chuck@csn.csn.org (Chuck Luciano) (01/19/91)
I have been running SCO SysV 386 for a couple of months now. Currently I have a 30Mbyte DOS partition, and a 170Mbyte unix partition. When I want to run DOS I reboot. Likewise when I want to do DOS development I use MSC 6.0 under DOS. I have been carefully avoiding vpix for some time now. I have in mind an alternative configuration to running vpix, which ties in with the fact that I have nearly enough components to build another machine. I would like to build a diskless DOS machine. Put network cards in my unix and my DOS machine, and basically run DOS off of the unix disk system. The requirements are that the unix machine contains an area that appears to be a disk to the dos machine. That I can develop s/w for dos under unix and have my makefile move it to the dos disk area, and immediatly run it on the dos system. I think this gives the performance of running dos applications on a real dos system, and the advantages of using an only partially brain dead (sco) development environment. Unfortunatly I've never set up a network before, so I'd appreciate som insight on the in's and out's of such a configuration. Chuck Luciano chuck@csn.org
jim@newmedia.UUCP (Jim Beveridge) (01/24/91)
In article <1991Jan18.170356.16819@csn.org>, chuck@csn.csn.org (Chuck Luciano) writes: > I have been running SCO SysV 386 for a couple of months now. Currently I have > a 30Mbyte DOS partition, and a 170Mbyte unix partition. When I want to run > DOS I reboot. Likewise when I want to do DOS development I use MSC 6.0 under > DOS. I have been carefully avoiding vpix for some time now. I have in mind > an alternative configuration to running vpix, which ties in with the fact that > I would like to build a diskless DOS machine. Put network cards in my unix > and my DOS machine, and basically run DOS off of the unix disk system. The > requirements are that the unix machine contains an area that appears to be > a disk to the dos machine. That I can develop s/w for dos under unix and have > my makefile move it to the dos disk area, and immediatly run it on the dos > system. > Under Open Desktop, with Merge 386, it is almost the perfect development environment. Your machine never requires a reboot because it crashed (All DOS sessions run in virtual machines). You can have a dozen DOS sessions, with a hot key between them. Full virtual memory support with up to 8 megs of expanded memory per DOS session. No TSR overhead for loading network drivers, because you overlay on the Unix NFS partitions. Use of Unix file systems, including tape backup, network backup, etc. A real plus: If you dial in to the system, you can run DOS quite successfully over a modem without any special software. This means that you can get at that _one_ file you forgot to bring home with you. The downsides: You can't run Windows 3.0. Codeview screen updates are a little sluggish. You can't access the 386 debug registers under languages like Borland Turbo C++. You're stuck with MS-DOS 3.3. If the SCO pricing policy for Unix V 386 is the same as ODT, then the NFS nfsd filesystem export daemon costs about $1500. You will also pay $200+ for a 3COM ethernet card. You can buy a 600 Megabyte hard disk for the price of all that. Hardly seems worth the effort Just my two cents of course. Feel free to circular file it. Jim
rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (01/25/91)
jim@newmedia.UUCP (Jim Beveridge) writes: >If the SCO pricing policy for Unix V 386 is the same as ODT, then >the NFS nfsd filesystem export daemon costs about $1500. You >will also pay $200+ for a 3COM ethernet card. You can >buy a 600 Megabyte hard disk for the price of all that. >Hardly seems worth the effort Natch. After criticizing SCO last week for its cruddy telephone system, designed to maximize the distance between developers and technical support, I must now rush to their defense. NFS for SCO Unix includes not only nfsd, but also the include files for developing RPC and XDR stuff (the so-called 'development system'). It costs something like $400-500 for the whole thing, and the installation procedure is as simple as one can imagine: three diskettes and about a half-hour's time. TCP/IP is extra, though; BSD comes with both NFS and TCP/IP, whereas SCO charges a separate fee for each. TCP/IP plus NFS can be had for a ballpark figure of $850. A project for someone: porting PC/IP to SCO Unix. It should be possible to put together at least a workable public-domain TCP/IP for SCO Unix, even if not as complete a version as that available from SCO. -rich