On Sunday 21 December 2008 14:20:49 Joerg Schilling wrote: > Mark Kirkwood <mar...@paradise.net.nz> wrote: > > LOL - Joerg was just making a point that GNU variant of cp is a little > > different from the 'standard' UNIX (hmm - is there really such a > > thing?) version of cp. Err, on this list the point is a little oblique > > to say the least - since all Linux userland is GNU. > > Which is a problem as the GNU tools do not support Linux specific features. > For this reason, GNU cp cannot copy all file metadata on Linux.... > > It seems that people don't like me because I do write portable software > that supports Linux specific features and that allow to do better than > software that is unaware of platform specific features.
You are running into the age-old battle between being provably correct and some other party being merely "good enough" Unfortunately in human societies it's almost always the latter that seems to win > > P.s : As a Freebsd desktop user myself, I can get what Joerg is saying, > > but for the majority of purely Linux users on this list, the point is > > probably lost. > > If you are on Solaris, things are even more obscure as people sometimes > incorrectly set up their PATH and by accident call the GNU tools that > do not support Solaris specific features. > > I thought that people should be interested in learning that it is bad to > give advise based on generic third party tools without telling that > the tool is neither a local tool nor the generic UNIX tool. Gcp is > a third party tool on Linux and there is no generic Linux cp ;-) There is indeed no native Linux tools, because Linux is just a kernel. The userland is whatever the user decides to put on the machine; talking about "Linux behaviour" is usually a nonsensical statement as there is no such thing. What does exist is "GNU userland behaviour" and that at least is mostly standardized. But put a BusyBox userland on atop a Linux kernel and you get a different set of behaviours I find it makes much more sense to not mention the OS much, rather state the userland in use and code to that -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
