Editing autoconf and automake files in Eclipse

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I found myself needing to edit an autoconf file today.

Eclipse is my tool of choice these days for any coding work on *nix machines. Especially with how far the Remote Tools project, PTP and CDT projects have come, it makes it very convenient to have Eclipse running locally and editing remote files.

I started out by looking for shell script editors and found ShellEd. This looks like a good tool to edit shell scripts in Eclipse. Unfortunately, I was not able to install it on my system. The links provided in the installation instructions did not work for me. Eclipse was unable to parse the sites to find the packages to download. And I am not a big fan of download and install locally. So I gave that up.

However, then it occurred to me, I dont need a shell script editor. What I need is a autoconf editor. A quick Google search pointed to an active project called Linux Tools Project. However, note the project is still under incubation. I installed the "Auto tools" component from it right away and was able to successfully edit autoconf scripts.

Determining the system configuration on AIX

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I am using an AIX system at work these days. I used a AIX v4 system a few years ago. Since then I have become primarily a Linux person. Now I find myself using AIX again for a few days.

On Linux, the /proc file system is the repository for all system configuration. AIX has a /proc filesystem now but it is not as helpful as on Linux.

Here is a useful command to determine the number of CPUs and CPU information on AIX.

lscfg - Displays configuration, diagnostic, and vital product data (VPD) information about the system.
lsconf - Show basic hardware and configuration details
prtconf - Display system configuration information

Here are a list of other useful commands - AIX commands you should not leave home without.