jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) (12/16/89)
I was speaking to Wordperfect Corporation the other day about upcoming
releases of their product for '386-based Unix. Like everybody else, I
must face the ISC vs. SCO dilemma for our new office-automation system
we plan to install next year. We currently use 386/ix for our
development system, but I am giving SCO a look because of Open Desktop
and because it seems that more software and hardware specifically lists
SCO as a system that it runs on (though often it says "SCO Xenix").
Back to Wordperfect... They told me that their first release of 5.0 for
Unix will be for SCO, and they are unsure of when a port will be made
to 386/ix.
What I wonder is: Are they that different that software must be
separately compiled for SCO, ISC, AT&T, ESIX...? If so, this strikes me
as awfully stupid. How can we ever hope to persuade most of the major
software companies to support Unix under this scenario. Does this mean
that I can't use SCO's software (or software written for SCO Unix)
under 386/ix? I guess if it is written for "Xenix" I can use it under
SVR2's Xenix compatibility.
One last question is, for products like Wordperfect, what are the
advantages (if any) of buying the native Unix version versus buying the
MS-DOS version and running it under vp/ix or Merge?
Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you...
--
Jim Gottlieb
E-Mail: <jimmy@denwa.uucp> or <jimmy@pic.ucla.edu> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy>
V-Mail: (213) 551-7702 Fax: 478-3060 The-Real-Me: 824-5454cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) (12/16/89)
In article <338@denwa.uucp>, jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) writes: > and because it seems that more software and hardware specifically lists > SCO as a system that it runs on (though often it says "SCO Xenix"). Since release 3.2 of unix (Interactive 2.0.2) for the 386, the capability to run xenix software has existed. In fact, since I sometimes have to develope software that links with xenix libraries, I have copied my xenix file system to a file system on my interactive system and just do a chroot() to run in a xenix environment (xenix compiler, libraries, system programs, etc). I have not yet found a piece of application software that will run under xenix that will not run under Unix. > What I wonder is: Are they that different that software must be > separately compiled for SCO, ISC, AT&T, ESIX...? If so, this strikes me > as awfully stupid. How can we ever hope to persuade most of the major > software companies to support Unix under this scenario. Does this mean > that I can't use SCO's software (or software written for SCO Unix) > under 386/ix? I guess if it is written for "Xenix" I can use it under > SVR2's Xenix compatibility. As long as the software does not use any special system calls that are not present under UNIX (but are under xenix) the same binary software can be used on all of the listed systems. There are only a few little used xenix system calls that do not appear in Unix and a smart product manager should ensure that these system calls are t used. > One last question is, for products like Wordperfect, what are the > advantages (if any) of buying the native Unix version versus buying the > MS-DOS version and running it under vp/ix or Merge? There are three major considerations: 1. since dos is single user, most products for dos do not have any real support for multi user systems (for example, there may be no way to share documents, but limit different access (i.e only you can update the doc but others could read it)). 2. vpix is a cpu hog. Running 4 or 5 simultaneous vpix sessions can really eat up the cpu and kill performance. 3. Since the product was developed for dos, it's user interface under unix may not be as nice or user friendly. If the interface under unix is acceptable, I would recommend getting the unix version of the software. You should be able to support more users on the same machine and get better performance. -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Conor P. Cahill uunet!virtech!cpcahil 703-430-9247 ! | Virtual Technologies Inc., P. O. Box 876, Sterling, VA 22170 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (12/16/89)
Remember that SCO Xenix 386 and the AT&T/Intel-derived Sys V/386 are two
wholly distinct products. This is confused by the fact that SCO now
also distributes a release of V/386 (right?). Vendors who 'port to
SCO,' even 'port to SCO 386,' probably tend to mean Xenix even now.
Fortunately V/386 3.2 will load Xenix 386 binaries OK. All you have to
worry about is yucky screen and I/O specifics.
It would be nice if someone told Word Perfect's makers that ALL they
have to do is recompile under V/386 to get a native binary. The Xenix
compatible include files and symbol definitions are lavishly supplied.
--
Canada -- a few acres of snow. ^v^v^ Tom Neff
-- Voltaire v^v^v tneff@bfmny0.UU.NETtom@yang.cpac.washington.edu (Tom May) (12/17/89)
In article <338@denwa.uucp> jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) writes:
What I wonder is: Are they that different that software must be
separately compiled for SCO, ISC, AT&T, ESIX...?
I run both SCO Xenix and ISC Unix on my box (can't remember the
versions, although they're both quite recent). ISC claims binary
compatibility with Xenix (except for a few small things), and I was
pleasantly surprised to find they were correct. I can mount my Xenix
partition from ISC, include it in my path, and run all the tools I
have acquired and compiled under Xenix (including GNU Emacs, although
I haven't tried it with pty's and select(2)) no problem. In my case,
this saves me lots of disk space and software installation time.
