Cross-Compile Xenix on ISC?

[George Bron Faison]

Ray Shwake uunet!media!ka3ovk!raysnec!shwake - shwake at rsxtech writes:
>
>>Is it possible (and what's involved) to compile Xenix binaries on
>>an Interactive UNIX system.  Since ISC seems to run most Xenix
>>software OK, can one just buy the Xenix development stuff and run it under
>>ISC?  
>
>	Since you already have ISC, I would suggest instead that you go
>with ISC's Development System. I've had numerous programs "break" under
>SCO Xenix/386 SDS (ksh-i for one) which ISC handles without problem. ISC
>includes a number of advanced facilities (like ETI, a superset of curses,
>and cscope). The compilers further carry assumptions about kernel structures,
>filesystems, etc. that may not hold for the two environments, and indeed
>the two split their include files differently between Runtime and SDS.
>
>	The one advantage of the Xenix SDS is the option to create DOS
>binaries. Our own attempts to create such binaries from non-trivial source
>have had limited success. Tests on Xenix/386 systems running 2.3.1+, which
>I hope are those you will be using, show success running ISC binaries.
>
>	Finally, unless recent info has changed ISC's SDS is cheaper than
>SCO's. We do ISV work here using the two packages and are not beholden to
>either vendor.
>

Thanks to all who responded.  Especially Ray, Alan Mintz, Jim Castleberry,
and David Hoopes.

The general tenor of the advice was as given above.  Almost everyone said,
stick with ISC, most stuff compiled under ISC should run fine on Xenix
systems, with possible exception of older release which might not support
COFF format.  Several pointed out that for networking stuff, all bets are
off, and that minor tinkering might be required in some cases.

Thanks to all.  this info will save me a lot of time and grief!

Bron Faison	( bron at cup.portal.com )
Voice: (804) 730-1467