.
(Common User Access).
Under UNIX, the CDE (Common Desktop Environment) is starting to go some way
toward fixing this, but alas, Linux competes with it itself, and this product
by providing typically 7 or 8 different packages that all do roughly
the same thing as CDE!
UNIX will always be out of step with itself, but I still love it ;)
This whole argument is getting out of step too - we have gone full circle from
about 6 months ago, where I think the user interface of various bits of
software on various systems was previously discussed!
rachel
-- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove@zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au/ccd/ "Yow! Am I having fun yet?!" - John Howard^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Zippy the Pinhead