lew@gsg.UUCP (Paul Lew) (05/03/88)
I would like to find out more information about Road Runner from its user.
Is it a stable machine to buy? How about performance compare to other
product? Do the 16-bits bus slow it down at all? Please give your opioion
only if you actually use it.
--
Paul Lew {oliveb,harvard,decvax}!gsg!lew (UUCP)
General Systems Group, 5 Manor Parkway, Salem, NH 03079 (603) 893-1000mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) (05/03/88)
In comp.unix.questions (<148@gsg.UUCP>), lew@gsg.UUCP (Paul Lew) writes: >I would like to find out more information about Road Runner from its user. >Is it a stable machine to buy? How about performance compare to other >product? Do the 16-bits bus slow it down at all? Please give your opioion >only if you actually use it. Well, now that the machine is announced, I guess it's okay to talk about it. I've been dealing with Roadrunners for about the past 2 months, first in a Sun porting lab (we demo'd some software at the big rollout in Boston) and subsequently on our own beta machine. My experience has been that the machine is an abolsute JOY to work with, notwithstanding a few bugs in the beta test hardware and software. I don't know much about performance of the DOS emulation (though I've seen it run Flight Simulator, Lotus, and Microsoft Windows(!) in its own DOS windows under SunView, all concurrently) or AT peripherals plugged into the bus. We'll be doing some work in those areas, but haven't quite gotten there yet. What I like about the Roadrunner: - The machine is FAST! Our 386i/250 (8 megs memory) really does deliver about 4 to 5 VAX MIPS in day-to-day use, for raw CPU horsepower. Even coupled with the relatively slow SCSI disk it beats our Eagle-equipped 3/160 servers by a factor of 2 for compilations, etc. - SunOS 4.0 seems quite stable, even in beta test. There are many nice things in SunOS 4 -- shared libraries, the NFS automounter (file systems can now be made mount on reference), etc. - There are many nice Roadrunner-specific additions to SunOS, including volumes (symbolic names mapped to machine:filesystem pairs -- cd to /vol/{symbolic-name} and the appropriate filesystem is automatically mounted), automatic system installation (only really useful on a network of Roadrunners at the moment, but give them time), the interactive help system (must be seen in action), and all of the so-called "EZ Unix" stuff to make the machine a little easier to run without a full time wizard at your disposal. - The SunView user interface for SunOS 4.0 has been made cleaner, and many of the tools (textedit, mailtool, etc) seem to be much improved. - It's almost completely compatible with the Sun 3 line, but faster than most of them. I ported 130K lines of code in under a week, the only change being 10 lines of extra code on the Roadrunner [because I was creating my own in-memory pixrect structures without going through libpixrect.a, and there were some extra tweaks needed on the Roadrunner; if you use the library interfaces, you'll never know the difference.] I should point out that this code was already VERY careful about not assuming big-endianism internally. - The Organizer is a decent interface to the filesystem, running (excuse me, "launching") applications by double clicking on them, etc. for those who want the Mac Finder on a Sun. - Modulo the bugs mentioned below, the DOS emulation stuff seems to be a very nice job. In particular, they pay attention to things like emulating the PC's physical disk (on a dedicated chunk of disk in $HOME/PC) so that copy-protected software can be installed, emulating a couple of different displays, trying to let you control access to the floppy drive when you have multiple DOS windows running, etc. What I don't like about the Roadrunner: - AT peripherals that do DMA are not working in the beta release of the system. Sun has promised that this will be fixed by first customer ship. - Only relatively low interrupt rates can be sustained on the AT bus. This is also supposed to be a beta test problem. - You cannot debug binaries linked with shared libraries, due to some internal implementation problems in dbx [like, it tries to set a breakpoint on _exit when it starts up, but _exit might not be present until libc is dynamically linked in at runtime]. Sun is apparently working hard on this one, but in the meantime you have to specify static linking if you want to use dbx on the resulting binaries. - The COFF object file format only