Command Differences Between SunOS and Solaris

This document describes the differences you will encounter between the SunOS and Solaris command sets.

Command Differences

This section lists, in alphabetical order, changes in the standard UNIX commands between SunOS and Solaris. This list contains only those commands the ECN staff believes are of general interest; consult the Sun manual, System Transition Guide for Users, for a complete list of command differences.

Mail

This command is not available in Solaris. Similar functionality is provided by the mailx command. (Basically, the Berkeley/Sun Mail and mail commands have been renamed mailx.) You can place the command set bsdcompat in your ~/.mailrc to make mailx behave as it did on SunOS.

arch

This command is not available in Solaris. Similar functionality can be obtained by using the uname -m command, which gives output identical to the arch -k command. The uname command is also available in SunOS.

at

The -c option (use csh to execute the script) is not available in Solaris.

atq

In Solaris, only the jobs belonging to you will be displayed; it is no longer
possible to view the jobs belonging to other users.

bar

This command is not available in Solaris. Similar functionality is provided
by the tar command.

biff

This command is not available in Solaris. The equivalent of biff y is
chmod u+x `tty`, while the equivalent of biff n is chmod u-x `tty`.

cdmount

This command has been replaced by the Volume Manager, described in Chapter 6, Media Management.

df

The output from this command is formatted differently in Solaris, and it accepts a different set of options. Consult the manual page for details.

dosmount

This command has been replaced by the Volume Manager, described in Chapter 6, Media Management.

du

The SunOS version of this command reports disk usage in kilobytes (1024 bytes), while the Solaris version reports usage in 512-byte blocks. The -k option to the Solaris version enables output in units of kilobytes.

echo

In Bourne shell (sh) scripts only, the -n option is no longer supported in Solaris. Similar functionality is obtained by placing a \c on the end of the string to be echoed.

fdmount

This command has been replaced by the Volume Manager, described in Chapter 6, Media Management.

find

The -ls and -xdev options are not available in Solaris. The -ls option may be simulated by using the arguments -exec ls -gilds {} \;.

from

This command is not available in Solaris.

hostname

This command is not available in Solaris. The uname -n command provides similar functionality. The uname command is also available in SunOS, although this particular option to the command does not behave in quite the same way.

ksh

The Korn shell is provided by the ECN staff in /usr/unsup (/usr/unsup/bin) on SunOS; it is a standard part of Solaris.

leave

This command is not available in Solaris.

lpq

This command is not available in Solaris. The lpstat command provides similar functionality. See Chapter 5, Printing Changes.

lpr

This command is not available in Solaris. The lp command provides similar functionality. See Chapter 5, Printing Changes.

lprm

This command is not available in Solaris. The cancel command provides similar functionality. See Chapter 5, Printing Changes.

ls

In Solaris, the group ownership of the file is displayed by default when the -l option is given. The -g option disables the display of group ownership. In SunOS, the group ownership of the file is only displayed if both the -l and -g options are given. (In other words, the meaning of -g has been reversed.)

In SunOS, the -s option displays the size of the file in kilobytes (1024 bytes). In Solaris, the size of the file is displayed in 512-byte blocks. There is no command option to enable the use of kilobytes in this field.

mach

This command is not available in Solaris. It has been replaced by the uname -p command. The uname command is also available in SunOS, but the -p option is not supported.

mail

In SunOS, this command is the same as the Mail command. In Solaris, it refers to a basic mail program which is normally used only by other programs. The mailx command in Solaris provides similar functionality to the SunOS mail command.

man

The names of the chapter subdivisions have changed in Solaris.

In SunOS a manual section was simply specified on the command line as the first argument; in Solaris the -s option is used to specify a section.

pr

Several command line options have changed or been added in Solaris; consult the manual page for more information.

printenv

This command has been replaced by the env command in Solaris.

ps

The options to this command are completely different between Solaris and SunOS. The following table provides some commonly-used equivalents; consult the manual page for more details.

	SunOS         Solaris
	-----------------------
        ps          ps
        ps -x       ps -u yourlogin
        ps -ax      ps -e
        ps -axl     ps -el
        ps -axlww   ps -elf
        ps -t00     ps -t tty00
        ps -tp0     ps -t pts/0
        ps 12345    ps -p 12345

reset

This command is not available in Solaris. Similar functionality is provided by the stty sane command.

rlogin

In SunOS, the argument to the -e option is given with no intervening space as in -ec; in Solaris the option has an intervening space, as in -e c. To specify "no escape character" in SunOS the -e option was used with no character specified; the -E option is used (with no additional argument) in Solaris.

rm

The ECN staff has normally replaced the standard version of this command with a locally written version that places removed files in /zap. With the conversion to the CUE, we will be using a different version of this command that places files in a special location when they are removed. They can be "unremoved" by using the new unrm command.

screendump

This command is not available in Solaris. Similar functionality is provided by the xwd command in OpenWindows and X11.

stty

The names of several modes have changed between SunOS and Solaris; consult the manual page for full details. The table below provides equivalents for some commonly-used modes.

                
     
      SunOS         Solaris
     __________________________
     crt          no equivalent
     crterase        echoe
     crtkill         echoke
     ctlecho         echoctl
     everything      -a

talk

There are two versions of the talk protocol - the original, which is used on Solaris, has problems when talking with machines that use a different internal data representation. The newer version, sometimes called ntalk, fixes these problems. The CUE specifies that the new version of talk be installed in /usr/ local/bin; this version works best for on-campus use. However, because other off-campus sites may not use this version (it is not shipped by Sun), we have left the Sun standard (old) version of talk in /usr/bin. Thus, if you simply type talk, you will get the new version; if you have trouble talking to a friend at an off-campus site, you might try using /usr/bin/ talk instead.

tset

This command is not available in Solaris. Similar functionality for terminal setup (setting tabs, etc.) is provided by the tput init command.

vacation

The usage of this command has changed between SunOS and Solaris; consult the manual page for details.

whoami

This command is not available in Solaris. The id command provides similar functionality.

Using Third-Party Software From A SunOS System

Because we have not yet received the Solaris versions of some of the third-party software packages we support, you may have to use a SunOS system to run these packages. This section describes some ways to do this.

Non-Windowing Packages

Packages that do not use a window system, but rather just use a ``dumb terminal'' interface, are the simplest to deal with. You can just start up an xterm or shelltool window, log in to a SunOS system using the rlogin command, and then use the package as you normally would.

For example, to use Maple to calculate the integral of an expression, you might perform the following steps. (Note that you don't really need to do this for Maple, since Maple is available on Solaris.)

        solaris_host% rlogin sunos-host

        ....message of the day, etc...

        sunos-host% maple
            |\^/|      MAPLE V
        ._|\|   |/|_.  Copyright (c) 1981-1990 by the University of Waterloo.
         \  MAPLE  /   All rights reserved.  MAPLE is a registered trademark of
         <____ ____>   Waterloo Maple Software.
              |        Type ? for help.
        > 4*x**3 + 12*x**2 + 9*x + 11;

                                       3       2
                                    4 x  + 12 x  + 9 x + 11

        > int(", x);


                                    4      3        2
                                   x  + 4 x  + 9/2 x  + 11 x

        > quit;
        bytes used=117964, alloc=131048, time=.166
        sunos-host% ^D
        solaris-host%

As a second example, to use ACSL to run the file pendlm.csl and generate a PostScript plot, you might perform the following steps.

        solaris_host% rlogin sunos-host

        ....message of the day, etc...

        sunos-host% acsl pendlm
        Start Translation step
         ACSL Model File: pendlm.csl
            List on File: stdout
            Compile from: pendlm.f
            Include from: pendlm.inc
             Table Space: 100000
            Options Used:
              Macro File: /home/ups3/SYSTEM/acsl10d/bin/acslm.bin
        Start Fortran step
        pendlm.f:
         MAIN main:
         BLOCK DATA zzdata:
                zzsiml:
                zzderv:
        Start Link step
        Start Run step
         Automatic startup disabled.
         Unable to open file: pendlm.cmd
        ACSL>prepare t, th, thd, thdd
        ACSL>set kdamp = 0.01
        ACSL>start
        ACSL>set plt = 15             set plot file unit number
        ACSL>set devplt = 5           set plot device to PostScript
        ACSL>plot th, thd
        n Opening new plot unit number 15 as (plot15)
        ACSL>quit
        STOP: End ACSL run
        sunos-host% ^D
        solaris-host%

It should probably be noted that for this particular example (ACSL), we could also have used the Tektronix plot output mode, if we had used an xterm in ``4014'' mode to log in to the remote host.

Windowing Packages

Windowing packages are somewhat more complicated, because you have to tell them how to display their windows on your local workstation, even though you are logged in to some other host.

SunView Packages

SunView, because it is not a networked window system, does not allow programs running on a remote host to create windows on the local host. This means that you cannot use SunView programs from a remote host to display on your Solaris system. Most packages run under X11 or OpenWindows, and are described in the next section.

