wehr@fmsrl7.UUCP (Bruce Wehr ) (04/05/91)
I, too, have been intrigued by Coherent - and I want to find out more.
My skeptical side says, "there has to be something missing."
From previous posts, I understand that full 386 support is not yet
available (no virtual memory and other limitations). TCP/IP support is
also yet to come, though this is less important to me now. What about
UUCP? HDB?
I'd love to play around with it at home, but I don't want to give up my
DOS environment yet that I (shamefully admit) rely so heavily on. Can
Coherent and DOS co-reside, such that the system can be booted under
either? Is anybody looking into a DOS-on-UNIX product for Coherent?
Thanks for all input.
--
Bruce Wehr (wehr%dptc.decnet@srlvx0.srl.ford.com)
(..!uunet!srlvx0.srl.ford.com!wehr%dptc.decnet)
Ford Motor Company - Engineering Technology Services
P.O. Box 2053, Room 1153, Dearborn, Michigan 48121-2053 (313)337-5304mlevy@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Michael Levy) (04/05/91)
In article <39467@fmsrl7.UUCP> wehr@fmsrl7.UUCP (Bruce Wehr ) writes: ...deleted stuff I can't answer. > >I'd love to play around with it at home, but I don't want to give up my >DOS environment yet that I (shamefully admit) rely so heavily on. Can >Coherent and DOS co-reside, such that the system can be booted under >either? Is anybody looking into a DOS-on-UNIX product for Coherent? > Dos and Coherent can reside on the same hard drive. I have a 286 with a 40 Meg hard drive. Upon installing coherent I was able to partition my hard drive into two 20 meg logical partitions. The first partition is the active partition which I have DOS on, so by default my system boots-up to DOS. The second partition I have Coherent installed on. Installation includes a boot-strap program from Mark Williams Co. so when my system is booting up I type 1 (for logical partition #1 - Dos is on 0) and my system will boot-up with Coherent. Installation is quite easy and being able to have both operating systems on my hard drive is a big bonus. Hope this helps. Michael Levy Department of Computer Science and Systems McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada mlevy@maccs.dcss.mcmamster.ca
gt3741b@prism.gatech.EDU (Kikai heno hanashite) (04/05/91)
In article <39467@fmsrl7.UUCP> wehr@fmsrl7.UUCP (Bruce Wehr ) writes: >I, too, have been intrigued by Coherent - and I want to find out more. >My skeptical side says, "there has to be something missing." Yeah, I was wondering about that too.. that's why I called. I think compared to multi-thousand dollar products like "SCO Open Desktop", yeah things are missing.. but the base product is complete (they basically reverse engineered the kernal.. though, in a way that didn't violate copywrite.. so that they wouldn't have to pay for the lisence(sp?) (my spelling is lousy today)). So, if you want SCO open desktop, where X has been ported to take out all of the little things that might have problems with the PC device drivers for graphics, and TCP/IP is already there, and NFS, and DOSMerge, then you'll be disapointed. If you want Unix for under $500, though, you'll probably be happy. And the company says it's all source code compatable.. so if you do import X, you shouldn't have to do that much aside from being sure the graphics drivers don't choke on X. >From previous posts, I understand that full 386 support is not yet >available (no virtual memory and other limitations). TCP/IP support is >also yet to come, though this is less important to me now. My understanding is that you can get TCP/IP drivers/software off of uunet.uu.net... in source code form. Since Coherent is source code compatable with Unix, I'd say that should take care of TCP/IP. (I know you can get SLIP off of uunet.uu.net) > What about >UUCP? HDB? It comes with UUCP. >I'd love to play around with it at home, but I don't want to give up my >DOS environment yet that I (shamefully admit) rely so heavily on. Can >Coherent and DOS co-reside, such that the system can be booted under >either? Is anybody looking into a DOS-on-UNIX product for Coherent? DOS and Coherent can co-reside on the same hard drive. You can't run DOS Applications from Coherent though (simular to DOSMerge under SCO ODT.. probably the one part thing I find lacking in Coherent). My info isn't from my own copy (I don't have one), but from phone calls I've made, and the ad for coherent that has been in Byte and UnixWorld. (It says right in the ad that it comes with a VI clone and UUCP). John -- Discussing whether or not machines can think | John E. Rudd jr. is about as interesting as discussing whether | gt3741b@prism.gatech.edu or not submarines can swim. --Dijkstra | (ex- kzin@ucscb.ucsc.edu) | Speaker to Machines #include<std.disclaim> Send all comments, flames, and complaints to /dev/null.
