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Frequently Asked Questions
SCO Skunkware is a collection of useful and entertaining software for use on SCO platforms. The CD-ROM contains many public domain or freely distributable programs including the GNU C Compiler, GNU utilities, audio drivers, Technical Library Supplements, graphics libraries, games, audio and video tools, graphics utilities, and much much more. There is a slide presentation on Skunkware, it's history, contents, etc which Ronald Joe Record presented at SCO Forum 98 The current release of SCO Skunkware is intended for use on SCO OpenServer and SCO UnixWare. Previous releases of SCO Skunkware provided tools ported to SCO ODT, SCO UNIX 3.2v4, and even SCO Xenix. How do I order the SCO Skunkware CD-ROM? The currently shipping SCO Skunkware CD-ROM may be ordered from our on-line ordering system which has been updated to include SCO Skunkware 98. There is no additional media, shipping or handling charge for SCO Skunkware when ordered in conjunction with any of the other SCO "free" product offerings. Previous releases of SCO Skunkware are no longer available on CD-ROM, but may be downloaded from our previous release web/ftp site. How do I locate a particular SCO Skunkware component? To download a particular component you first have to locate the download directory for that component. The SCO Skunkware team has tried to provide intuitive categories of components. For instance, if you were looking for Vim, the improved visual text editor, you could click on Editors from the Category Selection page. Similarly, the SCO Skunkware ftp hierarchy has been organized by functional category within operating system platform. For instance, to find the SCO OpenServer "vim" distribution via ftp, you would establish an anonymous ftp connection to ftp.sco.com and look in the directory /skunkware/osr5/editors. There you would find a subdirectory called vim. To locate the SCO UnixWare vim distribution, you would look in the directory /skunkware/uw2/editors. You can also locate a Skunkware component by searching the HTML documents on www.sco.com. How do I download "xyz" for SCO OpenServer? Make sure to download files in binary mode when using ftp. To download with your web browser, simply hold the shift key down while clicking on the desired file. The OpenServer Skunkware distribution is available via http and ftp at either : After locating a component's download directory (see the previous answer), the typical OpenServer Skunkware distribution will contain several files. These include :
How do I download "xyz" for SCO UnixWare? Make sure to download files in binary mode when using ftp. To download with your web browser, simply hold the shift key down while clicking on the desired file. The UnixWare Skunkware distribution is available via http and ftp at either : In addition, there is a Skunkware distribution intended specifically for the SVR5 based UnixWare 7. This distribution can be accessed via either http or ftp at :After locating a component's download directory (see the previous answer), the typical UnixWare Skunkware distribution will contain several files. These include :
How do I install the VOLS.tar media images on OpenServer? After downloading the component's VOLS.tar file (see the previous answer), login to your system as the root user, extract the VOLS.tar archive into an empty directory (say, for example, the directory /tmp/foobar) and run the "custom" command. Select the menu items "Software" -> "Install New". Select your host and, when prompted for the Media Device, select "Media Images" and "Continue". When prompted for the Image Directory, type in "/tmp/foobar or whatever is the name of the directory containing the extracted VOLS.tar media images. Select Ok and proceed. How do I install the xyz.pkg package file on UnixWare? After downloading the component's component.pkg file (see the previous answer), login to your system as the root user or another user with system administration priveleges. Change directory to the location of the downloaded component.pkg file and run to following command :
# /usr/sbin/pkgadd -d `pwd`/component.pkg all
where "component" stands for the name of the downloaded component.
Where is gzip/gunzip/gzcat et al? Gzip/gunzip/gzcat and friends are available as follows: For SCO OpenServer 5, download either These are custom installable media images. To install, extract the tar archive into an empty directory somewhere (say /tmp/gzip) and run
# custom -p SKUNK98:GZIP -i -z /tmp/gzip
This will place gzip/gzcat et al in /usr/local/bin
For UnixWare 7, download either This is a pkgadd installable data stream. Install by running
# pkgadd -d /path/to/gzip.pkg
Again, this will get you binaries in /usr/local/bin
For UnixWare 2.x, download either Install as above. What now? Where is the application I just installed? Basically, we've tried to confine the Skunkware applications and their associated data files, libraries, and such to /usr/local. The binary executables get put in /usr/local/bin, the man pages in /usr/local/man, the libraries in /usr/local/lib, the header files in /usr/local/include, the info documentation in /usr/local/info and so on (with some exceptions). So, to be able to execute something like, say, gzip, you would either need to :
$ /usr/local/bin/gzip ...
or, preferably :
$ PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
$ export PATH
$ gzip ...
You can add /usr/local/bin to your shell PATH variable by editing your $HOME/.profile
(this variable is called path for csh users and can be set in the $HOME/.login).