X11 and OpenWindows Packages

X11 and OpenWindows both allow programs running on remote hosts to create windows on the local display. To set this up, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Enable the remote host to create windows on the local display. If you are using OpenWindows, this step is not necessary. If you are using xauth under X11, this step is not necessary. If you are not using xauth under X11 (or if you're not sure), you need to use the xhost command to allow the remote host (the one running SunOS) to create windows on the local display. To do this, type:

                % xhost +sunos-host
   

   Once you are done using the package, you may want to remove access for this host again; to do this type:

                % xhost -sunos-host
   

2. Log in to the remote host (the one running SunOS).

3. Set your DISPLAY environment variable so that it indicates your local host (the one running Solaris), display number zero. This can be done with the command

                setenv DISPLAY solaris-host:0
   
        in the C shell (csh), and with the commands
   
                DISPLAY=solaris-host:0
                export DISPLAY
   
        in the Bourne shell (sh) and Korn shell (ksh).
   

4. Execute the package as you normally would.

For example, to use MATLAB to plot a vector, you might perform the following steps. (Note that you don't really need to do this for MATLAB, since it is available for Solaris.)

        solaris-host% xhost +sunos-host               allow display access
        solaris_host% rlogin sunos-host

        ....message of the day, etc...

        sunos-host% setenv DISPLAY solaris-host:0     set display variable
        sunos-host% matlab

                                    < M A T L A B (tm) >
                        (c) Copyright 1984-92 The MathWorks, Inc.
                                    All Rights Reserved
                                       Version 4.0a
                                        Dec 11 1992

        This is the Engineering Computer Network at Purdue University.

        Problems?  Contact your site specialist for release notes or other help.

        Commands to get started: intro, demo, help help
        Commands for more information: help, whatsnew, info, subscribe

        >> a = [ 0 2 4 6 8 1 3 5 9];
        >> plot(a);

        a plot now displays in an X window...

        >> quit

         187 flops.

        sunos-host% ^D
        solaris-host% xhost -sunos-host               disallow display access
        solaris-host%

As another example, to use Mathematica to plot an equation, you might perform the following steps. (Note that you don't really need to do this for Mathematica, since it is available for Solaris.)

        solaris-host% xhost +sunos-host               allow display access
        solaris_host% rlogin sunos-host

        ....message of the day, etc...

        sunos-host% setenv DISPLAY solaris-host:0     set display variable
        sunos-host% math
        Mathematica 2.1 for SPARC
        Copyright 1988-92 Wolfram Research, Inc.
         -- Motif graphics initialized --

	In[1] : = 3*x^4 + 2*x^3 + x^2 + 5*x + 2

                           2      3      4
        Out[1]= 2 + 5 x + x  + 2 x  + 3 x

        In[2]:= Plot[Out[1], {x, 1, 10}]

        Out[2]= -Graphics-

        a plot now displays in an X window...

        In[3]:= Exit[]
        sunos-host% ^D
        solaris-host% xhost -sunos-host               disallow display access
        solaris-host%

Generally, the steps are the same regardless of what command you want to use. First allow the remote host to access your display using xhost (if necessary), then log in to the remote host and set your DISPLAY environment variable to reference the local host, and then execute the program.

DWB Troff and Sun Troff

The ECN-maintained version of the troff family of programs, Documentor's Workbench 2.0, is installed in /usr/local/bin/dwb. However, Solaris also comes with a version of device-independent troff ; it is installed in /usr/bin. If the /usr/local/bin/dwb directory comes before the /usr/bin directory in your search path, you will be using the ECN versions of the troff,eqn,tbl, and pic commands. If however the /usr/local/bin/dwb directory comes after the /usr/bin directory in your search path, you will be using the Sun versions of these commands. Both sets of commands work, however you may receive slightly different results depending on which version you use.

Special Note for -mm Users When using the -mm macro package, it is common to include a line such as

        .so /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.m

at the top of your file. This is a poor practice, because it means that if the name of this file ever changes, or it is stored in a different directory, your document will no longer format correctly until you change this line. Just such a change has taken place with Solaris, and the names of the macro files have been changed. This means that you will need to change your .so lines to accommodate this change.

If you would like to include the standard version of the -mm macro package, you should use the line

        .so /usr/lib/tmac/m 

in your files. Using this version of the macro package means that if you take your document to a non-ECN host (or send it to a friend), it will format correctly.

If you would like to include the ECN-modified version of the -mm macro package, you should use the line

        .so /usr/local/lib/dwb/tmac/tmac.m 

in your files. Using this version of the macro package means that your document may not format correctly on a non-ECN system, because of local modifications.

In order to ease with this transition, we have placed a link from /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.m to /usr/local/lib/dwb/tmac/tmac.m so that your documents will continue to format as you expect. However, this is a temporary link, and it will be removed on December 31, 1994. You should make sure you change all your .so lines before that date if you wish to continue using the ECN-modified version of the -mm macros.

If you would like to avoid having to do this again in the future, you should consider changing your files so that they do not use .so to include the macro package at all, and instead use the -mm command line option to troff.