shawn@jpradley.jpr.com (Shawn Blair) (04/05/91)
I have seen several postings of inquiries about coherent features and software in our new newsgroup for coherent users. I have had coherent installed on a 20mb (8mb DOS, 12mb Coherent) since November, 1990. In short, I LOVE IT! For the cost, I personally think Mark Williams Co. did a great job. Now for what I have learned ... Coherent comes as a full operating system with all necessary tools to do basic software development and uucp mail. The system comes with cc, yacc, lex, *roff, uucp, mail, and other things I know I have left out. I am fairly new to unix environments, but I think their tools are pretty acceptable for small model development. UUCP functions well (old style uucp), mail is pretty basic, and kermit is included with the os. Mark Williams Co. has a bulletin board system for registered users of Coherent where you can test your uucp setups. They also try to maintain available PD software ports to the coherent os on the bbs (called mwcbbs). For example, I have downloaded, compiled, and am running such packages as xcmalt (comm), CoMB (like elm), less, deliver, clam (csh like shell). And that's only a sampling! I have a four page list of all updates (coherent fixes, etc), and ported software available on the mwcbbs. I have no doubt that much more is on its way in the future. In fact, another thread in this newsgroup is talking of TCP/IP and VP/IX types of support. Drawbacks that I see coherent as having as of version 3.10 (current) would be lack of support for swapping and limitations to the 64k models. The lack of swapping means that when you run out of memory your program just stops. The 64k model limitation is self explanatory. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on these things :). ) But with the creativity and the vast resources of the folks on the net, I doubt any of these things will last long! So there you have it from one horses mouth. I hope this helps answer many of your questions. I highly recommend Coherent for those that are looking for a low budget option and/or a good home os.
wehr@fmsrl7.UUCP (Bruce Wehr ) (04/05/91)
In article <25581@hydra.gatech.EDU>, gt3741b@prism.gatech.EDU (Kikai heno hanashite) writes: > So, if you want ... DOSMerge, then you'll be disapointed. Oh well. One could hope, no? > DOS and Coherent can co-reside on the same hard drive. You can't run > DOS Applications from Coherent though (simular to DOSMerge under SCO > ODT.. probably the one part thing I find lacking in Coherent). I agree. That, and the fact that programs are limited to a small memory model. Fix a few things, and my $$$ are on its way. -- Bruce Wehr (wehr%dptc.decnet@srlvx0.srl.ford.com) (..!uunet!srlvx0.srl.ford.com!wehr%dptc.decnet) Ford Motor Company - Engineering Technology Services P.O. Box 2053, Room 1153, Dearborn, Michigan 48121-2053 (313)337-5304
wehr@fmsrl7.UUCP (Bruce Wehr ) (04/09/91)
In article <27FBA3D9.18408@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>, mlevy@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Michael Levy) writes: > > Dos and Coherent can reside on the same hard drive. I appreciate this response, along with all the email reponses I received. Yes, it appears that Coherent can reside with DOS on the same hard drive. Suppose I want Coherent to reside with DOS on the same system, but different hard drives. Would this be handled in the same manner? Thanks again for all the input. -- Bruce Wehr (wehr%dptc.decnet@srlvx0.srl.ford.com) (..!uunet!srlvx0.srl.ford.com!wehr%dptc.decnet) Ford Motor Company - Engineering Technology Services P.O. Box 2053, Room 1153, Dearborn, Michigan 48121-2053 (313)337-5304
dtinker@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (David Tinker) (04/09/91)
In article <39655@fmsrl7.UUCP> wehr@fmsrl7.UUCP (Bruce Wehr) writes: > In article <27FBA3D9.18408@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>, > mlevy@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Michael Levy) writes: >> >> Dos and Coherent can reside on the same hard drive. > > I appreciate this response, along with all the email reponses I > received. Yes, it appears that Coherent can reside with DOS on the same > hard drive. > > Suppose I want Coherent to reside with DOS on the same system, but > different hard drives. Would this be handled in the same manner? Sure - logical partitions don't care which drive they're on. This is all described in the installation instructions (see under 'fdisk'). -- ! David O. Tinker / Department of Biochemistry / University of Toronto / ! ! TORONTO, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A8 / Voice: (416) 978-3636 / ! ! UUCP: dtinker@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca / BITNET: dtinker@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca ! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------