pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) (04/28/88)
I don't want to start a flame war; I mean this question quite literally. Why would anyone want UNIX running on their Amiga? I use shell on my Amiga, and find it nicer than csh or sh on my Sun3 at work (although I wish AmigaDOS could handle job control like csh). Amiga processes are lighter than UNIX processes. The Amiga has assign, and generalized devices. All this makes UNIX look like a step down to me. I can only see two reasons for wanting UNIX. 1) Firewalls between processes, so a runaway or sick process doesn't bring down the whole machine; and 2) standardization/portability, i.e., being able to easily port UNIX programs to the Amiga. For 1, you don't need UNIX to have firewalls. And I guess I wouldn't be willing to loose all the good things I have in AmigaDOS now just for UNIX compatibility. It seems better to me for CA to add to AmigaDOS the parts of UNIX that we want and don't have, rather than to create an incompatible OS. -- -Peter Schachte pds@quintus.uucp ...!sun!quintus!pds
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (04/30/88)
In article <908@sandino.quintus.UUCP>, pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: > I don't want to start a flame war; I mean this question quite literally. > Why would anyone want UNIX running on their Amiga? You called it. Firewalls and compatibility. And because any UNIX shell... even the Version 6 shell (anyone remember?) blows the CLI, or even any of the shells I've seen, out of the water. > 1) Firewalls between > processes, so a runaway or sick process doesn't bring down the whole I don't believe you can set up firewalls without knocking AmigaDOS' performance down to UNIX levels. Memory protection costs CPU cycles in the context switch, unless you have some bodacious MMU hardware. > 2) standardization/portability, i.e., being able to easily > port UNIX programs to the Amiga. And because UNIX comes with so many tools that just aren't available PD anywhere. There are crippled copies of VI, UUCP, YACC, etc... around. But there just isn't the quality software. > It seems better to me for CA to add to AmigaDOS the parts of UNIX that > we want and don't have, rather than to create an incompatible OS. If you do that you'll cripple AmigaDOS. Personally I'm gonna save up for an AT to run Microport and act as a fileserver for mi Amiga. I can't see anyone doing it right out there... -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.
dca@toylnd.UUCP (David C. Albrecht) (04/30/88)
In article <908@sandino.quintus.UUCP>, pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: > I don't want to start a flame war; I mean this question quite literally. > Why would anyone want UNIX running on their Amiga? > > ... Compares points of Amigados to Unix ... > > And I guess I wouldn't be willing to lose all the good > things I have in AmigaDOS now just for UNIX compatibility. > > It seems better to me for CA to add to AmigaDOS the parts of UNIX that > we want and don't have, rather than to create an incompatible OS. It is a reasonable question. There are several reasons why I want Unix. 1) It is the closest thing to a standard OS (across architectures and brand names) there is. Not only multi-tasking also multi-user. Real file protections, real user protections. 2) Large amounts of public domain software available, much of it of interest to software developers. 3) Mail/News across Usenet with a complement of mailers, news readers, etc.. 4) Many useful development tools (yacc, lex, awk, sccs, diff, sed...) that are standard across the unix world. 5) Generalized terminal interface (termcap, curses). While it is certainly not as nice as a bit mapped display it makes talking to your system across a modem a more useful enterprise. 6) One process going wild usually doesn't bring down the machine. I could probably think of more but these will do for now. Basically, unix is bridge between larger, more powerful machines (in some respects) to my home machine. I can bring programs from the VAX at work and with little or no effort get them to work on my AT&T 3b1 at home. Amigados is restricted to people with Amigas. It is very difficult (I won't speculate on whether it is possible) to integrate many aspects of Unix into the Amigados environment. a) With the scatter load and intermixing of multi-process data the Unix fork operation is difficult to achieve under Amigados. b) No resource tracking makes process killing rather difficult. c) The sharing of data between processes and the lack of process protection from the beginning means than installation of such protection will probably break an undetermined number of existing applications. d) Without protection you can't get the immunity of machine integrity from the misbehavior of one process. e) Besides making process protection more fraught with danger data sharing also compounds the resource tracking problem. f) I doubt that Amigados has the concept of owner, group, system in the file ownership bits that unix has. g) The kind of reach around behavior of scanning or altering system lists is a big no-no under a protected system like Unix. Blitter ownership, copper lists, input chain handlers, become more tenuous entities under Unix. h) At the very least such applications as drop shadow would have to run as superuser. Without an equivalent Unix library and file system interface porting all the applications of Unix to the Amiga becomes a pain in the butt. Many unix utilities have been ported to the Amiga but it still far from unix. Consider me irrational if you like but when developing software that isn't specifically using some aspect of the Amiga I head for my 3b1 instead of the 2000. Certainly, it would be ideal to integrate the Unix and Amigados environments so that you could run Amiga tasks on top of unix. This is much more difficult to do than a straight port, however, and you could end up with a hacked Amiga environment and hacked Unix environment or both. As a first phase I would be happy just to be able to boot the machine one way and get Amigados, boot it another and get Unix. I too, however, would hope that Commodore will try like Apple did to integrate the two environments at some point. I suspect, however, it is much easier to put Amigados on top of Unix than it is to put Unix on top of Amigados. David Albrecht
chima@dasys1.UUCP (Chima Ngene) (05/01/88)
In article <908@sandino.quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >I don't want to start a flame war; I mean this question quite literally. >Why would anyone want UNIX running on their Amiga? > Simple, UNIX offers a great deal, besides it many utilities which would make a world of difference, if the Amiga could be run UNIX it would more than likely double sales (even more if it were to be multi-user, like UNIX machines).... >I can only see two reasons for wanting UNIX. 1) Firewalls between >processes, so a runaway or sick process doesn't bring down the whole >machine; and 2) standardization/portability, i.e., being able to easily >port UNIX programs to the Amiga. For 1, you don't need UNIX to have >firewalls. And I guess I wouldn't be willing to loose all the good >things I have in AmigaDOS now just for UNIX compatibility. #1) True, an Amiga's task can crash (or lockup, e.i. Soft-Ware Task Error Stop All disk Activity), but how many times have you seen a UNIX system crash hmmm ? (UNIX's Operating System is much more Stable) I don't want to seem like I'm putting down the Amiga, because I'm not, I'm just saying that if the Amiga had the power of UNIX it would be an even better computer. #2) The Amiga would not be loosing an O/S, just gaining one... :-) -- /// Amiga Power User - Mr. Chima Ngene (chima@dasys1) /// /// {UNIX, & DOS, ETC} Programmer..... (Take Your Pick) /// \\\/// ...............!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!chima \\\/// \\// {amiga@dhw68k} {amiga@killer} \\//
doug-merritt@cup.portal.com (05/03/88)
Peter da Silva claims that the Version 6 Unix shell is superior to
the CLI and all of the various Amiga shells, and asks if we remember
it.
Yes, I remember it quite clearly (I learned C by making various
enhancements to it...arghhhh...), and I'd have to disagree. It supported
pipes, IO redirection, wildcarding via the external program "glob"
run as a separate process, and background processes. Not much else.
Not even a way to change the prompt. ("%" if anyone cares).
A friend (Ross Harvey) and I did a 100% reimplementation of it in a single
night of hacking around 1978 or so. There just wasn't much to it.
Peter, I'm pretty sure you're thinking of experimental versions of
Bill's C-shell, or possibly even an enhanced V6 shell as done by either
me, Ross Harvey, or Bob Toxen. If memory serves me correctly, you arrived
at Berkely just before v7 was introduced, right? (Heh, heh...bet you didn't
know some of us remember you from way back when! "The Shadow Knows". I ran
into you at a Con once and was amused that you hadn't the slightest idea who
I was nor how I knew who you were. Hint: remember Ken Arnold? Yes, I thought
you would.)
Anyway, what feature of the v6 shell are you claiming was so wonderful?
