From: markw@antimatr.hou.tx.us (Mark Whetzel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: man for AIX?
Summary: Man command WAS available as a RPQ
Date: 29 Dec 92 11:09:10 GMT
Organization: StarTrek and Lionel trains fan, Missouri City, TX

In article <1ho775INNpjp@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu>, mrush@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matt "C P." Rush) writes:
 
> 	Does anyone have a "man" command running under AIX 2.2.1?

> 	I made a half-hearted attempt to get the BSD man command running,
> but I think it's objecting to AIX's System V-ish directories.  Before
> I get too carried away on this I thought I'd ask if anyone has already
> ported man.

    (see below on RPQ information on the "man" command.)
  
I have not tried to port the BSD man command, but lots of BSD based software
responds fairly well to the following:
  
  cc -DBSD -DBSD_INCLUDES -DBSD_REMAP_SIGNAL_TO_SIGVEC -o<foo> foo.c -lbsd

Those -D flags handle most of the include structure differences and
usually make the SYSV like AIX look more like a BSD system.

That SIGNAL_SIGVEC thing is to handle differences between BSD idea of
signal and the sigvec structure and calls.  Most times, not needed unless
the software is expecting BSD signal behaviour.

Sometimes a header or two is in the "wrong" place, usually the following
helps for the ones I have seen:

#ifdef AIX
  #include <sys/fcntl.h>  /* if needed open flags like O_RDWR used */
  #include <sys/syslog.h> /* if using syslog functions */
#else
   <original include locations of fcntl.. et. all>
#endif

If the software used termcap, add a "-ltermcap" to the cc.
Curses.. add -lcurses 

BUT.. that's only half the battle. You need the nroff SOURCES for the man
documents tailored for the RT and AIX's differences.

AIX has some rather unique ways of doing things, plus some commands 
unique to the RT and AIX, such as:
  cvid, backup, restore, minidisks, devices, display, 
  pstart, pdisable, pshare, pdelay, pstop,
  adduser, doswrite, dosread, tctl.
Plus others I have no doubt can't remember right now.

Also, commands with changes because of file locations and/or command
flag differences... these come to mind:
  tar -  has AIX unique flags, multi-volume support..
  sendmail - the cf file is rather different, and in a non-stanard location.
  chown -  the "-r" option only works with "Distributed Services" ..
           IBM's idea of a propritary NFS. (lead balloon :-)
  format - formats floppy disks only on AIX.
  process accounting - all different for AIX.
  error logging - unique to AIX.
  printing and queueing subsystem - all different, print, instead of lpr.
  uucp - files and setup is quite different.

I'm sure there are others I don't remember. :-) 

> 	Or was "man" actually part of AIX, and has, perhaps, been removed
> from my system (though I didn't see it on any of the install disk)?

I have the RT's at the office equiped with man, and the man files.
(No, I can't make it available, IBM copyright most likely won't let
 me distribute the installp disks, plus we had to PAY a fee to get
 the MAN disks. ) 
 
Aside...
( ANYBODY at IBM know how us RT'ers can keep AIX alive for each other?
 Now that offical IBM support for AIX and the RT has been dropped, 
 simple things like this could be nice to share. )

The man command was NOT shipped as standard for AIX, nor the man pages
sources.  It was made available as a RPQ (Request for Price Quotation)
meaning IBM would make it, if not already available for a fee.

RPQ's for the RT and AIX were not really made known very well, usually
only upon talking with the SE about a problem, and have them search
for a already prepared solution.  Otherwise if they could make a 
good business case for the problem, IBM *might* consider doing it for 
your company, and a very high fee via a special RPQ.

There were lots of special RPQ's for specialized hardware and 
software solutions.  Some very industry specific, and some dealing
with special customer requests for groups of machines to be upgraded
all at once, and other things like that.

Near as I can tell, IBM has purged the RPQ database of all RT related
RPQ information, at least, my SE could not find any info on a KNOWN RT
RPQ when I asked for information about it.

Later,
markw
-- 
M. Whetzel 
Home: markw@antimatr.hou.tx.us        | IBM RT/125 running AIX 2.2.1 
UUCP ..!uhnix1!lobster!antimatr!markw 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt