4.0 vs 4.0.1: how to tell
2007-12-25 7:11:00
Most of the responses were either of the form
% strings /vmunix | grep SunOS
(or "grep Release") or were of the form
% cat /usr/share/sys/conf.common/RELEASE
Well, the banner that is printed at boot time and at login time, and the
result of the first command are all one in the same, and they are all
either directly or indirectly taken from .../sys/conf.common/RELEASE.
And for 4.0.1, THAT FILE WAS NOT CHANGED! This is something I knew
before I asked, and was the entire reason I asked. I knew that it
wasn't as simple as "look at the banner when you boot" or "look for
the banner in a 'strings /vmunix'" or "look in /var/adm/messages".
But it was a nice try (so thanks anyway).
Dave Probert of UCSB suggested looking at the dates produced with
% strings /vmunix | grep SMI
Not as straightforward as I would have hoped, but it is effective.
Paul O'Neill and John Blasik independently suggested looking in
"/etc/install_fix", "/etc/README" and especially "/usr/etc/dotlog".
(Tim Reed also suggested looking at "/etc/install_fix" and
"/etc/remove_fix"). This is probably the simplest and most accurate
way to make the determination.
David Linn suggested looking at the man page for sunview:
In 4.0, the table that shows the options for all tools
is formatted with tabs but in 4.0.1 it is changed to be
done by tbl. Unfortunately, Sun forgot to fix the top
line of the file so that man(1) knows to do this.
So, if you say "man sunview" and the page with the generic
options is formatted sensibly -> 4.0
I did not double check this one.
John Arisco suggested looking at the library version numbers:
At 4.0, /lib/libsuntool.sa.0 has a version number of 28.
If /lib/libsuntool.sa.0.30 exists, this machine is at 4.0.1.
If /lib/libsuntool.sa.0.40 exists, you are running 4.0.3.
Others suggested looking at the time stamps on various executables and
libraries (some 4.0.1 files have dates in August '88 instead of April:
libc.a, dbx).
Once again, my thanks to all who sent in suggestions. I think that
looking at /etc/README and /usr/etc/dotlog is probably the best way to
make an accurate determination.
William LeFebvre
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Northwestern University
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