cliff@centaure.UUCP (Clifford Dibble) (01/19/90)
I just received literature for a product called "ESIX System V", from ESIX Systems Inc. of Fremont, California. It's a Sys V 3.2 for the 386 with XENIX binary compatibility. It comes bundled with TCP/IP, RFS, X11.3, etc. Best of all, it's much cheaper than SCO! Their complete, "Software Development" package is only $595 for a 2-user license, or $825 for an unlimited license. I'd like to hear any opinions or comments -- especially from ESIX users. Thanx! Cliff Dibble uunet!centaure!cliff
alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells) (01/19/90)
In article <127@centaure.UUCP> cliff@centaure.UUCP (Clifford Dibble) writes: >I just received literature for a product called "ESIX System V", from ESIX >Systems Inc. of Fremont, California. I'm using ESIX System V right now (actually, I'm rlogin'ed from ESIX to the Motorolla Unix Sys V on our gateway machine that handles incoming news if you want to be precise). >It's a Sys V 3.2 for the 386 with XENIX binary compatibility. More than that, it conforms to the 386 binary compatibility standard (whatever it is called) so shrink-wrapped 386 Unix apps (which there aren't very many of) will run just fine. >It comes bundled with TCP/IP, RFS, X11.3, etc. Best >of all, it's much cheaper than SCO! Their complete, "Software Development" >package is only $595 for a 2-user license, or $825 for an unlimited >license. Hmmmm ... I'll have to check this. I thought that we had paid a lot more. Perhaps there are other things that we got with it ... In addition to all the standard software, you can, of course, bring up any standard Unix stuff you get elsewhere, like gnu tools, etc. >I'd like to hear any opinions or comments -- especially from ESIX users. >Thanx! It is a reasonably competant Unix. I am running it on a nice 25MHz 386 with 8MB memory (I wouldn't recommend less), a 300MB hard disk. (You might be able to get by on 100MB, but would recommend at least a 150MB. One co-worker has 1.2GB and claims he needs it ... but I think that's a bit extreme ...), a cartridge tape drive, a 5 1/2" floppy drive, ethernet, vga card and color monitor, and extra com ports. Entire system cost was about $5,000 for the hardware, which seemed reasonable. On this, the Unix runs pretty snappily. I have it set up with 8 virtual terminals (switchable by hitting the ALT 1-8 keys) which is nice, I leave one as superuser, one hooked to the in-house VAX, one hooked to the Unix gateway, and the others for local work. You can get X for the machine, but it sucks. Makes the machine look like an XT with no hard disk. Much too slow. One of my co-workers insists on doing it anyway ... You can get all the appropriate software to make the system into a fully compatible news and mail host. One of my co-workers is set up for mail at her machine, another has his home machine as both a mail and a news host (in fact, we are feeding in from him until our internet connection works). You can also purchase things like a k-shell, dos-in-a-box (the standard version only lets you have a dos partition, and do dosmv's to and from it and reboot the machine if you want it to actually run a dos application), and other goodies. (Get the k-shell! I don't consider Unix useable without it ...) Because it conforms to the 386 binary compatible standard, you can get a number of nice (for Unix) manuals to go with the system: AT&T UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 - User's Guide - Programmer's Guide (Vol I and II) - Programmer's Reference Manual - System Administrator's Guide - System Administrator's Reference Manual They are about 1000 pages each, and cost us about $35. You really do need them all, there are frequent (but obscure) references from one to the other. You can probably get them at the store you get the ESIX from. If you aren't planning to do any programming on the machine, you can limit yourself to the User's Guide and the System Administrator's Guide and Reference Manual. As is usual with Unix, expect to take about 3 months setting your machine up unless you are an accomplished guru ... ;-) -- --------| I die ... you die ... we all die ... Alien | - the Heavy Metal movie --------| decvax!frog!cpoint!alien bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien
fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (01/23/90)
In article <127@centaure.UUCP>, cliff@centaure.UUCP (Clifford Dibble) writes: > I just received literature for a product called "ESIX System V", from ESIX > Systems Inc. of Fremont, California. > I'd like to hear any opinions or comments -- especially from ESIX users. > Thanx! I have one system running ESIX (really ENIX, a previous name). We were one of the unofficial beta testers of the system. I could say a lot of good things about it as it is reliable and real system 5.3.2. However, the following amazing thing happened. We originally were given the release as an "unoffical beta site" by the then marketing manager of the project. We did a lot of work with two different releases including sending the development people lots of corrections to the doucmentation. Well, our contact left for another company. Next we received a bill for the release. Rather than complain and as we were using it we paid the bill. Since that time I have found a bug in the console driver. I called the tech support people and they said it was fixed in Update C. We have update A. We (myself and my boss) have called Ida Wu, the current product marketing manager at least 6 times and left messages on voice mail. We have never received a call back. I finally wrote a nasty letter that said that if I didn't hear from them in two weeks I would send a copy of the letter to the editors of the three UNIX magazines. Subsequently we have sent that letter, had one editor talk to Ms. Wu who assured him that it would all be cleared up. It hasn't. We have been attempting to get an update (which we are willing to pay for) for almost a year. I don't understand what is going on as other people seem to get stuff from them. Everex (who owns the whole mess) is a huge company. I have hesitated posting this message for months as we sell reference booklets for UNIX and XENIX and have attempted to maintain a reasonable relationship with all the vendors but utter amazement has prompted me to do this. Maybe there is a black hole in their database around the name SSC or something. I don't know. Good luck. -- Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl (206)527-3385
jinkins@ut-emx.UUCP (Head UNIX Hacquer) (01/24/90)
> We (myself and my boss) have called Ida Wu, the current product marketing > manager at least 6 times and left messages on voice mail. We have never > received a call back. I finally wrote a nasty letter that said that if I > didn't hear from them in two weeks I would send a copy of the letter to > the editors of the three UNIX magazines. Subsequently we have sent that > letter, had one editor talk to Ms. Wu who assured him that it would all be > cleared up. > It hasn't. We have been attempting to get an update (which we are willing > to pay for) for almost a year. I don't understand what is going on as > other people seem to get stuff from them. Everex (who owns the whole > mess) is a huge company. > Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX > uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl (206)527-3385 Phil, In the past I have always dealt with Kate Webb. The other day I called her number to see about getting the Rev C upgrade. To my surprise she has left the company. Someone else, I think the name was Dave Carrera, has taken her place. It took a few tries but Dave finally returned my call. I was informed that I could no longer obtain the software directly from Everex but would have to purchase it from one of their official resellers. He indicated that it was approximately $100 and gave me the phone number of a dealer in my area. Richard Jinkins jinkins@emx.utexas.edu
cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) (01/24/90)
Well, BYTE January 1990 has a short article in the UNIX /bin column on
several *nix implementations for the 386 (and one for the 286), including
Esix System V/386. I'd quote, but it's illegal and someone might not take
kindly to it. So I'll just tell you that it's the most inexpensive "real
Unix 3.2" they found. The prices they list (US$) are $399 for two users,
$595 for the operating and development systems, and $825 for unlimited
users (operating and evelopment systems, X Window System, Streams, and
RFS).
They only give Esix one paragraph plus the quick summary of prices
and address and phone number, so don't bother buying BYTE if you just want
to find out about Esix.
--
Stephen M. Dunn cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
<std_disclaimer.h> = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n";
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"I want to look at life - In the available light" - Neil Peart