Path: sparky!uunet!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: SVr4 and BSD/386 FAQ posting
Message-ID: <1fhKCn#5Px1j05q9prn5J0DKO5MG1jf=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: 6 Mar 92 21:58:41 GMT
Distribution: world
Lines: 1196
This is v1.00 of the 386 UNIX versions FAQ posting, Mar 3 1992.
The purpose of this posting is to pool public knowledge and USENET feedback
about all generally available versions of UNIX for commodity 386 and 486
hardware. It is maintained and periodically updated as a service to the net by
Eric S. Raymond <e...@snark.thyrsus.com>. Corrections, updates, and all
pertinent information are welcomed at that address.
This posting is periodically broadcast to the USENET group comp.unix.sysv386
and to a list of vendor addresses. If you are a vendor representative, please
check the feature chart and vendor report to make sure the information on your
company is current and correct. If it is not, please email me a correction
ASAP. If you are a knowledgeable user of any of these products, please send me
a precis of your experiences for the improvement of my feedback section.
Some of the material in this posting was originally assembled by Jason Levitt
<ja...@cs.utexas.edu> of "Open Systems Today". Grateful acknowledgement is
made to him for permission to re-distribute and update his information.
At time of writing, here are the products in this category:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.2 abbreviated as "Cons" below
Dell UNIX Issue 2.1 abbreviated as "Dell" below
Esix Revision A abbreviated as "Esix" below
Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX abbreviated as "MST" below
Microport System V/4 version 4 abbreviated as "uPort" below
UHC Version 3.6 abbreviated as "UHC" below
BSD/386 (0.3 beta) abbreviated as "BSDI" below
Mach386 abbreviated as "Mach" below
The first six of these are ports of AT&T's System V Release 4. Until very
recently there was a seventh, by Interactive Systems Corporation. That product
was canned after half of ISC was bought by SunSoft, evidently to clear the
decks for Solaris 2.0 (a SunOS port for the 386 to be released sometime in
1992).
BSD/386 is *not* based on USL code. Complete sources are included with every
system shipped! Mach386 is basically BSD tools with a Mach microkernel (for
which you can get source!) and does entail a USL license.
Siemens AG plans to offer a SVr4 port optimized for real-time work in
June 1992. This product will be called SORIX.
I'm ignoring SCO because their `Release 4' is a 3.2 sailing under false colors.
Can you say deceptive advertising? Can you say bait-and-switch? Can you say
total marketroid-puke? Farg 'em, and ignore their OS until they come to their
senses.
AT&T's own 386 UNIX offering is not covered here because it is available and
supported for AT&T hardware only.
All the vendors listed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but they'll be
sticky about it except where there's an insuperable hardware compatibility
problem or you trip over a serious bug. One (UHC) charges a 25% restocking fee
on returns. BSDI says: "If a customer is dissatisfied with the product, BSDI
unconditionally refunds the purchase price."
This posting is divided into five parts. After this introduction, the second
is a discussion of general hardware requirements and compatibility
considerations in the base SVR4 code from UNIX Systems Laboratories (referred
to below as the USL code). None of this automatically applies to the two
BSD-like versions, which break out the corresponding information into their
separate vendor reports.
Following this is a feature table which gives basic info and summarizes
differences between the versions.
Following that are detailed descriptions of the different versions and
vendors, including information collected from the net on bugs, supported
and unsupported hardware and the like.
Following *that*, there is a section on bugs known or believed to be generic to
the USL code, with indications as to which vendors have fixed them. None of
this applies to the two BSD-based versions.
Finally, an open letter to the vendors designed to get them all hustling
to improve their products and services as fast as possible.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS:
To run any of this systems, you need at least the following: 4 MB of RAM and
80MB of hard disk. However, this is an absolute minimum; you'll want at least
8 MB of RAM for reasonable performance. And depending on options installed,
the OS will eat from 40 to 120 meg of the disk, so you'll want at least 200 meg
for real work. To run X you'll need a VGA monitor and card, and 12MB RAM would
be a good idea.
All the SVr4 systems inherit support for a fairly wide range of hardware from
the base USL code (version 4.0.3 or 4.0.4). This includes:
* All PC disk controllers (ESDI, IDE, ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
* QIC-02, QIC-36 1/4", or SCSI tape interfaces, using QIC-24 (9-track,
60MB), QIC-120 (15-track, 125MB) or QIC-150 (18-track, 150MB)
formats.
* The Adaptec 1542B SCSI adapter. Note: you'll have to jumper your
SCSI devices to fixed IDs during installation on most of these.
* Western Digital's 8013EBT Ethernet card, and its replacements
the WD8003 and WD8013.
* VGA adapters in 640x480 by 16 color mode.
* The Microsoft mouse; also the Series 7 and Series 9 mice from
Logitech and the PC-3 mouse from Mouse Systems.
Installation from these systems requires that you boot from a hi-density
floppy (either 3.5" or 5.25"). Most vendors offer the bulk of the system on a
QIC 1/4-inch tape; otherwise you may be stuck with loading over 60 diskettes!
In general, if the initial boot gets far enough to display a request for
the first disk or tape load, you're in good shape.
All SVr4s conform to the following software standards: ANSI X3J11 C, POSIX
1003.1, SVID 3rd edition, FIPS 151-1, XPG3, System V ABI, and iBCS-2.
All SVr4 versions include support for BSD-style file systems with 255-character
segment names and fragment allocation. In general this is a Good Thing, but
some SVr3.2 and XENIX binaries can be confused by the different size of
the inode index. You need to run these on an AT&T-style file system.
All SVr4 versions include the UNIX manual pages on-line. Dell and Esix also
stock Prentice-Hall's SVr4 books and will sell them to you with your system (in
lieu of printed manuals) at extra cost. You can order them direct from
Prentice-Hall at (201)-767-5937. Warning: they ain't cheap! Buying the whole
13 volumes will cost you a couple hundred bucks.
SVr4 includes hooks for a DOS bridge that allows you to run DOS applications
under UNIX (the two products that actually do this are DOS Merge and VPIX).
Most vendors do not include either of these with the base system, however.
All these systems support up to 1024x768 by 256 color super-VGA under X. The
640x480 by 16 colors of standard VGA is no problem; everybody supports that
compatibly. However, X servers older than the Roell or X11R5 version (that is,
MIT X11R4 or anything previous) are hard to configure for the clock timings of
your controller and monitor scan frequency unless you have one of the standard
combinations USL supports or your vendor has configured for it.
There are a couple of known hardware compatibility problems the USL code
doesn't yet address. See the KNOWN BUGS section at the end of this document.
FEATURE COMPARISON:
To interpret the table below, bear in mind the following things:
All these products except BSDI/386 and Mach386 are based on the SVr4 kernel
from UNIX Systems Laboratories (USL), an AT&T spinoff. Thus they share over
90% of their code and features. Product differentiation is done primarily
through support policy, bug-fix quality and add-on software.
These systems come either in a "crippled" version that supports at most two
simultaneous users, or an unlimited version. Generally the vendors do allow
you to upgrade your license via a patch disk if your requirements, but this
invariably costs slightly more than the base price difference between 2-user
and unlimited systems.
The "run-time" system in the price tables below is a minimum installation,
just enough to run binaries. The "complete" system includes every software
option offered by the vendor; it does *not* bundle in the cost of the
Prentice-Hall docs offered by some vendors as an option. You may well get
away with less, especially if you're willing to do your own X installation.
The engineer counts below are as supplied by vendors; .5 of an engineer
means someone is officially working half-time.
A dash `-' means the given feature or configuration is not offered. A `yes'
means it is currently offered; `soon' means the vendor has represented that it
will be offered in the near future. A `no' means it's not offered, but there's
some related information in the attached footnote.
Vendor Cons Dell Esix MST uPort UHC BSDI Mach386
Base version: 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.4 4.0.3 4.3BSD Mach2.5
System price:
Run-time
2-user - - $ 545 $ 249 $ 500 $ 695 - -
Unlimited - - $ 945 $ 449 $1,000 $1,090 - -
Complete
2-user $ 495 $1,250 $1,645 $ 799 $3,000 $1,990 - $ 995
Unlimited $ 695 $1,599 $2,045 $ 999 $3,500 $2,385 $995 (10)
Printed docs? - - - - yes(1) yes - -
Upgrade plan?
From SVr3.2 - - yes - yes - - -
Future SVr4s - free(3) free(2) - free(3) - - -
Support
With purchase: (4) 90-day (6) 30-day 30-day 30-day 60-day 30-day
800 number? - yes - - - - - -
By contract no(5) yes no(6) yes yes yes yes yes
Support BBS? yes no(7) yes - yes soon - yes
FTP server? - yes soon - - - - yes
# Engineers:
Support: 1 5 2 2 4 2 1.5 1
Development: ??(9) ?? ~20 3 6 75 5.5 5
Distribution media:
3.5" 1.44MB yes(8) - yes yes yes yes - yes
5.25" 1.2MB yes(8) - yes yes yes yes - yes
60MB ctape yes - yes yes yes yes - -
125MB ctape - yes - yes - yes - -
150MB ctape - - - yes yes yes yes -
Via network? - yes - - - - - -
X options:
X11/NeWS (R3) - - yes - - yes - -
MIT X11R4 - yes yes - - - - yes
AT&T Xwin 3 - - - yes - - - -
AT&T Xwin 4 - - - - yes - - -
Roell X386 - yes - yes - yes - -
X11R5 yes - - - - - yes soon
Open Look - 2.0 1.0 2.0 3(11) 4.i - -
Motif 1.1 1.1.3 1.1.0 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.3 - soon
IXI X.desktop - 2.0 - - 3.0 2.0 - -
Also included:
DOS bridge? - yes - - soon - soon -
SLIP? - yes yes - yes - yes -
(1) With complete system only.
(2) Small media charge.
(3) Free with support contract, charge otherwise (charge ~$500).
(4) 90 days or until product is installed successfully.
(5) Charges by the half-hour phone call.
(6) Unlimited free phone support.
(7) Dell does have an Internet server for its UNIX patches.
(8) There's an $80 media charge for the diskettes equivalent to the normal
60MB distribution tape.
(9) Consensys explicitly refuses to release this information.
(10) No unlimited licenses have been sold yet. Talk to Mt. Xinu about one.
(11) Includes version 4 internationalization features.
In general, the SVr4 market breaks into two tiers. The bottom tier is
Consensys and MST; low-ball outfits selling stock USL with minimal support for
real cheap. The top tier is Dell, Esix, Microport and UHC; these guys are
selling support and significant enhancements and charge varying premiums for
it. Your first, most basic buying decision has to be which tier best serves
your needs.
One further note: it *is* possible to buy these systems at less than the
list the vendor charges! I found some really substantial discounts in the
latest "The Programmer's Workshop" catalog (call (800)-412-8006 to join their
mailing list, but be prepared to wade through a lot of DOS cruft).
NAME:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.3
VENDOR:
Consensys
1301 Pat Booker Road
Universal City, TX 78148
(800)-387-8951
{dmentor,dciem}!askov!root
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. With the whole system selling for $495 why bother?
ADD-ONS:
Basically this is a stock USL system with the stock USL bugs, except the
installation sequence has been improved considerably. Good tools for
configuration management and system administration on a network of Consensys
machines are included. It is said that they've also improved SVr4's real-time
facilities to some extent.
SUPPORT:
You get free phone support until your system is installed, to a maximum of
90 days. After that they charge per half-hour of phone time. They like to
do support by fax and callback.
They have 1 (one) support tech. Ask for Reuben.
They're bringing up a support BBS at (416)-752-2084.
Knowledgeable customers report they're good about supporting the bits they
wrote (see below) but terrible at dealing with generic SVr4 problems.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't settled on an upgrade policy yet.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
CompuAdd Model 333 (33 MHz 80386 w/64Kbyte cache), Phoenix BIOS, 387.
Orchid ProDesigner II video adapter w/1MB RAM + Samsung 51091 VGA tube.
They've promised to send me a list. Said list will appear in a future
release of the FAQ.
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
The Consensys serial-port board might, unfortunately, fall in this
category. See below.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The X stuff is straight off the MIT X11R5 tape, patchlevel 8.
COMMENTS:
Their UNIX product is an outgrowth of their main line of business, selling
serial boards. It is easy to configure the OS to support the board. The
board is fine for UUCP use, but slow and buggy for interactive sessions
(one particularly nasty known bug is that if you log out without manually
closing all your sessions, the sessions may be accessible to the next
person to pick up the line).
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've spoken with one experienced wizard using Consensys and seen a detailed
email report from another. They're happy, although they both warn that newbies
should probably *not* try this at home :-).
On the other hand, Consensys has a dismal reputation on USENET; horror
stories of nonexistent followup on bugs abound. They'll need to work
hard to shuck their take-the-money-and-run image. Better followup on
the reported serial-port board bugs would be a big help.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
These guys are trading off everything else to be the market's price-buster.
They have the toughest support policy of any vendor and obviously don't want to
hear from you once you've gotten past initial boot.
A Consensys marketroid that I spoke with twice while gathering this
information has offered to send me a copy of their system for free. They're
clearly hoping for some good publicity if I like it.
Consensys explicitly refuses to say how many development engineers they have
on staff.
NAME:
Dell Issue 2.1.
VENDOR:
Dell Computer
9505 Arboretum Road
Austin TX 78759
(800)-BUY-DELL (info & orders)
(800)-624-9896 (tech support: x6915 to go straight to UNIX support)
supp...@dell.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Basically, there aren't any. You get the development system with all the
trimmings for a lower list than anybody else in the top tier. Whaddya
want, egg in yer beer?
ADD-ONS:
Dell bundles a DOS bridge with their base system. They also include cnews,
mmdf, perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs gdb, and other freeware, including a bunch
of nifty X clients! However, stock gdb doesn't yet work with SVr4's new ELF
object format. Patches for g++ 1.40.3 and libg++ 1.39.0 to get these working
under SVR4 are available via ftp from ftp.physics.su.oz.au.
SUPPORT:
Dell *does* support their UNIX on non-Dell hardware. They are quite
definite about this. They will deal with software problems reported from
non-Dell hardware, but you're on your own when dealing with hardware
incompatibility problems.
You get 90 days of free phone support on a toll-free number.
Yearly service contracts range are $350 per year for the limited
license, $500 for the unlimited.
Dell accepts software problem reports from anyone, Dell or non-Dell
hardware and whether or not they have a support contract.
There are 5 engineers in their second-line support pool.
Dell maintains a pair of Internet servers (dell1.dell.com and
dell2.dell.com) which hold patches, updates and free software usable with
Dell UNIX.
FUTURE PLANS:
Of all the vendors I spoke with, Dell was the only one with a policy of
not commenting on unreleased products. Corporate-think in action. Bad, but
predictable in an organization with 2000 employees.
They haven't fixed a release date for 4.0.4 or X11R5 yet. One USENET
poster has claimed inside information that X11R5 will be folded in during
March/April 1992.
X.desktop 3.0 will be supported soon.
Dell is committed to sell and support Solaris 2.0 when it happens. Dell
spokespeople insist that this doesn't jeopardize the SVr4 product's future;
they say they intend to position the two differently, aiming SVr4 at UNIX
developers and selling Solaris primarily as an application platform for
end-users.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The big plus in the Dell code is that they've fixed a lot of the
minoer, annoying bugs and glitches present in the stock USL tape.
You can install most of Dell UNIX through your network from another Dell box
once you've booted the hardware with a special disk provided.
Dell has done significant performance optimization on their UNIX. Both
benchmarks and anecdotal reports make them significantly faster than a
stock USL system.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
Dell doesn't maintain a list of non-Dell hardware known to work. And
they're not willing to talk about the list they don't maintain, because it
would amount to endorsing someone else's hardware.
CompuAdd Model 333 (33 MHz 80386 w/64Kbyte cache), Phoenix BIOS, 387.
Orchid ProDesigner II video adapter w/1MB RAM + Samsung 51091 VGA tube.
Boca SuperVGA card. Net scuttlebut has it that any SVGA based on
an ET4000 chip will fly.
ATI UltraAdvantage X card.
The Wangtek 150SE or Sankyo 525ES SCSI tape streamer.
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
They've promised to send me a list. Said list will appear in a future
release of the FAQ.
COMMENTS:
Dell sells hardware, too :-). They are, in fact, one of the most successful
clonemakers, and will cheerfully sell you a Dell computer with SVr4 pre-
installed. Their systems are expensive by cloner standards (with as much as a
$1000 premium over rock-bottom street prices) but they have a rep for quality
and reliability their competition would probably kill for.
You can get Dell product information by sending an email request to
i...@dell.com.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Most people who've seen or used it seem to think pretty highly of the
Dell product, in spite of minor problems.
Some people are very annoyed with the length of Dell's support queues.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, I'd have to call Dell the market leader. The combination of low
price, highest added value in features, and reputation for quality makes them
very hard to beat.
The only serious negative I've seen is that their support system seems to be
seriously overloaded, so you can end up on hold for a while when calling. The
techs themselves are sufficiently cranked about this that they'll complain of
understaffing and corporate shortsightedness on the phone to a stranger.
Dell also compartmentalizes the support operation more than any of the
other vendors I contacted; the support techs aren't told much about the
product's future direction and even lack basic pricing information.
Both these things are probably functions of the organization's size; Dell is
a larger outfit than the rest of its competitors put together.
NAME:
Esix Revision A
VENDOR
Esix Computers
1923 E. St. Andrew Place
Santa Ana, CA 92705
(714)-259-3020 (tech support is (714)-259-3000)
uunet!zardoz!everex!esixtech
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking and X11R4 (includes TCP/IP, NFFS/RFS, SLIP).
GUI I -- Open Look and X11/NeWS.
GUI II -- Motif.
Development tools.
SUPPORT:
Purchase buys you unlimited free phone support. However, be warned that
there are only two engineers assigned to the job and they are swamped.
Esix offers a support BBS at (714)-259-3011 and 3013 (the 11 line
has a Trailblazer on it). They plan to bring up an Internet server in
the near future.
FUTURE PLANS:
4.0.4 will happen in the near future. They'll be going to Xwin 4
(AT&T's X11R4 server) at around the same time. They say they don't
plan to support DOS Merge because it's still horribly buggy.
Later in '92 they plan to release a multiprocessing UNIX.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
Computers: ALR Business VEISA 386/33-101. AGI machines. American Digital
Data Associates AD-428P-25, Portable 486/25, 486/33, AD-328D-25. AST Premium
line. Club AT machines. Compaq DeskPro 386/33. Everex machines. Micronics
386/33 and 386/25. Mylex MI-386/20. Northgate 386/33.
Serial cards: AST 4-port. Comtrol Hostess-8. Digiboard DigiChannel PC/8.
Consensys PowerPorts. Maxspeed and Arnet cards.
Network cards: Everex EV-2015, EV-2016, EV-2026, EV-2027. Intel PC-586.
Western Digital WD-8013, WD8003E. 3COM EtherLink II 3C503.
SCSI cards: Adaptec 1542A, 1542B, 1740 (EISA). Future Domain 1660, 1680,
885, 860, WD7000, EV8118/8110. BusTek BT-542B, BT-742A (EISA).
ESDI cards: Everex EV-348. Adaptec 2322. Western Digital 1007A, 1007SE/2.
Data Tech Corp 6280.
ST506: Everex EV-346, EV-332. OMTI 8240.
RLL: Western Digital WD 1003.
IDE: Everex EV-8120.
SCSI drives: Quantum 80S. Seagate 94351-126. Toshiba MK156FB. Maxtor
XT-4170S, XT-4380S. XStor XSE1-1000S1, XS1-665S1. Fujitsu M2612SA. SyQuest.
ESDI drives: Seagate ST4384E, ST4182E. Toshiba MK-156FA-I. Maxtor
XT-4170E, XT8760E, XT-8760S, XT-8380E. MicroScience HH-2160.
ST-506 drives: Micropolis 1336, Toshiba MK72PC, MK45FB-I. Seagate ST-4096,
ST-225.
RLL drives: Seagate ST-4144R
IDE drives: Quantum 40AT. Seagate ST-1571A. Maxtor LXT200A. Cannon
CP-3104.
