treed@SGI.COM (Thomas E Reed) (05/09/89)
I am interested in any information good or bad concerning DEC's ultrix OS. I am trying to put together an unbiased comparison of unix OS's primarily (AT&T, BSD, and DEC). Any input is very welcome.... .............................. Thanks in advance ... -- Tom Reed SGI - Dallas email: sgi!sgidallas!treed vmail: 8705 phone: 214-788-4122
karlton@fudge.SGI.COM (Phil Karlton) (05/11/89)
In article <8905091526.AA00538@sgidallas>, treed@SGI.COM (Thomas E Reed) writes: > I am interested in any information good or bad concerning DEC's ultrix OS. > > I am trying to put together an unbiased comparison of unix OS's primarily > (AT&T, BSD, and DEC). I don't know if I am completely unbiased, but here goes anyway. Basically, Ultrix is Digital's version of BSD 4.2. The device drivers tend to be very different than those for the same device out of Berkeley. It has had most of the AT&T features added; where there are conflicts an environment variable helps the application choose which "mode" to run in. Because of long lead times, some applications that one expects with BSD just haven't made it out the release cycle yet. Very few of the 4.3 features are available, including some developed by Digital engineers located at Berkeley and "shipped" with BSD releases 1 or 2 years ago. A lot of work (some successful) has gone into trying to make installation and system management easier for novices. The techniques tend to get in the way of the knowledgable user. PK