[ale] Virtualizing SCO OpenServer 5.x

[Lightner, Jeff]

Sometimes it isn’t language but shared libraries and knowing where the binary is looking for them.  In FOSS one is used to having the source code (or being able to get it) for most things.  That wasn’t the case for nost apps on proprietary UNIX flavors like SCO.   You usually only had the binaries.

Even moving from one version of Linux to another one encounters this library issue on occasion but at least there are usually compat library packages that can be installed.

I loved SCO back in the early 90s but nobody should be using it now (especially since SCO itself went defunct).   Usually back then most vendors made their own BTLD (boot time loadable driver) disks so you could run SCO on their hardware.   Of course back then both TCP/IP and X-Windows were add-on packages you had to buy.   Back then I was able to get a *few* things from AT&T 386 Unix to work on SCO simply by copying binaries from one server to another.






From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Neal Rhodes
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 12:19 AM
To: mhw at WittsEnd.com; Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] Virtualizing SCO OpenServer 5.x

Mike probably has gotten farther with virtualization of SCO than I have.

First off, if you didn't have the very lastest final version of SCO, it didn't have hardware support for so much of what we now take for granted.    IDE, USB.    And does anyone remember how painful it was to recompile the kernel to add support for additional drivers?   I recall trying to install on maybe 5.0.4 and it was a flop.

Before you go down that road of trying to virtualize, I'd ask precisely WHY they cannot migrate to Linux.   I have had some good results migrating Business Basic applications and DBs intact to Linux systems from SCO.   It is a bit easier to convince the client to make this jump when their SCO hardware fries and all they have is a backup tape.    Are they truly on some dead-end language that cannot migrate?

Regarding transfer, I hate to give away my age, but what about hanging any desktop on a serial port and using Kermit?  Or UUCP?  Yes, it will take a while to transfer at 38400, but what's time to a pig?

Neal


On Tue, 2014-04-15 at 20:13 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote:



On Tue, 2014-04-15 at 19:17 -0400, Jim Lynch wrote:

> On 04/15/2014 03:21 PM, Beddingfield, Allen wrote:

> > I don't think there is enough free disk space on the original system to make that backup

> I don't have any SCO experience, but can you attach (and use) a USB

> harddrive?



Oh, I remember that too.  Yes and no.



Yes, you can (maybe) after getting the appropriate drivers enabled and

recompile the kernel with that.  I think I remember doing that.  Painful

experience.  I think I remember I gave up on the effort but that was a

long time ago.



No, in that SCO is not going to understand any ext* file system, Linux

is not (I don't think) understand that antiquated sv5* file system, and

VFAT, NTFS, or other lowest common denominator isn't going to cut it

because of file attributes (which is why I probably gave up).



You could do a tar backup to it (again - you gotta enable those drivers

and rebuild the kernel) on a VFAT file system (subject to file length

limits on VFAT) and then extract them.  I don't think I ever tried using

NTFS with SCO.



Neil Rhodes might have better advice.  He's also done work on SCO.  I

put this behind me over a decade ago.



> Jim



Regards,

Mike

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