GNU: OS/2's Hidden Treasure- by Murray Todd Williams

If you've explored many of the shareware programs written for OS/2 recently, you have probably run across GNU. Most of the time we see it in the form of an occasional note in the installation software: "This program requires the EMX.DLL file for emx version 0.9a or later." Occasionally an application comes with notes about the "GNU Manifesto" or ravings in the documentation about the Free Software Foundation.

In short, GNU represents an incredible wealth of software, well-written, powerful and best of all, free. The catch? Well, diving into GNU is like diving into UNIX (for reasons I'll explain later) which is not for the weak of heart. I probably would have never discovered it, had it not been for my annoyingly persistent friend Dave.

Dave has a unique ability to pester me to install this, play with that, and tweak this on my computer until I get some new nifty feature to work. OS/2 is replete with customizable little features, so Dave has kept me busy. The result is that I am becoming--albeit kicking and screaming--a "power user" of OS/2.

What is GNU?

Let me give you a quick background of GNU and the Free Software Foundation. GNU stands for Gnu's Not Unix. It consists of a collection of software which is being written for the exclusive purpose of being available to anyone completely free of cost. Actually, it goes even beyond that, because all GNU components may only be distributed if the entire source code is also made available. The fanatics who write these programs are opposed to the very "proprietary" nature of software today. They dislike the idea of copyrighting the look-and-feel of a particular GUI which creates many competing standards and defeats the concept of open standards.

I call these developers fanatics, and I don't use the term with a negative connotation. The dedication required to develop this software for free is beyond my comprehension. I suspect that most of these hard-core developers are smarter and more driven than is probably good for them. How else can you explain the genesis of a software system that rivals those of most commercial companies? Many of these are the same people who are developing the Linux operating system, and indeed Linux has "inherited" the entire wealth of GNU software as its own.

All of the GNU applications which I mention are available for many different operating systems. Almost any flavor of Unix is supported, including Linux. OS/2 was added to this family of operating systems due to the work of Eberhard Mattes, who moved the GCC compiler to OS/2 and created a series of dynamic link libraries (EMX.DLL is the primary library) which provide an interface between OS/2 and the GNU world. (Eberhard, if you're reading this, you are a god!!) One incredible aspect of the EMX system is that most executable files compiled for OS/2 also run under 32-bit DOS!

If you are an OS/2 power-user who does a good deal of programming, text formatting, scientific work, etc. then this world is for you. If your interests are limited to WYSIWYG word processors or paint programs, or if your idea of "installation" is double-clicking on the INSTALL icon and providing a path to the location of a package, then read no further. GNU is not for you.

On the other hand, if you have Unix experience and groan at the idea of tweaking Makefiles to compile a package for your particular OS, don't panic. All of the GNU software I've seen conveniently comes with the executables already compiled. Also, if you see yourself someday learning Unix, this is a very convenient and painless way of getting your feet wet.

Getting GNU Software

The best place to find GNU Software is the Hobbes FTP archive. I personally recommend purchasing the two disk CD-ROM collection. There's so much software to download ("billyons and billyons" of bytes) that the CD is a real convenience. Choose the \unix directory and go crazy.

Let me give you an idea of what you can expect to find out there. There's a compiler for C, C++ and Objective C. There's a Fortran 77 compiler (my brother has turned to it just this week because Microsoft Fortran kept misbehaving). There's Pascal, Xlisp, Scheme, Perl, Oberon and a many other languages.

For text editing, nothing rivals EMACS (version 19.30) for features. If you haven't seen EMACS before, you are in for a mind-blowing experience. There are also some smaller, more compact editors available. Then for text formatting you can use EmTeX, which is an excellent version of TeX. (It ain't WYSIWYG, but it can put out a more professional-looking paper than WordPerfect can any day.)

You can easily install a collection of file utilities (ie: cp, mv, rm, du, grep,...) which mimic standard Unix commands. Internet programs like Elm and Pine are available, as well as POP mailers and news readers. Even basic Unix shells like Bourne, CSH, or Bash are available. There are plotting programs, symbolic math packages, and the list goes on.

In fact, it is impossible to fully express the scope of what GNU entails in one short article so in the coming issues I will begin a series of articles to help you get started in this exciting new world. I will begin with the base installation of EMX (the heart of the GNU-OS/2 interface) and the GCC compiler. After that I'll explore EMACS, the text editor which will even butter your toast for you. And from there, who knows?

Stay tuned!

Murray Todd Williams is a student at Colorado State University, working on a M.S. in Statistics. He is also a member of Team OS/2.

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