Re: How to check for a GNU userland

[Ralf Corsepius]

Am Son, 2002-01-27 um 02.30 schrieb Michael Goetze:
> 
> > config.guess returns CPU-Vendor-OS, not CPU-VENDOR-Kernel.
> 
> I've never quite understood what the "vendor" is supposed to mean, exactly.
IIRC, it originally meant to be a unique string to identify a particular
board-HW. This also manifest inside of config.sub, which uses the term
"manufacturer" for what you and autoconf calls vendor:

# The goal of this file is to map all the various variations of a given
# machine specification into a single specification in the form:
#       CPU_TYPE-MANUFACTURER-OPERATING_SYSTEM
# or in some cases, the newer four-part form:
#       CPU_TYPE-MANUFACTURER-KERNEL-OPERATING_SYSTEM

Eg. there can be i386-based systems running Linux on non-PC-HW, where
'pc' would be wrong.

> However, in the case of PCs, the software and hardware are usually from
> different sources. Now, which of these looks more useful to you?
> 
> i386-compaq-linux, i386-dell-netbsd, i386-gateway-hurd
> i386-debian-linux, i386-debian-netbsd, i386-debian-hurd
> 
> Yeah, that's what I thought.
None of them, in all cases, it's still a PC, and therefore it's
irrelevant if being used on a Compaq, Dell or whatsoever.

> Either way, the "unknown" has to go, IMHO.
Nope - This just denotes the "manufacturer" not be of any relevance.

AFAIK, the "vendor"-field has never been used for something of real
importantance, which also means that it's actual value doesn't really
matter, and has allowed Linux-distributors, to start using their brand
names in that field. 

This also means the "manufacturer" field at present is close to be
completely useless.

Ralf