The iBCS module for Linux is not, strictly, an emulator. Rather it extends the Linux kernel by adding a number of "personalities" which implement the interfaces and functionality expected by binaries compiled for other Intel based UNIX implementations.
Support of binaries compiled for SVR4, SVR3, Xenix and BSD is
provided with the iBCS module handling the non-standard extensions
made by various vendors in a completely transparent fashion on a
per process basis. This allows your applications from a SCO based PC
to run side by side with those from a multiprocessor Wyse system on
your Linux PC.
N.B. It is, of course, the user's responsibility to ensure that any
licensing requirements of your existing packages are adhered to.
Technical Capabilities
Supported CPU Architectures
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Many of the SVR3 and even SVR4 flavours of Unix are no longer
available. In the case of Wyse V/386 not only is the OS no longer
available but Wyse pulled out of the systems market as well.
Often older flavours of Unix, SVR3 in particular, had incompatible
extensions to support things like symlinks and networking. Linux+iBCS
understands these extensions and will let you upgrade your oldest
legacy applications to state of the art systems painlessly.
Supported Subsystem Emulations
If, on the other hand, you simply do not believe that anything good is free then the cost is £99 per machine you run the emulator on. Send this money to any iBCS developer (or developers) of your choice who I am sure will make good use of it. Alternatively you may send the money direct to the charity of your choice or use it any other way that will benefit society (or not - your choice).
Supporting operating systems and applications which I don't have
running is difficult to say the least. Donations of OS flavours (ideally
with development system), applications and hardware is particularly
welcome.
Support
There should be nothing in the emulator to support, however if you have
questions feel free to ask the developers. If you think you have found
a bug in the emulator you can employ anyone you like (including me!) to
fix the problem at any price you agree. It would be appreciated if you
send the patch to
jaggy@purplet.demon.co.uk
so it is incorporated in future releases.
If you feel you cannot live without paying money regularly to someone on the off chance you may wish to ask them a question sometime then contact the developers who will be happy to discuss how much you should send them.
A list of people who are believed to have contributed to the iBCS
emulator is contained in the CREDITS file in the main distribution.
Application Validation
In general the application vendor will be better placed to test their
applications on iBCS/Linux as they will have the knowledge and test
procedures to fully exercise the product. If you really do not wish
to install a Linux PC and run your application yourself you will find
that there are plenty of people interested in being paid to use your
software for a change.
Some applications that people have used successfully are listed in
the COMPAT file of the main distribution. This is however a very
small ad hoc subset of applications which work or once worked.