For Bourne and Korn shell users (sh and ksh), add the following lines to your .profile :
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
export PATH
For C-shell users (csh), add the following to your .login :
set path = ($path $home/bin /usr/local/bin .)
You can also add /usr/local/man to your MANPATH variable in a similar manner.
After setting up your PATH (and MANPATH) as described above, you can then execute binaries that live in /usr/local/bin by just typing their name (e.g. gzip). If you setup your MANPATH as well, you can read man pages that live in /usr/local/man by simply typing "man command" where "command" is a command like gcc or whatever. Can i use GCC without the SCO Development System? The GCC package for OpenServer requires system libraries and headers. Even if you do not have a licensed SCO development system, you are licensed to use these at no cost and they are available on your installation media. Install them thusly:
What "web development" tools does Skunkware contain? Skunkware also contains a number of useful web development tools. I'll briefly list a few and you can find out more by following the links to the respective home pages. This is not a comprehensive list - just off the top of my head. I have found the following fairly useful :
The SCO Skunkware components are officially unsupported. As such, there is no SCO Y2K warranty on any of the Skunkware components. This is changing as some of these packages move from Skunkware into the standard product. Any Y2K compliance statements for Skunkware components would be issued by the maintainers of that package. For instance, see http://www.apache.org/foundation/Y2K.html for a statement on the Apache web server Y2K compliance. You will have to do something like this with each of the Skunkware components you wish to "warranty" against Y2K compliance. I use the Skunkware web site as a navigational aid in finding the home page of various Skunkware packages. For instance, if you wanted to know about Y2K and Python, you could go to www.sco.com/skunkware, click on Interpreters, click on Python and go to the Python home page at www.python.org. There, you would find a typical Y2K statement along the lines of "There are no known Y2K problems ... We think Pyton is Y2K compliant ... If there's a problem, we will fix it". We've found the Open Source developer community quite adept at identifying and fixing problems rapidly. This model functions well only with an active participatory user community. If you find a Y2K problem with any Skunkware component, please e-mail an in-depth description of that problem to skunkware@sco.com and we will work with the package maintainers to remedy the problem as soon as possible. How can I contribute software to SCO Skunkware? Contributions to SCO Skunkware are welcome. If you have ported something which you consider valuable and/or interesting and would like to have it included in the Skunkware distribution, send e-mail to skunkware@sco.com describing the component and how the Skunkware team can download the source and compiled binary distribution. Please also include a README or ReadMe.html document describing the component, author, porter, testing, build instructions, documentation, where to retrieve the original source, home page for the component, redistribution restrictions, and other relevant information. If you do not have an ftp or web site which can be used to access the contribution, the Skunkware team can provide you with instructions for uploading your contribution to ftp.sco.com. Please see the Skunkware Submission Guidelines for additional details on the submission process. How can I obtain assistance porting and testing my product? The SCO Skunkware team is frequently available for porting and testing assistance. Just e-mail your questions to skunkware@sco.com. Be prepared to make the source code for your application available to the Skunkware development team. If you need access to SCO platforms for porting and/or testing, you can contact one of the SCO Solution Porting Centers. These centers provide expert technical consulting as well as current software development environments. If you are porting free software, you can have:
If you are porting software you sell, the services are available for a nominal fee. Please check out http://www.compclass.com/adc.html for information and pricing. What if I find a problem with an SCO Skunkware component? Please e-mail any problems you discover with SCO Skunkware to skunkware@sco.com describing the component which exhibits the problem, where and when you downloaded the component, how the component was installed, base operating system environment on which the component is running, and enough specific details of the problem for us to be able to duplicate it. A minimal test case which provokes the problem is helpful. If you cannot provide all of the above, simply e-mail us with whatever information you have and we will attempt to provide a fix as quickly as possible. How much does SCO Skunkware cost? SCO Skunkware is free. It is distributed freely via our ftp and web sites and the CD-ROM is distributed freely at trade shows, conferences, training centers, and other venues. The company that does our on-line ordering system will be charging $10 dollars per CD-ROM to cover the costs of shipping, handling and media. If you cannot afford $10, e-mail skunkware@sco.com requesting a free copy. Can I give SCO Skunkware away for free? Yes. If you are running a training center or would otherwise like to redistribute SCO Skunkware for free, please contact us at skunkware@sco.com and indicate how many copies you would like. There may be a charge for bulk orders to cover the cost of media, shipping and handling. Can I charge money for SCO Skunkware? The answer depends on the license terms of the Skunkware components. The owners of some components do not permit commercial resale, so you cannot charge for copying those components, and therefore you cannot sell or resell the Skunkware CD. However, most components, including all components licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), do not prohibit you from copying, modifying and/or reselling those components, for any price you want. See the individual COPYING, LICENSE or README files for a component for specifics with regard to licensing and redistribution of that component. Which Skunkware components are intended for platform XYZ? The Skunkware team has tried to clearly divide the Skunkware components into packages intended for specific SCO operating environments. The top-level Skunkware directory (on the CD-ROM, ftp site and web site) has subdirectories named :
