Questions tagged [portability]
The portability tag has no usage guidance.
168 questions
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How can I assign a heredoc to a variable in a way that's portable across Unix and Mac?
This code works fine on Linux but not Mac OS:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
foo=$(cat <<EOF
"\[^"\]+"
EOF
)
printf "%s" "$foo"
It fails on Mac with
./test.sh: line 6: ...
- 173
0
votes
0
answers
22
views
Keeping display contiguration (with panning) after disconnecting external monitor from laptop
Setup
Laptop: Lenovo Legion 5 15ACH6 (with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050) eDP-2
External monitor: Asus ZenScreen MB16AH Monitor 15.6" FHD (connected via USB C) DP-1-2
Other Info
The external monitor ...
1
vote
1
answer
97
views
How do I adapt a .img clone of my hard disk (1 partition with openSUSE) to another computer?
I have used the dd command to backup my Linux partition (openSUSE Tumbleweed) into a .img file that I saved on an external hard drive.
However, I guess dd-ing it on another computer may cause problems,...
- 137
1
vote
0
answers
233
views
Custom icons for folders inside drives, should be supported on both Windows and Linux?
I know how to change the icon of a file/folder on Linux (using Dolphin in my case).
I know also how to change the icon of a file/folder on Windows 11, both directly in the parameters and using a ...
- 137
-1
votes
1
answer
121
views
What is the most portable way to skip arguments for shell scripts?
For portable wrapper scripts intended to run on UNIX systems (not necessarily Linux), should the shift command be preferred over array syntax?
#!/bin/sh
exec command ${1+"$@"}
Compared with:...
- 1,360
-1
votes
1
answer
265
views
Can a bash script add to the context of zsh?
I have recently migrated from bash to zsh.
I used to use the following token_refresh.sh script to ssh-add my private key to the session:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "configuring ssh access.."
...
- 183
1
vote
1
answer
213
views
Is POSIX 1e Capabilities widely implemented?
Do somebody know what are the Operating Systems that implemented capabilities (i.e. Posix 1e)?
are they compatible?
will capabilities reduce portability to Linux only?
- 199
0
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0
answers
53
views
I have a linux installation on an external drive. How can I plug it into a desktop and have it boot?
Hardware:
Laptop [ Daily driver ]
Desktop [ Server - Normally has Windows installed ]
USB Thumb Drive [ Linux Installation Medium ]
External Drive [ Linux Installation Destination ]
Situation:
...
1
vote
0
answers
24
views
How to capture and port precise audio configuration/driver/package setup from one Linux distro to another?
I decided to switch to Linux, so I installed Arch (with xfce4).
Neither speakers, nor mic worked out of the box.
I installed sof-firmware and was able to make speakers work, but not the mic.
Meanwhile,...
- 151
3
votes
1
answer
388
views
Are VirtualBox guest additions host-independent?
I want to use VirtualBox to set up a stable software environment, which I may then export to other systems running VirtualBox. I also want to install guest additions.
Are guest additions host system ...
- 165
1
vote
1
answer
517
views
How does nodejs achieve seemingly binary compatibility between different linux distros
If you go to the download site of nodejs you can select Linux Binaries (x64) which is a tar archive that (among other files) contains a bin/ folder with a binary called nodejs.
How is nodejs able to ...
- 158
2
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Is it safe to snprintf with output to NULL and size 0?
Is it safe to call snprintf(NULL, 0, "…", …)? I can also ask in other way: Does snprintf write the NUL char if size is 0?
The example in Linux man-pages manpage printf(3) provides an example ...
- 1,081
0
votes
1
answer
218
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How to hibernate Linux To Go to disk and restore it on a different device?
I have my Linux installed on a portable SSD, so I can switch devices (laptop at home, desktop in office) easily and don't need to consider any syncronization problems. This is called Linux To Go.
It's ...
3
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Portable Linux emulator on Windows?
In a Windows computer where you don't have permission to install software, does Windows Linux subsystem, cygwin or any complete or partial Linux shell, utility or API emulator have portable versions? ...
- 105k
18
votes
6
answers
4k
views
What's the best way to trace all the changes I've made to my system files over the years?
As I imagine a lot of Linux users do, over the years I've followed the advice of countless different threads, blogposts, videos etc. and made various changes to system files in order to improve my ...
- 197
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vote
1
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406
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terminfo/termcap `tput bold`/`tput md`: portability of bold text
Suppose I have the following color support in one of my portable shell scripts:
#!/bin/sh
set -o nounset
tput_init_linux () { set_fg_color='tput setaf'; reset_color=$(tput sgr0 2>/dev/null); }
...
