Re: OpenBSD cvs -base build problems

[Peter Cooper]

On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 10:38:17AM +0100, Pete French wrote:
> > I had been asking about GNUstep on OpenBSD, and basically came to the
> > conclusion that it couldn't be done without a LOT of work and wouldn't
> > be done any time soon.
> 
> I'm curious - whats so different about OpenBSd that means it wont just
> compile and run "as-is".I was under the impression that OpenBSD was simply
> a BSD 4.4 fork for paranoid people and that there were no API differences,
> merely that it was secure "out of the box".

The kernel's got a lot more in common with the NetBSD kernel, for example,
which means that threading is a pain, compared to FreeBSD. I have some 
preliminary patches to get objc threading working with pth 2.0 on NetBSD,
with gcc 2.95.3 if anyone with an OpenBSD box is interested in trying them
out.

The toolchain is maintained by different people, so it often feels a bit
different to NetBSD, and therefore quite different to FreeBSD. There were
issues to do with the a.out vs ELF object files and shared library support
etc a while ago.

OpenBSD is much more than just a "distro", and it means that porting issues 
do come up from time to time. Just like any of the free Unixes, it's a moving
target too, so unless there's ongoing effort to keep up with the moving
target that is GNUstep, things just won't work.

HTH

Peter