haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS]) (01/19/85)
The following is a summary of the responses to my request for information about the various UNIX(-like) implementations on the IBM PC/XT and PC/AT. Thanks to all who replied. \tom haapanen watmath!watdcsu!haapanen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!allegra!noao!utastro!nather (Ed Nather) You should cross PC/IX off your list for several reasons. First, it is a *single* user system, one per customer. This means that each and every user must also be a system guru, or have one on call ... it is very slow on an XT (might be acceptable on an AT) and is cumbersome and unforgiving. I found the editor, Ined, to be inferior to vi, PC-WRITE (which I like a lot for text) and SEE, which I like a lot for writing programs. Overall, I was seriously disappointed in PC/IX, even though I use, and like, 4.2bsd on a (very) overloaded Vax. I've collected a lot of public domain software and written some myself, to make MS-DOS look enough like Unix so I can go happily between the two systems. Compared with MS-DOS on a PC or XT, PC/IX runs like a snail... and there's nothing you can do to fix it -- they don't let you look at the source code. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Dave Farber <watmath!clyde!ulysses!seismo!rochester!farber> I have run SCO Xenix, venix and Coherent on my XT and I have firmly arrived at the conclusion that for customer service and rational business behavior only SCO meets my criteria for a company I will do business with. The performance of Xenix is a bit slower than Venix but still acceptable and getting better. It is also rather more compatable with the new AT xenix and thus a major advantage. Happy to say more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!ihnp4!umn-cs!digi-g!dan I have an AT running the pre-release of Xenix from MicroSoft. IBM authorized MicroSoft to ship Xenix/AT to software development houses so they could get a jump on porting their software. > - How is it performance-wise? As good as can be expected, considering the hardware. Its far better than Venix on a XT. But it doesn't come close to our 68000 based system. I think it is a very adequate system for one person. But software developers tend to place a heavier demand on a computer than the average applications user. It would easily keep up with 3 people doing word processing or data entry/retrieval. > - What size of a hard disk and memory is required? 20 Meg disk and .5 Meg RAM is absolute minimal. > - Is there any facility to run PC-DOS programs? No. But there are programs to read and write DOS floppies. It also includes a cross-development package for DOS. Give cc a -dos switch, and the final executable file is a DOS .EXE file! > - Does it run on a PC AT? This version of Xenix is a special port for the AT. It uses the full 286 instruction set. > - Are you happy with it? As far as Unix ports go, its not bad. The manuals need work, but I hear that IBM is going to totally re-work them. The only bug I have found is in nroff. But I didn't spend much time on it. It may have been a simple problem in the ms package. Some of the standard programs came with wierd names, but that was easily corrected. > - Who was the vendor, and were you happy with him? As stated previously, it was a special release from MS. It will be marketed by IBM shortly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!allegra!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!coleman (Don Coleman) I'll attempt to answer some of your questions. We have been using IBM-XTs running PC/IX since last june. I have been developing a 4.2 socket like network, and a remote disk device, running over omninet-- So our uses are different from what yours will be. > - How is it performance-wise? not too great... feels like a mediumly loaded vax-730. > - What size of a hard disk and memory is required? don't get less then 512K. Any swaping and performance goes through the floor. No less then 10 meg... but ten meg is plenty if you don't install all the programming development stuff... with everything thing you end up with about 1.8 meg's free. By being selective, my machine has about 3.6 meg free... I don't have troff and stuff like that on it. Space is no longer a problem since we now have disk shareing working. We have currently five XTs connected, and all the stuff they only use rarely are only on one of them. This leaves about 6 of the 10 meg free for local files. > - Is there any facility to run PC-DOS programs? yes, you can install the "connector" from Uniform Software Systems Inc. we have use it, and it does work... but beware, if something plays with the clock, or other various special stuff, pc/ix may halt while you use the pc-dos program. PC Rogue works just fine... turbo pascal doesn't work at all. > - Does it run on a PC AT? Yes, but not until late jan, or early feb 85. We have three ATs just sitting on a desk until pc/ix comes in for them. The new pc/ix 1.1 version has a medium model kernel, as apposed to the current one which limits the kernel code to 64K, which we cannot live with. > - Are you happy with it? Yes, it is nothing less, and nothing more, then I expected in a micro unix. But I can't wait for pc/ix on the AT's. An XT will *not* allow three people to edit nicely, let alone run troff. an AT should. > - Who was the vendor, and were you happy with him? IBM. Yes, they gave us two copies for a six month loan, and helped with a few problems during initial development of our device drivers. As for the editer, I couldn't stand it. It isn't bad if you like Word Star... its really more of a word processing editer then a programming editor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watcgl!ihnp4!bradley!brad I have been trying UNETIX on a IBMPC. release 1.0. A newer release is out now. It is nice if you understand how slow the PC is. It allows multi-process and window. Windows can be assigned to tty ports to get a 'multi-user' (with everyone the same user) effect. Although I am waiting on 2.0, 1.0 is slow, but 2.0 claims to be twice as fast. > - How is it performance-wise? Slow but new versions should be faster. > - What size of a hard disk and memory is required? 