allows 64K line number records to be embedded in a binary, making debugging big programs a pain. I talked to one of the compiler people at Sun about this once -- it's a recognized problem, and there are known ways to fix the compilers and debuggers, so I'd expect this limitation to go away later. - The automatic installation and EZ Unix stuff are still a little shaky in beta test. In particular, there's not enough attention (in my opinion) paid to 386i's that have to coexist on existing YP networks with Sun 3's, and to machines that live on the Internet. I can understand this, since Sun is trying to sell Roadrunners into a different market segment, but the fact remains that if you want to hook a Roadrunner up into an existing network, you may need a decent system administrator to get things configured correctly. On the other hand, if you have an existing network of Suns, you probably already HAVE a decent system administrator. - I'm not terribly crazy about the new filesystem layout in SunOS 4.0, especially in view of the fact that Sun, DEC, and UCB all seem to be redoing the filesystem layout, and all in different ways. This is a pain for those of us who have to manage multiple machine/OS types. What do I really think about the Sun 386i? I like it. A lot. It's about the only machine I can imagine wanting to buy for my home. If I were still doing consulting, I could easily recommend it to lots of people. It would be a really nice software development environment, for other Suns or for PC's. [The company I used to work for did PC development by using a VAX- or Pyramid-based cross-compiler. It would have been nice to be able to use a Sun-based cross-compliler and test/debug the software right in another window.] It would be a nice financial analyst's machine, especially for those people who have a while pile of PC software and data that they don't want to throw away, but who have outgrown PC's and want to get into the world of real computers. :-) And of course it's a Sun, so it's nice for DTP, CAD, and all those other uninteresting things that non-hackers do with their Suns now :-) [DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Sun. I just like the machine a lot. I *think* everything I've said above is correct, but I've been dealing with beta test hardware and software, and conditions may have changed. These are all my own opinions, and BBN has nothing to do with them.] -- Matt Landau Let not a man glory in this: that he loves his country. mlandau@bbn.com Let him glory rather in this: that he loves his kind.
mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) (05/04/88)
[Followups directed to comp.sys.misc, since this has nothing to do with Unix, and comp.sys.sun isn't a good forum for newsgroup-style interactions.] In comp.unix.questions (<148@gsg.UUCP>), lew@gsg.UUCP (Paul Lew) writes: >I would like to find out more information about Road Runner from its user. >Is it a stable machine to buy? How about performance compare to other >product? Do the 16-bits bus slow it down at all? Ah, it's only just occurred to me what that question about the bus meant. On the Sun 386i, the processor and main memory are NOT connected via the silly 16-bit AT bus. Instead, they use a proprietary 32-bit interconnect scheme (it's not really a bus), allowing things to run as fast as possible. There wouldn't be much point building a 32-bit Unix machine around a 25 MHz 80386, then sticking the memory on a slow 16-bit bus, now would there :-) Interesting observation: I think Sun is the only company in the workstation market that's delivering product lines based on 3 radically different CPU architectures (M68K, I80386, SPARC) running the same OS and being pretty much completely compatible at both the source code and user levels. (I.e., you can sit at a Sun3, Sun4, or 386i and they all look the same -- in fact, if someone hid the box and just gave you the mouse, keyboard and screen you might not be able to tell which one you were using without hunting around the filesystem). Are there any counter-examples I'm missing? Also, as Guy Harris and others have pointed out, the new filesystem layout is supposedly based on a scheme worked out jointly by Sun, DEC, and UCB. I guess I just haven't seen anything written on the latest thinking at the latter two. -- Matt Landau Takes more than combat gear to make a man, mlandau@bbn.com Takes more than a license for a gun. Confront your enemies - avoid them when you can. A gentleman will walk but never run.
