fsjpc@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (CLEMENS JONATHAN P) (08/09/90)
I have a Mac IIx 4/80, and I'm considering buying A/UX. That said, I'd like to solicit advice from the net at large as to the wisdom of such an action, and have a few questions that I don't absolutely trust my local dealer to answer... - How much space does it *really* take up on a hard drive? - Can Mac Applications *really* be run from within A/UX? How much trouble is it to run a typical application? - How easy is it to set up and maintain? - For those of you who've paid for it out of your own pockets: was it worth it? I've gotten nowhere fast looking into A/UX locally. You see, no one *owns* a copy in Alaska, the dealers know nothing (although they'd be happy to sell it to me...), and I find a demo quite impossible to obtain. For those of you who cared enough to read this far, here's why I'm asking. I have a Mac IIx, and am a competent MacOS "Power User", as well as quite Proficient with many other micro OS's and VMS. I'm working in a position where, in two years or so, I stand a very good chance of being thrust into supporting a Unix operating system. I'm young, moderately ambitious, and quite eager to get ahead in my job. The only practical way I can get any Unix experience is to "do it myself", or so it appears. I have read books on Unix, heard testimonials from other hackers, and even got myself an account on a University of Alaska Fairbanks Sun, but that's the nearest Unix accessible to me, and it's a thousand miles and five nodes away. Needless to say, the response time is atrocious. Like I said, I'm young, open-minded, and a hacker at heart. I'm also not making enough money to throw it around spuriously, but I can afford to spend it if it'll be of some real use to me. Oh, yes: I'm fully proficient in C, and swear by it as my language of choice. Is A/UX for me? Jonathan Clemens Standard Disclaimers apply; My employer doesn't know I know how to use a _REAL_ computer. Please reply to me at: fsjpc@acad3.fai.alaska.edu fsjpc@alaska.bitnet
blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) (08/09/90)
fsjpc@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (CLEMENS JONATHAN P) writes: >- How much space does it *really* take up on a hard drive? You really want to devote 80Mb to it, at least. If you're doing serious programming, I think you'd prefer 100Mb. >- Can Mac Applications *really* be run from within A/UX? How much trouble >is it to run a typical application? Yes, most Mac applications run just fine. You can run several different user interfaces: a command shell that look like any other Unix (sh, csh, ksh) or Multifinder, or X Windows. Under Multifinder, you double click on the application, just like under the MacOS. Under Multifinder, you can run X Windows and a command-shell window, so Multifinder is the preferred way of running A/UX by almost everyone. >- How easy is it to set up and maintain? Setting it up is as straightforward as on any Unix machine. (Maybe better :-)) I'd recommend the CD-ROM version as the easiest to install, if you aren't buying a pre-installed hard disk. You can get A/UX on hard disk, CD-ROM, tape, or floppies. Floppies are a *royal* pain. >Is A/UX for me? Only if you need the features, or if, as you've said, you want to learn more about Unix. I happen to think that A/UX 2.0 is an outstanding Unix machine. It's much easier to work with than any other Unix flavor I've seen (and I've used many, from a Cray to a PDP-11/45 running version 6.) Disclaimers: I'm not on the A/UX team. I use A/UX in my work. Even though I'm inside Apple, I'm a customer of A/UX. --Brian Bechtel blob@apple.com "My opinion, not Apple's"