BRVANVOO@MTUS5.BITNET (Brian VanVoorst) (01/16/90)
I am looking at getting a unix machine for myself getting a 386 box seems a likely candidate. My questions are rather general since I have no experience with 386 unix boxes, so any insight would be appreciated. 1. What is a reasonable configuration? Looking thru Computer Shopper it seems a 25mhz machine, 4 meg of memory is standard. Is VGA important (can I run xwindows?) What about cache memory? What is enough? What about a co-processor? Which (coprocessor or cache) is more important? How big of a drive? (150 megs?) 2. I believe I have heard there is more then one version of unix for 386 machines. Is one better then another? Is one less buggy? Are they all buggy? 3. On most 680x0 based machines running unix there are Memory Management Units (MMU), however I have never heard of one with a 386. Is that already in the 386 or do you do without? Is this a problem? 4. Assuming the right graphics configuration, is it possible to run X windows from the console? What would be the right graphics configuration? 5. (A very general question) Does System V.3 have job control? (In the sense that BSD does? If not will that be in an upcoming version? My purpose in getting a unix machine is software development and to help get true hands-on knowledge of unix. I appreciate all the help and information you can provide me with. Brian VanVoorst