jan@cancol.oz (Jan Newmarch) (10/17/89)
We have a number of AT clones running DOS and we would like instead to run Unix with X windows, NFS, etc. Since not many of the Unix extensions seem to be available on 286 Unix lookalikes such as Xenix, we may have to upgrade them to 386SX's. (I know they won't be as fast as a real 386, but that won't matter.) Has anyone done this upgrade? Was it easy or painful, cheap or expensive, etc.? Any comments gratefully received. +----------------------+---+ | Jan Newmarch |:-)| ACSnet: jan@cancol.oz | Info. Sciences & Eng.|___| ARPA: jan%cancol.oz.au@uunet.uu.net | Canberra CAE | UUCP: {uunet,ukc}!munnari!cancol.oz.au!jan | P.O. Box 1 | CSNET: jan%cancol.oz@australia | Belconnen A.C.T. 2616 | JANET: jan%au.oz.cancol@EAN-RELAY | AUSTRALIA | +--------------------------+
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (10/17/89)
In article <221@cancol.oz> jan@cancol.oz (Jan Newmarch) writes: |We have a number of AT clones running DOS and we would like instead to run |Unix with X windows, NFS, etc. Since not many of the Unix extensions |seem to be available on 286 Unix lookalikes such as Xenix, we may |have to upgrade them to 386SX's. (I know they won't be as fast as a real |386, but that won't matter.) I haven't personally done the upgrade, but I can give you an idea of the equipment you want and the software costs. If you want to run X on PC-class machines, you want systems with about 6mb of memory (more preferred, 4mb will work but badly). The best X version I've seen for PCs is the one offered by Interactive Systems Corp for their 386/ix. For runtime-only, the workstation version of 386/ix is about $1200 retail, 1-2 user, which gives you TCP/IP, X11R3, VP/ix (gag), NFS (you need at least 8mb for NFS) and the base operating system. No development tools. The workstation developer package retails for $1999. You should be able to get these packages at substantial savings if you look around; don't pay retail unless you expect to need a lot of support. There are two other major versions of UNIX with X11, XENIX and ESIX. XENIX supports X11R2, not R3, so you probably want to steer away from it. It is also extremely expensive. I used ESIX with X11R3 and its performance was substantially inferior to X under 386/ix. It's quite a bit cheaper, though. The 386/ix X11 has the best video adapter support in the business, period. If you have a card, they probably support it. This is a heavy consideration if your 80286 machines are EGA or VGA equipped -- you can use the current video adapters until you can afford to upgrade to something fancier. I have no experience with running on an SX versus a true 80386, but there has been some talk of it so I know it works. It's probably 20% slower due to the smaller data path (this makes a significant difference when running X). Good luck, jim frost software tool & die madd@std.com