Where can I find audio tools for use with my SCO system? You can download the latest players and drivers and such at http://www.sco.com/skunkware/audiovis/index.html In particular, the Open Sound System audio drivers for SoundBlaster compatible cards are available at http://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/audio/oss/ for SCO OpenServer and http://www.sco.com/skunkware/uw2/audio/oss/ for SCO UnixWare. Another good source for audio tools is 4Front Technologies at http://www.4front-tech.com/ossapps.html Finally, one of the applications we tested with the Linux emulator, lxrun, was the Linux RealAudio player. So, an additional reservoir of audio tools resides in the Linux audio applications in conjunction with lxrun on SCO OpenServer. The download area for lxrun is : http://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/emulators/lxrun I'm having a problem playing audio. If you are using the Open Sound System audio driver included with Skunkware 97, check /usr/lib/oss/soundon.log to make sure everything got initialized properly. A common problem is simply not having run the "soundon" utility. On my system i have created a startup script /etc/rc2.d/S95soundon containing :
case "$1" in
start)
/usr/lib/oss/soundon
;;
stop)
/usr/lib/oss/soundoff
;;
*)
exit 1
esac
You can also check /usr/lib/oss/install.log to see if there were any errors
during installation.
For a list of device nodes and their major and minor numbers, take a look in /usr/lib/oss/modules/sndb/Node. You can create any missing device nodes with the /etc/mknod command. If this still doesn't work, you might try using "trace" on play_snd to try and see exactly what device node it is trying to open. If you are completely stumped, e-mail skunkware@sco.com with a problem report and the contents of the above mentioned log files. Are the free Open Sound System audio drivers crippled? The reason 4Front is still charging $40 for copies of the driver is that they are selling the non-SoundBlaster drivers. SCO only licensed the drivers for true SB and 100%-compatible cards. Note that there are some cards that call themselves "SoundBlaster compatible" but aren't. These cards have an 8-bit SB-lookalike mode, but it takes special instructions to put the card in SB compatability mode. These cards are not supported by the drivers SCO licensed, but are supported by other drivers from 4Front. Also, some of the more advanced SB cards (like the AWE64) come with an Emu8000 synthesis chip. These also require a special driver from 4Front. The drivers that SCO licensed for inclusion in the OS (and that were on Skunkware) will do the following:
Anyway, there's no such thing as a driver that's crippled so that "PnP cards don't work". Even with the old Voxware drivers, you can use a PnP sound card if you have a Plug & Play BIOS to activate the card. Where can I find Skunkware for SCO ODT / SCO UNIX 3.2v4? All of the previous releases of SCO Skunkware are still on-line and accessible via either ftp or http at :
What if I can't locate the component i am looking for? If you cannot find what you are looking for, e-mail skunkware@sco.com with a request for information on the desired software. This can very likely be remedied by installing the Graphics Libraries package for your platform. For SCO OpenServer, this package is available at
http://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/libraries/Glib/. If you have the
Skunkware 98 CD-ROM, you can install this component (as root) by cd'ing
to For SCO UnixWare, there are several individual packages available in
the subdirectories at http://www.sco.com/skunkware/uw2/libraries/.
If you have the Skunkware 98 CD-ROM, you can install individual components
of the Graphics Libraries package (as root) by cd'ing to The programs that use these libraries were built to look in /usr/local/lib
for the necessary files. It is possible that a program was built incorrectly.
If you already have the Graphics Libraries installed and are still getting
an error message like this, you may need to create symbolic links from
the appropriate libxyz.so in /usr/local/lib to /usr/lib. If this is the
case, please e-mail skunkware@sco.com
with the name of the program exhibiting the problem.
Where can i find u386mon for SCO OpenServer ?
The u386mon README is at : The u386mon and nlsym binaries are available via either : The binaries need to be "setgid mem" :
You should then be able to run u386mon as a normal user. Of course,
you can restrict permissions if you like.
The source for u386mon is available via :
Where can i find answers to questions programmers
might ask about developing on SCO platforms ?
Read the Developer FAQs:
The following links refer to SCO newsgroups that contain a wealth of
information. They are vehicles to use for discussing various SCO topics
with developers, service providers, resellers & distributors, and
other SCO community members.
These links rely on your browser's ability to open a news reader and
the news reader being properly configured to access a current news feed.
What if my question isn't answered here?
If you have a question that is not covered by this FAQ, e-mail the Skunkware
FAQ maintainer, rr@sco.com, with your
question.
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