Floppy tapes: Archive 5580.
Tape drives: Everex Excel Stream 60, 125, 150; 5525ES (SCSI); EV-811,
EV-831, EV-833. Archive 2150S (SCSI), VP150E. Wangtek 5150ES (SCSI). Caliper
CP150. Cipher ST150S-II.
X Terminals: Textronix.
Mice: Logitech Mouseman, TrackMan, and 3-button serial or bus mice. ATI
Wonder+ bus mouse port. Microsoft 2-button serial and bus mouse.
High-capacity storage: Toshiba TXM-3201A1 CD-ROM. Toshiba WM-D070 WORM
drive. Storage Dimensions XSE1-1000S1 optical disk.
Graphics cards as follows:
Type Resolution Colors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hercules monographics display 720x348 mono
All standard EGA boards 640x360 2, 16
All standard VGA boards 640x480 2, 16
AT Wonder VGA SVGA
Diamond SpeedStar VGA SVGA
Everex ViewPoint VGA SVGA
Everex ViewPoint VRAM VGA 1280x1024 2, 16
SVGA
Everex ViewPoint True Color 1280x1024 2, 16
SVGA
640x480 32K, 16 million
UltraGraphics II (EV-236) 1664x1200 mono
Genoa Super VGA SVGA
MaxLogic SVGA
Oak Technology OTI-067 1024x768 16, 256
Orchid ProDesigner II VGA or VGA Plus SVGA
Paradise Professional/Plus 16/1024 800x600 2, 16, 256
640x480 2, 16, 256
Paradise Professional 1024 Super VGA 1024x768 16
STB EM-16 VGA SVGA
STB PowerGraph VGA SVGA
Tecmar VGA AD SVGA
Vectrix VX1024 (TI-34010) 1024x768
Video7 FastWrite VGA 800x600 2, 16
640x480 2, 16, 256
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the above table, an `SVGA' resolution code signifies the following
resolutions: 1024x768 at 2 and 16 colors, 800x600 at 2, 16, 256 colors,
and 640x480 at 2, 16, 256 colors.
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
No one has reported any horror stories yet.
COMMENTS:
Another subsidiary of a clonemaker (Everex). They don't sell
bundled hardware/software packages yet.
Unlimited free support sounds wonderful, and might be Esix's
strongest selling point. However, Esix users on the net have been
heard to gripe that in practice, you get the support you've paid for
from Esix --- that is, none. That isn't at all surprising given
Esix's staffing level. If this guarantee is to be more than a hollow
promise, their technical support has to get more depth.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Not much. There's been little comment either positive or negative on the
net. In email to me, one long-time netter who does UNIX consulting says he has
eight client sites running Esix happily. It's reliable.
It has been alleged that Esix's asy driver flakes out at high speeds. This
may be the generic USL asy problem again.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
The tech I spoke with at Esix seemed knowledgeable, bright, and very
committed to the product. Nevertheless, when I asked what he thought
distinguished Esix from the competition, he had no answer.
This reinforced the feeling I got from the spec sheets that Esix has kind of
an also-ran mentality, with no market strategy or clear priority for improving
SVr4 that positions it against its competition. It doesn't have Dell's
steak-with-all-the-trimmings appeal, it's not pushing price like Consensys or
support quality like UHC or performance like Microport. (I'm told that
at one time, Everex was the price leader).
When I asked Esix's chief marketroid about this, he said that he thinks
Esix's best asset is that the product isn't going to go away, and muttered
unkind things about the possibility that Dell would deep-six their SVr4 in
favor of Solaris 2.0. This does not a long-term strategy make.
NAME
MST UNIX
VENDOR:
Micro Station Technology, Inc.
1140 Kentwood Ave.
Cupertino, CA. 95014
(408)-253-3898
sa...@mst.com (product info & orders)
c...@mst.com (support)
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
C Development System
Networking
X11R4 and X11R3
Motif
Open Look
SUPPORT:
30 days of support free with purchase.
1 year of fax/email support is $299, 1 year of phone support is $599.
FUTURE PLANS:
They expect to upgrade to Motif 1.2 and X11R5 Summer '92. No plans for
4.0.4 yet.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
They're going to email me a list, which will appear in a future posting.
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
They decline to release this information for fear of offending vendors.
COMMENTS:
Another outfit offering stock USL real cheap. They were actually the first
to try this (in Fall '91) and were the price leader until Consensys blew past
them.
These guys really want to sell you preinstalled UNIX on their clone
hardware. Configurations range from $1349 to $5599 and look like pretty
good value.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I have one experience report from a guy who's been running MST on a 486 for
amonths or so. He says it works; elm, cnews, and trn are up, so standard
UNIX sources compile up and work fine. His only criticism is the relative
skimpiness of the printed docs.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Anyone who's been to a hobbyist computer expo in the last five years knows
that the low-price clone-hardware market is full of small, hungry companies
run by immigrant Orientals, often family businesses. Their English is
sometimes a little shaky but (in my experience) they're honest and their
product is good, and their prices are *real* aggressive.
If the gentleman who answered my questions is an indication, MST is one of
these outfits. Right now they're eclipsed by Consensys, but Consensys's promo
prices are *so* low that they may be taking a net loss to gain market share.
In any case, two super-low-cost-vendors are much more effective pressure on
the upper tier than one --- long may MST flourish.
NAME:
Microport System V/4 Version 4
VENDOR:
Microport, Inc.
108 Whispering Pines Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(800)-367-8649
sa...@mport.com (sales and product info)
supp...@mport.com (support)
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking (TCP/IP, NFS)
Software Development
User Graphics Module (X GUIs)
Graphics Development Module (X toolkits + man pages).
DOS Merge
ADD-ONS:
A few freeware utilities are included, notably kermit(1) and less(1).
They include a single-user copy of a program called `JSB MultiView'. It's a
character-oriented desktop program that front-ends conventional UNIX services
for character terminals and also provides a pop-up phone-book.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
They have been very lightly edited for the Microport environment.
The base price includes 30 days or 1 year of phone support respectively
depending on whether you bought the base or complete system. Support is
said to be excellent for serious problems, not so good for minor ones (this
is understandable if one assumes their support staff is very good but
overworked, a hypothesis which is plausible on other evidence).
They have a support BBS at (408)-438-7270 or 438-7521. However, the level
of activity is low; one customer said (late February) that they hadn't put
anything useful on it in six months (Microport responds that they've
been too busy hammering on r4 to spend lots of energy on it).
FUTURE PLANS:
DOS Merge will be folded into the system soon.
Also working on improved performance for the Adaptec 1742 and other SCSI
controllers, expect that in may.
Microport believes they have a lead in multiprocessing UNIX and intend to
push it.
File-system support for CD-ROMs is coming.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
This list is from Microport's product literature.
System: Acer, ALR, ARC, AST, AT&T, Compaq, Cache, Dell, Everex,
Gateway, Mitac, Primax, Tangent, Televideo, Twinhead, and Unisys.
Motherboards: ALR, AMAX, AMI, ARC, Cache, Chips & Technologies,
DataExport, DTK, Free Technology, Microlab, Micronics, Mitac, Mylex,
Orchid, PC Craft.
Video Cards: ARC V-16 (Paradise) ATI VGA Wonder Plus, Genoa Super
VGA Tseng 3000 chip, Orchid Pro-Designer II, Paradise VGA, Renaissance
GRX II VGA, Super VGA Trident chipset, Sigma VGA/H, Speedstar VGA, STB
VGA Extra/EM 16 Video 7 VRAM VGA, Video 7 FastWrite VGA.
Hard Disks: CDC/Seagate Imprimis, CDC/Seagate Wren, Conner,
Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Maxtor, Microscience, Miniscribe,
Quantum, Rodime, Toshiba.
Controllers: Adaptec 1542 A/B SCSI, Adaptec 1740 EISA SCSI, Adaptec 2320/2
Always IN2000 SCSI, Bustek 542 SCSI, Bustek 742A EISA SCSI rev F, Chicony 101B,
Mylex DCA EISA SCSI, Ultrastor ESDI, Ultrastor 32k 12u SCSI, Western Digital
MFM/ESDI, Western Digital 1009 SE1, Western Digital 7000 SCSI.
Multiport boards: Arnet, Central Data, Chase Research, Computone, Comtrol,
Digiboard, Equinox, Specialix, Stalltion, StarGate.
Network Adaptors: 3COM 503-C, Intel i586, SMC EtherCards, WD 80003,
WD 8013, WD EtherCard Plus and Elite series.
Tape drives: Archive 60 - 525MB (QIC-02 and SCI), Archive 4mm 4520 DAT,
CMS Jumbo - 60MB QIC-40, Tallgrass 150 - 525MB SCSI, Wangtek 60 - 525MB (QIC 02
and SCSI) Wangtek 6130 - HS 4mm DAT.
Math co-processors: Cyrix 20/25/33, Intel 80387 20/25/33, Weitek.
CD ROM drives: Hitachi, Toshiba.
Removable Media: SyQuest cartridges.
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
No one has reported any horror stories yet. Bernoulli boxes and Irwin
tapes won't fly, but who cares.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
When I asked what differentiates Microport from the other SVr4 products,
the answer I got is "performance". The Microport people feel they've put
a lot of successful work into kernel tuning.
And, indeed, benchmarks from independent sources show that Microport's
fork(2) operation is quite fast. Other vendors show about 60 forks per
second on the AIM Technologies SUITE II benchmarks; Microport cranks 80.
This is the most dramatic performance difference the AIM tools reveal
among any of these products. Microport's other benchmark statistics
are closely comparable to those of its competitors.
Microport also offers a symmetric multiprocessing SVr4 which will run on the
Compaq SystemPro, the ALR PowerPro, the DEC 433MP, and the Chips & Technologies
Mpax system.
COMMENTS:
These people sold a lot of shrink-wrapped UNIXes years ago before going
chapter 11. They're back, leaner and meaner (with a total staff of just
15).
Microport says it's primarily interested in the systems-integration market,
where customers are typically going to be volume buyers qualifying for deep
discounts. Thus, they're relatively undisturbed by the certainty that their
high price point is losing them sales to individuals.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've received one good comprehensive experience report, largely favorable.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Microport is a small, hungry outfit with a lot to prove; they've already
gone bust once (I was a customer at the time :-() and they haven't yet
demonstrated that they've got a better strategy this time out.
They're perhaps a mite too expensive for the support quality they can offer
with less than fifteen people, and kernel-tuning isn't going to win them a
following on hardware that every year swamps those tweaks with huge increases
in speed for constant dollars. It may be that they're counting on the
symmetric-multiprocessor version to be their bread-and-butter product; there,
at least, they're offering something that is so far unique and promises
performance levels unattainable with conventional hardware.
And, like UHC, they have techies answering the phones and the techies have a
clue. This certainly improves them as a bet for wizards and developers. If
multiprocessing is important to you, and/or you're looking for a small outfit
where you can develop personal working relationships with the tech people who
matter, Microport might be a good way to go.
NAME:
UHC Version 3.6
VENDOR:
UHC Corp.
3600 S. Gessner
Suite 110
Houston, TX 77063
(713)-782-2700
supp...@uhc.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking package (TCP/IP).
X + Motif
X + Open Look
ADD-ONS:
None reported.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
30 days free phone support with purchase.
All their engineers take tech-support calls for part of their day.
They have 2 doing it full-time. The product manager is a techie himself
and takes his share of calls.
A support contract costs $1195 for one year. This includes 75% off
on all upgrades.
They are in the process of bringing up a BBS with a window into their
bug report and fix/workaround database.
It was emphasized to me that UHC wants to be known for the quality of
their support, which they feel is the product's strongest differentiating
feature.
FUTURE PLANS:
X11R5 by mid-May or thereabouts. They have it running now but don't
consider it stable enough to ship.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
CompuAdd Model 333 (33 MHz 80386 w/64Kbyte cache), Phoenix BIOS, 387.
Orchid ProDesigner II video adapter w/1MB RAM + Samsung 51091 VGA tube.
UHC's UNIX product manager says he has not yet seen a motherboard/drive
combination that chokes the product.
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
ATI WonderCard for X support. They expect to have the drivers for it
in place by mid-March.
The Adaptec 1740 controller fails when used with some floppy cards. They
expect to have that fixed in March.
The asy driver in version 2.0 won't talk to the NS16550AFN UART, which
is supposed to be pin-compatible with the standard 16450. This may be a
generic USL bug.
COMMENTS:
They claim that according to USL they have the largest installed base of
SVr4 customers, and to have been first to market with a shrink-wrapped
SVr4 (in 1990).
UHC also claims to have performed and maintained IBM's official UNIX port
for the MicroChannel machines.
A subsidiary of Anam, "a holding company with a diversified portfolio".
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The only comment I've yet seen on UHC was an extended description of a
successful installation by a satisfied netter. He made it sound like a good
solid product.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I found both the people I talked to friendly, candid, technically
knowledgeable, and willing to answer sticky questions. I came away with a very
positive impression of the outfit's operating style.
There are experienced UNIX developers who value dealing with a small,
responsive outfit where they can develop good working relationships with
individuals. UHC says it likes to sell to wizards and might be a good choice
for these people.
The second time I called (*after* I'd formed the above impressions) one of
their guys offered to trade me a copy of UHC UNIX with all the trimmings for an
autographed copy of _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_. So they have taste, too.
I'm too ethical to let this sway my evaluations, but not too ethical to take
the software... :-)
NAME:
BSD/386
VENDOR:
Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
Falls Church, VA 22042 USA
(800)-ITS-UNIX
bsdi-i...@bsdi.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. You get an unlimited user license, binaries *and sources*
for the entire system. What more could you want?
SUPPORT:
The purchase price include 60 days of phone support.
A telephone-support contract is $1500 per year; email-only support is
$500/year. Either kind includes upgrades.
FUTURE PLANS:
The current release (0.3) is a fairly stable beta. Production release is
planned for June 1992.
Capability to run SVr3.2 binaries (including SCO binaries), 3Q92.
They intend to add a DOS bridge by the end of '92.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
The BSDI/386 handout includes a wealth of information on supported
devices. New drivers are being added all the time.
IDE/ESDI/RLL/MFM hard disks (some reformatting and parameterization
may be necessary); also SCSI disks (w/Adaptec 1542B).
The following QIC-150 cartridge tapes: WangTek 5150PK QIC-02, SCSI
Maynard/Archive 2150S (w/Adaptec 1542B).
Western Digital 8003 Ethernet/Starlan adapter: WD8003E, WD8003EBT, WD8003S,
WD8003SBT, WD8013EBT and WD8013EP; also Novell NE2000.
Standard PC serial ports, including NS16550AF UARTs (up to 4 ports
with reconfiguration)
1200-9600 baud serial mice (e.g., Logitech).
The following SuperVGA cards:
SuperVGA Cards for X11r5 Max Res ChipSet
-------------------------------------------------------
Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
Diamond SpeedStar 1024x768 ET4000
EIZO MD-10 800x600 ET3000
GENOA 5300/5400 800x600 ET3000
GENOA 6400 800x600 GVGA
Optima Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
Orchid ProDesigner 800x600 ET3000
Orchid ProDesigner II/1024 1024x768 ET4000
Paradise VGA Professional 640x480 PVGA1A
Paradise VGA 1024 640x480 WD90C00
Sigma Legend 1024x768 ET4000
STB PowerGraph w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
Swan SVGA with VCO chip 1024x768 ET4000
TRICOM Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
Multiport serial boards (they're working on it).
The Orchid graphics co-processor is not supported.
Bus mice.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
Alone among the 386 UNIX versions described here, this version is *not*
based even in part on USL code and has no AT&T license restrictions. Rather,
it derives from Berkeley UNIX (the CSRG Networking 2 release, somewhere between
4.3 and 4.4).
Many of the BSD/386 tools, including the compiler, are GNU code.
This system's libraries, header files and utilities conform to X3J11,
POSIX 1003.1 and POSIX 1003.2 standards.
COMMENTS:
What these people are trying is audacious --- something functionally like
the SVr4 merge, but starting from a ported BSD kernel and with System V
compatibility hacks, rather than the other ways. By all accounts the product
is in far better shape right now than one would expect for a beta pre-release,
which argues that the developers have done something right.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The few who've seen this system display an evangelistic fervor about it.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I expect this will become a hackers' favorite.
All this, and sources too...I salivate. I am tempted. Not sure I'm ready
to change OSs at the same time as I switch machines, though. SVr4's got better
continuity with the 3.2 I'm running now. Ghu, what a dilemma!
When I mentioned that I'm doing elisp maintenance for GNU EMACS these days,
Ron Kolstad, one of the principal developers, offered me a copy and a year
of support if I'd field their (so far nonexistent) EMACS problems.
NAME
Mach386
VENDOR:
Mt. Xinu
2560 Ninth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510)-644-0146
mtxinu-m...@mtxinu.com
ADD-ONS:
Kernel sources! You get can sources for the Mach 3.0 microkernel for
$195 over base price.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
The base package includes: Mach 2.5 kernel and utilities, 4.3 BSD interface,
GNU utilities (GCC, GDB, GAS, EMACS, BISON), and on-line reference manuals (man
pages) for Mach and 4.3 BSD. The following options are available:
Networking (SUN NFS, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe release,
on-line NFS man pages).
X (X11R4 with programmer's environment and complete X manual pages).
On-line Documentation (Complete source for Mach and 4.3 documentation,
including Mach Supplementary Documents, System Manager's Documentation, 4.3 BSD
Programmer's Supplementary Documents, 4.3 BSD User's Supplementary Documents).
Optional Microkernel Add-on, Mach 3.0 (Complete Mach 3.0 microkernel source
code; complete build environment with tools to modify and rebuild the Mach 3.0
microkernel; binary BSD server which runs on top of the microkernel in place
of the standard /vmunix kernel; source for an example of a server (POE)
running on top of the Mach 3.0 microkernel and sources for some utilities
which are kernel-dependent.
SUPPORT:
You get 30 days phone support with purchase.
A support contract is available for $150 quarterly or $500 per year; this
includes upgrades. There is a support BBS open to contract holders only.
An ftp server at autosupport.mtxinu.com carries patches, enhancements
and freeware adapted for the system
FUTURE PLANS:
They plan to move to OSF/1 this year. X11R5 and Motif support are
also in the works.
HARDWARE KNOWN TO WORK:
EGA, VGA, CGA and monochrome displays
Color X windows supported on VGA boards via extended 8-bit color mode
Toshiba and Toshiba-compatible floppy drives and controllers
WD 1003/1007 compatible disk controllers (ESDI, ST506 or IDE hard disk
drives and controllers).
Adaptec SCSI controllers, models AHA-1540/1542(B) with various disks SCSI
tape (has been tested with Archive VIPER-150 and TUV DAT drives) (SCSI tape is
only available via AutoSupport at this time.)
Wangtek 1/4" standard 3M streamer (QIC tape) i8250/16540/16550-based serial
controllers (DOS COM lines)
iMX-LAN/586 Ethernet board or Olivetti PC 586 3COM 3C501 & 3C502 & 3C503
(Etherlink I & II) Ethernet controllers Western Digital 80x3 Ethernet
controllers
Serial mice (Mouse Systems, SummaMouse, Logitek, and Microsoft mice)
(Logitek MouseMan is not yet supported)
HARDWARE KNOWN *NOT* TO WORK:
Nothing current. There were a few problems with early Compaq DeskPros.
They add "Please note that we do not support the microchannel bus, EISA
extended modes, IBM PS2, and some NCR machines. We are, however, considering
new devices so let us know your interests!".
TECHNICAL NOTES
This product is essentially a 4.3 port built on the Mach project's
microkernel technology. This is a truly nifty architecture which builds a
4.3BSD-compatible kernel out of a collection of communicating lightweight
processes. The distinction between user and kernel mode almost vanishes, and
things like the schedular and virtual-memory manager which are normally
embedded deep in the kernel become semi-independent, modifiable modules.
COMMENTS:
Very appealing for the educational market --- lets CS students and hobbyists
tinker creatively with the guts of UNIX in a way that would be impossible under
more conventional UNIXes. It's not clear who else will be interested in this.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I have not yet received any user feedback.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, this product is a solution looking for a problem --- a solution I
find technically fascinating, to be sure. But even the company admits to not
being sure who its market is. I wish 'em luck.
KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE:
The most serious problem anyone has reported is that the USL asy driver is
flaky and occasionally drops characters at above 4800 baud.
Microport, Dell and Esix say that they believe they've fixed this. However,
Dell, at least, is mistaken; a more detailed description of the problem is
given below.
On ISA machines with more that 16MB of RAM, SVr4 may try to do DMA
from outside the bus's address space, causing serious problems. UNIX ought
to do an in-memory copy to within the low 16MB but the USL base code doesn't.
Microport says they've fixed this in their new 4.1 release, shipping early
March. Esix offers a patch to correct it.
Stock USL code is limited to 1,024 cylinders per Winchester, which
might cause problems with a few very large disk drives.
Microport and Esix have fixed this.
Jason Levitt's original article claimed that in stock USL 4.0.3 `sar -d'
doesn't work. Dell seems to have fixed this. Microport reports that it
doesn't work for SCSI drives, and it's possible that should have been the
actual scope of the original report. I was unable to get a definitive answer
from Esix. Much confusion surrounds this issue.
The shmat(2) call is known to interact bady with vfork(2). Specifically,
if you attach a shared-memory segment, vfork(), and then the child releases
the segment, the parent loses it too! Workaround; use fork(2).
Stock X11R4 hogs the processor if you use the LOCALCONNECT option.
Stock USL requires you to jumper your SCSI devices to fixed IDs
during installation (it can be changed to any other ID after).
Dell has fixed this. The requirement is definitely still present
in Esix.
In stock USL 4.0.3, you can't use a UFS file system as the root; the
system hangs if you try. Microport has fixed this.
THE FUBYTE BUG:
(Thanks to Christoph Badura <b...@flatlin.ka.sub.org> for this info)
The kernel function fubyte() is documented to return a positive value when
given a valid user space address and -1 otherwise. In the latter case u.u_error
is set to EFAULT. USL SysV R4.0.3 has a sign extension bug in the
implementation of fubyte() for local file descriptors (i.e. not opened via
RFS), which causes fubyte() to return negative values if the byte fetched has
its high bit set. This bug doesn't affect STREAMS drivers, as they don't call
(and in fact are normally unable to call) fubyte(). Thus writing a byte with
the high bit set to certain character device drivers returns with -1 and errno
set to EFAULT.
The bug may affect any character device driver that calls fubyte(). It's not
limited to serial card drivers. The bug is noticed most often with serial card
drivers, since uucp uses byte values > 127 very early during g-protocol setup
and drivers for serial cards tend to use fubyte() quite often.
Note also that the bug's effect is different if the driver checks for a -1
return value of fubyte() or just a negative one. In the former case it is
possible to pass bytes with the 8 bit set through fubyte(), except for 0xff
which is -1 in two's complement. That makes the bug more obscure.
The fix is easy. A disassembly of /etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o(lfubyte)
contains *exactly* one mov[s]bl (move byte to long w/sign extend). That one
needs to be patched into a movzbl (zero extend). The difference is one bit in
the second byte of the opcode.
The movsbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011111w mod/rm-byte.
The movzbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011011w mod/rm-byte.
The 'w' bit is 0 for the instruction in question. So the opcodes are 0f be and
0f b6.
Of course there is a workaround at the driver level, in checking for
fubyte() returning -1 *and* u.u_error being set to EFAULT (u.u_error is
cleared upon entering a system call).
Cristoph reports that Dell V.4 can be object-patched successfully to fix this.
I do not know the status of the other ports.
FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS:
As a potential customer for one of the SVr4 ports, it's to my advantage to
have everybody in this market competing against one another as hard as
possible. Accordingly, some free advice to vendors, which I'm broadcasting to
all of them and the public so as to put just that much more pressure on each
vendor. :-)
Consensys:
Fix the Powerports bugs everyone is reporting. They're doing you real
damage. Nobody expects real support from an outfit selling at $1000 below
market average, but you've *got* to make your own hardware work right or look
like idiots. And watch your tail, the MST guys are coming up behind you. :-)
Consensys and Esix:
Get a real support address. Bang-path accessibility doesn't
impress anyone any more --- in fact, it looks faintly quaint. You
guys ought to be supp...@everex.com and supp...@consensys.com to
follow the simple and logical convention Dell and Microport and UHC
have established.
Dell:
Don't get fat and lazy. You've got the lead in this market at the moment
and you've got the money and resources to keep it, *if* you use them. If you
staff up your UNIX support operation so customers don't get pissed off by
infinite hold, *and* keep your prices the lowest in the upper tier, no one will
be able to touch you. Don't let Microport et al. get ahead of you in releases
and new technology, and try to reverse that creeping corporatitis (the
no-comment-on-unreleased-products policy is a bad sign).
Everybody but Dell:
Offer all the free software Dell does --- and *more*. All it will cost you
is the media, right? Even if you have to plaster CONTRIBUTED SOFTWARE, NOT
SUPPORTED on it, include perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs, gdb, mush, patch,
compress, etc on your distribution tapes. Heck, include some *games*.
Nethack, empire, zork, stuff like that. Your engineers use and play with all
this in-house anyhow, yes? And you're selling to guys just like your
engineers. They'll love you for it. Trust me.
Set up a `sales' address to take product queries if you don't already have
one.
Set up an 800 number for tech support. Support customers hate spending time
on hold, and they hate it like poison when they have to *pay* for the hold
time. The more overloaded your support staff is, the more important this
gets. Verbum sap.
Esix:
You're *boring*. You seem to make a decent product, but there's nothing
I've seen about Esix that'd make me say "I might want to buy Esix because...".
Position yourselves; pick something like price or support quality or
reliability or add-on-features and push it hard. Warning: if you decide to
push support, *hire more engineers*. Your rep for following up on support
problems is bad enough that your "unlimited free support" ain't much of a draw.
Esix, MST, UHC:
Get 800 numbers for product info, too.
MST:
Set up a supp...@mst.com alias to your cs address, see above. What would
that take, a whole five minutes? :-)
If you don't start planning for 4.0.4 now, you'll get left behind this
spring and early summer whan all the other vendors move to it.
On present trends, your software prices are cheap enough; you'd probably
get more sales mileage out of pulling down the hardware prices for your
pre-configured systems.
Everybody but MST and Microport:
Set up a `sales' alias to your info and orders email address. A universal
convention for this means just one less detail prospective customers need to
remember.
Microport:
Your complete system is way overpriced relative to what other vendors in the
top tier are selling. If I were a corporate customer, there is no *way* I
could justify spending the $1K or $2K premium over Dell's price --- not when
Dell has the rep it does for quality and features. You aren't offering
anything but a crippled copy of JSB Multiview to justify that premium and
that ain't enough.
There's some evidence that you've got a technical lead on the competition.
Push it; push it *hard*. You're first off the blocks with 4.0.4; keep that up,
be first out with a stable 4.0.5. Market yourselves as the leading-edge
outfit, court the hard-core wizards as their natural ally, detail somebody
who's fluent in English as well as C to listen and speak for you on USENET, and
keep the promises you make there.
UHC:
You've decided to push support; that's good, but follow through by getting
that 800 number. Don't lose those small-company virtues of candor and
flexibility, trade on them. Your policy of having all techs clear up to the
product manager take turns on the support lines is a damned good idea, stick
with it. And I'm sufficiently impressed with what I've heard from your guys
that I think you might be able to fight Microport for the friend-to-wizards
mantle, too. Maybe you should try.
BSDI:
The most effective things you can do to to seriously compete with SVr4
vendors are: a) emphasize standards conformance --- POSIX, FIPS, XPG3, etc.,
and b) follow through on your support promises. Just another flaky BSDoid
system isn't really very interesting except to hobbyists, even with sources ---
but if it were proven a reliable cross-development platform it could capture
a lot of hearts and minds among commercial software designers.
Everybody except BSDI:
BSD/386 includes *sources*. For *everything*. Be afraid; be very afraid.
In effect, this recruits hundreds of eager hackers as uncompensated development
and support engineers for BSDI. Don't fool yourselves that the results are
necessarily going to be unfocused, amateur-quality and safe to ignore --- it
sure didn't work that way for gcc or Emacs. The rest of you will have to work
that much harder and smarter to stay ahead of their game.
You're *all* badly understaffed in support engineering, and it shows. Boy
does it show --- in poor followup, long hold times, and user gripes. The first
outfit to invest enough to offer really first-class quick-response support is
going to eat everyone else's lunch. Wouldn't you like to be it?
Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,comp.unix.wizards,
alt.folklore.computers
Subject: SVr4 and clone hardware buyer's FAQ
Message-ID: <1fypqp#9NqV2h1QTT9N0yR5bj3PpxlN=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: 31 Mar 92 21:42:47 GMT
Lines: 2167
You say you want cutting-edge hacking tools without having to mortgage the
wife'n'kids? You say arrogant workstation vendors are getting you down? You
say you crave fast UNIX on cheap hardware, but you don't know how to go about
getting it? Well, pull up a chair and take the load off yer feet, bunky,
because...
This is v2.0 of the 386 UNIX and clone-hardware buyer's FAQ posting
current to April 1st 1992.
0. CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION. What this posting is. How to help improve it. Summary of
the 386/486 UNIX market, including 6 SVr4 vendors and 2 BSD ports. What's new
in this issue.
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. A brief discussion of general hardware
requirements and compatibility considerations in the base SVR4 code from UNIX
Systems Laboratories (referred to below as the USL code). None of this
automatically applies to the two BSD-like versions, which break out the
corresponding information into their separate vendor reports.
III. FEATURE COMPARISON. A feature table which gives basic price & feature
info and summarizes differences between the versions.
IV. VENDOR REPORTS. Detailed descriptions of the different versions and
vendors, including information collected from the net on bugs, supported
and unsupported hardware and the like.
V. HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS. Useful general tips for anybody buying
clone hardware for a UNIX system. Overview of the market. Technical points.
When, where, and how to buy.
VI. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES. A set of tables summarizes vendor claims
and user reports on hardware compatibility.
VII. KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE. A discussion of bugs known or believed to
be generic to the USL code, with indications as to which vendors have fixed
them. None of this applies to the two BSD-based versions.
VIII. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS. Your humble editor's soapbox. An open letter
to the UNIX vendors designed to get them all hustling to improve their products
and services as fast as possible.
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI. Credit where credit is due. Some praises
and pans. What comes next....
I. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this posting is to pool public knowledge and USENET feedback
about all leading-edge versions of UNIX for commodity 386 and 486 hardware. It
also includes extensive information on how to buy cheap clone hardware to
support your UNIX.
This document is maintained and periodically updated as a service to the net by
Eric S. Raymond <e...@snark.thyrsus.com>, who began it for the very best
self-interested reason that he's in the market and doesn't believe in plonking
down several grand without doing his homework first (no, I don't get paid for
this!). Corrections, updates, and all pertinent information are welcomed at
that address.
This posting is periodically broadcast to the USENET group comp.unix.sysv386
and to a list of vendor addresses. If you are a vendor representative, please
check the feature chart and vendor report to make sure the information on your
company is current and correct. If it is not, please email me a correction
ASAP. If you are a knowledgeable user of any of these products, please send me
a precis of your experiences for the improvement of the feedback sections.
New in this revision:
* Corrections to Dell's distribution media info and addition of much
technical data.
* More about Consensys, including a red flag or two.
* Lots ore on compatible hardware for Consensys, Dell, Microport
and UHC.
* Detailed user feedback on BSD/386.
* Info from several vendors on their fixes to generic USL problems.
* A few more details on the fubyte() bug; Esix and Dell fix
instructions for it.
* The hardware compatibility info has been reorganized and is now
expressed primarily in tabular form in a new section
* There's a new section on how to buy hardware for your UNIX system.
* More in the FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS section, including some praises
and pans.
At time of writing, here are the products in this category:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.2 abbreviated as "Cons" below
Dell UNIX Issue 2.1 abbreviated as "Dell" below
Esix Revision A abbreviated as "Esix" below
Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX abbreviated as "MST" below
Microport System V/4 version 4 abbreviated as "uPort" below
UHC Version 3.6 abbreviated as "UHC" below
BSD/386 (0.3 beta) abbreviated as "BSDI" below
Mach386 abbreviated as "Mach" below
The first six of these are ports of AT&T's System V Release 4. Until very
recently there was a seventh, by Interactive Systems Corporation. That product
was canned after half of ISC was bought by SunSoft, evidently to clear the
decks for Solaris 2.0 (a SunOS port for the 386 to be released late in
1992). The only Interactive UNIX one can buy at present is an SVr3.2 port
which I consider uninteresting because it's no longer cutting-edge; I have
ignored it.
I'm similarly ignoring SCO because their `Release 4' is a 3.2 sailing
under false colors. Can you say deceptive advertising? Can you say
bait-and-switch? Can you say total marketroid-puke? Farg 'em, and
ignore their OS until they come to their senses.
BSD/386 is *not* based on USL code. Complete sources are included with every
system shipped! Mach386 is basically BSD tools with a Mach microkernel (for
which you can get source!) and does entail a USL license; it's based on the
Tahoe BSD distribution. BSD/386 based on the CSRG NET2 distribution tape.
Siemens AG plans to offer a SVr4 port optimized for real-time work in
June 1992. This product will be called SORIX.
AT&T's own 386 UNIX offering is not covered here because it is available and
supported for AT&T hardware only.
All the vendors listed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but they'll be
sticky about it except where there's an insuperable hardware compatibility
problem or you trip over a serious bug. One (UHC) charges a 25% restocking fee
on returns. BSDI says: "If a customer is dissatisfied with the product, BSDI
unconditionally refunds the purchase price."
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
To run any of this systems, you need at least the following: 4 MB of RAM and
80MB of hard disk. However, this is an absolute minimum; you'll want at least
8 MB of RAM for reasonable performance. And depending on options installed,
the OS will eat from 40 to 120 meg of the disk, so you'll want at least 200 meg
for real work. To run X you'll need a VGA monitor and card, and 12-16MB RAM
would be a good idea.
Installation from these systems requires that you boot from a hi-density
floppy (either 3.5" or 5.25"). Most vendors offer the bulk of the system on a
QIC 1/4-inch tape; otherwise you may be stuck with loading over 60 diskettes!
In general, if the initial boot gets far enough to display a request for
the first disk or tape load, you're in good shape.
All SVr4s conform to the following software standards: ANSI X3J11 C, POSIX
1003.1, SVID 3rd edition, FIPS 151-1, XPG3, System V ABI, and iBCS-2.
All SVr4 versions include support for BSD-style file systems with 255-character
segment names and fragment allocation. In general this is a Good Thing, but
some SVr3.2 and XENIX binaries can be confused by the different size of
the inode index. You need to run these on an AT&T-style file system.
All SVr4 versions include the UNIX manual pages on-line. Dell and Esix also
stock Prentice-Hall's SVr4 books and will sell them to you with your system (in
lieu of printed manuals) at extra cost. You can order them direct from
Prentice-Hall at (201)-767-5937. Warning: they ain't cheap! Buying the whole
13 volumes will cost you a couple hundred bucks.
SVr4 includes hooks for a DOS bridge that allows you to run DOS applications
under UNIX (the two products that actually do this are DOS Merge and VPIX).
Most vendors do not include either of these with the base system, however.
All these systems support up to 1024x768 by 256 color super-VGA under X. The
640x480 by 16 colors of standard VGA is no problem; everybody supports that
compatibly. However, X servers older than the Roell or X11R5 version (that is,
MIT X11R4 or anything previous) are hard to configure for the clock timings of
your controller and monitor scan frequency unless you have one of the standard
combinations USL supports or your vendor has configured for it.
There are a couple of known hardware compatibility problems the USL code
doesn't yet address. See the KNOWN BUGS section near the end of this document.
III. FEATURE COMPARISON
To interpret the table below, bear in mind the following things:
All these products except BSDI/386 and Mach386 are based on the SVr4 kernel
from UNIX Systems Laboratories (USL), an AT&T spinoff. Thus they share over
90% of their code and features. Product differentiation is done primarily
through support policy, bug-fix quality and add-on software.
The `USL support?' column refers to the fact that USL support is a separate
charge from the source license. With the former, a porting house gets access
to AT&T's own OS support people and their bug fix database, and the porting
house's bug fixes can get folded back into the USL code.
These systems come either in a "crippled" version that supports at most two
simultaneous users, or an unlimited version. Generally the vendors do allow
you to upgrade your license via a patch disk if your requirements, but this
invariably costs slightly more than the base price difference between 2-user
and unlimited systems.
The "run-time" system in the price tables below is a minimum installation,
just enough to run binaries. The "complete" system includes every software
option offered by the vendor; it does *not* bundle in the cost of the
Prentice-Hall docs offered by some vendors as an option. You may well get
away with less, especially if you're willing to do your own X installation.
The `30 days', `90 days' etc. under support-with-purchase is counted from
date of shipment. The intent is to help you get initially up and running.
The engineer counts below are as supplied by vendors; .5 of an engineer
means someone is officially working half-time. The `Uses USENET' column is
`yes' if there is allegedly at least one person in the engineering department
who reads USENET technical groups regularly and is authorized to respond to
USENET postings reporting problems.
A dash `-' means the given feature or configuration is not offered. A `yes'
means it is currently offered; `soon' means the vendor has represented that it
will be offered in the near future. A `no' means it's not offered, but there's
some related information in the attached footnote.
Vendor Cons Dell Esix MST uPort UHC BSDI Mach386
Base version: 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.4 4.0.3 4.3BSD Mach2.5
USL support? ?? yes yes(11) ?? yes ??(14) no no
System price:
Run-time
2-user - - $ 545 $ 249 $ 500 $ 695 - -
Unlimited - - $ 945 $ 449 $1,000 $1,090 - -
Complete
2-user $ 495 $1,250 $1,645 $ 799 $3,000 $1,990 - $ 995
Unlimited $ 695 $1,599 $2,045 $ 999 $3,500 $2,385 $995 (10)
Printed docs? - - - - yes(1) yes - -
Upgrade plan?
From SVr3.2 - - yes - yes - - -
Future SVr4s - free(3) free(2) - free(3) - - -
Support
With purchase: (4) 90-day (6) 30-day 30-day 30-day 60-day 30-day
800 number? - yes - - - - - -
By contract no(5) yes no(6) yes yes yes yes yes
Support BBS? yes no(7) yes - yes soon - yes
FTP server? - yes soon - - - - yes
Reads USENET? ?? yes ?? ?? yes no(13) yes yes
# Engineers:
Support: 1 5 2 2 4 2 1.5 1
Development: ??(15) 9-20(9) ~20 3 6 27 5.5 5
Distribution media:
3.5" 1.44MB yes(8) - yes yes yes yes - yes
5.25" 1.2MB yes(8) - yes yes yes yes - yes
60MB ctape yes - yes yes yes yes - -
125MB ctape - - - yes - yes - -
150MB ctape - yes - yes yes yes yes -
Via network? - yes - - - - - -
X options:
X11/NeWS (R3) - - yes - - yes - -
MIT X11R4 - yes yes - - - - yes
AT&T Xwin 3 - - - yes - - - -
AT&T Xwin 4 - - - - yes - - -
Roell X386 - yes - yes - yes - -
X11R5 yes - - - - - yes soon
Open Look - 4i 1.0 2.0 4i 4i - -
Motif 1.1 1.1.2 1.1.0 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.3 - soon
IXI X.desktop - 2.0F - - 3.0 2.0 - -
Also included:
DOS bridge? - yes - - soon - soon -
SLIP? - yes yes - yes soon yes -
PPP? ?? no no(12) ?? no soon soon no
(1) With complete system only.
(2) Small media charge.
(3) Free with support contract, charge otherwise (charge ~$500).
(4) 90 days or until product is installed successfully.
(5) Charges by the half-hour phone call.
(6) Unlimited free phone support.
(7) Dell does have an Internet server for its UNIX patches.
(8) There's an $80 media charge for the diskettes equivalent to the normal
60MB distribution tape.
(9) The number of engineers varies according to the current problem load.
(10) No unlimited licenses have been sold yet. Talk to Mt. Xinu about one.