wnp@killer.UUCP (Wolf Paul) (05/04/88)
In article <10928@jade.BBN.COM> mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) writes: >What do I really think about the Sun 386i? I like it. A lot. It's about >the only machine I can imagine wanting to buy for my home. If I were >still doing consulting, I could easily recommend it to lots of people. How about some ballpark price figures for different configurations? Wolf Paul -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: ihnp4!killer!dcs!wnp ESL: 62832882 INTERNET: wnp@DESEES.DAS.NET or wnp@dcs.UUCP TLX: 910-280-0585 EES PLANO UD
robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) (05/09/88)
In article <10928@jade.BBN.COM>, mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) writes: [Comments on the new features in SunOS 4.0 deleted] [Comments on improvements in the user interface deleted] > - The automatic installation and EZ Unix stuff are still a little > shaky in beta test. In particular, there's not enough attention > (in my opinion) paid to 386i's that have to coexist on existing YP > networks with Sun 3's, and to machines that live on the Internet. > I can understand this, since Sun is trying to sell Roadrunners > into a different market segment, [stuff deleted] > What do I really think about the Sun 386i? I like it. A lot. It's about > the only machine I can imagine wanting to buy for my home. If I were > still doing consulting, I could easily recommend it to lots of people. > It would be a really nice software development environment, for other Suns > or for PC's. > It would be a nice financial analyst's machine > And of course it's a Sun, so it's nice for DTP, CAD, and all those other > uninteresting things that non-hackers do with their Suns now :-) The question still remains: who will *really* buy a Sun 386i? It is too expensive for those who are mainly looking for a faster PC. Those who already have Sun's have a lot of software invested in Sun-3 and/or Sun-4 software, and would probably not like to invest a lot of money in the same software for the 386i architecture. A 386i is somewhat faster than a Sun-3, but not quite as fast as a Sun-4. And there's a lot more software out there for the Sun-3 series of workstations. So, what customers do Sun think will buy 386i's, and what customers think they will buy a 386i?
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (05/11/88)
In article <226@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: >So, what customers do Sun think will buy 386i's, and what customers >think they will buy a 386i? I think that people who work in a mixed Sun/DOS environment would make good use of them. At our site a number of people prefer Suns, but have to be able to work with DOS software, either for applications or for user support. I'd love one, although I'm sure I'll never get it. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
joel@intelisc.UUCP (Joel Clark) (05/11/88)
In article <226@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: > >The question still remains: who will *really* buy a Sun 386i? > >So, what customers do Sun think will buy 386i's, and what customers >think they will buy a 386i? How about VAR's who have software and hardware peripherials designed for the PC bus that want access to the Sun Workstation market, including SunWindows and NFS? I know of one or two already planning this. Joel Clark Intel Scientific Computers (503) 629-7732 joel@intelisc.UUCP.COM {tektronix}!ogcvax!intelisc!joel My opinions are never considered by Intel's strategic planners.
stefan@helios.toronto.edu (Stefan Mochnacki) (05/11/88)
Some people are asking "Who will buy the Sun 386i ?" In this moderately-
sized Astronomy Department (about 22 faculty ...) we are likely to buy
THREE right away. We have 3 Sun-3 100-series machines already, and direct
access to several others including a Sun 4. However, many of us have PC's,
particularly portable ones or desktops kept at home, and the 386i provides
a fusion of the PC and SUN / UNIX worlds very nicely, as well as providing
computing power for our students via terminals connected to terminal
servers.
As I've said before on a different newsgroup, the Sun 386i is competitively
priced when compared with other 386 systems because it includes many
features which are necessary in a distributed academic environment but
which have to be bought separately as add-ons to "street-market" PC's.
Furthermore, the UNIX situation for 386 PC's is messy because there are so
many hardware "standards" (sic) which no generic offering of UNIX can
support. << There's a great opportunity for someone to start up a new
software company: a Drivers Galore factory ! There's a fortune to be made
writing drivers for all the display adapters and disk controllers on the
market which generic offerings of UNIX and OS/2 cannot hope to support
...>>. Another aside : there are discounted marketing channels for Suns
and many organizations can buy Suns with deep discounts.
