On Mon, 22 Dec 1997, Eric W. Bates wrote:

: The SunOS emulation works quite well.
: 
: However, Adobe's Acrobat Reader (I'm in the process of installing
: FrameMaker; so I expect the same problem will crop up) and it refuses
: to run the SunOS version because it doesn't recognize the current OS.
: 
: # bin/acroread
: The OS named NetBSD version 1.3_BETA is currently not installed.
: Try running on a installed platform and connecting to your display.
: Installed platform(s) include the following:
:   SPARC/SunOS version 4.1.3 or 4.1.4
: [Exit 1 ]
: 
: How do I fool it?  It is not reading the ENV var OSTYPE.

It's reading uname(2), which is rather broken to do in its own right.  This
is hacked around in the kernel, if you want to do that, and I can provide
patches and/or a LKM layer if desired to make SunOS apps think they are
actually under SunOS according to uname(2).  But that's a bad, bad hack of a
fix.

The correct thing to do would be to complain to Adobe and tell them that
checking the operating system with uname(2) is stupid at best, and that if
the (compiled!) program runs properly, the operating system check has
already been passed and the program shouldn't try to be "smart" about
determining the host OS.  Doing this "check" with uname(2) breaks binary
emulation and causes their software to get less widespread distribution. 

This is one of my pet peeves, and y'know what, I'm going to call Adobe about
it right now.  :)

=====
===== Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Business tv@lucent.com) =====
== "There's a myth that there is a scarcity of justice to go around, so
== that if we extend justice to 'those people,' it will somehow erode the
== quality of justice everyone else receives."  -- Maria Price