sridhar@hplabs.hp.com (Sridhar Acharya) (12/03/88)
Thanks for all those who replied to my query about "Performance on 3/50's with SunOS 4.0". The summary runs as follows: Most of the replies were to do two things, a) to run a super trim kernel by examining each line in the config file especially those of the devices and see if one needs them and b) to buy additional memory for 3/50's from third party vendors, the details of which have been posted in earlier sunspots. One user said that the problem was not in 4.0 as such but in 'suntools', and he was using 3.X suntools. I haven't tried that, I am not sure if the binaries are compatible. To quote another user "Think very hard about it, think again, and then don't do it!". His opinion was that 4.0 was considerably slower and it's not worth it till 4.0 gets in shape for smaller workstations. For now I am using a trimmed kernel as I have to move to 4.0 due to some other considerations (fd's etc.). Hopefully Sun will come out with performance enhancements in subsequent versions.
hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) (12/14/88)
>One user said that the problem was not in 4.0 as such but in 'suntools', >and he was using 3.X suntools. I haven't tried that, I am not sure if the >binaries are compatible. Almost all 3.X binaries will run under 4.0. The only case I recall where that wasn't true was Common Lisp, because it depended upon details of where the stack is put, and that changed. I've actually been surprised at how much compatibility there really is. The 3.2 Suntools binaries work just fine under 4.0, and perform better than the 4.0 Suntools. I understand that if you have lots of windows, there are some performance problems with Suntools under 4.0, even if you move back to the 3.2 version. Our operators typically keep a window open to just about every machine on the network. I'm told that this worked OK under 3.2, and is terrible under 4.0. More normal Suntools uses seem OK as long as you use the 3.2 Suntools.