[ I have no connection with Sun Microsystems. Opinions are my own ]
--
Stefan W. Mochnacki INTERNET - stefan@helios.physics.toronto.edu
Astronomy, U. Toronto UUCP - {uunet,pyramid}!utai!helios!stefan
+1 (416) 884-9562 BITNET - mochnacki@utorphys.bitnet benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) (05/14/88)
in article <226@pvab.UUCP>, robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) says: > In article <10928@jade.BBN.COM>, mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) writes: >> What do I really think about the Sun 386i? I like it. A lot. It's about >> the only machine I can imagine wanting to buy for my home. If I were >> still doing consulting, I could easily recommend it to lots of people. > > It is too expensive for those who are mainly looking for a faster PC. > Those who already have Sun's have a lot of software invested in Sun-3 > and/or Sun-4 software, and would probably not like to invest a lot of > money in the same software for the 386i architecture. A 386i is > somewhat faster than a Sun-3, but not quite as fast as a Sun-4. > And there's a lot more software out there for the Sun-3 series of > workstations. > So, what customers do Sun think will buy 386i's, and what customers > think they will buy a 386i? Hmm...I think you have it backwards. The 386i adds alot of MS-DOS software (yes I know about co-processors - co-processors are an additional expense and lack an AT-bus) to the Sun line. Having also seen the machine, i too was impressed...what Sun did in it's bridge to MS-DOS...Apple was unable to do with their A/UX-MacOS bridge. That Sun has created an elegant bridge the melds the Unix/MS-DOS environments so that users can live confortably within a structure that permits multiple DOS and Unix windows (and finders for that matter), filesharing and cut/paste tools. Apple's Mac II AUX people should talke a close look at the 386i and try to perform a similar job on the Mac II so that running a Mac OS application from within Unix is as transparent. The current implementation is *weak* with regards to window management, filesharing - between Unix and MacOS partitions - and performs the regretable act of turning Unix into a single viewable process when a *working* (not all of them work) MacOS program is invoked. A week or so ago PCWeek had an interesting comparison of Sun 386i-Compaq 386-PS/2 machines, price-wise the Sun won hands down. (Not to mention that the overall Sun environment has a number of software features missing in the other two machines) I guess to answer your question : *anyone* considering buying a 386 Compaq or PS/2 OR Mac II/AUX are probably easy sales given the pricey-ness of all three when comparably configured. ______ Naturally My Opinions Are My Own.
klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee) (05/15/88)
I can't stand MSDOS and would never buy a machine just because it ran MSDOS.
I'd still buy a Sun 386i machine because:
1. it's really fast (I've tried it)
2. it has decent big-screen, 8 bit, frame buffer graphics
3. it runs real UNIX and NFS
4. you can install 16MB of RAM
5. there are lots of 3rd party software vendors
6. it runs X11 and NeWS windows
7. it's real cheap for what you get
These are very popular features and there are no other machines like this.
Unfortunately, RAM and 386 chips are scarce, so these machines may be hard
to get.
Ken
--
uucp: {atari, nsc, pyramid, imagen, uunet}!daisy!klee
arpanet: atari!daisy!klee@ames.arc.nasa.gov
STOP CONTRA AID - BOYCOTT COCAINEstan@sdba.UUCP (Stan Brown) (05/15/88)
> Some people are asking "Who will buy the Sun 386i ?" In this moderately- > sized Astronomy Department (about 22 faculty ...) we are likely to buy > THREE right away. We have 3 Sun-3 100-series machines already, and direct > ** STUFF DELTED **** > As I've said before on a different newsgroup, the Sun 386i is competitively > priced when compared with other 386 systems because it includes many > features which are necessary in a distributed academic environment but > which have to be bought separately as add-ons to "street-market" PC's. > Furthermore, the UNIX situation for 386 PC's is messy because there are so > many hardware "standards" (sic) which no generic offering of UNIX can We too are looking at buying a couple. We are a small controls system engineeriing co. & do a lot of in house work on a UNIX9tm) machine. However we are being forced to fo more & more software development to run on DOS target machines. In addition we presently us a 12 MHZ AT clone for AutoCad(tm) work. The Sun's will allow us to integrate all of these diverse needs into a networking environmet where everyone will have acess to the latest version of all data. The DOS compatbilty (while retainig a _real_ -:) operating system for our users & developers) is the key here also. -- Stan Brown S. D. Brown & Associates 404-292-9497 gatech!sdba!stan "vi forever"
robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) (05/16/88)
In article <1925@ssc-vax.UUCP>, benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes: > Hmm...I think you have it backwards. The 386i adds alot of > MS-DOS software (yes I know about co-processors - co-processors > are an additional expense and lack an AT-bus) to the Sun line. > A week or so ago PCWeek had an interesting comparison of > Sun 386i-Compaq 386-PS/2 machines, price-wise the Sun won hands down. > (Not to mention that the overall Sun environment has a number of software > features missing in the other two machines) > I guess to answer your question : *anyone* considering buying a 386 Compaq > or PS/2 OR Mac II/AUX are probably easy sales given the pricey-ness of > all three when comparably configured. I have seen and used the machine myself, and I liked it a lot. It was just the price tag that made me wonder who could justify to purchase a Sun386i instead of one of those Taiwanese Compaq 386 clones? Especially for those who don't need the all software that Sun ships their machine with (and that is probably true for most of the to-be customers). BTW, what PCWeek issue was that comparison in?