320K min memory, has hard disk support but will run on 2 floppys > - Is there any facility to run PC-DOS programs? DOS 1.1 programs but reads 2.0 Files I believe. > - Does it run on a PC AT? ???? > - Are you happy with it? When I get 2.0 in I think it will be better. They have a Lattice 'C' compiler, 'vi' editor, and some networking stuff you can buy. > - Who was the vendor, and were you happy with him? Ordered direct. Don't have address handy, if you need it let me know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!allegra!noao!utastro!nather (Ed Nather) It is possible to use the two serial ports on the PC with PC/IX for remote access, but as I understand the manual, it is an either/or proposition, and cannot support more than 1 user at a time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Ron Natalie <watmath!ihnp4!seismo!ron@BRL-TGR.ARPA> PC/IX is not a multiuser machine (well you can have multiple users but only one at a time). It's entirely plain. It will run on a PC/AT but you will not see any benefit frokm doing so, it uses the 8086 compatability mode. Coherent, nice v7ish O/S. Available multiuser for a little under twice the price of a single user license. Don't know if it has ever been extended for the AT. Xenix, a enhanced tracking of the Bell code with bells and whistles added. Don't know if you can get multiuser license. Supposed to work on the AT using all the extended features. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!ihnp4!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!jhull >What I'd like to hear from all the net.people out there is any >experiences with UNIX for the IBM-type machines. I've heard of ... >..., Coherent ... > - How is it performance-wise? never ran any benchmarks but it always seemed fast (on a PC/XT with 1 & 2 users) > - What size of a hard disk and memory is required? 256K+ memory, 5Meg+ disk, 10Meg+ is recommended (by me), you would be well advised to spend a bit more and get LOTS of disk, there are 40M, 60M, and bigger available for not too much. > - Is there any facility to run PC-DOS programs? if there is, I never found it. > - Does it run on a PC AT? yes > - Are you happy with it? very. at $500US, the price is WAY out in front (p.s., in my opinion Coherent is MUCH better than PC/IX) > - Who was the vendor, and were you happy with him? Mark Williams Company, very happy, good telephone support for technical and legal questions(multiple licensing) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!clyde!ulysses!decvax!mcnc!ncsu!usceast!wescott If your minds made up on the PC go no further. Otherwise I would suggest taking a look at the NCR Tower series of machines. They currently run Unix System V. The lowend machine, called "Minitower" supports 3-4 users with no problem and uses a 46MB disk. NCR support is allover Europe, so that shouldn't be a problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!bet Two items. 1) I have used PC/IX. I am whelmed (neither over- nor under-). In terms of performance, I am frankly astonished -- acceptably responsive (single user on PC/XT with 1 10 Meg hard disk and 512K of ram) and only about half as fast running C application programs as MS-DOS with a good MS-DOS compiler. Truly remarkable performance considering it does run-time memory protection *without* hardware support! On the other hand, after using it some I decided that I liked MS-DOS v2.10 better than AT&T System III -- even V7 would be better, and V7 with Berkeley enhancements would be vastly better. This comes to a head with the absence of "vi" -- PC/IX (a System III port by Interactive Systems) comes with the Interactive Systems screen editor INed. I disliked INed SO much that I am using ed(1) gaaak! I really would like an acceptable full-screen editor. Conclusion: if you have your own portable full-screen editor, and you can get along with System III (a major step backwards, in my opinion) then PC/IX is a first class product -- the performance it achieves is astonishing for this hardware. 2) DON'T let people feed you a common misunderstanding about XENIX on the PC/AT. There is an older version of XENIX, developed for the PC/XT, which is what is currently available, which only uses the "compatability" mode of the AT's 80286 -- no hardware memory management. THIS IS NOT the product IBM has announced for the PC/AT for 1st quarter 85, which uses the full power of the 80286. If you can hold out until it is available, IBM's XENIX for the PC/AT is probably the best bet for your application -- it is far and away the best performer, and is a classy UNIX in its own right (SIII if I recall correctly, but with enough Berkeley enhancements so you won't be burnt unless you need to program AT&T's disgusting tty interface). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: watmath!decvax!mogwai!paul (Paul H. Mauritz) At my previous place of employment, we were a Beta Test site for PC/IX on the IBM PC-XT. We had good rappor (sp?) with both the IBM people and the Interactive Systems People (They did the port). Now to your questions: - Performance on the XT was ok. Note: The PC/IX implementation on the XT was "single user" due to lack of memory management on the 8086. Although we had uucp running while still logged in, so it's possible to have more than one user. On the AT, I *believe* that PC/IX is multi-user. - We ran with 512K memory, although I believe 256K is enough. A 10M hard disk is required (at least). If you install all 19 diskettes, you will use up about 2/3 of the 10M. - Sadly, no facility for MS-DOS programs (at least then). You could read and write DOS files. Wait. I have some literature here for "The Connector" from Uniform Software Systems Inc. 1110 Eugenia Pl. Carpinteria, CA 93013 805 684 5434 which - and I quote - "... is a new program that allows DOS applications software to run under the UN*X operating system. ..." - Interactive has recently announced - and I have seen it run at a local user group meeting - PC/IX for the AT. Faster. - All in All, I was happy with it. It ran faithfully, no software crashes that were unexplained or unexpected. Meaning, I could make it crash, but under normal circumstances, it ran like a champ. - We dealt with IBM and Interactive directly - on-site visits by large teams, etc - so I never dealt with vendors, although I did have occasion to use the PC/IX support center number recently, and found them to be extremely helpful but a little slow. - Now we get to the good stuff. PC/IX has as the page editor, INed from Interactive. The guys who wrote this were original ned writers, therefore, it has VAST improvements. It has a special file format which only it uses to provide *EXTENSIVE* personal tailoring, on-line help, and - best of all - on-line commands at the touch of a button. Both help and commands are accesible by use of a "pop-box", a box which at the touch of a button appears on your screen. INed has many of the features of e17, the latest RAND distro. I can't say enough about thge editor, maybe it shadows the rest of my opinions about PC/IX allitle, as it is extremely powerful, and with on-line help - again tailorable - it is easy to learn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Erik Fortune <erik%brandeis.csnet%watdcsu!csnet-relay.arpa%waterloo.csnet%watdcsu!%%%watdcsu!csnet-relay.arpa@> Greetings. I've been using PC/IX on an XT, and XENIX on an AT since May. Overall, I'm pleased with both systems, but especially so with XENIX. Under biases list the fact that I'm a part-time IBM employee. > - How is it performance-wise? XENIX -- I'm happy. I get (subjectively) better performance out of my AT (20 meg hard disk, 1 meg core) than I do out of a moderately loaded (5-7 users, or 3 doing real stuff) VAX 780 (4.2bsd). PC/IX -- Not bad. The XT is a fairly lightweight machine, but PC/IX squeezes as much as possible out of it. For a single user, PC/IX is tolerable but not great. For multi-user? Frankly, I wouldn't recommend it. It should also be noted that the license that comes with PC/IX is single-user only, although remote logins are supported, and work just fine. VENIX -- Source: Hearsay, mostly. I'm told that VENIX and PC/IX give roughly the same performance. (The one set of benchmarks I've seen put PC/IX slightly ahead) A friend at VentureCom (VENIX vendors) claims to have seen benchmarks that put VENIX slightly ahead. I haven't really run VENIX, so I can't say. Also, I believe that multi-user licenses are available from VENIX, but I'm not certain. > - What size of a hard disk and memory is required? XENIX -- My PC/AT has 1meg of core, and a 20 meg disk. I've run XENIX on an AT with 512k, and not noticed any significant decrease in performance. (informal benchmarks say 5-10% at the worst) PC/IX -- Requires a hard disk, so 10 meg on an XT and 20 meg on an AT. Core? I'm not sure how much memory is required, but I'm told that performance degrades pretty heavily below 256k. VENIX -- I haven't a clue. > - Is there any facility to run PC-DOS programs? XENIX and PC/IX -- neither has a facility to run PC-DOS programs, although both can read and write DOS format diskettes. (yahoo) I believe the same is true of VENIX, although I'm not sure. PC/IX and XENIX can also share the hard disk with DOS, I'm not sure if this is true of VENIX. I have also heard rumors of a facility for running DOS programs under PC/IX available from an outside vendor. If it becomes an issue, send me a note and I'll try to track it down. > - Does it run on a PC AT? XENIX -- Only on an AT PC/IX -- Yes, but only in 8086 compatiblity mode. I've not used PC/IX on an AT, so I can't comment on performance. VENIX -- I believe so. > - Are you happy with it? XENIX -- Very happy. Performance is good, I get csh (yaay!) and VI (if you're into that kind of torture :-) ). There's also a public-domain (I believe) version of JOVE (emacs knock-off) kicking around, which pleases me tremendously. The only thing that I really miss in XENIX is berkeley style job control. PC/IX -- Fairly. I'd like more berkeley goodies (csh, at least), but have thrown together enough shell scripts to make me reasonably happy. The editor is another story, I'm not crazy about it, but others are. I have JOVE anyways. VENIX -- I'm told that VENIX has more of the Berkeley goodies I'd like and a reasonable editor. > - Who was the vendor, and were you happy with him? XENIX and PC/IX -- IBM, perfectly happy, but see biases above. PC/IX comes with limited support, I'm not sure about XENIX or VENIX. > I would also like to have any impressions of the PC/IX editor. Ick. Fairly slow, uses the console even if you're logged in on a remote line. Does have undo for the life of the file, though. (if you want it, part of the reason it's slow) Marginally extensible, but not tremendously. The moral of ths story? I heartily recommend XENIX on the PC/AT. If you'll be running multiple users, you probably want at least a meg of core. If you MUST use XTs, PC/IX is friendlier than VENIX, so for novice users I'd recommend PC/IX. If you aren't interested in "berkeley goodies", I'd recommend PC/IX. Frankly, though, if I were buying Unix for my own XT I'd buy VENIX at this point. (I REALLY miss csh). I'd also probably try to track down JOVE for any system I'd buy. (Although VI is tolerable). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Again, my thanks to all the people who responded. \tom watmath!watdcsu!haapanen