- 29.8k
5
votes
1
answer
829
views
Difference between posix_fadvise and readahead
As per manpage, readahead is Linux specific:
CONFORMING TO
The readahead() system call is Linux-specific, and its use should
be avoided in portable applications.
and posix_fadvise is portable:
...
- 165
9
votes
1
answer
760
views
On what UNIX-like system / filesystem is the st_blocks field returned by stat() not a number of 512-byte units?
I always assumed the st_blocks field returned by stat()/lstat()... system calls and which du uses to get the disk usage of files was expressed in 512 bytes units.
Checking the POSIX specification, I ...
- 565k
2
votes
0
answers
49
views
Does POSIX specify sed -E? [duplicate]
sed uses basic regular expressions (BRE) by default. Some implementations offer an option to switch to extended regular expressions instead.
GNU sed introduced the -r option to do so in version 3.01 ...
- 635
0
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Kali Linux on portable SSD with data persistence
I need to setup a portable kali-linux environment that I can boot on any available computer. I don't want to use a virtual environment because I would need to download VMware on the host computer, ...
9
votes
3
answers
4k
views
Who is responsible for providing `set -o pipefail`
I want strict mode in my scripts. I would also appreciate portability.
set -o pipefail seems compulsory. Yet shellcheck(a static linter) is unhappy that "In POSIX sh, set option pipefail is ...
- 3,165
1
vote
2
answers
164
views
Portable name of C++ compiler (and linker)
cc is the POSIX name of the C compiler. Is there a general name of the C++ compiler (and linker). Notice that g++ also adds some libraries, that will not be included when using plain gcc or ld.
- 751
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166
views
Is there any difference between Ubuntu and Centos 7 when running su -c “my command” “someuser” ？
I tried below command in both Ubuntu and Centos 7:
su -c "./bin/server" swrun
and I found it's started process by root in Ubuntu, but started process by swrun in Centos 7.
I used service ...
- 29
-2
votes
1
answer
876
views
Is there any guide how to write bash scripts compatible with both CentOS and Ubuntu
I am simplifying my scenario here.
I've built a series of bash scripts and tested them under Ubuntu.
I want to make sure my scripts (bash syntax) work the same under CentOs.
Is there any guide how to ...
- 107
2
votes
1
answer
270
views
Why is not 'test -z =' an error after all?
I have a book that stated:
"....For example, if the shell variable symbol contains an equal sign,
look at what happens if you try to test it for zero length:
$ echo $symbol
=
$ test -z "$...
- 161
1
vote
0
answers
199
views
Why do BSD and GNU grep give different results here?
I distribute a slightly modified version of a public CSV file. To generate the modified CSV file I use a short one-line grep command:
grep -Ev '^([A-Za-zＡ-Ｚａ-ｚ]|[0-9０-９]*),' input.csv
Actual project ...
- 171
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0
answers
270
views
making sqlcmd self-contained so it would be possible to run without installation, for CentOs
I am trying to make a bash script to connect to remote SQL server with sqlcmd
in the devp machine, as I have admin privileges, runs smoothly
but I NEED (and capitals because it is imperative) to build ...
0
votes
3
answers
753
views
sed portability: extended regex vs. backslash
We can write the next command in two ways:
# using extended regex
$ echo foobar | sed -E 's/(foo)(bar)/\2\1/'
barfoo
And:
# using backslashes
$ echo foobar | sed 's/\(foo\)\(bar\)/\2\1/'
barfoo
...
- 12.7k
6
votes
0
answers
2k
views
Portable way to set custom URL scheme handler for all users
I already know how to create a custom URL scheme and set its handler using xdg-utils:
xdg-settings set default-url-scheme-handler name handler.desktop
However, the command affects only the current ...
- 161
13
votes
2
answers
4k
views
How portable is a gzip file over 4 GB in size?
To backup a snapshot of my work, I run a command like tar -czf work.tgz work to create a gzipped tar file, which I can then drop in cloud storage. However, I have just noticed that gzip has a 4 GB ...
- 233
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vote
1
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490
views
Are octal escape sequences more portable than hex ones for shell scripts
As part of a scheme for writing shell code that's capable of processing arbitrary data, I was looking for a way to convert null bytes to some other character. I found that tr requires arbitrary bytes ...
- 4,218
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
How to make a shell script as portable as possible (POSIX and non-POSIX)
Situation: Writing a shell script to do some stuff across multiple shells
Problem: While Bourne-compatible shell scripts (bash, ksh, ash, zsh, etc) are easy to be made portable (just make sure the ...