(11) Esix's UNIX support contract with USL will technically begin with 4.0.4.
(12) Mark Boucher <m...@cam.org> has written a PPP driver for Esix
(13) UHC says they used to be net-active and want to be again when they can
afford the man-hours.
(14) UHC had a support contract at one time but may have let it lapse. I
expect to have better information on this soon.
(15) Consensys explicitly refuses to release this information.
In general, the SVr4 market breaks into two tiers. The bottom tier is
Consensys and MST; low-ball outfits selling stock USL with minimal support for
real cheap. The top tier is Dell, Esix, Microport and UHC; these guys are
selling support and significant enhancements and charge varying premiums for
it. Your first, most basic buying decision has to be which tier best serves
your needs.
One further note: it *is* possible to buy these systems at less than the list
the vendor charges! I found some really substantial discounts in one
mail-order catalog ("Programmer's Workshop" for which I seem to have got
transcribed an incorrect 800 number in the last posting; I'll restore it as
soon as I find the catalogue).
IV. VENDOR REPORTS
Vendor reorts start here. Each one is led by a form feed.
NAME:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.3
VENDOR:
Consensys
1301 Pat Booker Road
Universal City, TX 78148
(800)-387-8951
{dmentor,dciem}!askov!root
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. With the whole system selling for $495 why bother?
ADD-ONS:
Basically this is a stock USL system with the stock USL bugs, except the
installation sequence has been improved considerably. Good tools for
configuration management and system administration on a network of Consensys
machines are included.
SUPPORT:
You get free phone support until your system is installed, to a maximum of
90 days. After that they charge per half-hour of phone time. They like to
do support by fax and callback.
They have 1 (one) support tech. Ask for Reuben.
They have a support BBS at (416)-752-2084.
Knowledgeable customers report they're good about supporting the bits they
wrote (see below) but terrible at dealing with generic SVr4 problems.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't settled on an upgrade policy yet.
There are plans for a disk array product.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
Though most reports say the Consensys PowerPorts board is fine for UUCP use,
at least two USENETters have reported problems with interactive sessions; see
below.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The X stuff is straight off the MIT X11R5 tape, patchlevel 8.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
One `Andy', mailing from <hoop...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> says "You should also
blast Consensys for advertising that they provide DOS file system utilities.
They do, but they were written for DOS 2.0! They do NOT work for DOS 5.0..."
Syd Weinstein <s...@dsinc.dsi.com> reports: "The most major [bug in the
PowerPorts support] is delays in various output codes.... Even if not using
the multi-screen stuff, a clear to end of line escape code, and some others,
cause noticable delays in the output. (About 0.1 seconds). It makes running
Elm a real bitch". He is in touch with Consensys about this.
It has been reported on USENET (by Gerry Swetsky <lis...@vpnet.chi.il.us>
among others) that if you drop off of a PowerPorts line without manually
closing all your sessions, the unclosed sessions may be accessible to the next
person to pick up the line.
Gil Kloepfer, Jr. <g...@limbic.ssdl.com>, managing the Houston UNIX User's
Group's system, says that during interactive use the board frequently does not
handle typeahead properly (this may be related to Syd Weinstein's problems with
EOL delay). He also says he hasn't been able to bring up stable UUCP with the
board.
COMMENTS:
Their UNIX product is an outgrowth of their main line of business, selling
serial boards. It is easy to configure the OS to support the board.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've spoken with one experienced wizard using Consensys and seen a detailed
email report from another. They're happy, although they both warn that newbies
should probably *not* try this at home :-).
On the other hand, Consensys has a dismal reputation on USENET; horror
stories of nonexistent followup on bugs abound. They'll need to work hard to
shuck their take-the-money-and-run image. Better followup on the reported
serial-port board bugs would be a big help. Unfortunately, Consensys's favored
response seems to be to deny that they have a problem.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
These guys are trading off everything else to be the market's price-buster.
They have the toughest support policy of any vendor and obviously don't want to
hear from you once you've gotten past initial boot.
A Consensys marketroid that I spoke with twice while gathering this
information offered to send me an evaluation copy of their system. They were
clearly hoping for some good publicity if I like it. However, I doubt they
like me that well any more...
Consensys explicitly refuses to say how many development engineers they have
on staff. In this and some other matters (such as the way they deal with
allegations of PowerPorts problems) they've adopted a corporate style that
appears defensive, evasive, secretive, and not conducive to trust. I couldn't
make their V.P. of sales understand that this appearance is a serious
liability in dealing with UNIX techies and distinguishes them from the
competition in a distinctly negative way.
NAME:
Dell UNIX System V Release 4 Issue 2.1.
VENDOR:
Dell Computer
9505 Arboretum Road
Austin TX 78759
(800)-BUY-DELL (info & orders)
(800)-624-9896 (tech support: x6915 to go straight to UNIX support)
supp...@dell.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Basically, there aren't any. You get the development system with all the
trimmings for a lower list than anybody else in the top tier. Whaddya
want, egg in yer beer?
ADD-ONS:
Dell bundles a DOS bridge with their base system. They also include cnews,
mmdf, perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs gdb, and other freeware, including a bunch
of nifty X clients! However, stock gcc doesn't yet generate SVr4's new DWARF
debugger format. Patches for g++ 1.40.3 and libg++ 1.39.0 to get these working
under SVR4 are available via ftp from ftp.physics.su.oz.au.
SUPPORT:
Dell *does* support their UNIX on non-Dell hardware. They are quite
definite about this. They will deal with software problems reported from
non-Dell hardware, but you're on your own when dealing with hardware
incompatibility problems.
You get 90 days of free phone support on a toll-free number.
Yearly service contracts range are $350 per year for the limited
license, $500 for the unlimited.
Dell accepts software problem reports from anyone, Dell or non-Dell
hardware and whether or not they have a support contract. If you don't have
a support contract, don't count on getting a reply acknowledging the report.
There are 5 engineers in their second-line support pool.
Dell maintains a pair of Internet servers (dell1.dell.com and
dell2.dell.com) which hold patches, updates and free software usable with
Dell UNIX.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't fixed a release date for 4.0.4 or X11R5 yet. One USENET
poster has claimed inside information that X11R5 will be folded in during
March/April 1992.
X.desktop 3.0 will be supported soon. NeWS isn't going to happen at all;
they couldn't get it to work reliability.
Dell is committed to sell and support Solaris 2.0 when it happens. Dell
spokespeople have insisted that this doesn't jeopardize the SVr4 product's
future; they say they intend to position the two differently, aiming SVr4 at
UNIX developers and selling Solaris primarily as an application platform for
end-users. However, the person who articulated that policy is no longer at
Dell and the question of what SVr4 to Solaris upgrade costs will be hasn't
been resolved even internally.
About upgrades, Dell says "If you have a support contract, the upgrade is
free, unless we've added something with significant royalty burden to us. We
may make a charge at that point. We didn't when we added Graphical Services
4.0 at the introduction of Dell UNIX 2.1. If you don't have a contract, then
the cost is basically Media+Royalty+Admin+Shipping."
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The big plus in the Dell code is that they've fixed a lot of the annoying
bugs and glitches present in the stock USL tape.
The installation procedure has been improved and simplified. You can
install Dell UNIX through your network from another Dell box once you've booted
the hardware with a special disk provided.
Both benchmarks and anecdotal reports make them significantly faster than a
stock USL system. Interestingly, Dell's manager for UNIX development tells me
this is all due to bug fixes and careful choices of some OS parameters.
The DOS bridge is Locus Merge 2.1.
A source at Dell has asked me to point out that Dell's SLIP can be set up,
configured, and stopped while UNIX is running; some other versions (such as
SCO's) require a reboot.
Dell device drivers are *very* unlikely to work on other SVR4 versions.
Dell includes some kernel extensions (not required, so other SVR4 device
drivers should work) to make life in support a little easier. A program
called showcfg will list all recognised device drivers and the IRQ,
I/O address, shared memory and so on. The device driver has to register
this info. Dell has told USL how to do this, it's up to them when or even
if they want to use this in a future release.
Dell device drivers are also auto configuring, for the most part. Check out
/etc/conf/sdevice.d/* and see how most of the devices are enabled, but with
zeroes in all fields for IRQ, I/O and memory. Those are autoconfiguring
drivers. Dell thinks that this makes life much easier; you only need to set
one of the configurations that we probe for! The device registration helps
this, by eliminating possible overlapping memory or I/O address usage. (On the
other hand, idconfig(1) is no longer helpful, when I/O, IRQ and mem are all
zero).
Dell UNIX also has drivers for the Dell SmartVu found on some machines (a
little four character LED display on the front panel). By default this shows
POST values, then disk accesses, finally "UNIX" when running and "DOWN" when
halted. You can write to the device.
Some Dell systems have a reset button. On the Laptops these are wired
directly to the CPU. On the desktop and floor-standing systems Dell UNIX can
catch the interrupt; it's used to do a graceful (init 0) shutdown. Other
UNIXes will do a processor reset when the button is pushed.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
Dell doesn't maintain a list of non-Dell motherboards and systems known to
work. And they're not willing to talk about the list they don't maintain,
because it would amount to endorsing someone else's hardware.
Dell promises that you can bring its UNIX up on any Dell desktop or tower
featuring a 386SX or up (it's hard to get the product on to the notebooks).
Notebooks can't drive a QIC tape and there aren't drivers for the pocket
Ethernet or token-ring adapter.
Jeffrey James Persch <using a friend's account> reports that he couldn't
get the X supplied with Dell UNIX 2.1 to work with a Microsoft bus mouse hooked
to the mouse port on a Compaq 486/33M or Systempro.
See the appendix for more.
COMMENTS:
Dell sells hardware, too :-). They are, in fact, one of the most successful
clonemakers, and will cheerfully sell you a Dell computer with SVr4 pre-
installed. Their systems are expensive by cloner standards (with as much as a
$1000 premium over rock-bottom street prices) but they have a rep for quality
and reliability their competition would probably kill for.
You can get Dell product information by sending an email request to
i...@dell.com.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Most people who've seen or used it seem to think pretty highly of the
Dell product, in spite of minor problems.
Some people are very annoyed with the length of Dell's support queues.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, I'd have to call Dell the market leader. The combination of low
price, highest added value in features, and reputation for quality makes them
very hard to beat.
The only serious negative I've seen is that their support system seems to be
very badly overloaded, so you can end up on hold for a while when calling. The
techs themselves are sufficiently cranked about this that they'll complain of
understaffing and corporate shortsightedness on the phone to a stranger.
Dell also compartmentalizes the support operation more than any of the
other vendors I contacted; the support techs aren't told much about the
product's future direction and even lack basic pricing information.
Both these things are probably functions of the organization's size; Dell is
a larger outfit than the rest of its competitors put together.
On the other hand, Dell's UNIX development manager responded to the first
issue of this FAQ with about three hundred lines of intelligent, thoughtful and
extremely candid comment, including a whole pile of the hardware-compatibility
info I couldn't get lower-level people to divulge and a number of excellent
suggestions for improving the FAQ.
NAME:
Esix Revision A
VENDOR
Esix Computers
1923 E. St. Andrew Place
Santa Ana, CA 92705
(714)-259-3020 (tech support is (714)-259-3000)
uunet!zardoz!everex!esixtech
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking and X11R4 (includes TCP/IP, NFFS/RFS, SLIP).
GUI I -- Open Look and X11/NeWS.
GUI II -- Motif.
Development tools.
SUPPORT:
Purchase buys you unlimited free phone support. However, be warned that
there are only two engineers assigned to the job and they are swamped.
Esix offers a support BBS at (714)-259-3011 and 3013 (the 11 line
has a Trailblazer on it). They plan to bring up an Internet server in
the near future.
FUTURE PLANS:
4.0.4 will happen in the near future. They'll be going to Xwin 4
(AT&T's X11R4 server) at around the same time. They say they don't
plan to support DOS Merge because it's still horribly buggy.
Later in '92 they plan to release a multiprocessing UNIX.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. Esix supports an unusually wide
range of peripherals.
They advertise support for the Textronix X terminal.
No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.
KNOWN BUGS:
According to Esix, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it
must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
Another subsidiary of a clonemaker (Everex). They don't sell
bundled hardware/software packages yet.
Unlimited free support sounds wonderful, and might be Esix's
strongest selling point. However, Esix users on the net have been
heard to gripe that in practice, you get the support you've paid for
from Esix --- that is, none. That isn't at all surprising given
Esix's staffing level. If this guarantee is to be more than a hollow
promise, their technical support has to get more depth.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Not much. There's been little comment either positive or negative on the
net. In email to me, one long-time netter (Evan Leibovich, <e...@telly.on.ca>)
who does UNIX consulting says he has eight client sites running Esix happily.
It's reliable.
It has been alleged that Esix's asy driver flakes out at high speeds. This
may be the generic USL asy problem again.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
The tech I spoke with at Esix seemed knowledgeable, bright, and very
committed to the product. Nevertheless, when I asked what he thought
distinguished Esix from the competition, he had no answer.
This reinforced the feeling I got from the spec sheets that Esix has kind of
an also-ran mentality, with no market strategy or clear priority for improving
SVr4 that positions it against its competition. It doesn't have Dell's
steak-with-all-the-trimmings appeal, it's not pushing price like Consensys or
support quality like UHC or performance like Microport. (I'm told that
at one time, Everex was the price leader).
When I asked Esix's chief marketroid about this, he said that he thinks
Esix's best asset is that the product isn't going to go away, and muttered
unkind things about the possibility that Dell would deep-six their SVr4 in
favor of Solaris 2.0. This does not a long-term strategy make.
NAME
MST UNIX
VENDOR:
Micro Station Technology, Inc.
1140 Kentwood Ave.
Cupertino, CA. 95014
(408)-253-3898
sa...@mst.com (product info & orders)
c...@mst.com (support)
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
C Development System
Networking
X11R4 and X11R3
Motif
Open Look
SUPPORT:
30 days of support free with purchase.
1 year of fax/email support is $299, 1 year of phone support is $599.
FUTURE PLANS:
They expect to upgrade to Motif 1.2 and X11R5 Summer '92. No plans for
4.0.4 yet.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
They've promised to email me a list of hardware known to work, which
will appear in a future posting.
They decline to release information on hardware known *not* to work
for fear of offending vendors.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
Another outfit offering stock USL real cheap. They were actually the first
to try this (in Fall '91) and were the price leader until Consensys blew past
them.
These guys really want to sell you preinstalled UNIX on their clone
hardware. Configurations range from $1349 to $5599 and look like pretty
good value.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I have one experience report from Ray Hill, <h...@ghola.nicolet.com>, who's
been running MST on a 486 for a month or so. He says it works; elm, cnews, and
trn are up, so standard UNIX sources compile up and work fine. His only
criticism is the relative skimpiness of the printed docs.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Anyone who's been to a hobbyist computer expo in the last five years knows
that the low-price clone-hardware market is full of small, hungry companies
run by immigrant Orientals, often family businesses. Their English is
sometimes a little shaky but (in my experience) they're honest and their
product is good, and their prices are *real* aggressive.
If the gentleman who answered my questions is an indication, MST is one of
these outfits. Right now they're eclipsed by Consensys, but Consensys's promo
prices are *so* low that they may be taking a net loss to gain market share.
In any case, two super-low-cost-vendors are much more effective pressure on
the upper tier than one --- long may MST flourish.
NAME:
Microport System V/4 Version 4
VENDOR:
Microport, Inc.
108 Whispering Pines Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(800)-367-8649
sa...@mport.com (sales and product info)
supp...@mport.com (support)
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking (TCP/IP, NFS)
Software Development
User Graphics Module (X GUIs)
Graphics Development Module (X toolkits + man pages).
DOS Merge
ADD-ONS:
A few freeware utilities are included, notably kermit(1) and less(1).
They include a single-user copy of a program called `JSB MultiView'. It's a
character-oriented desktop program that front-ends conventional UNIX services
for character terminals and also provides a pop-up phone-book.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
They have been very lightly edited for the Microport environment.
The base price includes 30 days or 1 year of phone support respectively
depending on whether you bought the base or complete system. Support is
said to be excellent for serious problems, not so good for minor ones (this
is understandable if one assumes their support staff is very good but
overworked, a hypothesis which is plausible on other evidence).
They have a support BBS at (408)-438-7270 or 438-7521. However, the level
of activity is low; one customer said (late February) that they hadn't put
anything useful on it in six months (Microport responds that they've
been too busy hammering on r4 to spend lots of energy on it).
FUTURE PLANS:
DOS Merge will be folded into the system soon.
Also working on improved performance for the Adaptec 1742 and other SCSI
controllers, expect that in may.
Microport believes they have a lead in multiprocessing UNIX and intend to
push it.
File-system support for CD-ROMs is coming.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
Math co-processors: Cyrix 20/25/33, Intel 80387 20/25/33, Weitek.
No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet. Bernoulli boxes
and Irwin tapes won't fly, but who cares.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
When I asked what differentiates Microport from the other SVr4 products,
the answer I got is "performance". The Microport people feel they've put
a lot of successful work into kernel tuning.
And, indeed, benchmarks from independent sources show that Microport's
fork(2) operation is quite fast. Other vendors show about 60 forks per
second on the AIM Technologies SUITE II benchmarks; Microport cranks 80.
This is the most dramatic performance difference the AIM tools reveal
among any of these products. Microport's other benchmark statistics
are closely comparable to those of its competitors.
Microport also offers a symmetric multiprocessing SVr4 which will run on the
Compaq SystemPro, the ALR PowerPro, the DEC 433MP, and the Chips & Technologies
Mpax system.
KNOWN BUGS:
According to Microport, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus
it must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the
BSD-compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
These people sold a lot of shrink-wrapped UNIXes years ago before going
chapter 11. They're back, leaner and meaner (with a total staff of just
15).
Microport says it's primarily interested in the systems-integration market,
where customers are typically going to be volume buyers qualifying for deep
discounts. Thus, they're relatively undisturbed by the certainty that their
high price point is losing them sales to individuals.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've received one good comprehensive experience report, largely favorable,
from David Wexelblatt <d...@att.com>.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Microport is a small, hungry outfit with a lot to prove; they've already
gone bust once (I was a customer at the time :-() and they haven't yet
demonstrated that they've got a better strategy this time out.
They're perhaps a mite too expensive for the support quality they can offer
with less than fifteen people, and kernel-tuning isn't going to win them a
following on hardware that every year swamps those tweaks with huge increases
in speed for constant dollars. It may be that they're counting on the
symmetric-multiprocessor version to be their bread-and-butter product; there,
at least, they're offering something that is so far unique and promises
performance levels unattainable with conventional hardware.
And, like UHC, they have techies answering the phones and the techies have a
clue. This certainly improves them as a bet for wizards and developers. If
multiprocessing is important to you, and/or you're looking for a small outfit
where you can develop personal working relationships with the tech people who
matter, Microport might be a good way to go.
They've offered to send me a copy of their OS gratis for review and
evaluation purposes.
NAME:
UHC Version 3.6
VENDOR:
UHC Corp.
3600 S. Gessner
Suite 110
Houston, TX 77063
(713)-782-2700
supp...@uhc.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking package (TCP/IP).
X + Motif
X + Open Look
ADD-ONS:
None reported.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
30 days free phone support with purchase.
All their engineers take tech-support calls for part of their day.
They have 2 doing it full-time. The product manager is a techie himself
and takes his share of calls.
A support contract costs $1195 for one year. This includes 75% off
on all upgrades.
They are in the process of bringing up a BBS with a window into their
bug report and fix/workaround database.
It was emphasized to me that UHC wants to be known for the quality of
their support, which they feel is the product's strongest differentiating
feature.
FUTURE PLANS:
X11R5 by mid-May or thereabouts. They have it running now but don't
consider it stable enough to ship.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
The asy driver in version 2.0 won't talk to the NS16550AFN UART, which
is supposed to be pin-compatible with the standard 16450.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
They claim that according to USL they have the largest installed base of
SVr4 customers, and to have been first to market with a shrink-wrapped
SVr4 (in 1990).
UHC also claims to have performed and maintained IBM's official UNIX port
for the MicroChannel machines.
