On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 01:15:15PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> Laurent de Segur wrote:
>
> > Entering 'uname -p' should return 'ppc' but returns 'unknow' running
> > 2.4.8-powerpc with debian/woody.
>
> What makes you think it should return ppc (uname -m does) ?
>
> I just tried it on a sparc64 and an i686 system and both returned unknown as
> well.
well lets see what SunOS does/says on the matter...
erbenson@terminator ~$ uname -m
sun4m
erbenson@terminator ~$ uname -p
sparc
erbenson@terminator ~$ uname -a
SunOS terminator 5.8 Generic_108528-09 sun4m sparc SUNW,SPARCstation-20
erbenson@terminator ~$
from the SunOS uname man page (which is much more informative then GNU's)
-m Prints the machine hardware name (class). Use of this
option is discouraged; use uname -p instead. See NOTES
section below.
[...]
-p Prints the current host's ISA or processor type.
[...]
NOTES
Independent software vendors (ISVs) and others who need to
determine detailed characteristics of the platform on which
their software is either being installed or executed should
use the uname command.
To determine the operating system name and release level,
use uname -sr. To determine only the operating system
release level, use uname -r. Notice that operating system
release levels are not guaranteed to be in x.y format (such
as 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, and so forth); future releases could be in
the x.y.z format (such as 5.3.1, 5.3.2, 5.4.1, and so
forth).
In SunOS 4.x releases, the arch(1) command was often used to
obtain information similar to that obtained by using the
uname command. The arch(1) command output "sun4" was often
incorrectly interpreted to signify a SunOS SPARC system. If
hardware platform information is desired, use uname -sp.
The arch -k and uname -m commands return equivalent values;
however, the use of either of these commands by third party
programs is discouraged, as is the use of the arch command
in general. To determine the machine's Instruction Set
Architecture (ISA or processor type), use uname with the -p
option.
my interpretation of this is that linux is wrong, -m should be giving
more information about the machine itself, not just the processor, for
the processor you should be using uname -p (which on linux is
useless).
otoh SunOS is certainly not any great role model on how to do things
correctly IMO, but its a more informative reference to look at then
the GNU uname man page.
--
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/
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