On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 08:50:47 -0400, Salman Ahmed wrote:
> I decided to compile in support for Unix98 PTYs since I am already using
> glibc-2.1. Being the newbie that I am, I can't tell the differences b/w
> Unix98 PTYs and the old style ttys (is that right?).
Well, ptys (pseudo-ttys (tty == teletype ("terminal"))).
There isn't much difference you'd notice. If you do "last" or "w" you might
now start to see entries like "pts/7" rather than "ttyp3".
> I am hoping that some of the gurus on this list can explain to me exactly
> what a unix98 pty is and why it is better (or not) than what was present
> in the 2.0 series of kernels.
What's better about is is that the devices can be made dynamically in the
case of Unix98 ptys, and applications that use them (like "screen") thus do
no longer require root priviledges (which they needed to change ownership
with old-style ptys).
> Also, why is it called a "Unix98" pty ? what's so special about 98 !!!
See http://www.unix-systems.org/unix98.html, it's the latest specification
of what "Unix" is supposed to mean.
HTH,
Ray
--
POPULATION EXPLOSION Unique in human experience, an event which happened
yesterday but which everyone swears won't happen until tomorrow.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