A subsidiary of Anam, "a holding company with a diversified portfolio".
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The only comment I've yet seen on UHC itself was an extended description of
a successful installation by a satisfied netter. He made it sound like a good
solid product.
I have one absolutely incandescently glowing report on UHC support from a
developer named Steve Showalter <shw...@Texaco.COM>. He says: "We've been
running UHC's OS for about a year now...been EXTREMELY happy with it. The
support we receive is without a doubt, the finest we have received from any
vendor."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I found both the people I talked to friendly, candid, technically
knowledgeable, and willing to answer sticky questions. I came away with a very
positive impression of the outfit's operating style.
There are experienced UNIX developers who value dealing with a small,
responsive outfit where they can develop good working relationships with
individuals. UHC says it likes to sell to wizards and might be a good choice
for these people.
The second time I called (*after* I'd formed the above impressions) one of
their guys offered to trade me a copy of UHC UNIX with all the trimmings for an
autographed copy of _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_. So they have taste, too.
I'm too ethical to let this sway my evaluations, but not too ethical to take
the software... :-)
NAME:
BSD/386
VENDOR:
Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
Falls Church, VA 22042 USA
(800)-800-4BSDI
bsdi-i...@bsdi.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. You get an unlimited user license, binaries *and sources*
for the entire system. What more could you want?
SUPPORT:
The purchase price include 60 days of phone support.
A telephone-support contract is $1500 per year; email-only support is
$500/year. Either kind includes upgrades.
FUTURE PLANS:
The current release (0.3) is a fairly stable beta. Production release is
planned for June 1992.
Capability to run SVr3.2 binaries (including SCO binaries), 3Q92.
They intend to add a DOS bridge by the end of '92.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. New drivers are being added all the time.
Multiport serial boards aren't supported (they're working on it).
The Orchid graphics co-processor is not supported.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
Alone among the 386 UNIX versions described here, this version is *not*
based even in part on USL code and has no AT&T license restrictions. Rather,
it derives from Berkeley UNIX (the CSRG Networking 2 release, somewhere between
4.3 and 4.4).
Many of the BSD/386 tools, including the compiler, are GNU code.
This system's libraries, header files and utilities conform to X3J11,
POSIX 1003.1 and POSIX 1003.2 standards.
COMMENTS:
What these people are trying is audacious --- something functionally like
the SVr4 merge, but starting from a ported BSD kernel and with System V
compatibility hacks, rather than the other ways. By all accounts the product
is in far better shape right now than one would expect for a beta pre-release,
which argues that the developers have done something right.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The few who've seen this system display an evangelistic fervor about it.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I expect this will become a hackers' favorite.
All this, and sources too...I salivate. I am tempted. Not sure I'm ready
to change OSs at the same time as I switch machines, though. SVr4's got better
continuity with the 3.2 I'm running now. Ghu, what a dilemma!
When I mentioned that I'm doing elisp maintenance for GNU EMACS these days,
Rob Kolstad, one of the principal developers, offered me a copy and a year
of support if I'd field their (so far nonexistent) EMACS problems.
NAME
Mach386
VENDOR:
Mt. Xinu
2560 Ninth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510)-644-0146
mtxinu-m...@mtxinu.com
ADD-ONS:
Kernel sources! You get can sources for the Mach 3.0 microkernel for
$195 over base price.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
The base package includes: Mach 2.5 kernel and utilities, 4.3 BSD interface,
GNU utilities (GCC, GDB, GAS, EMACS, BISON), and on-line reference manuals (man
pages) for Mach and 4.3 BSD. The following options are available:
Networking (SUN NFS, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe release,
on-line NFS man pages).
X (X11R4 with programmer's environment and complete X manual pages).
On-line Documentation (Complete source for Mach and 4.3 documentation,
including Mach Supplementary Documents, System Manager's Documentation, 4.3 BSD
Programmer's Supplementary Documents, 4.3 BSD User's Supplementary Documents).
Optional Microkernel Add-on, Mach 3.0 (Complete Mach 3.0 microkernel source
code; complete build environment with tools to modify and rebuild the Mach 3.0
microkernel; binary BSD server which runs on top of the microkernel in place
of the standard /vmunix kernel; source for an example of a server (POE)
running on top of the Mach 3.0 microkernel and sources for some utilities
which are kernel-dependent.
SUPPORT:
You get 30 days phone support with purchase.
A support contract is available for $150 quarterly or $500 per year; this
includes upgrades. There is a support BBS open to contract holders only.
An ftp server at autosupport.mtxinu.com carries patches, enhancements
and freeware adapted for the system
FUTURE PLANS:
They plan to move to OSF/1 this year. X11R5 and Motif support are
also in the works.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the Appendix for details.
Color X windows is supported on VGA boards via extended 8-bit color mode.
Toshiba and Toshiba-compatible floppy drives and controllers work.
All current motherboards tested have worked. There were a few problems with
early Compaq DeskPros. They add "Please note that we do not support the
microchannel bus, EISA extended modes, IBM PS2, and some NCR machines. We are,
however, considering new devices so let us know your interests!".
TECHNICAL NOTES
This product is essentially a 4.3 port built on the Mach project's
microkernel technology. This is a truly nifty architecture which builds a
4.3BSD-compatible kernel out of a collection of communicating lightweight
processes. The distinction between user and kernel mode almost vanishes, and
things like the schedular and virtual-memory manager which are normally
embedded deep in the kernel become semi-independent, modifiable modules.
COMMENTS:
Very appealing for the educational market --- lets CS students and hobbyists
tinker creatively with the guts of UNIX in a way that would be impossible under
more conventional UNIXes. It's not clear who else will be interested in this.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Eric Baur <e...@ventoux.assabet.com> writes:
"The system is a very faithful emulation of BSD43 on top of Mach. For our
purposes it is a super deal. For about $2000.00 in hardware and $995.00 in
software we have a Mach development platform that integrates almost seamlessly
into our network development environment. As a general-purpose UNIX (whatever
that means) Mach386 gives up a lot in features to the System V vendors.
(Virtual terminals, DOS emulation, etc etc) For the home hacker, except for
UUCP problems it seems like it would be a good deal. You obviously could never
run "shrink-wrapped" software, but most public domain and GNU stuff should port
easily."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, this product is a solution looking for a problem --- a solution I
find technically fascinating, to be sure. But even the company admits to not
being sure who its market is. I wish 'em luck.
KNOWN BUGS:
From Eric Baur <e...@ventoux.assabet.com>: "I have not been able to
get the supplied uucp to work when calling a telebit modem. The
connection is established but the Mach end hangs up and exits without
any indication why. Taylor uucp ported in about 1 hour and works
fine. There is no support, however, for bi-directional lines if you
use the Taylor uucp. The uucp supplied with the system has the
gawd-awful acucntrl hack, but I don't know if it even works. [...]
Overall I remain very pleased with Mach386. [...] It has yet to
manifest any truly bad behavior. No panics - no hangs. It interacts
flawlessly with our network of Suns. NFS and X are very robust. I
would ditch my System V at home and buy Mach386 is a minute if I could
get bi-directional serial lines to work."
V. HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS.
Overview:
The central fact about 386/486 clone hardware that conditions every aspect of
buying it is this: more than anywhere else in the industry, de-facto hardware
standards have created a commodity market with low entry barriers, lots of
competitive pressure, and volume high enough to amortize a *lot* of development
on the cheap.
The result is that this hardware gives you lots of bang-per-buck, and it's
getting both cheaper and better all the time. Furthermore, margins are thin
enough that vendors have to be lean, hungry, and *very* responsive to the
market to survive. You can take advantage of this, but it does mean that much
of the info in the rest of this section will be stale in three months and
probably obsolete in six.
Technical points:
Ask your potential suppliers what kind and volume of documentation they supply
with your hardware. You should get, at minimum, operations manuals for
the motherboard and each card or peripheral; also an IRQ list and a bad-block
listing for the Winchester. Skimpiness in this area is a valuable clue
that they may be using no-name parts from Upper Baluchistan, which is not
necessarily a red flag in itself but should prompt you to ask more questions.
Cases are just bent metal. Doesn't matter who makes those. Power supplies can
matter but quality is cheap; look for at least a 230-watt model so you've got
headroom, and if you're buying a tower case with extra expansion bays it should
be 300 watts. Motherboards and BIOS chips don't vary much in quality either.
There are only six or so major brands of motherboard inside all those cases and
they're pretty much interchangable; brand premiums are low to nonexistent and
cost is strictly tied to maximum speed and bus type. There are only two major
brands of BIOS chip and not much to choose between 'em but the look of the
self-test screens.
(About that annoying fan noise, ask if the fan on a target system has a
variable speed motor with thermostatic control --- this will cut down on noise
tremendously. If not: I have seen a rave about, but haven't used, a
thermostatic fan controller called "The Silencer". This tiny device mounts
inside your power supply and connects to the fan's power leads. It
automatically varies the fan motor speed to hold a 79 to 82F temperature.
Write Quiet Technology, Inc. PO Box 8478, Port St. Lucie FL 34985.)
Peripherals are another matter, especially hard disks. A good rule of thumb
for balanced configurations is that the hard disk should comprise about half
(or maybe a bit more) of the total system price. Unless you're the exception
who has to invoke warranty due to a system arriving dead, most of what you buy
from a dealer or mail-order house is their ability to surf the Winchester
market, make volume buys, and burn in your disks before shipping.
Don't bother with SX machines. Under UNIX the 8-bit ISA bus can leave you
permanently I/O-bound. Anyway there's not enough of a DX premium to matter in
the desktop market any more.
Buy lots of RAM, it's the cheapest way to improve real performance on any
virtual-memory system. At $30-$50 maximum per megabyte it's just plain silly
to stick with the 2-4mb now standard on most clone configurations. Go to 8,
you won't regret it; 16 if you're going to use X. Above 16 is a little iffy on
ISA boxes because the stock USL 4.0.3 kernel may try to do DMA from a location
the bus can't deal with (but some vendors fix this).
One basic decision to make is: 16-bit ISA vs. 32-bit EISA? You'll pay a
$600-$900 premium for the latter. What you get in return is the ability to use
things like fast 32-bit SCSI controllers and a smoother upward-migration path.
On the other hand, EISA cards are significantly more expensive. There comes a
point, though, where increasing processor speed can saturate the I/O capacity
of the poor old 8MHz ISA bus; the vendors all seem to think this starts at
around 33MHz and that if you're buying 50MHz it definitely pays to go EISA.
This is a bigger issue under UNIX than DOS because UNIX hits the disk more
heavily. So far, though, there isn't much support for EISA-specific hardware
--- a couple of vendors will drive EISA SCSI disk and tape controllers and
that's about it (of course those *are* the most important bandwidth-eaters).
All ISA cards will still work.
Another basic decision is IDE vs. SCSI. Either kind of disk is about the same,
but the premium for a SCSI card varies all over the lot, partly because of
price differences between ISA and EISA SCSI cards and especially because many
motherboard vendors bundle an IDE chip right on the system board. SCSI gives
you better speed and throughput, a win for larger disks and an especially
significant consideration in a multi-user environment; also it's more
expandable. On the other hand, you may want to avoid SCSI drives smaller than
350MB or so; one outfit I spoke with claims that they get a lot of returns on
lower-end SCSI disks, apparently because manufacturer quality-control on them
is relatively weak.
Look at seek times for your disk; under UNIX disk speed and throughput are so
important that a 1-millisecond difference in average seek time can be
noticeable. Disk caching is good, but there can be too much of a good thing.
Excessively large caches will slow the system because the overhead for cache
fills swamps the real accesses (this is especially a trap for databases and
other applications that do non-sequential I/O). More than 100K of cache is
probably a bad idea for a general-purpose UNIX box; watch out for manufacturers
who inflate cache size because memory is cheap and they think customers will be
impressed by big numbers.
Yet another basic decision, of course, is processor speed and type. Forget the
20MHz and 25MHz 386s, they're history. Right now the hot seller in this market
is the 386/33DX, which I'd say is a reasonable minimum speed for UNIX with X
(xterm scrolling is painfully slow on my present 386/25DX machine). Lots of
relatively inexpensive 486/33DX systems are out there now; estimates for the
speed advantage from the 486 range from 20 to 50% with 30% pretty widely heard
(thus one of these is equivalent to about a 386/40DX). Most of the advantage
comes from the pipelining and on-chip cache. The higher level of integration
also implies better reliability. And of course, the on-chip FPU really sizzles
if you're into scientific computing or graphics.
Right now you'll pay as much as a $1500 premium for a 486-50, as that's
relatively new technology and (of course) demands very fast memory. Also,
these processors run really hot (one correspondent described the 50 as a
"toaster on a chip"). If you go this route, be sure your configuration has an
extra-heavy-duty cooling fan. Or two. And, for preference, a hefty heat sink.
Of course, if you do this you'll be ready to drop in Intel's 50MHz-external/
100MHz-internal part when it comes out later this year, and blow the doors off
all those fancy proprietary-technology workstations.
Which brings up a *minor* decision. Desktop or tower? My advice is go with
tower unless you're building a no-expansions personal system and expect to be
using the floppies a lot. Many vendors charge nothing extra for a tower case
and the absolute *maximum* premium I've seen is $100. What you get for that is
less desktop clutter, more and bigger bays for expansion, and often (perhaps
most importantly) a beefed-up power-supply and fan. Airflow is also an issue;
if the peripheral bays are less cramped, you get better cooling. This is a good
argument for a full tower rather than the `baby tower' cases some vendors
offer. Be prepared to buy extension cables for your keyboard and monitor,
though; vendors *never* include enough flex.
You should have a tape drive for backup, and because most UNIX vendors like to
distribute their OS on tape. Ideally, your tape backup should be able to image
your entire disk. Unfortunately, this can get *very* expensive for large
disks; 60/120MB QIC drives are fairly cheap now but larger sizes (typically
150, 250, 525 QIC tapes and 1.3gig DAT) are not. One interesting point is that
if you've gone SCSI, a 150MB QIC (comparable to the drives now popular on
Suns) may well be cheaper than older 60MB technology due to differences in the
adaptor boards required.
These days, most vendors bundle a 14" monitor and super-VGA card with 1024x768
resolution in with their systems. Details to watch are whether the card comes
loaded with 512K or 1MB of VRAM (which will affect how much of that maximum
resolution and how many colors you actually get) and whether the monitor is
interlaced or non-interlaced. The latter is better and should no longer cost
extra; look for the abbreviation NI in the ad or quote and be suspicious if you
don't see it.
One good way to boost your X performance is to invest in a graphics card with a
dedicated blitter or other on-board smarts, like the S3 or ATI series. These
are relatively cheap at about $300 and can make your X go like a banshee; the
drawback is that you may need nonstandard device-drivers and/or a special
local-bus connection on the board to use them; thus you *cannot* expect to mix
accelerators and motherboards from different vendors! Some vendors are
beginning to differentiate their high-end hardware as "Windows Workstations"
with one of these accelerators bundled; expect this to become more common as
prices drop. When 32-bit EISA becomes standard all these kluges will go away.
If you're feeling *really* flush, plump for a 15", 17" or even 20" monitor.
The larger size can make a major difference in viewing comfort. Also you'll be
set for VESA 1280x1024 when everybody gets to supporting that. In the mean
time, the bigger screen will allow you to use fonts in smaller pixel sizes so
that your text windows can be larger, giving you a substantial part of the
benefit you'd get from higher pixel resolutions.
All mice are basically the same, except for the serial vs. bus-mouse
distinction. Ignore the adspeak about dpi and pick one that feels good in your
hand. All X versions will support serial mice but some (the BSD ports)
presently lack drivers for bus mice. Of course a serial mouse eats one of your
serial ports.
Finally, I strongly recommend that you buy a power conditioner to protect your
hardware. MOV-filtered power bars make nice fuses (they're cheap to replace),
but they're not enough. Get yourself a box with a good big soft-iron
transformer and a couple of moby capacitors in it and *no* conductive path
between the in and out sides and you can laugh at brownouts and electrical
storms. I've been delighted with my TripLite 1200, which you can get for less
than $200. A fringe benefit of this little beauty is that if you accidently
pull your plug out of the wall you may find you actually have time to
re-connect it before the machine notices!
When, where and how to buy:
If you're a serious UNIX hacker for either fun or profit, you're probably in
the market for what the mail-order vendors think of as a high-end or even
`server' configuration, and you're going to pay a bit more than the DOS
lemmings. On the other hand, prices keep dropping, so there's a temptation to
wait indefinately to buy. A tactic that makes a lot of sense in this market,
if you have the leisure, is to fix in your mind a configuration and a trigger
price that's just a little sweeter than the market now offers and buy when
that's reached.
Direct-mail buying makes a lot of sense today for anyone with more technical
savvy than J. Random Luser in a suit. Even from no-name mail-order houses,
parts and system quality tend to be high and consistent, so conventional
dealerships don't really have much more to offer than a warm fuzzy feeling.
Furthermore, competition has become so intense that even mail-order vendors
today have to offer not just lower prices than ever before but warranty and
support policies of a depth that would have seemed incredible a few years back.
For example, many bundle a year of on-site hardware support with their medium-
and high-end "business" configurations for a very low premium over the bare
hardware.
Note, however, that assembling a system yourself out of mail-order parts is
*not* likely to save you money over dealing with the mail-order systems
houses. You can't buy parts at the volume they do; the discounts they command
are bigger than their premiums.
Cruise through "Computer Shopper" and similar monthly ad compendia. Even if
you decide to go with a conventional dealer, this will tell you what *their*
premiums look like.
An alternative to conventional dealerships (with their designer "looks",
stone-ignorant sales staff, and high overheads that *you* pay for) is to go
with one of the thousands of the hole-in-the-wall stores run by immigrants from
the other side of the International Date Line. They're usually less ignorant
and have much lower overheads; they do for you locally what a mail-order house
would, that is assemble and test parts they get for you from another tier of
suppliers. You won't get plush carpeting or a firm handshake from a white guy
with too many teeth and an expensive watch, but then you didn't really want to
pay for those anyway, right?
A lot of vendors bundle DOS 5.0 and variable amounts of DOS apps with their
hardware. You can tell them to lose all this cruft and they'll shave $50
or $100 off the system price.
Don't forget that you can avoid sales tax by buying from an out-of-state
mail-order outfit, and save yourself 6-8% depending on where you live. If you
live near a state line, buying from a local outfit you can often win, quite
legally, by having the stuff shipped to a friend or relative just over it.
Best of all is a buddy with a state-registered dealer number; these aren't very
hard to get and confer not just exemption from sales tax but (often) whopping
discounts from the vendors. Hand him a dollar afterwards to make it legal.
Things to check when buying mail-order:
The weakest guarantee you should settle for should include ---
* 72-hour burn-in to avoid that sudden infant death syndrome.
* 30 day money-back guarantee. Watch out for fine print that weakens this
with a restocking fee or limits it with exclusions.
* 1 year parts and labor guarantee (some vendors give 2 years).
* 1 year of 800 number tech support (many vendors give lifetime support).
Additionally, many vendors offer a year of on-site service free. You should
find out who they contract the service to. Also be sure the free service
coverage area includes your site; some unscrupulous vendors weasel their way
out with "some locations pay extra", which translates roughly to "through the
nose if you're further away than our parking lot".
Reading warranties is an art in itself. A few tips:
Beware the deadly modifier "manufacturer's" on a warranty; this means you have
to go back to the equipment's original manufacturer in case of problems and
can't get satisfaction from the mail-order house. Also, manufacturer's
warranties run from the date *they* ship; by the time the mail-order house
assembles and ships your system, it may have run out!
Watch for the equally deadly "We do not guarantee compatibility". This gotcha
on a component vendor's ad means you may not be able to return, say, a video
card that fails to work with your motherboard.
Another dangerous phrase is "We reserve the right to substitute equivalent
items". This means that instead of getting the high-quality name-brand parts
advertised in the configuration you just ordered, you may get those no-name
parts from Upper Baluchistan --- theoretically equivalent according to the
spec sheets, but perhaps more likely to die the day after the warranty expires.
Substitution can be interpreted as "bait and switch", so most vendors are
scared of getting called on this. Vety few will hold their position if you
press the matter.
