mangler@csvax.caltech.edu (Don Speck) (03/22/89)
Reply-to: mangler@csvax.caltech.edu (Don Speck) My boss expressed interest in converting our aging 780 and 750's from BSD to Ultrix. Naturally the Software Product Description doesn't mention support for any peripheral that DEC hasn't sold with vaxen. Are DH11 and TM11 compatibles supported? Will it boot from an SI 9900 disk controller, with disks that are not conformable to an RM05 geometry, e.g. Fujitsu Eagles? Will my old Interlan NI1010A Ethernet controllers work? Will Ultrix run substantially slower than BSD on a 4MB 780? On a 2.75 MB 750?
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (03/29/89)
In article <88332@felix.UUCP> mangler@csvax.caltech.edu (Don Speck) writes: > Reply-to: mangler@csvax.caltech.edu (Don Speck) > > My boss expressed interest in converting our aging 780 and 750's > from BSD to Ultrix. Naturally the Software Product Description > doesn't mention support for any peripheral that DEC hasn't sold > with vaxen. > > Are DH11 and TM11 compatibles supported? > > Will it boot from an SI 9900 disk controller, with disks that > are not conformable to an RM05 geometry, e.g. Fujitsu Eagles? > > Will my old Interlan NI1010A Ethernet controllers work? > > Will Ultrix run substantially slower than BSD on a 4MB 780? > On a 2.75 MB 750? The general observation is that the kernel and drivers stuff that was in the Berkeley 4.2 code is still present and not too grossly broken. That is considerably different from being "supported" though, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it got sanitized in Ultrix 3.x or x.x... You might have real problems booting from a non-quite-compatible drive since as of 2.x they abandoned the traditional BSD boot/format stuff for some VMSoid installation/boot procedure involving a box of floppies. There are maybe 6 reasons for going Ultrix, most of them involving peaceful coexistance in a mostly VMS environment. 1) LAT terminal server support. 2) DECnet support. 3) NFS support. 4) Inablility to justify $$$ for source license. 5) Lack of technical/administrative expertise and/or energy. 6) New and wonderful Vaxen not supported by BSD4.3/tahoe. The downside of being stuck with a proprietary (and probably Binary only) operating system are pretty obvious. While Ultrix is still (generally) 4.2/4.3 binary compatible and whatnot, there is no obvious commitment on DEC's part to maximize across the board compatibility beyond the the degree needed to convince people that it is a viable BSD unix alternative. ---- The 8650 was the last real "VAX", the rest are mere VMS engines... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)