- 591
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1
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175
views
Is it safe to hardcode /etc/ path for configurations in an application I'm contributing to?
The application I'm contributing to requires configuration files as a part of its operation. This is currently placed within the root directory of the application.
If I followed the FHS, the config ...
- 119
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votes
0
answers
2k
views
How to test a binary, to see if all shared library dependencies, are satisfied?
I have a program which I compiled on an earlier version of Fedora which suddenly broke after an upgrade. I was running an older version of Fedora at the time which had stopped receiving updates; so I ...
- 2,759
-2
votes
1
answer
117
views
Linux off a Flash Drive
I want to run Linux off of a flash drive. I'm already dual booting Windows 10, and Ubuntu on my laptop, and have burnt the mint ISO onto a flash drive. Every time I load it live, it takes me to a ...
- 1
2
votes
1
answer
299
views
process list with quoted arguments, portably
How can an original command issued at the command line be acquired without using proc or any other non standard tool?
When printing a process list using ps, the arguments passed in to initiate the ...
2
votes
0
answers
798
views
Portable way of finding files whose birth date is after a given timestamp
According to How to find creation date of file?, in Linux filesystems, such as ext4, Btrfs and JFS, that store the file creation time (aka birth time), it is possible to display the file birth time (...
- 3,792
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votes
1
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2k
views
How to remap network interfaces on boot time?
It turns out that I'm trying to create a portable distro while getting prepared for any kind of hardware failure.
I'm creating (or restoring) a Debian distro by multistrap (or from my backups) and ...
- 2,411
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votes
4
answers
5k
views
What is the most portable shell, and relevant best practices to follow? [closed]
I have been enthusiastic to shell scripting for some months, and found that the codes I write (in bash) do not work in some machines. This is very disappointing.
I realize that I should have learned ...
- 483
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votes
2
answers
643
views
Does FreeBSD contain multiple variants of basic regex?
grep and sed are both described as using "basic regex" ("BRE") by default. BRE is well described here.
But consider this output:
# echo ' aaaaa ' | grep '\(aaaaa\|bbbbb\)'
aaaaa
# echo ' ...
- 1,281
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votes
1
answer
1k
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MX Linux Not giving me the USB option while trying to install on it
I have make bootable USB of MX Linux with the help of RUFUS software. Now when I am trying to install on USB it does not show me partition to install it while I am booting live setup . The choose the ...
- 13
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votes
2
answers
128
views
Why is the which command so hard to eradicate? [closed]
I'm coming from places like Why not use "which"? What to use then? and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/592620/how-to-check-if-a-program-exists-from-a-bash-script and am myself a long-...
- 7,881
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0
answers
639
views
Convert an existing customised Debian 10 Installation to Live ISO
Can someone help please?
I already did some research and found:
Linux Respin completely messed up my system when trying to install dependencies (removed a lot of packages I needed) - at least I am ...
- 53
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33
views
Is it possible to have bash but not awk? [duplicate]
Here on Stack Exchange we often see answers on bash questions, that use tools other than the bash language, such as awk, sed, grep, etc.
These tools are specific in POSIX, so they should be ...
- 3,735
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1
answer
2k
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POSIX and Portability | shell scripts | grep -s, grep -q
I am all in for portability in regards to shell scripts.
But I am unsure if I am overdoing it right now.
In this example, we have a function called confirmation, which accepts the very first ...
- 29.8k
4
votes
1
answer
796
views
Does POSIX make not support globs in prerequisites?
I was reading the POSIX 7 Make definition, and I've noticed that prerequisites are almost always described as “files”:
The make utility examines time relationships and shall update those derived ...
- 347
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vote
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answer
791
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Wildcards/Globbing: Are character ranges problematic?
In The Linux Command Line William Shotts claims that character ranges can be problematic. See the relevant excerpt below, emphasis is mine.
Character Ranges
If you are coming from another Unix-like ...
- 177
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vote
1
answer
2k
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Portable way to run command without PATH from bash script
cron calls my bash script (it's a backup script) with a very sparse PATH of /usr/bin:/usr. As a result, while a line like
lvcreate --size 1G --snapshot ...
works just fine when I run the script from ...
- 35
3
votes
2
answers
787
views
Recommended way of checking only one running service?
I am writing a shell script to check if mongod server is running and if not, to start it. To acheive that I am using the below command:
systemctl is-active --quiet mongod
This does the job as ...
- 150
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votes
3
answers
4k
views
Porting Linux to another platform requirements [closed]
I know that Linux is available and has been ported for many different platforms such as for X86, ARM, PowerPC etc.
However, in terms of porting, what is required exactly?
My understanding is that ...
- 1,213