avilla@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Aldo Villa) (06/06/90)
Facing the prospective purchase of a personal (laptop/transportable to be precise, but this has little importance here), I have since a long time been involved in the effort of trying to understand differences and similarities between the various UNIX-clones. May be because I'm not a computer scientist, and may be also because my dedication hasn't been consistent enough, I haven't yet shed so much light on the topic. Any book on UNIX will introduce the reader to this O.S. mentioning that there are two basic versions of UNIX: UNIX system V by AT&T and UNIX B.S.D. from the computer science department of the Univ. of California at Berkeley. A part from the fact that there are various releases of these two versions already, but when you go to the commercially available versions of UNIX, then the field expands almost with no limits. I have read of the following clones: 1) UNIX system V release 3.2 by AT&T 2) UNIX system V release 4.01 by AT&T 3) ESIX by Everest (sp?) 4) XENIX from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) 5) UNIX from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) 6) Open Desktop from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) 7) UNIX-AIX from IBM 8) UNIX-SUN 4.01/2 from Sun MicroSystems Corporation 9) UNIX from Interactive 10) UNIX-Intel (previously Bell-UNIX) release 3.2 (??) 11) UNIX-Intel (previously Bell-UNIX) release 4.0.(??) 12) UNIX-AUX for Mac computers 13) UNIX-ULTRIX (for Hewlett-Packard micros?) I'm somehow discouraged by all the above; and I'm even more discouraged when I read of the attempts to standardize UNIX worldwide; but then it comes out that there are two of these standardization consortiums; actually, not true: they are three: OH MY GOD, WHAT A MESS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, I won't understand the whole story before I'll be at retirement age, but in the meantime ............ COULD SOMEBODY, PLEASE, GIVE ME AN ADVICE. I want at least the most plane-jane of the Berkeley utilities (vi-editor, C-shell, job-controls) and not so much more. I want an efficient and fast DOS-emulator to run some common DOS software when convenience and necessity will arise. Finally, I want a really wysiwyg PostScript previewer in order to avoid having to go mad and waste time and toner and paper printing out everything many times: even more times when there are tbl-formatted tables and eqn-formatted equations. So, ........ 1) WHAT OPERATING SYSTEM SHOULD I BUY ??? 2) COULD YOU ADVICE ME ANYTHING TO READ WHICH WOULD OFFER A DIRECT COMPARISON (similarities+differences) and which would shed some light on the whole big mess? 3) DO YOU KNOW OF ANY PAPER OFFERING A COMPARISON AMONG THE VARIOUS *NIX? BETWEEN MS-DOS and UNIXES? Finally: 4) IS IT TOO MUCH TO PRETEND TO HAVE A PRODUCT COMPLETELY (or almost) DEBUGGED? I have been using BSD 4.2; then BSD 4.3; and now SUN 4.02 (on a SUN 3.60). Three versions, two enhancements: and despite this I continue to struggle with problems such as: a) The macros -ms has a notorious bug which takes certain commands (setting page margins) to start action only since the second page of the document; this translates in very hard-to-solve problems in case of sophisticated formatting ...... b) tbl interacts in an idiosyncratic way with -ms (I recently discovered that the many troubles that I have always been having with "tbl" are due to this interaction: I owe a "Thank you" to some expert down in the netland who helped me out on this) and this translates in even harder-to-solve problems. So many UNIX-clones, ...., and so trivial problems still around ............. Can I hope to find something already cleaned-up? Thanks everybody in advance: Aldo. P.S. Forgive me for the cross-posting, but I'm at the limit of my ability to stand frustrations in this field.
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (06/07/90)
In article <3636@rodan.acs.syr.edu> avilla@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Aldo Villa) writes: | I have read of the following clones: minix and coherent are clones. Your list is a list of UNIX versions. All of these are based on AT&T V.3.2 and are pretty similar except for the user interface and sysadmin. The commands and stuff are all very close. | 1) UNIX system V release 3.2 by AT&T | 3) ESIX by Everest (sp?) | 4) XENIX from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) | 5) UNIX from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) | 6) Open Desktop from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) | 9) UNIX from Interactive | 10) UNIX-Intel (previously Bell-UNIX) release 3.2 (??) This is (I believe based on V.2 with some graphical interface stuff added. It is said to run Macintosh software as well as UNIX (haven't tried). | 12) UNIX-AUX for Mac computers These are based on V.4, and I don't *think* they are out of beta test. | 2) UNIX system V release 4.01 by AT&T | 11) UNIX-Intel (previously Bell-UNIX) release 4.0.(??) This is based on V.1, with LOTS of changes and BSD-isms. Some versions have X-windows included. | 7) UNIX-AIX from IBM This is a mix of SYSV and BSD features, I believe based on a BSD kernel, with Sun's windows and X included. | 8) UNIX-SUN 4.01/2 from Sun MicroSystems Corporation Based on BSD, for Digital computers. HP's is called HP-UX. And Digital sells a VAX based system they make with a CISC CPU, and something called a VAX which has a RISC MIPS CPU. | 13) UNIX-ULTRIX (for Hewlett-Packard micros?) | COULD SOMEBODY, PLEASE, GIVE ME AN ADVICE. Make up your mind what you want, and then buy the closest one. | I want at least the most plane-jane of the Berkeley utilities (vi-editor, | C-shell, job-controls) and not so much more. I want an efficient and fast | DOS-emulator to run some common DOS software when convenience and necessity | will arise. Finally, I want a really wysiwyg PostScript previewer in order to | avoid having to go mad and waste time and toner and paper printing out | everything many times: even more times when there are tbl-formatted tables and | eqn-formatted equations. So, ........ That can be done in various ways with SCO UNIX, SCO ODT, ISC UNIX, ESIX, and AIX. The postscript comes from public domain tools for X, which you can get for these systems. | 4) IS IT TOO MUCH TO PRETEND TO HAVE A PRODUCT COMPLETELY (or almost) | DEBUGGED? | So many UNIX-clones, ...., and so trivial problems still around ............. | | Can I hope to find something already cleaned-up? MS-DOS is not clean, VM is not clean, VMS is not clean, even CP/M is not clean. There are no bug free operating systems. All of the above are reliable enough for production use in most cases. Spend some time looking at the info on these, the vendors will be glad to send you literature, and they all have ads. Then when you get down to a few questions ask them here, but don't expect someone to write a summary. I've got several weeks invested in comparing ISC, ODT, and V.4, and I'm still struggling with weighting the advantages and trying to decide if I evaluate what's in my hands or what I know I'll have in a few months. Good luck, but if you want a useful answer be prepared to do some research. -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (06/07/90)
In article <1110@sixhub.UUCP> davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: > In article <3636@rodan.acs.syr.edu> avilla@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Aldo Villa) writes: > All of these are based on AT&T V.3.2... > | 4) XENIX from SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) Actually, this is based on a System III port brought up to SVID, with some Version 7 utilities floating around from the original Xenix. -- `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.ferranti.com> 'U` Have you hugged your wolf today? <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com> @FIN Dirty words: Zhghnyyl erphefvir vayvar shapgvbaf.
wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) (06/08/90)
Wanting bugless BSD 4.3 / Sys V r 4 / Sun-os, or whatever, MS-DOS functionality, display Postscript, etc. all in a lap-top computer is a darn tall order. Toshiba is probably the closest to doing it all in a laptop in one place at one time. Toshiba distributes a release of AT&T Sys V r3.2.? that runs on the 386 based 3000 and 5000 series computers. I got a look at a Toshiba 3200 for a couple of weeks a few years ago when it was Sys V r3.1. It was a pretty decent system, but there wasn't any way in heck that I could have found all the worm holes in the short time that I had the machine. Toshiba also has, available only in Japan, a machine that is based on the SPARC CPU chip. Boy would I love to have one of those. If Toshiba imports it to the US, the projected list price is supposed to be around $10K (US funds). As far as display postscript goes for previewing ditroff output on a 386 based system goes, I am still waiting for something that really satisfies me. I can tell you, though, that even on systems thave have been built from the ground up on display postscript, namely the NeXT computer, that even that isn't WYSIWYG between the screen and printer -- though its pretty close. There isn't a portable version of the NeXT anywhere in sight yet, however. Even the color verision of the next NeXT is under pretty tight wraps, though I can verify that test versions of the next NeXT exist. Of course, the NeXT system does not run DOS either. As far as mixing MS-DOS and Unix go, I don't like any of the products I've seen there. The Sun 386i wasn't too bad, but it was slow. DOS Megre and Simultask are both slow and have numerous bugs and compatibility problems. On my own 386, I decided that I'd just fdisk between the Unix partition and a small DOS partition on my drive. That works really well, and since it is my personal system, there isn't any big deal about shutting down unix to reboot into DOS for a while to do the things that DOS is handy for. A standard Unix? It'll probably happen about the same time that there is one standard automobile for everyone. The problem is that everyone wants something different, thus there is no room to agree upon what is standard. ==Bill== -- Bill Mayhew Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (06/09/90)
In article <1110@sixhub.UUCP> davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes: > > This is based on V.1, with LOTS of changes and BSD-isms. Some versions ^^^^ Huh? Surely you jest, or more likely V.1 stands for something other than Unix System V/R1? (I hope) Perhaps this is some sort of ibm-ism -- referring to some release by other than its "real" name? What release is V.1? > have X-windows included. > > | 7) UNIX-AIX from IBM -- Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG
bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) (06/13/90)
In article <1990Jun07.181253.3095@uhura.neoucom.EDU-> wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) writes:
->Wanting bugless BSD 4.3 / Sys V r 4 / Sun-os, or whatever, MS-DOS
->functionality, display Postscript, etc. all in a lap-top computer
->is a darn tall order.
->Toshiba is probably the closest to doing it all in a laptop in one
->place at one time. ....
->Toshiba also has, available only in Japan, a machine that is based
->on the SPARC CPU chip. Boy would I love to have one of those. If
->Toshiba imports it to the US, the projected list price is supposed
->to be around $10K (US funds).
I saw this beastie in the Sparc booth at Comdex in Atlanta last week.
They might bring it to the US next year. Price they are talking about is
$13,000.
It's a Sparc station, portable, LCD display with 1024 x 9??. And it's fast.
They rate it at 13.5 Vax Mips. Pretty impressive for something that fits in
your briefcase. I saw it, I wanted it, but would have no use for it - a
really neat toy, and a great too I imagine for some people.
--
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill
: bill@bilver.UUCP