One absolute show-stopper is the phrase "All sales are final". This means you
have *no* options if a part doesn't work. Avoid any company with this policy.
There are various cost-cutting tactics a vendor can use which bring down the
system's overall quality. Here are some good questions to ask:
* Is the memory zero-wait-state? One or more wait states allows the vendor to
use slower and cheaper memory but will slow down your actual processor
throughput.
* Is the monitor non-interlaced? Does it have a tilt-and-swivel base? Is it
*color*? Yes, if you don't see it in the ad, ask; some lowball outfits will
try to palm off so-called "black & white VGA" monitors on you. What's the
scan rate? 60MHz is SVGA standard; 72MHz is cutting-edge. What's the dot
pitch? .31mm is minimal, .28mm or .27mm is good. You need .28mm for X.
* Does the vendor pay for shipping? What's the delivery wait?
* If you need to return your system, is there a restocking fee? and will the
vendor cover the return freight? Knowing the restocking fee can be
particularly important, as they make keep you from getting real satisfaction
on a bad major part. Avoid dealing with anyone who quotes more than a 15%
restocking fee --- and it's a good idea, if possible, to avoid any dealer
who charges a restocking fee at all.
It's a good idea to pay with AmEx or Visa or MasterCard; that way you can
stop payment if you get a lemon, and may benefit from a buyer-protection plan
using the credit card company's clout. However, watch for phrases like "Credit
card surcharges apply" or "All prices reflect 3% cash discount" which mean
you're going to get socked extra if you pay by card.
Which clone vendors to talk to:
I went through the March 1992 issue of Computer Shopper calling vendor 800
numbers with the following question: "Does your company have any
configurations aimed at the UNIX market; do you use UNIX in-house; do
you know of any of the current 386 or 486 ports running successfully
on your hardware?
I didn't call vendors who didn't advertise an 800 number. This was only partly
to avoid phone-bill hell; I figured that toll-free order & info numbers are so
standard in this industry sector that any outfit unable or unwilling to spring
for one probably couldn't meet the rest of the ante either. I also omitted
parts houses with token systems offerings and anybody who wasn't selling
desktops or towers with a 386/33DX or heavier processor inside.
The answers I get revealed that for most clone vendors UNIX is barely a blip on
the screen. Not one that I talked to has tested with an SVr4 port. Most seem
barely aware that the market exists. Many seem to rely on their motherboard
vendors to tell them what they're compatible, without actually testing whole
systems.
Here's a summary of the most positive responses I got:
A --- Advertises UNIX compatibility.
C --- Has known UNIX customers.
I --- Uses UNIX in-house.
T --- Have formally tested UNIX versions on their hardware.
F --- Have 486/50 systems
* --- Sounded to me like they might actually have a clue about the UNIX market.
Vendor A C I T F * Ports known to work
--------------- - - - - - - -----------------------------------------------
ARC . . X X . . SCO XENIX 2.3.2, SCO UNIX 3.2.1
Allegro . . X X . . SCO XENIX 3.2.4
Altec . X . X . . XENIX (no version given).
Ares . X X X X * AT&T 3.2, ISC (version unknown)
Basic Time . X X X X * SCO XENIX 2.3.2, have in-house UNIX experts.
Binary Tech . X . X X . Claims to work with all versions.
Blue Dolphin . X . X X * SCO XENIX.
CCSI X X . . X . They've used SCO XENIX, no version given.
CIN . X . . . . SCO UNIX (version not specified)
CSS . X . X . * SCO 3.2.2, ISC 3.0, SCO ODT. See Will Harper.
Centrix X . . . . . No specifics on versions.
Compudyne . X X X X . Couldn't get details on which versions.
Comtrade . X . X X . Couldn't get details on which versions.
Datom X X X X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.
Dell X X X X X * See Dell SVr4 data.
Desert Sands X X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2.4
Digitech . X . X . . SCO UNIX 3.2.1, XENIX 2.3.1
EPS X X X X . * SCO XENIX 3.2.4, ISC & AT&T (versions not sp.)
Gateway X X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.0. XENIX 2.3.4 ISC 3.0, ESIX 4.0.3
HD Computer . X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2, SCO XENIX 3.2.2
HiQ . X . X . . SCO UNIX (version not specified)
Infiniti . X . X X . SCO UNIX (versions not specified)
Insight . . X . X . SCO XENIX 3.2.4. No tech support for UNIX
Keydata X . X X X . SCO version 4, ISC 3.2
Legatech . X . . X . SCO UNIX, ISC (versions not specified)
MicroGeneration . . X . . . Uses XENIX.
MicroLab X . . . . . SCO UNIX, SCO XENIX
MicroSmart X X . X . . SCO XENIX (version not specified)
Microlink X . . X X . SCO XENIX (version not specified)
Myoda X X . X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.2, ISC 3.2
Naga . X . X X * SCO & XENIX 3.2.
Northgate X X . X X * SCO UNIX 3.2
PC Brand . X X X . . SCO XENIX, ISC UNIX
PC Professional . X . X . . ISC 3.2
PC-USA X X . X . . ISC 5.3.2 and SCO 3.2
Profex . X . X . . SCO XENIX 3.2.
Royal Computer . X . . X . No details on versions.
SAI X X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2.2.
Santronics . . X X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.4
Solidtech . X . . . . Dell (no version given), ISC 3.2.
Strobe . . . X X . SCO, Microport, ISC (no version numbers given)
Swan X X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.
TriStar . X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.2, XENIX 2.3.2, ISCr4
Zenon . X . X X * SCO UNIX (version not specified)
Zeos . X X X X * SCO XENIX 3.2.4, AT&T 3.2
Special notes about a few vendors who appear to have a clue:
Ares targets some of its systems for UNIX CAD use. They have a house wizard, a
tech, hight "K.C.".
EPS targets some 486 EISA configurations for UNIX.
Swan doesn't know the UNIX market very well yet, but their project manager
wants a bigger piece of it and is interested in doing some of the right
things. They have a house wizard, one John Buckwalter.
Dell, of course, supports an industry-leading SVr4 port. They're a bit on
the pricy side, but high quality and very reliable. Lots of UNIX expertise
there.
Zeos is planning to come on the net as zeos.com, with a uunet connection. They
will support a UNIX BBS beginning May 1st. They have an in-house UNIX group;
talk to Ken Germann for details.
Special notes about a lot of vendors who appear to have *no* clue:
Vendors where I couldn't get a real person on the line, either because
no one answered the main number or because I couldn't raise anyone at
tech support after being directed there: Sunnytech, Quantex, AMS, USA
Flex, Lapine, Syntax Computer, MicroTough, PAC International, The Portable
Warehouse.
Vendors where the question met with blank incomprehension, puzzlement,
consternation, or "We've never tested with UNIX": Allur, AmtA, Aplus, HiTech,
Locus Digital Products, LodeStar, TriStar Computers, Ultra-Comp, UTI Computers,
PC Turbo Corp, Evertek, Microcomputer Concepts, Jinco Computers, UWE, ToughCom,
System Dynamics Group, Terribly Fast Bus Systems.
Vendors who understood the questions but had no answer: Bulldog Computer
Products, LT Plus, Standard Computer, JCC.
Vendors who said "Yes, we're UNIX-compatible" but had no details of any tests:
CompuCity.
Vendors who said "Go ask our motherboard vendor": Ariel Design, Lucky Computer
Co., V-com, Professional Computer, MicroLine, MileHi.
Vendors who sent me to a toll number: Absec, Hokkins, New Technologies, Mirage.
Vendors that believe they have UNIX customers, but can't be any definite than
that: Austin Computer Systems, PC Professional, Treasure Chest Computer
Systems, CompuAdd Express, FastMicro, MidWest Micro.
Final note:
If you order from these guys, be sure to tell them you're a UNIX customer
and don't need the bundled DOS. This will shave some bucks off the system
price, *and* it may encourage them to pay more attention to the UNIX market.
VI. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES
These tables summarize vendor claims and user reports on which hardware will
work with which port.
To save space in the tables below, we use the following *one-letter*
abbreviations for the OS ports:
C Consensys UNIX Version 1.2
D Dell UNIX Issue 2.1
E Esix Revision A
M Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX
P Microport System V/4 version 4
U UHC Version 3.6
B BSD/386 (0.3 beta)
X Mach386
A `c' indicates that the hardware is claimed to work in vendor literature.
A `y' indicates that this has been verified by a user report.
A `.' indicates that whether this combination works is unknown.
An `n' indicates that the vendor advises that the combination won't work.
A blank column indicates that I have received no vendor info on the
hardware category in question.
The following general caveats apply:
* All ports support EGA, VGA, CGA and monochrome text displays.
* All ports support generic ISA serial-port cards based on the 8250 or 16450
UART. According to the vendors, the asy drivers on Dell, Esix, Microport,
BSD/386 and Mach386 support the extended FIFO on the NS16550AFN UART chip.
Indeed, Dell tech support will tell you this feature was present in the
base USL code. UHC says its 2.0 drivers *don't* talk to 16550s but
says that will be fixed in March '92.
* I have not bothered listing ordinary ST-506/IDE/RLL drives, though lists
of them are given in vendor literature. This is a very mature commodity
technology; anything you buy should work with one of the supported
controllers unless it's defective.
* Vendors' supported hardware lists are not models of clarity. Some iterms
may be listed under a couple of different names because I don't know that
they're actually the same beast. I have been very careful not to make
assumptions where I am ignorant; thus, some hardware may appear less
widely supported than it actually is.
* These tables are grossly incomplete.
All the SVr4 systems inherit support for a fairly wide range of hardware from
the base USL code (version 4.0.3 or 4.0.4). This includes:
* All PC disk controllers (ESDI, IDE, ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
* The Adaptec 1542B SCSI adapter. Note: you'll have to jumper your
SCSI devices to fixed IDs during installation on most of these.
* Western Digital's 8013EBT Ethernet card, and its replacements
the WD8003 and WD8013.
* VGA adapters in 640x480 by 16 color mode.
* The Microsoft mouse; also the Series 7 and Series 9 mice from
Logitech and the PC-3 mouse from Mouse Systems.
If you can fill in any of the gaps, or convert a `c' to `y', send me email.
C D E M P U B X Systems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. c . Acer (models not specified)
. . c ACCELL 486/33 ISA and 386/40 ISA
c . . ADDA AD-428P-25, Portable 486/25, 486/33, AD-328D-25
c c . ALR Business VEISA 386/33-101
. c . AST (models not specified)
. c . AT&T 6300 and 6386 machines
. c . Compaq (models not specified)
c c . Compaq DeskPro 386/33.
y y y y y y . CompuAdd Model 333
y . c . Dell (models not specified)
c c . Everex (models not specified)
c c . Gateway (models not specified)
. c c Gateway 2000 (486/33 ISA)
. c c High Definition Systems 486/25 ISA and 386 SX/16 ISA
c c . Mylex MI-386/20
c c . Primax (models not specified)
c c . Tangent (models not specified)
c c . Televideo (models not specified)
c c . Twinhead (models not specified)
c c . Unisys (models not specified)
c c . Northgate 386/33
c c . AST Premium (models not specified)
C D E M P U B X Motherboards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . AGI
. c . ALR
. c . AMAX
. c . AMI
. c . ARC
. c . Cache
. c . Chips & Technologies chipset
y . c . Chips & Technologies 33DX
c c . Club AT
. c . DataExport
y . c . Dell
. c . DTK
. . c EISA Tech 80386SX MHz
y . . . Eteq 386
. c . Free Technology
. c . Microlab
c c . Micronics 386/33 and 386/25
. c c Micronics 486/33
. c . Mitac
. c . Mylex
y . c . OPTI 486
. c . Orchid
. c . PC-craft
Notes:
* These two tables probably way *understates* the compatibility of most ports.
Just about any ISA or EISA motherboard is likely to work with all of them.
* UHC's UNIX product manager says he has not yet seen a motherboard/drive
combination that chokes the product.
C D E M P U B X SuperVGA Cards Max Res ChipSet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. c . * . . Appian Rendition II ???? TIGA34010
. . c . . ARC V-16 (Paradise) ???? ????
. . c c . AT&T VDC 600 (Paradise clone) SVGA ????
. y . c . . ATI Ultra ???? ????
. c . c . . ATI Vantage 1280x1024 ????
. c c n . ATI WonderCard 1280x1024 ????
. . c c . ATI (type not specified) ???? ????
. y . . . . Boca SuperVGA ???? ????
c . . . c Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
. y . . c . Dell VGA 1024x768 ????
c c c . c Diamond SpeedStar 1024x768 ET4000
c . . . c EIZO MD-10 800x600 ET3000
. c . . . Everex ViewPoint VRAM SVGA+ ????
. c . . . Everex ViewPoint True Color SVGA+ ????
. c . . . Everex UltraGraphics II EV-236 1664x1200 mono
. . c . c Genoa 5300/5400 ???? ????
c . c . c Genoa 6400 800x600 GVGA
. c c c . Genoa SuperVGA SVGA ????
. c c . . Hercules monographics display 720x348 mono
. c . . . MaxLogic SVGA ????
. . . . c . . Microfield V-8 1280x1024 ????
. . . . * . . Mylex GXE (EISA) 1280x1024 TIGA34020
. c . . . Oak Technology OTI-067 1024x768 16, 256
c . . . c Optima Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
c . c c c Orchid ProDesigner 800x600 ET3000
c y c c . c Orchid ProDesigner II/1024 1024x768 ET4000
c c c c c Paradise VGA Professional 1024x768 PVGA1A
c c . c . . Paradise VGA 1024 640x480 WD90C00
. . c . c Renaissance GRX-II VGA ???? ????
c . c . c Sigma Legend 1024x768 ET4000
. . c c . Sigma VGA/H ???? ????
. c c c . STB EM-16 VGA SVGA ????
c c c . c STB PowerGraph w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
c . . . c Swan SVGA with VCO chip 1024x768 ET4000
. c . . . Tecmar VGA AD SVGA ????
c . . . c TRICOM Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
. . c . . Trident SuperVGA ???? ????
. . c c . Tseng Labs VGA ???? ????
. c . . . Vectrix VX1024 (TI-34010) 1024x768 ????
. c c c . Video7 FastWrite VGA 800x600 x2, x16 ????
. . c c . Video7 VRAM VGA ???? ????
. . c c . Video7 VEGA VGA ???? ????
In this table, an `SVGA' resolution code signifies the following resolutions:
1024x768 at 2 and 16 colors, 800x600 at 2, 16, 256 colors, and 640x480 at 2,
16, 256 colors. SVGA+ adds 1280x1024 at 2 or 16 colors.
Caveats in interpreting the above table:
* All super-VGA cards will work at VGA resolutions and below (that is, resolu-
tions up to 640x480 in 16 colors).
* This list is not exclusive. Many (perhaps even most) dotted combinations
will work; UHC claims that any SVGA based on an ET3000, ET4000, Paradise
or Genoa chip-set will fly, and the same is probably true of all other
vendors (since the SVGA dependencies are localized in X and they're all
porting from the same X sources).
* Consensys's list is just MIT's list of cards certified to work with X11R5;
Consensys is careful to note that they haven't tested all these themselves.
* UHC says they expect to have the drivers for the ATI WonderCard in place by
mid-March.
* Third party server technology from companies like MetroLink can support
higher performance, higher resolution TIGA and proprietary technology.
C D E M P U B X Mice
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . c c c c 3-button serial mice
. . c c n y 3-button bus mice
. . c . n . ATI Wonder+ bus-mouse port
. n c c . n Logitech MouseMan
c . c c c c Logitech Trackman (serial)
c . c c n y Logitech Trackman (bus)
. . c c . c Microsoft 2-button (serial)
. . c c n y Microsoft 2-button (bus)
. . . c . c Mouse Systems
. . . . . c SummaMouse
Notes:
* All SVr4s inherit support for the Microsoft mouse from USL code; also the
Series 7 and Series 9 mice from Logitech and the PC-3 mouse from Mouse
Systems.
* BSD/386 says it supports all 1200-9600 baud serial mice, specifying Logitech
as an example. This is probably true of all vendors.
C D E M P U B X Multi-port serial cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . c c n Arnet
. . c c n AST 4-port
. . . c n Central Data
. . . c n Chase Research
. c . c n Computone
. . c c n Comtrol Hostess-8
c . c y n Consensys PowerPorts
. c c c n Digiboard DigiChannel PC/8.
. c . c n Equinox
. c . c n Intelliport
. . c c n Maxspeed
. c . . n OnBoard:32
. c . c n Specialix
. c . c n Stallion
. . . c n Stargate
. c . c n Technology Concepts
Notes:
* Only Consensys, Esix and Microport listed multiport cards at all. As these
typically require special device drivers, you should *not* assume that a
board is supported on a particular port unless the vendor explicitly says so.
* MtXinu says they have *no* multiport support right now.
* The Consensys PowerPort card has troubles; see the vendor report on
Consensys for details.
C D E M P U B X Disk controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. c c . . Adaptec 2322 (ESDI)
. y . c . . Adaptec ACB 2732C (RLL)
. . c . c CCAT100A (IDE)
. . c . . Chicony 101B
. c c . . Data Tech Corp 6280 (ESDI)
. . c . c DTG 6282-24
. c c . . Everex EV-346 (ST506)
. c c . . Everex EV-348 (ESDI)
. c c . . Everex EV-8120 (IDE)
. c c . . OMTI 8240 (ST506)
. . . c . PSI Caching controller (ESDI)
. . c . . Ultrastor ESDI
. . . c . Ultrastor 12C, 22F
. . . c c Ultrastor 12F
. . . n . Ultrastor 22C
. c c . . Western Digital 1007A (ESDI)
. c c . . Western Digital 1007SE/2 (ESDI)
. . c . c Western Digital V-SE2
. . c . . Western Digital 1009 SE1
c y c c . . Western Digital WD1003 (RLL)
Notes:
* All these ports should support all standard PC hard-disk controllers (ESDI,
IDE,ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
C D E M P U B X SCSI controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. y c c c . c Adaptec 1542A
c y c c c c c c Adaptec 1542B
. c c n . . Adaptec 1740 (EISA)
. . c c . . Adaptec 1742 (EISA)
. . c . . . Adaptec 2320/2
. . c . . . Always IN2000
. c . . . . Future Domain 1660, 1680, 885, 860
. . c c . . DPT caching controller (MFM emulation)
. . . . c . . . DPT caching SCSI controller in SCSI mode
. c . . . . Everex EV8118/8110
. c c . . . BusTek BT-542B
. c c . . . BusTek BT-742A (EISA) (mPort specifies Revision F)
. . c . . . Mylex DCE (EISA)
. . . c . . PSI caching controller
. . c . . . Ultrastor 32k 12u
. c c c c . . Western Digital WD7000
Notes:
* UHC says the Adaptec 1740 controller fails when used with some floppy cards.
They expect to have that fixed in March '92.
C D E M P U B X Network cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . . c 3COM EtherLink I 3C501 and 3C502
. . c c . . c 3COM EtherLink II 3C503
. . . . . c . 3COM EtherLink 16 (3C507)
. . c . . . . Everex EV-2015, EV-2016, EV-2026, EV-2027
. c c c c . c Intel PC-586 aka iMX-LAN/586
. . . . . c . Novell NE2000
c c c c c c c c Western Digital WD-8003 and WD-8013 and variations
. . . c . . . SMC EtherCards
. . . c c c . WD EtherCard Plus and Elite series
. c . . . . . WD TokenRing card
Notes:
* Dell's next release should include a 3C503 driver.
C D E M P U B X Tape drives
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. c c . c . Archive 2150S (SCSI, QIC-150)
. c c . . c Archive Viper VP150E
. . c c . . Archive Viper 150 21247
. . c c . . Archive Viper 150 25099
. . c c . . Archive Viper 60 21116
. . c c . . Archive Viper 2525 25462.
