[NTLUG:Discuss] change terminal colors

[Steve Baker]

Steve Jackson wrote:
> 
> good points.  Unfortunately, in some instances using Linux as a replacement
> *nix requires that Linux be able to conform to the way an old *nix operated
> (or appeared to operate).  In my case, my boss (a long time SCO user) has
> finally agreed to start using Linux in production.  However, this is
> dependant upon Linux being able to replace (seemlessly to the user) SCO.
> Hence, the terminal color requirements (and printing, and some other stuff).

Well, Linux is just the kernel (as Mr Stallman is always happy to point out),
so whatever shell/terminal emulator you were using under SCO is the thing
you need to consider.

If that shell/terminal program runs under Linux, it'll (presumably) save
colours in the same way as it did under SCO.

Similar arguments apply to printing.  The print servers are not a part
of the Linux kernel and there is no reason why some other Unix-like print
server shouldn't be run under Linux.

The gotcha is that you probably don't have the sources for the SCO terminal
and printer applications - so you can't recompile them when you need to
change OS's.  You might like to point out to your boss that if you'd started
out under Linux and then wanted to move to SCO, it would have been relatively
simple since Linux's tools are available in OpenSource form and hence could
almost certainly be run under SCO with little more than a './configure ; make install'.

Of course once you have yourself trapped in a closed source environment, escaping
from it is a little harder.

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