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Disclaimer

PARSEC did the compiling and packaging of this software. We didn't write the software itself. So, please report bugs or issues to the actual authors unless you think it could be a packaging or compiling issue. Also, we make no claim about fitness for a particular purpose of these packages and provide zero warranty. Each package will contain the license for the software (ie.. GPL, BSD, MPL, etc..). The ESP package manager will allow you to accept the license before you install the package. Also be aware that using “now” as the first argument to any package installer will do a non-interactive installation.

Introducing Tru64 Freeware

Swift Griggs, our in-house classic Unix expert, has created Tru64 Freeware using the EPM package manager created by Mike Sweet. The packages use a portable format that self-installs. They come pre-packaged as version-indicated tarballs.

Available Software

Remember the download URL is Tru64 Freeware.

Installation and Removal of These Packages

These packages were not created with Tru64's setld packaging tool. The reason is that we didn't want to interfere with native Tru64 packages. We also didn't want to use setld because it's not a great packaging tool. It's super slow, too.

We went with https://www.msweet.org/epm/ instead. EPM has a “portable” format which creates self-installing scripts which contain all the package binaries. You'll unpack the package tarball and find about four files within them. One of the files will be a “myprogram.install” script (the installer you run) and you'll also notice there is a “myprogram.sw” file which contains the actual archived data for the package. It'll ask you if you want to install the package, then it'll have you accept the license.

EPM packages are simple, but loaded with features. One feature is that when you install an EPM portable package you'll end up with a link in /etc/software called “myprogram.remove”. This is the removal script which will fully uninstall and remove the package. It'll also restore any backup files which were previously clobbered by the package.

Keep in mind that some packages (like OpenSSH) have dependencies. The EPM package manager supports dependencies but I'm afraid that not all the packages have a proper dep-tree. So, if something isn't working, go check it's dependencies on another system and try to satisfy those. That or do an ldd against the non-working binaries and see if you see any missing dynamic libraries. Those are probably dependencies either missed by the packager or some other issue.

OpenSSH Updated for Tru64!

Best of all, we compile and package our own version of OpenSSH for Tru64 5.1 ! It works a LOT better than the DEC, Compaq, and HP versions which are very old SSH Communications versions of Secure Shell and have a lot of incompatibility problems now. If you choose to use OpenSSH 7.5p1, you can still use SSH version1, interact with OpenVMS systems, as well as communicate with modern SSH2 protocols and Linux machines. It's the best of all worlds at the moment for Tru64.

You'll find a lot of other freeware packages but it's all newer than anything you'll find on the old 2010 version of the Tru64 Freeware collection ISO CDROMs.

Questions or Concerns?

If you have feedback please send to Swift Griggs. Available at firstname dot lastname at parsec dot com.