# 1.8.4 on HP/UX

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/1-8-4-on-hp-ux/97408>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 25, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/1-8-4-on-hp-ux/97408 "2006-01-25T21:38:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/1-8-4-on-hp-ux/97408/1 "2006-01-25T21:38:34Z")

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We are running HP/UX 11i at work (or some such). Has anyone using this  
OS run into any issues?

Robert

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/q/dec6dc/32.png) [@quik77](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/quik77)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/1-8-4-on-hp-ux/97408/2 "2006-01-25T22:29:55Z")

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Quoting Robert H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid):

> We are running HP/UX 11i at work (or some such). Has anyone using  
> this OS run into any issues?

I installed Ruby 1.8.4 on HP-UX 11i once recently. It’s entirely  
doable, but there are some gotchas.

1. Use GNU make, not HP’s make. The latter has weird ideas  
about what constitutes “out-of-date”.

2. HP only implemented enough of getaddrinfo() to pass the  
autoconf tests; if you want a working socket.so, you’ll need  
to disable ipv6 and wide-getaddrinfo so it uses Ruby’s  
built-in getaddrinfo() instead.

3. Build all the C libraries which Ruby depends on as shared  
libraries – failing that, at least compile them with  
either -fPIC or +z (depending on whether you’re using gcc  
or c89)

4. Don’t use the HP Software Porting Archive’s version of  
readline; on HP-UX, the dynamic libreadline must be linked  
against -lcurses, which they neglected to do. Easiest  
thing is probably to start with their patched source  
distribution and add -lcurses to the linker options for  
the dynamic library in the relevent Makefile.whatever.

5. Disable the C++ bindings for any C libraries you build,  
unless you’re sufficiently current with your linker patches.

I am hoping someone builds some binary packages soon, so HP-UX  
Rubyists don’t have to deal with all this themselves. In general  
HP-UX is an ugly platform to compile software for.

-mental