Maybe I'm just forgetting something. *My* v6 shell was cool of course ;-)
it supported full interactive "open-mode" command line editing. Bill declined
to borrow those features for C shell because it would've had to run in raw
mode, with severe impact on the 11/70, already bogged down with up to 60 (!)
users. Ah well. [ See my article "Fear and Loathing on the Unix Trail '76"
in Jan 85 Unix Review for details. Commercial plug, oh no! ]
I agree with you in general about the desirability of Unix, of course.
At least for those of us who have gotten addicted to it.
Doug Merritt ucbvax!sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
or ucbvax!eris!doug (doug@eris.berkeley.edu)
or ucbvax!unisoft!certes!dougpeter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/04/88)
In article <5039@cup.portal.com>, doug-merritt@cup.portal.com writes: > Peter da Silva claims that the Version 6 Unix shell is superior to > the CLI and all of the various Amiga shells, and asks if we remember > it. A good summary. > Yes, I remember it quite clearly (I learned C by making various > enhancements to it...arghhhh...), and I'd have to disagree. It supported > pipes, IO redirection, wildcarding via the external program "glob" > run as a separate process, and background processes. Not much else. Part of the niceness of the old V6 shell was due to the fact that it ran on V6, but while we're going down the list you better add that it supported IO redirection anywhere on the command line (as opposed to just before the first argument), executed shell scripts transparently (none of this Execute foobar stuff), and so on. > A friend (Ross Harvey) and I did a 100% reimplementation of it in a single > night of hacking around 1978 or so. There just wasn't much to it. No, there wasn't much to it, bu what there was was pretty well put together. > Peter, I'm pretty sure you're thinking of experimental versions of > Bill's C-shell, or possibly even an enhanced V6 shell as done by either > me, Ross Harvey, or Bob Toxen. You mean "psh"? No, I'm talking about the shell that Comp Center had on all the CC machines. > If memory serves me correctly, you arrived at Berkely just before v7 was > introduced, right? Yeh. Actually, the Comp Center held on to Version 6 for about a year after that. They even had a Version 5 system while I was there... > (Heh, heh...bet you didn't > know some of us remember you from way back when! "The Shadow Knows". I ran > into you at a Con once and was amused that you hadn't the slightest idea who > I was nor how I knew who you were. Hint: remember Ken Arnold? Yes, I thought > you would.) Yeh, I run into Ken now and then. Last time was at Usenix in Dallas (where I wore my "Only on the Amiga" pin :->). I guess you just didn't make an impression on me. Not enough personality :->. > Anyway, what feature of the v6 shell are you claiming was so wonderful? The whole gestalt of sh and UNIX was just so much more Zen than the CLI, and none of the Amiga shells will run without the CLI. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.
bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (05/05/88)
In article <1902@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: | And because any UNIX shell... even the Version 6 shell (anyone remember?) | blows the CLI, or even any of the shells I've seen, out of the water. I would submit that WShell + conman + ARexx provides much *better* "shell" features than the version 6 shell. cshell gives it more competition, but even there I go to a lot of trouble to try to do things like get substrings. KSH may be comparable, but I'm not willing to give up csh's {a,b,c} [that's AmigaDOS's (a|b|c)] to find out. Of course, this wonderful stuff puts you out 100 bucks, which is fairly high by Amiga standards, but that's nothing compared to Unix. All the other replacement shells are doomed to trail Unix since they strive to imitate it (at least all the others I've seen). -- --Brian. (Brian T. Schellenberger) ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts . . . now at 2400 baud, so maybe I'll stop bothering to flame long includes.
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/06/88)
In article <494@sas.UUCP>, bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) writes: > In article <1902@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > | And because any UNIX shell... even the Version 6 shell (anyone remember?) > | blows the CLI, or even any of the shells I've seen, out of the water. > I would submit that WShell + conman + ARexx provides much *better* "shell" > features than the version 6 shell. When (yes, WHEN) I get WShell and AREXX and Conman I'll try the combo out. > All the other replacement shells are doomed to trail Unix since they strive > to imitate it (at least all the others I've seen). They don't strive very hard, that's all I'll say on that subject. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.