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In general, Unix programs need very little porting. Simply follow the installation instructions. If you don't know -- and don't know how to find out -- the answers to some of the questions asked during the installation procedure, you can guess, but this tends to produce buggy programs. In this case, you're probably better off asking someone else to do the port.
If you have a BSD-ish program, you should try using
-I/usr/include/bsd and -lbsd on the appropriate
parts of the compilation lines.
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ld.so is the dynamic library loader. Each binary using
shared libraries used to have about 3K of start-up code to find and
load the shared libraries. Now that code has been put in a special
shared library, /lib/ld.so, where all binaries can look for
it, so that it wastes less disk space, and can be upgraded more
easily.
ld.so can be obtained from
tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/GCC and mirror sites. The
latest version at the time of writing is ld.so.1.9.5.tar.gz.
/lib/ld-linux.so.1 is the same thing for ELF ``(
What's all this about ELF?)'' and comes in the same package as
the a.out loader.
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First, look in the Linux Software Map -- it's at sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/linux-software-map, and on the other FTP sites. A search engine is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.boutell.com/lsm/.
Check the FTP sites ``
Where can I get Linux material by FTP?'' first -- search the ls-lR or INDEX files
for appropriate strings.
Also look at the Linux Projects Map, ftp.ix.de/pub/ix/Linux/docs/Projects-Map.gz.
If you don't find anything, you could either download the sources to
the program yourself and compile them. See ``
How do I port XXX to Linux?'' If it's a large package which may require some
porting, post a message to comp.os.linux.development.apps.
If you compile a large-ish program, please upload it to one or more of
the FTP sites, and post a message to comp.os.linux.announce
(submit your posting to <
linux-announce@news.ornl.gov>).
If you're looking for an application program, the chances are that
someone has already written a free verson. The
comp.sources.wanted FAQ has instructions for finding the
source code.
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