fred@fredw (Fred Wells,System owner) (04/13/91)
I recently overheard someone comment on an Atari Unix system being offered in Europe. CAN IT BE TRUE? :-> I understand that Amiga now has a unix system, so the prospect of unix on the ST sounds mighty encouraging; especially to those of us who love their ST and love to boast of its capabilities. However, if Atari doesn't get on the unix bandwagon, I'm afraid that there won't be much for us to boast of. When I often suggest Atari to someone entering the home computer world, their first question is often, "what about Unix?" At which point I have to lower my head and submit that I really don't know. :-( Anyway, back to the point of all of this. Can anyone out there tell me if that comment was true (or untrue) and/or provide me with any other information on the subject? Hopeful -- Fred Wells uunet!opel!ss2!fredw!fred Atari ST System Churchton, MD 20733 +1 301 867-4215
steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) (04/18/91)
[In article <0426455@fredw>,
fred@fredw (Fred Wells,System owner) writes ... ]
> I recently overheard someone comment on an Atari Unix system being offered in
> Europe.
>
> CAN IT BE TRUE? :->
Yeah. At CeBIT, Atari showed Unix System V running on the TT030 with
X.Windows a graphical user interface called Wish.
But it won't run on the ST.
> When I often suggest Atari to someone entering the home computer world, their
> first question is often, "what about Unix?" At which point I have to lower my
> head and submit that I really don't know. :-(
You can tell them about the TT, and you also can tell them about Minix, which
is based on the specifications for Unix Version 7. (That's not a later version
than System V -- v7 is more like System III.7.) It costs about $140 and is
available from Prentice-Hall. See comp.os.minix.
There was another Unix clone called Idris developed by Whitesmiths
a couple of years ago, but it wasn't marketed properly (i.e., it wasn't
available in stores at a reasonable price) and I think it's dead now.
Mark Williams may also have worked on an ST version of Coherent, but
so far as I know, it was never released.
----
Steve Yelvington, Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, USA / steve@thelake.mn.orgekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (04/18/91)
In article <A2744981137@thelake.mn.org> steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) writes: > >You can tell them about the TT, and you also can tell them about Minix, which >is based on the specifications for Unix Version 7. (That's not a later version >than System V -- v7 is more like System III.7.) It costs about $140 and is >available from Prentice-Hall. See comp.os.minix. Moreover, there's a demo of Minix at an ftp site, and I'm sorry I can't remember where. Perhaps it should be posted at atari.archive. If anyone wants it there (if it's not there already), let me know. -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0
david@doe.utoronto.ca (David Megginson) (04/18/91)
I use Minix on a Mega 2. It's quite a nice package, but it's not even close to Xenix much less Unix. Minix is still really a hacker's toy, not a complete OS, and you have to be prepared to spend a lot of time on the net reading comp.os.minix and downloading patches, etc. (This will change a bit when Advanced Minix is available for the ST). The reason (or one of the reasons) that we don't have Unix on the ST is that the 68000 is not really able to run it, because it has no memory management. The 68020 or 68030 is quite capable, though. If you REALLY want Unix with X-Windows, etc., here is what you will need: 1) Preferable at least 4 Megs RAM. 2) ca. 100 Megs HD space, JUST FOR THE OS 3) 100-200 Megs HD space if you want a full news feed 4) 25-50 Megs swap space for virtual memory. 5) Whatever you want for your own programs (you'll need 5-10 Megs just for emacs, for instance). At the Dictionary of Old English, we have three regular programmers using Unix with 1 Gigabyte of Hard Disk space, and we are so tight for storage that we lost a chunk of incoming news last weekend, and we are constantly moving stuff to tape (oh yeah, you'll want some kind of tape drive...). I personally would love to have Unix at home, but we should carefully consider the implications first. You could probably get away with a really stripped-down unix on 100 Megs, but forget about getting a news feed, having more than one user, or porting any programs (you'll have about 10 Megs free, depending on the setup). Also, forget about big packages like X-Windows, emacs and TeX, much less Posix conformance. The Unix that you would end up with is not the Unix that you use and love at work. -- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / David Megginson david@doe.utoronto.ca / / Centre for Medieval Studies meggin@vm.epas.utoronto.ca / ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr18.053702.14626@ecst.csuchico.edu>, ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) writes: > Moreover, there's a demo of Minix at an ftp site, and I'm sorry I can't > remember where. Check the latest 'Welcome to comp.sys.atari.st' for the address of the Minix demo, as well as Dr. Tanenbaum's article. -- David Paschall-Zimbel davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu
vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder) (04/19/91)
In article <A2744981137@thelake.mn.org> steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) writes: > >>When I often suggest Atari to someone entering the home computer world, their >>first question is often, "what about Unix?" At which point I have to lower my >>head and submit that I really don't know. :-( > >You can tell them about the TT, and you also can tell them about Minix, which >is based on the specifications for Unix Version 7. (That's not a later version >than System V -- v7 is more like System III.7.) It costs about $140 and is >available from Prentice-Hall. See comp.os.minix. Brian Kernighan (I think) once remarked that "System 7 was an improvement on all of its successors." -- vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov ames!elroy!jato!vsnyder vsnyder@jato.uucp
s37837k@saha.hut.fi (Jari Lehto) (04/19/91)
In article <A2744981137@thelake.mn.org> steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) writes: > >Yeah. At CeBIT, Atari showed Unix System V running on the TT030 with >X.Windows a graphical user interface called Wish. > >But it won't run on the ST. Is there a chanse that it would run on a Mega4, which has 68030 SST & graphics expansion installed? Harddisk is no problem... (68030 with full options = 8Mb fastRAM, 33MHz 68030 & 68882) Jartsu * * * Nothing yet, but I'll keep on scanning... * * ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ *
luoto@cs.Helsinki.FI (Markku Luoto) (04/23/91)
someone stated that there's no unix for atari but there is: it is version V and has x-vindows in it and gnu c-developers kit + some aditional stuff (dunno about news though) it's sold installed on a 200mb hard disk, which replaces the TT's internal scsi ... released in europe 10. april 91 (jeez that's gone !) prize: $1600 (so told at cebit) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>> " I'm completely operational & all my cicuits are functioning <<<<<< >>>>>> correctly...correc...corr...co...-! " : HAl9000 <<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<