Installing software -going insane

goformickey · August 29, 2013, 6:34am

I have Solaris 10 update 11 installed on a virtual machine which I use for my lunix class (I'm studying I.T. but have little unix experience). So I have root access*

I'm also do C programming in my course and would love to do it on my Solaris machine.

So I looked into installing GCC and Emacs, but both seems to require HEAPS of prerequisite programs to even install.

So I got the Solaris 10 u11 companion cd (which has both). After a long while working out how to actually install all the software on there (none of the guides steps worked) I some how managed it.

I created a file called 'admin' in /var/tmp/ as per guides as to what I wrote in it and went to the ISO's packages directory and ran a similar command to the one mentioned in the install guide.

The installer ran through and installed all 100 bits of software...at least seemed to.

Thing is: typing emacs or gcc does nothing, and I can't seem to prove I even installed any of the other software either.

Did I miss something? I've been searching for ages but there's no info anywhere. I wish software was less complex to install on Solaris ugh.

I hope this post isn't too long winded, I just wanted to give details on what I'd actually done and tried so far. Thanks!

bartus11 · August 29, 2013, 7:17am

It was probably installed in some custom path. Try doing this:

find /opt /usr -name gcc

DustinT · August 29, 2013, 7:33am

The good news is, in Solaris 11, they greatly simplified the installation of software through the use of Oracle support repositories. Now installing GCC is as simple as this:

#pkg install gcc-3-runtime

jlliagre · August 29, 2013, 7:36am

gcc is already present in most installations outside the minimized ones in /usr/sfw/bin/gcc.
emacs is however missing so must be installed should you really need it.

SVR4 packaging doesn't automatically handle dependancies, that's one of the reason Solaris switched to a new packaging system with Solaris 11.

Yes, you very likely miss to set the PATH variable for the installed commands to be reachable.

PATH=$PATH:/usr/sfw/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/local/bin

would be a good start.
Again, Solaris 11 has simplified this area.

goformickey · August 29, 2013, 8:15am

jlliagre:

gcc is already present in most installations outside the minimized ones in /usr/sfw/bin/gcc.
emacs is however missing so must be installed should you really need it.
SVR4 packaging doesn't automatically handle dependancies, that's one of the reason Solaris switched to a new packaging system with Solaris 11.

Yes, you very likely miss to set the PATH variable for the installed commands to be reachable.
PATH=$PATH:/usr/sfw/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/local/bin
would be a good start.
Again, Solaris 11 has simplified this area.

Sorry my knowledge is limited to the last few weeks, what exactly is the course of action I take now to get emacs and gcc working via commands?

Do I need to add

PATH=$PATH:/usr/sfw/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/local/bin

to the passwd file or something?

EDIT: It should be worth noting that I'm wanting to get the command line version of emacs working, is this installed along with the gui version? I was able to open the gui version by finding the install with the find command mentioned above.

Thanks!

By the way is Solaris 11 significantly better than 10 u11 or should I just keep on using 10?

jlliagre · August 29, 2013, 8:43am

goformickey:

Sorry my knowledge is limited to the last few weeks, what exactly is the course of action I take now to get emacs and gcc working via commands?

Do I need to add
PATH=$PATH:/usr/sfw/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/local/bin
to the passwd file or something?

Just type these commands on the CLI but the effect would be limited to the current terminal windows. For a persisting change, you can add this line in your .profile file ($HOME/.profile).

It is significantly better and different than Solaris 10. If you have no experience with previous Solaris versions, starting with Solaris 11 would certainly be a better option.