stan@sdba.UUCP (Stan Brown) (05/16/88)
> I can't stand MSDOS and would never buy a machine just because it ran MSDOS. > I'd still buy a Sun 386i machine because: > > 1. it's really fast (I've tried it) > 2. it has decent big-screen, 8 bit, frame buffer graphics > 3. it runs real UNIX and NFS > 4. you can install 16MB of RAM > 5. there are lots of 3rd party software vendors > 6. it runs X11 and NeWS windows > 7. it's real cheap for what you get > > These are very popular features and there are no other machines like this. > Unfortunately, RAM and 386 chips are scarce, so these machines may be hard > to get. > FYI, our local SUn offcie quotes delivery (as of last week) as 2-3 weeks. -- Stan Brown S. D. Brown & Associates 404-292-9497 gatech!sdba!stan "vi forever"
dricej@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson) (05/17/88)
Who will buy a Roadrunner? I see it as having several advantages from
our perspective.
1. It is a 386 box with a Berkeley-based Unix. The parts of Berkeley that
are important to me are the long file names, symbolic links, the integrated
networking, and some of the useful utilities. The fact that Sun has added
in much of System V is an added benefit (improved libraries, improved /bin/sh).
2. It is a Sun. That means Suntools & the big screen (assuming you buy it).
You may argue about windowing systems; the fact is that Suntools is useful
to me today.
3. Since it is a 386 box, you can have virtual DOS machines. It appears that
Sun has done this reasonably well. I have no idea whether others have done
it as well.
4. Since it is a 386 box, a few more of our customers may buy them. Since
our applications aren't important enough typically to justify an entire box,
this is an important consideration.
--
Craig Jackson
UUCP: {harvard!axiom,linus!axiom,ll-xn}!drilex!dricej
BIX: cjacksongerman@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu.UUCP (05/18/88)
A comparison between the Sun386i/150, Compaq Deskpro 386/20 and IBM PS/2
model 80-111 was in the May 3, 1988 PC Week starting on page 13 (vol. 5 no. 18)
It is not an in depth review. The 386i is a Unix workstation and is not
aimed at people who just want a fast PC. I prefer the Unix environment and
find that ability to run MS-DOS programs under Unix a bonus. I am sure there
will be many people who do buy the machine as a fast DOS box, but that is not
the market Sun appears to be going for.
Greg German (german@uxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU) (217-333-8293)
US Mail: Univ of Illinois, CSO, 1304 W Springfield Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Office: 181 Digital Computer Lab.bertil@carola.uucp (Bertil Reinhammar) (05/18/88)
In article <231@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: [A lot of ref's deleted] > >I have seen and used the machine myself, and I liked it a lot. >It was just the price tag that made me wonder who could justify to >purchase a Sun386i instead of one of those Taiwanese Compaq 386 clones? >Especially for those who don't need the all software that Sun ships their >machine with (and that is probably true for most of the to-be >customers). > We are about to get some 20 RR-stations to be used in education and research. Getting all that stuff at that price and compatible with the rest of SUN environment was some of the major reasons for buying. About needs of software: People are ( at least here in Sweden ) RAPIDLY raising their demands. So the difference in price are more or less of no meaning anymore. -- Dept. of Electrical Engineering ...!uunet!mcvax!enea!rainier!bertil University of Linkoping, Sweden bertil@rainier.se, bertil@rainier.UUCP
shan@mcf.UUCP (Sharan Kalwani) (05/18/88)
In article <231@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP writes: >BTW, what PCWeek issue was that comparison in? It's PCweek May 3, 1988 Vol 5 No 18 Page 13. -- sharan kalwani, vax facility, mcf, 110 east warren avenue, detroit mi 48201 usenet : ...!{uunet!umix, pur-ee!iuvax, ucbvax!mtxinu, ihnp4!mibte}!mcf!shan internet: shan%mcf.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu shan@mcf.uucp dec enet: decwrl::"umix.cc.umich.edu!mcf!shan" fax: (313) 831-8714
ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (05/21/88)
>I can't stand MSDOS and would never buy a machine just because it ran MSDOS. > I'd still buy a Sun 386i machine because: > 1. it's really fast (I've tried it) Compared to what? I wasn't all that impressed. On the other hand the 3/60 is a dynamite machine for a desktop. -Ron