--
Tom May
tom@yin.cpac.washington.edutim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) (12/17/89)
I am currently running WP4.2 the unix version on my ISC202 box along side the WP Office for xenix. This is working very well. There is no problem with this because WP products all use the same terminal definition system. It is neither termcap or terminfo, but something they came up with, therefore xenix binarys and unix binarys work the same. Note that the binaries will run anywhere, it is terminal handling and tcp that you have to watch out for. That is the only area that WP Office falls down is the mail program won't communicate with my tcp linked system at all via tcp, however due to the flexibility of uucp, I can route to that machine that way. That aside I am very happy with the way it runs. I can only assume that this would be the case for other xenix binaries as well. As to WP50 for unix, I heard it was going to be for XENIX. If it is indeed for SCO UNIX, then it should work fine on ISC. Tim Brown | Computer Connection | (attmail or uunet)!comcon!tim |
ilan343@violet.berkeley.edu (12/17/89)
In article <177@comcon.UUCP> tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) writes: > > >As to WP50 for unix, I heard it was going to be for XENIX. If it is >indeed for SCO UNIX, then it should work fine on ISC. > Does WP 5.0 mean that graphics and page previewer are part of the package? Short of a X-windows version how would they do make it work for all flavors of UNIX/386?
tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) (12/18/89)
In article <1989Dec17.095713.16315@agate.berkeley.edu>, ilan343@violet.berkeley.edu writes: > In article <177@comcon.UUCP> tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) writes: > > > > > >As to WP50 for unix, I heard it was going to be for XENIX. If it is > >indeed for SCO UNIX, then it should work fine on ISC. > > > Does WP 5.0 mean that graphics and page previewer are part of the > package? Short of a X-windows version how would they do make it work > for all flavors of UNIX/386? Any flavor of unix that supports xenix binary compatibility has the required ioctl calls also to put whatever graphics card your are using into hires mode. So, you can be reasonably sure of the graphics features working on the console at least. I imagine they would support X for terminals, but have heard *nothing* on that. Tim Brown | Computer Connection | (attmail or uunet)!comcon!tim |
rick@pcrat.uucp (Rick Richardson) (12/20/89)
In article <182@comcon.UUCP> tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) writes: >In article <1989Dec17.095713.16315@agate.berkeley.edu>, ilan343@violet.berkeley.edu writes: >> Does WP 5.0 mean that graphics and page previewer are part of the >> package? Short of a X-windows version how would they do make it work >> for all flavors of UNIX/386? >Any flavor of unix that supports xenix binary compatibility has the >required ioctl calls also to put whatever graphics card your are using >into hires mode. So, you can be reasonably sure of the graphics features >working on the console at least. Unfortunately, this is true only up to EGA graphics resolution. After that, the AT&T/Intel/SCO/Microsoft/ISC/whatever consortium took completely different paths to VGA and super VGA graphics resolutions. Unless WP has built in knowledge of the mode assignments which each UNIX variant uses for VGA graphics, it won't fly using the kernel calls to set the graphics mode. There are other methods to achieve what is needed, but the kernel calls have grown warts. -- Rick Richardson | Looking for FAX software for UNIX/386 ?????? mention PC Research,Inc.| WE'RE SHIPPING your uunet!pcrat!rick| Ask about FaxiX - UNIX Facsimile System (tm) FAX # (201) 389-8963 | Or JetRoff - troff postprocessor for the HP {Laser,Desk}Jet
tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) (12/22/89)
In article <1989Dec20.153324.732@pcrat.uucp>, rick@pcrat.uucp (Rick Richardson) writes: > In article <182@comcon.UUCP> tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) writes: > >In article <1989Dec17.095713.16315@agate.berkeley.edu>, ilan343@violet.berkeley.edu writes: > >> Does WP 5.0 mean that graphics and page previewer are part of the > > >Any flavor of unix that supports xenix binary compatibility has the > >required ioctl calls also to put whatever graphics card your are using > >into hires mode. So, you can be reasonably sure of the graphics features > >working on the console at least. > > Unfortunately, this is true only up to EGA graphics resolution. > After that, the AT&T/Intel/SCO/Microsoft/ISC/whatever consortium > took completely different paths to VGA and super VGA graphics Ahh.. But ISC is with the exception of a few (being phased out) system calls, completely campatible with XENIX. Meaning that however XX xenix program wants to engage your mga, ega or vga graphics card, it can. See ISC has all the ioctl calls for both systems in the kernel and include files (how I know!). Bottom line, if the software in question has support for vanilla xenix, ISC can handle it. That is what there manuals say. I personally saw the xenix vga ioctl calls in display.h I believe. Tim Brown | Computer Connection | (attmail or uunet)!comcon!tim |