Xenix vs. UNIX

Conor P. Cahill cpcahil at virtech.uucp
Thu Jun 28 09:27:00 AEST 1990


In article <4716 at thebes.Thalatta.COM> campbell at Thalatta.COM (Bill Campbell) writes:
>The Computer Language article also complained that Xenix was not
>totally UNIX compatible.  I have been using Xenix since 1982,
>starting on the Tandy Model 16.  I have never found any significant
>portability problems going from Xenix to UNIX System III or V
>that weren't caused by System V changing things for the better
>such as:
>	grep -y being replaced by grep -i (ignore case)
>

One of the big problems xenix has is in porting stuff from other UNIX systems
to it.  The xenix compiler has alot of problems with large source files, 
complicated #define macros, etc.  I am speaking from experience when I 
tried to port an office automation package to Xenix 2.2.? and ran into 
several brick walls, while the port to System V.3 (Bell Tech) of the same
product just took around 4 days (it was 29MB of source).

Going the other way should be much easier (which is obvious from your
posting).

SCO UNIX (with its inclusion of the standard AT&T compiler) should alleviate
many of these problems.

-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
uunet!virtech!cpcahil                           46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160
                                                Sterling, VA 22170 



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