AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide

work as on previous releases of AIX. As on earlier releases of AIX, IBM will also
ship X11R3, X11R4, and X11R5 compatibility installation options for maximum
customer flexibility. In this way, client applications will experience no problems
with compatibility.
The majority of applications using X fall into this category and will not have any
difficulties. However, a small number of X applications use the loadable extension
facility provided by the X server.
The X-server allows for the addition of new function through its extension
mechanism. For each extension, part of the extension is loaded into the X-server
before it can be executed. X11R6 has modified this mechanism, and it is this part
of the extension that must be made compatible with X11R6 to execute properly.
All extensions supplied by IBM have been made compatible and will execute
properly. In some circumstances, a customer may have an extension that will not
work with X11R6, such as:
• Customers who have sample extensions downloaded from the X Consortium
FTP site.
• Customers who have developed their own extensions.
• Customers using third-party extensions.
In these cases, the extensions will need to be made compatible with X11R6
before they will execute properly. Customer-developed extensions and sample X
consortium extensions will need to be recompiled with the X11R6 environment.
For third-party extensions, the customer should contact the vendor for a
X11R6-compatible update.
Customers using non-IBM display adapters may also be using vendor-supplied
software specific to those devices that use X-server capabilities. If so, this
software must be made compatible with X11R6 to operate properly. The customer
should contact the vendor of the display adapter for this software.
IBM provides a porting guide with AIX Version 4.3 that also appears on The
Developers Connection CD to assist customers and vendors developing adapters
or extensions for AIX. The Developers Connection can be found at the following
URL:
http://www.developer.ibm.com/devcon/
2.1.3 AIX Version 3 Application Compatibility
All AIX applications correctly written using AIX Version 3 Release 2 or greater for
POWER, POWER2, and PowerPC-based models will run on AIX Version 4
without recompilation for the same models. Exceptions are applications that use:
• Their own loadable kernel extensions
• Certain High Function Terminal (HFT) control interfaces
• X11R3 input device interfaces
• The CIO LAN device driver interface
• SCSI device configuration methods (IHVs)
• The nlist() interface
• DCE threads
14 AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide