$Id: porting,v 1.1 1996/03/20 20:01:26 paul Exp $

Porting software onto Solaris Minix
-----------------------------------

  Although most of Minix's existing software can be ported to Solaris
Minix without any alterations, there are execeptions The following
list of observations should be used as a guide when porting any Minix
software.

  - Any assembly language programs must be rewritten.
  
  - Executable files in Sun machine code tend to be larger than their
    equivalents (eg. INTEL) for other machines.  This is partly due to
    the extra relocation information that is required.  Any programs
    that rely on executable file sizes may need to have more memory
    allocated.
  
  - Any function that has a variable number of arguments might cause
    problems if it relies on all arguments being on the stack.  This is
    because the SPARC passes the first 6 parameters in its registers,
    rather than on the stack.  Programs that use <stdargs.h> correctly
    will be OK. 
    
  - Most software will work regardless of the number of bits there are
    in an integer (32-bits on the Suns).  However, some programs freely
    interchange shorts and ints as if they were the same.  A difficult
    to detect problem occurs when a function's caller supplies a
    reference parameter to a short when the callee expects a reference
    parameter for an integer.

To compile software for SunOS Minix you must:

  (1) Use mcc to compile and link the program under SunOS.

  (2) Use sunread to copy the executable to a Minix file system.

See ./manual for more information on these commands.
