PARSEC Technical Information

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.

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.

Remember the download URL is Tru64 Freeware.

• AIDE Intrusion detection system
• GNU Autoconf v2.69
• GNU Automake v1.15
• GNU Bash v4.3
• GNU binutils v2.25
• bzip2 v1.06
• EPM v4.4 - Mike Sweet's lovely package manager
• GNU Gcc v4.2.3 The last GNU GCC that'll work with Tru64
• GNU make v4.1 and v4.2
• GNU gmp-6.1 - Required for GCC
• GNU grep v2.24
• GNU gzip v1.6
• The Joe Editor v4.0
• GNU less v4.81
• libgcrypt v1.6.3
• libgpgerror v1.19
• libiconv v1.14 Dependancy for several GNU packages
• lrzsz v0.12.20 X/Y/Z Modem protocol support tools & utilities
• Lua v5.3.5
• m4 v1.4 M4 is garbage, but it's required for some software
• mhash v0.9.9.9 CLI hash generator tool for many hashing formats
• GNU mpc v1.0.3 needed for building GCC
• GNU mpfr v3.1.4 also needed for GCC
• Nano v2.4.2 Another easy to use editor the terminal
• Ncftp v3.2.5 A great command-line FTP client
• Openssh v7.2p1 and v7.5p1 The newer version is a much better package. The 7.2p1 package has some installation problems (but still does work).
• Openssl v1.0.1t, v1.0.2u, and 1.10l Recommend v1.0.2u for OpenSSH building.
• Perl v5.22
• Pth v2.0.7 latest version of GNU Portable Threads
• GNU Readline v6.3
• Rsync v3.1.2 the wonderful file sync tool from Tridge
• sudo-1.8.31p1 The Sudo security tool
• GNU tar v1.28
• INFO-ZIP unzip v6.10b
• GNU wget v1.9 No SSL support in v1.9 package
• xz v5.2.2 The slow but incredibly tight compression tool
• zlib v1.2.8 the compression library that's a dependency for tons of stuff including secure shell

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.

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.

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