jxf@procyon.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) (06/01/90)
My brother works for a company who is going to purchase a Compaq 486
machine and wants to run UNIX on it. He has talked with an AT&T
reseller who claims that SVR3.2.2 won't run on an EISA machine, and
that he will have to wait for 4.0.
Is this true? If so, can some of you kind folks out in netland refer
me to an UNIX-like OS that *will* work on an EISA machine? Say
Interactive, or SCO. I would appreciate a few comments about why
you prefer this particular OS, if possible.
To avoid starting a long and probably uninteresting discussion (in the
event that suggestions are made for Interactive vs. SCO vs. ?) I would
prefer e-mail. I will summarize if there is any interest.
Thanks (very much!) in advance.
--Jerry
--
Jerry Frain -- Perpetual Student Kansas State University
Department of Computing & Info Sciences
Internet : jxf@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu Manhattan, Kansas
UUCP : ...!{rutgers,textbell}!ksuvax1!jxfti@altos86.Altos.COM (Ti Kan) (06/01/90)
In article <1990May31.185133.21581@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> jxf@procyon.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) writes: >My brother works for a company who is going to purchase a Compaq 486 >machine and wants to run UNIX on it. He has talked with an AT&T >reseller who claims that SVR3.2.2 won't run on an EISA machine, and >that he will have to wait for 4.0. > >Is this true? It is not strictly true, but none of the standard 386-PC UNIX (Interactive, SCO, et, al.) are designed to take advantage of EISA. I hate to be playing salesman for my company, but if you want UNIX SVR3.2 on an EISA box, you should look into an Altos 486 System 5000. It is a brand new EISA system with 486 CPU, and runs Altos' new UNIX SVR3.2 which has been adapted to the 486 and EISA bus, yet it is completely compatible with SCO UNIX Sys V 3.2. This means it will run any of the hundreds of off-the-shelf SCO UNIX compatible software applications. Full support is also available for local and wide area networking, such as ISO/OSI, TCP/IP, Novell Netware, X.25, SNA, etc. ODT is supported, which includes X windows, and X terminals can be connected to the system via Ethernet. The Altos 5000 has connectivity of up to 512 serial ports and 30 SCSI hard disk drives of up to ~30GB total mass storage, in addition to standard Ethernet port, mouse port, parallel port, and VGA-compatible graphics card. A SCSI cartridge tape drive comes standard, as is two floppy disk drives (one 1.44MB 3.5" and one 1.2MB 5.25"). Exabyte 8mm tape and 9-track drives can also be specified. Maximum memory in the 5000 is now 64MB, but will soon be increased to 128MB. The claimed maximum number of users supported on a single system is a whopping 200. It is really a pretty hot performer. Check it out in the next issue of _UNIX World_ in which the Altos 5000 will be reviewed. I don't think anyone comes close in price/performance. -Ti -- Ti Kan \\\ vorsprung durch technik! \\\ Internet: ti@altos.com /// \\\ UUCP: ...!{sun|sco|pyramid|amdahl|uunet}!altos!ti ////////\
rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (06/01/90)
I think a few general comments may be useful here. jxf@procyon.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) writes: > My brother works for a company who is going to purchase a Compaq 486 > machine and wants to run UNIX on it. He has talked with an AT&T > reseller who claims that SVR3.2.2 won't run on an EISA machine, and > that he will have to wait for 4.0. Hmmm...well, it's an interesting way to sell 4.0, I guess... I'm currently running a vanilla out-of-the-box Interactive rel. 2.2 on a Compaq 486/25, which is definitely an EISA machine. HOWEVER, let's be careful about that! The system, as I'm running it, is running in ISA mode. There aren't EISA drivers in the release I have, but the hardware is well- behaved and works in ISA mode. (I've "only" got 12 Mb on the machine right now.) What's the real picture? If you get an EISA box now, and you're careful to put in devices that also operate as ISA devices, and you don't put in too much memory (since ISA is limited to 24 bits == 16 Mb), you're OK with the various V.3.2 systems just as they stand. There's an obvious speed penalty for I/O, but you'll be up and running, and the cpu will be running at full speed. (A 486 seems to be roughly 2x a comparably-clocked 386.) Then, you can wait for either (a) V.4 or (b) the particular EISA drivers you need for V.3.2. I'm not going to try to guess the time for either of those to happen (and obviously it will vary with vendor and device)...at this point, Jerry's request probably applies: >...To avoid starting a long and probably uninteresting discussion ... I > would prefer e-mail... But the point is that there's nothing in V.3.2 that inherently prevents it from having EISA device drivers. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Simpler is better.
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (06/04/90)
In article <1990May31.185133.21581@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> jxf@procyon.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) writes: | My brother works for a company who is going to purchase a Compaq 486 | machine and wants to run UNIX on it. He has talked with an AT&T | reseller who claims that SVR3.2.2 won't run on an EISA machine, and | that he will have to wait for 4.0. Not true. I have run SCO and ISC UNIX (and Xenix) on both Dell and HP 486 EISA machines in the last few weeks and they work fine. What is true is that the DMA from the AT bus only goes to 16MB. Some flavors of UNIX can be told that some memory doesn't DMA. There are two ways to bypass this in the driver, one by going through low memory, and one by using CPU for i/o (ala some 386 versions). -- 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
aland@infmx.UUCP (Colonel Panic) (06/06/90)
In article <1990May31.231831.19959@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >... >What's the real picture? If you get an EISA box now, and you're careful >to put in devices that also operate as ISA devices, and you don't put in >too much memory (since ISA is limited to 24 bits == 16 Mb), you're OK with >the various V.3.2 systems just as they stand. There's an obvious speed Uh, almost. The way I read this is that you are saying that you can't have more than 16 MB on an ISA machine, which is untrue. The current AT&T 6386 line, for example, supports 40 MB. I'm running a bunch of them with 24 MB right now. (Since the memory boards are so expensive and can hold 16MB each, and going from 16 to 24MB costs just the extra SIMMs, it's cost-effective). The only real gotcha is DMA. AT&T SVR3.2.2 (at least) handles DMA to/from addresses above 16MB by buffering data in the kernel. This is tunable via the DMAABLEBUF parameter. I've found that I had to increase this somewhat to support cartridge tape i/o with INFORMIX-TURBO. Of course, with MCA or EISA bus, the DMA problems go away. >Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 -- Alan Denney # Informix # aland@informix.com # {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland "These tests will have no effect on your grades. They will merely determine your future social status and financial success, if any."