| Who uses Linux here?
yes I do, slackware 9.1


  | Do all Linux systems include a "yacc" called yacc?
  |
  | Do all Linux systems include a "lex" called "lex"?
  |
  | Do all Linux systems come with "patch" by default?
  |
  | Do all Linux systems come with GNU "make" by default?
  |
  | Do all Linux systems come with a GNU "awk" by default?
  |

Well, I don't know what the default is with slackware, as I usually
install the packages by hand (not via the setup..), but I never
installed any yacc or lex software. I always have patch and make
installed, but I think that pkgsrc shouldn't depend on it, as there are
many distributions out there, that use a binary package management and 
thus don't need them.
My awk comes from pkgsrc.

  | I have been doing continuous Linux admin work on a wide variety of Linux
  | systems for around seven years. I'd only answer "yes" consistently to awk
  | (because awk alternatives are good enough).
  |
  | What do you think of the following?
  |
  | --- mk/tools.mk	18 Feb 2004 14:23:42 -0000	1.29
  | +++ mk/tools.mk	10 Mar 2004 04:40:39 -0000
  | @@ -134,13 +134,13 @@
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.awk+=	FreeBSD-*-* Linux-*-* NetBSD-*-* OpenBSD-*-*
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.grep+=	Darwin-*-* FreeBSD-*-* Linux-*-*
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.grep+=	NetBSD-*-* OpenBSD-*-*
  | -_TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.lex+=	FreeBSD-*-* Linux-*-* NetBSD-*-* OpenBSD-*-*
  | +_TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.lex+=	FreeBSD-*-* NetBSD-*-* OpenBSD-*-*
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.m4+=	# empty
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.make+=	Darwin-*-*
  | -_TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.patch+=	Darwin-*-* FreeBSD-*-* Linux-*-* NetBSD-*-*
  | +_TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.patch+=	Darwin-*-* FreeBSD-*-* NetBSD-*-*
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.patch+=	OpenBSD-*-*
  |  _TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.sed+=	Linux-*-* NetBSD-*-*
  | -_TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.yacc+=	FreeBSD-*-* Linux-*-* NetBSD-*-* OpenBSD-*-*
  | +_TOOLS_OPSYS_HAS_GNU.yacc+=	FreeBSD-*-* NetBSD-*-* OpenBSD-*-*
  |
  |  # These platforms have GNUish versions of the tools available in the base
  |  # system, which we already define as ${AWK}, ${SED}, etc. (refer to
  |

Not depending on them being in the base system is a good thing IMHO.


   -- Sebastian