. . c . . . Archive 60 - 525MB (QIC-02 and SCI)
. . c . . . Archive 4mm 4520 DAT
. . c c . . Archive Python models 25501-003, -005 and -008 (SCSI)
. . c c . c Archive XL80
. c c . . . Archive 5580 floppy tape
. . c c . . Archive 3800
. . . c . . AT&T KS22762 and KS23495 (SCSI)
. c . . . . Caliper CP150
. . . c . . CDC 92181 and 92185 (SCSI)
. c . . . . Cipher ST150S-II
. . . c . . Cipher ST150S2/90 (SCSI)
. . c . . . CMS Jumbo - 60MB QIC-40
. . . c . . Emulex MT02/S1 +CCS INQ (SCSI)
. c c . . . Everex Excel Stream 60, 125, 150
. c c . . . Everex5525ES (SCSI)
. c c . . . Everex EV-811, EV-831, EV-833
. . c c . . Exabyte EXB-8200 (SCSI)
. . . c . . HP 88780 (SCSI)
. . . c . . HPCIPHER M990 (SCSI)
. . . c . . NCR H6210-STD1-01-46C632 (SCSI)
. y . . . . . Sankyo 525ES (SCSI)
. . . c . . Sony SDT-1000 (SCSI)
. . c . . . Tallgrass 150 - 525MB SCSI
. . . . . c TUV DAT
. y . c . . . Wangtek 150SE (SCSI)
. c c . . . Wangtek 5150ES (SCSI)
. . c . . . Wangtek 60 - 525MB (QIC 02 and SCSI)
. . c . . . Wangtek 6130 - HS 4mm DAT.
. . c c . . Wangtek 5125ES ES41, 5150ES ES41, 5150ES FA0 (SCSI)
. . c c . . Wangtek 5150ES SCSI-3 (SCSI)
. . c . c . WangTek 5150PK QIC-02 (QIC-150)
. . c c . . Wangtek 6130-F (SCSI)
. . c c . . Wangtek KS23417, KS23465, KS24569 (SCSI)
Notes:
* All SVr4s inherit USL support for QIC-02, QIC-36 1/4", or SCSI tape
interfaces, using QIC-24 (9-track, 60MB), QIC-120 (15-track, 125MB) or
QIC-150 (18-track, 150MB) formats.
* A user says of Dell: it appears that anything using Wangtek QIC02/QIC36
controllers works; this should include the Wangtek 525MB, Cipher ST150S2,
and Archive 2150S drives.
* UHC specifies the following tape controller/drive combinations: Wangtek
PC-36 + Wangtek 5099-EN, Everex 811 + Wangtek 5150-EN, Bell Tech + Wangtek
5150-EN, Archive SC499-R + Archive External FT-60, Archive VP402 + Archive
Viper 2150L, Everex 811 + Archive Viper 2150L, Bell Tech + Archive Viper
2150L, Archive VP402 + Archive Viper 2150L.
* UHC claims that Any floppy tape supporting the QIC-107 physical and QIC-117
logical interface specs and QIC-80 or QIC-40 recording formats should work.
This is probably true of other vendors as well.
* BSDI says it supports any Wangtek 1/4" standard 3M streamer with a
QIC-02 or QIC-36 interface.
* Floppy tapes don't work on Dell; USL provides the support, but it collides
with Dell's code for auto-detecting the density of a diskette.
C D E M P U B X Non-Winchester mass storage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . Bernoulli 90MB exchangeable SCSI
. c . Hitachi, Toshiba (models not specified)
. . c Maxtor RXT-800HS
c c . Storage Dimensions XSE1-1000S1 optical disk
c c . SyQuest cartridge media
c . . . Tandata
c c c Toshiba TXM-3201A1 CD-ROM
. c c Toshiba WM-C050
c c c Toshiba WM-D070 WORM drive
VII. KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE
The most serious problem anyone has reported is that the USL asy driver is
flaky and occasionally drops characters at above 4800 baud.
Microport, Dell, Esix, and UHC say that they believe they've fixed this.
However, Dell, at least, was mistaken when they first made this claim; a more
detailed description of the problem is given below. I have been assured that
this is on the fix list for the next Dell release.
On ISA machines with more that 16MB of RAM, SVr4 may try to do DMA
from outside the bus's address space, causing serious problems. UNIX ought
to do an in-memory copy to within the low 16MB but the USL base code doesn't.
Dell says they've fixed this, and that's been confirmed by a user.
UHC says they've fixed this; they add that the special buffer-allocation
logic to handle the problem can be turned off with a tunable kernel parameter
if you've got less than 16M. Microport says they've fixed this in their new
4.1 release, shipping early March. Esix offers a patch to correct it.
Stock USL code is limited to 1,024 cylinders per Winchester, which
might cause problems with a few very large disk drives.
Microport, Dell, Esix, and UHC have fixed this.
Sar -d doesn't work on SCSI drives. No report of anyone having fixed
this yet.
The shmat(2) call is known to interact bady with vfork(2). Specifically,
if you attach a shared-memory segment, vfork(), and then the child releases
the segment, the parent loses it too! Workaround; use fork(2). UHC and
Microport both suspect that they still have this bug and opine that anyone
who uses vfork deserves to lose. Dell has no plans to fix it.
Stock X11R4 hogs the processor if you use the LOCALCONNECT option. UHC
says their server has been successfully optimized for speed and quotes
48,000 xstones.
Stock USL requires you to jumper your SCSI devices to fixed IDs
during installation (it can be changed to any other ID after).
Dell and UHC have fixed this. The requirement is definitely still present
in Esix.
In stock USL 4.0.3, you can't use a UFS file system as the root; the
system hangs if you try. Dell, Microport and UNIX have fixed this.
David Aitken, the UNIX product manager at UHC, writes "The ufs as root file
system [problem] was not really a bug, just a little oversight on USL's part -
we have fixed it completely by adding one line to the /stand/boot script:
rootfstype=ufs!" He adds that they've been using ufs on their lab machines for
over 10 months with no trouble, and the latest UHC release defaults to ufs if
you have more than 120MB of disk.
A source at Dell urges: "Our SVR4v2 did some stuff that USL didn't get
around to until SVR4v4. Try Dell UNIX 2.1 with a COFF program on a large UFS
filesystem in a directory with long names. Runs on Dell UNIX. Breaks on
others." I don't have more definite info yet.
Dell reports that USL's Wangtek device driver is seriously flaky. "How'd
you like a multi volume backup where the second and subsequent volumes don't
follow on from the previous volumes?" UHC confirms this and is actively
working on the problem.
The BSD compatibility libraries were badly broken in USL code. A Dell
source adds "That meant that almost all the apps derived from them were broken
too. Most stuff like automount will die when you send a SIGHUP, instead of
rereading the map file. You can get a system into very strange states when
that happens." Esix and UHC's BSD libraries are USL stock. I don't yet know
the status of other ports. Microport has run into things they think may be
symptoms of this but have no fix yet.
A different source reports that the the USL implementatation of BSD signals
is broken; in particular, the sigvec() family doesn't work properly. It is
possible to make minor tweaks to source to make such apps work properly
with the native USL signals implementation.
There are also persistent rumors of problems in the BSD-emulation string
libraries.
THE FUBYTE BUG:
(Thanks to Christoph Badura <b...@flatlin.ka.sub.org> for this info)
The kernel function fubyte() is documented to return a positive value when
given a valid user space address and -1 otherwise. In the latter case u.u_error
is set to EFAULT. USL SysV R4.0.3 has a sign extension bug in the
implementation of fubyte() for local file descriptors (i.e. not opened via
RFS), which causes fubyte() to return negative values if the byte fetched has
its high bit set. This bug doesn't affect STREAMS drivers, as they don't call
(and in fact are normally unable to call) fubyte(). Thus writing a byte with
the high bit set to certain character device drivers returns with -1 and errno
set to EFAULT.
The bug may affect any character device driver that calls fubyte(). It's not
limited to serial card drivers. The bug is noticed most often with serial card
drivers, since uucp uses byte values > 127 very early during g-protocol setup
and drivers for serial cards tend to use fubyte() quite often.
Note also that the bug's effect is different if the driver checks for a -1
return value of fubyte() or just a negative one. In the former case it is
possible to pass bytes with the 8 bit set through fubyte(), except for 0xff
which is -1 in two's complement. That makes the bug more obscure.
The fix is easy. First, make a backup copy of the kernel object file
/etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o! A disassembly of vm.o(lfubyte) should reveal
*exactly* one mov[s]bl (move byte to long w/sign extend). That one needs to be
patched into a movzbl (zero extend). The difference is one bit in the second
byte of the opcode.
The movsbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011111w mod/rm-byte.
The movzbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011011w mod/rm-byte.
The 'w' bit is 0 for the instruction in question. So the opcodes are 0f be and
0f b6. Here is the diff -c from dis -F lfubyte showing the patch applied to
the Dell 2.1 kernel:
*** vm.o Mon Mar 9 00:31:38 1992
--- vm.o.org Mon Mar 9 00:32:40 1992
***************
*** 22,28 ****
11c90: 85 c0 testl %eax,%eax
11c92: 75 09 jne 0x9 <11c9d>
11c94: 8b 45 08 movl 8(%ebp),%eax
! 11c97: 0f b6 00 movzbl (%eax),%eax
11c9a: 89 45 fc movl %eax,-4(%ebp)
11c9d: c7 05 d8 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 movl $0x0,0x13d8
11ca7: 83 3d dc 13 00 00 00 cmpl $0x0,0x13dc
--- 22,28 ----
11c90: 85 c0 testl %eax,%eax
11c92: 75 09 jne 0x9 <11c9d>
11c94: 8b 45 08 movl 8(%ebp),%eax
! 11c97: 0f be 00 movsbl (%eax),%eax
11c9a: 89 45 fc movl %eax,-4(%ebp)
11c9d: c7 05 d8 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 movl $0x0,0x13d8
11ca7: 83 3d dc 13 00 00 00 cmpl $0x0,0x13dc
Of course there is a workaround at the driver level. Canonically, one would do
this by checking for fubyte() returning -1 *and* u.u_error being set to EFAULT
(u.u_error is cleared upon entering a system call). However, in R4.0.3
fubyte() does NOT set u.u_error. It *does* set u.u_fault_catch.fc_errno.
Cristoph reports that Dell V.4 can be object-patched successfully to fix this.
I do not know the status of the other ports.
Another poster (Marc Boucher <m...@cam.org>) adds:
On ESIX SVR4.0.3 Rev. A, the instruction movsbl in question can be changed to
movzbl (as described above) with a binary-editor on file
/etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o. At offset 0x11eb0, change 0xbe to 0xb6.
Before patching, verify that your /etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o is the same as
mine! On my system, the /bin/sum generated checksum of vm.o was "4440 222".
VIII. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS:
As a potential customer for one of the SVr4 ports, it's to my advantage to
have everybody in this market competing against one another as hard as
possible. Accordingly, some free advice to vendors, which I'm broadcasting to
all of them and the public so as to put just that much more pressure on each
vendor. :-)
Consensys:
Fix the Powerports bugs everyone is reporting. They're doing you real
damage. Nobody expects real support from an outfit selling at $1000 below
market average, but you've *got* to make your own hardware work right or look
like idiots.
Beyond this, I think you have a serious attitude problem. So far, you're
the only outfit out of eight to refuse to divulge information for the
comparison tables. While you have a perfect right to do so, it smells bad ---
as though you think you have weaknesses to hide. I tried to discuss this with
your VP of sales (Gary Anderson) and got back very little but evasions,
suit-speak, defensiveness, and attempts to divert me from the issues (and I
don't mind admitting that the conversation made me pretty angry and didn't end
very pleasantly). This man's behavior is all too consistent with reports of
Consensys's dismissive behavior towards customers and continued refusal to
acknowledge technical problems.
In this corner of the industry we have a tradition of collegiality, mutual
trust, informality, and candor. If you plan to be here for the long haul, you
need to learn how to work with that rather than fighting it. Behaving like IBM
will only get you hammered.
Consensys and Esix:
Get a real support address. Bang-path accessibility doesn't impress anyone
any more --- in fact, it looks faintly quaint. You guys ought to be
supp...@everex.com and supp...@consensys.com to follow the simple and logical
convention Dell and Microport and UHC have established.
Dell:
Don't get fat and lazy. You've got the lead in this market at the moment
and you've got the money and resources to keep it, *if* you use them. If you
staff up your UNIX support operation so customers don't get pissed off by
infinite hold, *and* keep your prices the lowest in the upper tier, no one will
be able to touch you. Don't let Microport et al. get ahead of you in releases
and new technology, and try to reverse that creeping corporatitis (the
no-comment-on-unreleased-products policy is a bad sign).
Everybody but Dell:
Offer all the free software Dell does --- and *more*. All it will cost you
is the media, right? Even if you have to plaster CONTRIBUTED SOFTWARE, NOT
SUPPORTED on it, include perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs, gdb, mush, patch,
compress, etc on your distribution tapes. Heck, include some *games*.
Nethack, empire, zork, stuff like that. Your engineers use and play with all
this in-house anyhow, yes? And you're selling to guys just like your
engineers. They'll love you for it. Trust me.
Set up a `sales' address to take product queries if you don't already have
one.
Set up an 800 number for tech support. Support customers hate spending time
on hold, and they hate it like poison when they have to *pay* for the hold
time. The more overloaded your support staff is, the more important this
gets. Verbum sap.
Esix:
You're *boring*. You seem to make a decent product, but there's nothing
I've seen about Esix that'd make me say "I might want to buy Esix because...".
Position yourselves; pick something like price or support quality or
reliability or add-on features and push it hard. Warning: if you decide to
push support, *hire more engineers*. Your rep for following up on support
problems is bad enough that your "unlimited free support" ain't much of a draw.
Esix, MST, UHC:
Get 800 numbers for product info, too.
MST:
Set up a supp...@mst.com alias to your cs address, see above. What would
that take, a whole five minutes? :-)
If you don't start planning for 4.0.4 now, you'll get left behind this
spring and early summer whan all the other vendors move to it.
On present trends, your software prices are cheap enough; you'd probably
get more sales mileage out of pulling down the hardware prices for your
pre-configured systems.
Everybody but MST and Microport:
Set up a `sales' alias to your info and orders email address. A universal
convention for this means just one less detail prospective customers need to
remember.
Microport:
Your complete system is way overpriced relative to what other vendors in the
top tier are selling. If I were a corporate customer, there is no *way* I
could justify spending the $1K or $2K premium over Dell's price --- not when
Dell has the rep it does for quality and features. You aren't offering
anything but a crippled copy of JSB Multiview to justify that premium and
that ain't enough.
There's some evidence that you've got a technical lead on the competition.
Push it; push it *hard*. You're first off the blocks with 4.0.4; keep that up,
be first out with a stable 4.0.5. Market yourselves as the leading-edge
outfit, court the hard-core wizards as their natural ally, detail somebody
who's fluent in English as well as C to listen and speak for you on USENET, and
keep the promises you make there.
UHC:
You've decided to push support; that's good, but follow through by getting
that 800 number. Don't lose those small-company virtues of candor and
flexibility, trade on them. Your policy of having all techs clear up to the
product manager take turns on the support lines is a damned good idea, stick
with it. And I'm sufficiently impressed with what I've heard from your guys
that I think you might be able to fight Microport for the friend-to-wizards
mantle, too. Maybe you should try.
BSDI:
The most effective things you can do to to seriously compete with SVr4
vendors are: a) emphasize standards conformance --- POSIX, FIPS, XPG3, etc.,
and b) follow through on your support promises. Just another flaky BSDoid
system isn't really very interesting except to hobbyists, even with sources ---
but if it were proven a reliable cross-development platform it could capture
a lot of hearts and minds among commercial software designers.
I think the absence of Korn shell hurts you (at any rate *I* find it a
significant negative). Fortunately there's an easy workaround; FSF's bash(1).
Port it and support it.
Everybody except BSDI:
BSD/386 includes *sources*. For *everything*. Be afraid; be very afraid.
In effect, this recruits hundreds of eager hackers as uncompensated development
and support engineers for BSDI. Don't fool yourselves that the results are
necessarily going to be unfocused, amateur-quality and safe to ignore --- it
sure didn't work that way for gcc or Emacs. The rest of you will have to work
that much harder and smarter to stay ahead of their game.
Everybody:
You're *all* badly understaffed in support engineering, and it shows. Boy
does it show --- in poor followup, long hold times, and user gripes. The first
outfit to invest enough to offer really first-class quick-response support is
going to eat everyone else's lunch. Wouldn't you like to be it?
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI
Some of the material in this posting was originally assembled by Jason
Levitt <ja...@cs.utexas.edu> of "Open Systems Today". Grateful acknowledgement
is made to him for permission to re-distribute and update this information.
Many netters sent me email contributing technical information, feedback,
and comment. Thanks to all.
The level of cooperation I've experienced from vendors' program managers,
techies and marketing people since the first issue has generally been
outstanding. Particular high marks go to Jeremy Chatfield at Dell, Kristen
Axline at Microport, and David Aitken at UHC, with very honorable mentions to
Jeff Ellis at Esix and Rob Kolstad at BSDI. Much of the improvement in this
second issue can be laid to these people. By cooperating intelligently with
this FAQ, they've done a great job of serving the market and representing their
corporate interests.
One dishonorable mention goes to Gary Anderson, V.P of sales at Consensys
and the only person I've encountered who's behaved like the classic stereotype
of the slippery, stonewalling marketroid. An impression of this kind is
exactly what Consensys needs to solve their credibility problems...NOT!
So far, I've found that the technical merit of each of these eight products
(insofar as I have data to judge; I haven't used any of them yet) seems to
correlate pretty well with the degree of cooperation I've received. I wasn't
explicitly expecting this result, but I'm not surprised by it either.
I'm already planning the logical next step; a competitive review of UNIX
on high-end clone hardware, "The Great UNIX Dream Machines Bake-Off". Watch
for it soon on a screen near you!
--
Send your feedback to: Eric Raymond = e...@snark.thyrsus.com
Path: sparky!uunet!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,comp.unix.wizards,
alt.folklore.computers,news.answers
Subject: 386 UNIX and clone hardware buyer's FAQ
Message-ID: <1gJfbH#9MbBcz7OJYZd6YCnhs9CfLXK=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: 1 May 92 15:39:30 GMT
Expires: 31 May 92 23:00:00 GMT
Sender: e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Followup-To: comp.unix.sysv386
Distribution: world
Lines: 2752
Summary: One-stop buyer's guide to commercial UNIX versions on the 386/486
Also includes tips on how and where to buy hardware for your UNIX.
Approved: news-answers-requ...@MIT.Edu
Archive-name: 386-buyers-faq
Last-update: Wed April 1 21:47:33 EST 1992
Version: 3.0
You say you want cutting-edge hacking tools without having to mortgage the
wife'n'kids? You say arrogant workstation vendors are getting you down? You
say you crave fast UNIX on cheap hardware, but you don't know how to go about
getting it? Well, pull up a chair and take the load off yer feet, bunky,
because...
This is v3.0 of the 386 UNIX and clone-hardware buyer's FAQ posting
current to May 1st 1992.
0. CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION. What this posting is. How to help improve it. Summary of
the 386/486 UNIX market, including 6 SVr4 vendors and 2 BSD ports. What's new
in this issue.
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. A brief discussion of general hardware
requirements and compatibility considerations in the base SVR4 code from UNIX
Systems Laboratories (referred to below as the USL code). None of this
automatically applies to the two BSD-like versions, which break out the
corresponding information into their separate vendor reports.
III. FEATURE COMPARISON. A feature table which gives basic price & feature
info and summarizes differences between the versions.
IV. VENDOR REPORTS. Detailed descriptions of the different versions and
vendors, including information collected from the net on bugs, supported
and unsupported hardware and the like.
V. HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS. Useful general tips for anybody buying
clone hardware for a UNIX system. Overview of the market. Technical points.
When, where, and how to buy.
VI. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES. A set of tables summarizes vendor claims
and user reports on hardware compatibility.
VII. KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE. A discussion of bugs known or believed to
be generic to the USL code, with indications as to which vendors have fixed
them. None of this applies to the two BSD-based versions.
VIII. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS. Your humble editor's soapbox. An open letter
to the UNIX vendors designed to get them all hustling to improve their products
and services as fast as possible.
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI. Credit where credit is due. Some praises
and pans. What comes next....
I. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this posting is to pool public knowledge and USENET feedback
about all leading-edge versions of UNIX for commodity 386 and 486 hardware. It
also includes extensive information on how to buy cheap clone hardware to
support your UNIX.
This document is maintained and periodically updated as a service to the net by
Eric S. Raymond <e...@snark.thyrsus.com>, who began it for the very best
self-interested reason that he's in the market and doesn't believe in plonking
down several grand without doing his homework first (no, I don't get paid for
this!). Corrections, updates, and all pertinent information are welcomed at
that address.
This posting is periodically broadcast to the USENET group comp.unix.sysv386
and to a list of vendor addresses. If you are a vendor representative, please
check the feature chart and vendor report to make sure the information on your
company is current and correct. If it is not, please email me a correction
ASAP. If you are a knowledgeable user of any of these products, please send me
a precis of your experiences for the improvement of the feedback sections.
What's new in this issue:
* By popular demand --- comparative info on SCO UNIX/ODT
* A serious bug in stock USL 4.0.3's SCSI handling, with fix!
* A serious bug in stock USL 4.0.3's security, with pointer to fix.
* A *very* serious bug in stock USL 4.0.3's fread(3) routine.
* A *very* serious bug in UNIX signal handling
* Moderately serious bugs in the stock USL SGS code.
* A kernel-mangling bug in Dell UNIX, with fix.
* More info (including user feedback) on MST UNIX.
* Yet more hardware compatibility info.
* Thumbnail sketches of the freeware UNIX alternatives.
* Corrected "Programmer's Shop" number.
* Substantial additions to the hardware buyer's guide, focusing on
motherboards and graphics accelerator cards.
* Lots more Esix information, with some corrections.
* Much ado about mice; their varieties and compatibility.
* More FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS, this time about nomenclature.
At time of writing, here are the products in this category:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.2 abbreviated as "Cons" below
Dell UNIX Issue 2.1 abbreviated as "Dell" below
Esix Revision A abbreviated as "Esix" below
Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX abbreviated as "MST" below
Microport System V/4 version 4 abbreviated as "uPort" below
UHC Version 3.6 abbreviated as "UHC" below
SCO Open DeskTop abbreviated as "ODT" below
BSD/386 (0.3 beta) abbreviated as "BSDI" below
Mach386 abbreviated as "Mach" below
The first six of these are ports of AT&T's System V Release 4. Until very
recently there was a seventh, by Interactive Systems Corporation. That product
was canned after half of ISC was bought by SunSoft, evidently to clear the
decks for Solaris 2.0 (a SunOS port for the 386 to be released late in
1992). The only Interactive UNIX one can buy at present is an SVr3.2 port
which I consider uninteresting because it's no longer cutting-edge; I have
ignored it.
Earlier issues ignored SCO because (a) 3.2 isn't leading-edge any more and (b)
their `Release 4' is a 3.2 sailing under false colors. Can you say deceptive
advertising? Can you say bait-and-switch? Can you say total marketroid-puke?
However, the clamor from netters wanting it included was deafening. The day
SCO landed an unsolicited free copy of ODT on my doorstep I gave in. I don't
expect to actually use it, but I summarize the relevant facts along with
everything else below. Note that ODT is their full system with networking and
X windows; what they call SCO UNIX is missing most of those trimmings.
BSD/386 is *not* based on USL code, but on the CSRG NET2 distribution tape.
Complete sources are included with every system shipped! Mach386 is basically
BSD tools with a Mach 2.5 microkernel (for which you can get source!) and does
entail a USL license; it's based on the Tahoe BSD distribution.
LynxOS is a 386 UNIX specialized for real-time work, available from Lynx
Real-Time Systems Inc. of Los Gatos, California. It includes TCP/IP, NFS, X,
etc. Most of the development tools are GNU. The kernel is pre-emptable and
supports threads and dynamically-loased device drivers.
Siemens AG plans to offer a SVr4 port optimized for real-time work in
June 1992. This product will be called SORIX.
AT&T's own 386 UNIX offering is not covered here because it is available and
supported for AT&T hardware only.
All the vendors listed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but they'll be
sticky about it except where there's an insuperable hardware compatibility
problem or you trip over a serious bug. One (UHC) charges a 25% restocking fee
on returns. BSDI says: "If a customer is dissatisfied with the product, BSDI
unconditionally refunds the purchase price."
There are some freeware alternative UNIXes available for the 386/486. None of
these are yet complete and mature hacking environments, but they show promise.
They are:
386BSD:
Under development by Bill & Lynne Jolitz & friends (this is the same 386BSD
project described in BYTE some time back). This OS is based on the NET/2 tape
from Berkeley and strongly resembles the commercial BSD/386 release described
below, and like it is distributed with full source. The aim is to produce a
full POSIX-compliant freeware BSD UNIX. At the moment it comes up single-user
in root, and utilities as basic as grep are still missing. However, the whole
kernel is working (which means the hard part is done) and development is
proceeding rapidly. There's a lot of traffic in comp.unix.bsd about this
project.
Linux:
This is a SysV/POSIX-emulating UNIX lookalike, being written from scratch
and currently in beta. At the moment, it's less complete than 386BSD because
it doesn't leverage as much pre-existing code, but the kernel and development
tools are up and usable. Linux is changing so fast that more description would
probably be more misleading than enlightening. There's an active linux group
networked by the linux-activists mailing list; to subscribe, mail to
"linux-activists-reque...@niksula.hut.fi".
Hurd:
This is the long-awaited and semi-mythical GNU kernel. It's being worked on
by the Free Software Foundation (the people who brought you emacs, gcc, gdb and
the rest of the GNU tool suite) but it's not ready for prime time yet. The
386BSD and Linux developments both lean heavily on GNU tools.
There is one other not-quite-freeware (cheapware?) product that deserves a
mention:
Minix:
This is a roughly V7-compatible UNIX clone for Intel boxes, sold with source
by Prentice-Hall for $169 (there's an associated book for a few bucks more).
It's really designed to run in 16-bit mode on 8086 and 286 machines, though
there is an experimental 32-bit kernel under development. UUCP and netnews
clones are available as freeware but not supplied with the base system. A
large international community is involved in improving Minix; see comp.os.minix
on USENET for details.
These freeware and "cheapware" products exert valuable pressure on the
commercial vendors. Someday, they may even force AT&T to unlock source to stay
competitive...
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
To run any of this systems, you need at least the following: 4 MB of RAM and
80MB of hard disk. However, this is an absolute minimum; you'll want at least
8 MB of RAM for reasonable performance. And depending on options installed,
the OS will eat from 40 to 120 meg of the disk, so you'll want at least 200 meg
for real work. To run X you'll need a VGA monitor and card, and 12-16MB RAM
would be a good idea.
Installation from these systems requires that you boot from a hi-density
floppy (either 3.5" or 5.25"). Most vendors offer the bulk of the system on a
QIC 1/4-inch tape; otherwise you may be stuck with loading over 60 diskettes!
In general, if the initial boot gets far enough to display a request for
the first disk or tape load, you're in good shape.
All SVr4s conform to the following software standards: ANSI X3J11 C, POSIX
1003.1, SVID 3rd edition, FIPS 151-1, XPG3, System V ABI, and iBCS-2.
All SVr4 versions include support for BSD-style file systems with 255-character
segment names and fragment allocation. In general this is a Good Thing, but
some SVr3.2 and XENIX binaries can be confused by the different size of
the inode index. You need to run these on an AT&T-style file system.
All SVr4 versions include the UNIX manual pages on-line. Dell stocks
Prentice-Hall's SVr4 books and will sell them to you with your system (in lieu
of printed manuals) at extra cost. You can order them direct from
Prentice-Hall at (201)-767-5937. Warning: they ain't cheap! Buying the whole
13 volumes will cost you a couple hundred bucks. Esix, Microport and UHC
have their own manual sets derived from the same AT&T source tapes as the
Prentice-Hall set; Esix charges extra for them, but Microport and UHC both
include them with their systems.
SVr4 includes hooks for a DOS bridge that allows you to run DOS applications
under UNIX (the two products that actually do this are DOS Merge and VP/ix).
Most vendors do not include either of these with the base system, however.
VP/ix was a product of the half of ISC that was sold to SunSoft, and its
future is in some doubt.
All these systems support up to 1024x768 by 256 color super-VGA under X. The
640x480 by 16 colors of standard VGA is no problem; everybody supports that
compatibly. However, X servers older than the Roell or X11R5 version (that is,
MIT X11R4 or anything previous) are hard to configure for the clock timings of
your controller and monitor scan frequency unless you have one of the standard
combinations USL supports or your vendor has configured for it.
There are a couple of known hardware compatibility problems the USL code
doesn't yet address. See the KNOWN BUGS section near the end of this document.
III. FEATURE COMPARISON
To interpret the table below, bear in mind the following things:
All these products except BSDI/386 and Mach386 are based on the SVr4 kernel
from UNIX Systems Laboratories (USL), an AT&T spinoff. Thus they share over
90% of their code and features. Product differentiation is done primarily
through support policy, bug-fix quality and add-on software.
The `USL support?' column refers to the fact that USL support is a separate
charge from the source license. With the former, a porting house gets access
to AT&T's own OS support people and their bug fix database, and the porting
house's bug fixes can get folded back into the USL code.
These systems come either in a "crippled" version that supports at most two
simultaneous users, or an unlimited version. Generally the vendors do allow
you to upgrade your license via a patch disk if your requirements, but this
invariably costs slightly more than the base price difference between 2-user
and unlimited systems.
The "run-time" system in the price tables below is a minimum installation,
just enough to run binaries. The "complete" system includes every software
option offered by the vendor; it does *not* bundle in the cost of the
Prentice-Hall docs offered by some vendors as an option. You may well get
away with less, especially if you're willing to do your own X installation.
The numbers under support-with-purchase are days counted from date
of shipment. The intent is to help you get initially up and running.
The engineer counts below are as supplied by vendors; .5 of an engineer
means someone is officially working half-time. The `Uses USENET' column is
`yes' if there is allegedly at least one person in the engineering department
who reads USENET technical groups regularly and is authorized to respond to
USENET postings reporting problems.
A dash `-' means the given feature or configuration is not offered. A `yes'
means it is currently offered; `soon' means the vendor has represented that it
will be offered in the near future. A `no' means it's not offered, but there's
some related information in the attached footnote.
Vendor SCO Cons Dell Esix MST uPort UHC BSDI Mach386
Base version: 3.2.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.4 4.0.3 BSD Mach
USL support? ?? ?? y y(a) n y ??(b) n n
System price:
Run-time
2-user 1395 - - 545 249 500 695 - -
Unlimited 2495 - - 945 449 1,000 1,090 - -
Complete
2-user - 495 1,250 1,645 799 3,000 1,990 - 995
Unlimited 2495 695 1,599 2,045 999 3,500 2,385 995 (c)
Printed docs? y - - y(d) - y(e) y - -
Upgrade plan?
From SVr3.2 ?? - - y - y - - -
Future SVr4s ?? - (g) (f) - (g) - - -
Support
W/purchase: 30 (h) 90 (i) 30 30 30 60 30
800 number? y - y - - - - - -
By contract - n(j) y n(i) y y y y y
Support BBS? n y n(k) y - y soon - y
FTP server? y - y soon - - - - y
Read USENET? y ?? y y - y n(l) y y
# Engineers:
Support: 60+ 1 5 2 2 4 2 1.5 1
Development: ?? ??(m) 9(n) ~20 3 6 27 5.5 5
Distribution media:
3.5" 1.44MB y y(o) - y y y y - y
5.25" 1.2MB y y(o) - y y y y - y
60MB ctape y y - y y y y - -
125MB ctape - - - - y - y - -
150MB ctape - - y - y y y y -
Via network? - - y - - - - - -
X options:
X11/NeWS R3 - - - y - - y - -
MIT X11R4 - - y y - - - - y
AT&T Xwin 3 - - - - y - - - -
AT&T Xwin 4 y - - - - y - - -
Roell X386 - - y - y - y - -
X11R5 - y - - - - - y soon
Open Look - - 4i 1.0 2.0 4i 4i - -
Motif 1.1 1.1 1.1.2 1.1.0 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.3 - soon
X.desktop - - 2.0F - - 3.0 2.0 - -
Also included:
DOS bridge? y - y - - soon - soon -
SLIP? y - y y - y soon y -
PPP? - ?? - n(p) - - soon soon n
(a) Esix's UNIX support contract with USL will technically begin with 4.0.4.
(b) UHC had a support contract at one time but may have let it lapse. I
expect to have better information on this soon.
(c) No unlimited licenses have been sold yet. Talk to Mt. Xinu about one.
(d) Extra-cost option.
(e) With complete system only.
(f) Small media charge.
(g) Free with support contract, charge otherwise (charge ~$500).
(h) 90 days or until product is installed successfully.
(i) Unlimited free phone support.
(j) Charges by the half-hour phone call.
(k) Dell does have an Internet server for its UNIX patches.
(l) UHC says they used to be net-active and want to be again when they can
afford the man-hours.
(m) Consensys explicitly refuses to release this information.
(n) Dell says "The number of engineers varies according to the current problem
load and may be up to 20". Interpret this as you will.
(o) There's an $80 media charge for the diskettes equivalent to the normal
60MB distribution tape.
(p) Mark Boucher <m...@cam.org> has written a PPP driver for Esix
The SCO information is included by popular demand for comparison purposes.
In general, the SVr4 market breaks into two tiers. The bottom tier is
Consensys and MST; low-ball outfits selling stock USL with minimal support for
real cheap. The top tier is Dell, Esix, Microport and UHC; these guys are
selling support and significant enhancements and charge varying premiums for
it. Your first, most basic buying decision has to be which tier best serves
your needs.
One further note: it *is* possible to buy these systems at less than the list
the vendor charges! I found some really substantial discounts in one
mail-order catalog ("The Programmer's Shop"; call 1-(800)-426-8006 to get on
their mailing list, but be prepared to wade through a lot of DOS cruft).
IV. VENDOR REPORTS
Vendor reports start here. Each one is led by a form feed.
NAME:
SCO Open DeskTop
VENDOR:
400 Encinal Street
PO Box 1900
Santa Cruz,CA 95061-9969
1-(800)-726-8649 (sales)
1-(800)-347-4381 (customer service and tech support)
i...@sco.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
SCO's package and option structure is complicated. They sent me their
whole shebang, which seems to break into the following pieces:
SCO UNIX
Open DeskTop (graphical interface, includes SCO UNIX)
Development Tools
File Server Upgrade
ADD-ONS:
There are piles of them. I was most impressed by the docs for the CodeView
debugger and MASM assembler, but the presence of ISAM support, SQL support, and
what looks like a commercially-viable database tool would probably be more
significant to the ordinary commercial user.
SUPPORT:
You get 30 days of free phone support with purchase.
ODT support is $895 per year.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. SCO provides a Hardware Compatibility
Guide with its software.
COMMENTS:
The docs are impressive; you could get a hernia trying to lift them all.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
XENIX is the UNIX port hackers love to hate, but at 70% of the market SCO
must be doing something right. In general, SCO UNIX and XENIX are reputed to
be a very polished and stable systems. Unfortunately, they also drive
developers crazy because of numerous tiny and undocumented divergences between
the SCO way and the USL-based releases.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
The SCO support system is heavily bureaucratized and prone to thrash when
processing questions of unusual depth or scope. While probably adequate for
the random business luser, hackers are likely to find the contortions
required to get to a master-level developer very frustrating.
They sent me an unsolicited free copy. Gee. Maybe I should flame vendors
more often... :-)
NAME:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.3
VENDOR:
Consensys
1301 Pat Booker Road
Universal City, TX 78148
(800)-387-8951
{dmentor,dciem}!askov!root
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. With the whole system selling for $495 why bother?
ADD-ONS:
Basically this is a stock USL system with the stock USL bugs, except the
installation sequence has been improved considerably. Good tools for
configuration management and system administration on a network of Consensys
machines are included.
SUPPORT:
You get free phone support until your system is installed, to a maximum of
90 days. After that they charge per half-hour of phone time. They like to
do support by fax and callback.
They have 1 (one) support tech. Ask for Reuben.
They have a support BBS at (416)-752-2084.
Knowledgeable customers report they're good about supporting the bits they
wrote (see below) but terrible at dealing with generic SVr4 problems.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't settled on an upgrade policy yet.
There are plans for a disk array product.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
Though most reports say the Consensys PowerPorts board is fine for UUCP use,
at least two USENETters have reported problems with interactive sessions; see
below.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The X stuff is straight off the MIT X11R5 tape, patchlevel 8.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
One `Andy', mailing from <hoop...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> says "You should also
blast Consensys for advertising that they provide DOS file system utilities.
They do, but they were written for DOS 2.0! They do NOT work for DOS 5.0..."
Syd Weinstein <s...@dsinc.dsi.com> reports: "The most major [bug in the
PowerPorts support] is delays in various output codes.... Even if not using
the multi-screen stuff, a clear to end of line escape code, and some others,
cause noticable delays in the output. (About 0.1 seconds). It makes running
Elm a real bitch". He is in touch with Consensys about this.
It has been reported on USENET (by Gerry Swetsky <lis...@vpnet.chi.il.us>
among others) that if you drop off of a PowerPorts line without manually
closing all your sessions, the unclosed sessions may be accessible to the next
person to pick up the line.
Gil Kloepfer, Jr. <g...@limbic.ssdl.com>, managing the Houston UNIX User's
Group's system, says that during interactive use the board frequently does not
handle typeahead properly (this may be related to Syd Weinstein's problems with
EOL delay). He also says he hasn't been able to bring up stable UUCP with the
board.
COMMENTS:
Their UNIX product is an outgrowth of their main line of business, selling
serial boards. It is easy to configure the OS to support the board.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've spoken with one experienced wizard using Consensys and seen a detailed
email report from another. They're happy, although they both warn that newbies
should probably *not* try this at home :-).
On the other hand, Consensys has a dismal reputation on USENET; horror
stories of nonexistent followup on bugs abound. They'll need to work hard to
shuck their take-the-money-and-run image. Better followup on the reported
serial-port board bugs would be a big help. Unfortunately, Consensys's favored
response seems to be to deny that they have a problem.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
These guys are trading off everything else to be the market's price-buster.
They have the toughest support policy of any vendor and obviously don't want to
hear from you once you've gotten past initial boot.
A Consensys marketroid that I spoke with twice while gathering this
information offered to send me an evaluation copy of their system. They were
clearly hoping for some good publicity if I like it. However, I doubt they
like me that well any more...
Consensys explicitly refuses to say how many development engineers they have
on staff. In this and some other matters (such as the way they deal with
allegations of PowerPorts problems) they've adopted a corporate style that
appears defensive, evasive, secretive, and not conducive to trust. I couldn't
make their V.P. of sales understand that this appearance is a serious
liability in dealing with UNIX techies and distinguishes them from the
competition in a distinctly negative way.
NAME:
Dell UNIX System V Release 4 Issue 2.1.
VENDOR:
Dell Computer
9505 Arboretum Road
Austin TX 78759
(800)-BUY-DELL (info & orders)
(800)-624-9896 (tech support: x6915 to go straight to UNIX support)
supp...@dell.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Basically, there aren't any. You get the development system with all the
trimmings for a lower list than anybody else in the top tier. Whaddya
want, egg in yer beer?
ADD-ONS:
Dell bundles a DOS bridge with their base system. They also include cnews,
mmdf, perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs gdb, and other freeware, including a bunch
of nifty X clients! However, stock gcc doesn't yet generate SVr4's new DWARF
debugger format. Patches for g++ 1.40.3 and libg++ 1.39.0 to get these working
under SVR4 are available via ftp from ftp.physics.su.oz.au.
SUPPORT:
Dell *does* support their UNIX on non-Dell hardware. They are quite
definite about this. They will deal with software problems reported from
non-Dell hardware, but you're on your own when dealing with hardware
incompatibility problems.
You get 90 days of free phone support on a toll-free number.
Yearly service contracts range are $350 per year for the limited
license, $500 for the unlimited.
Dell accepts software problem reports from anyone, Dell or non-Dell
hardware and whether or not they have a support contract. If you don't have
a support contract, don't count on getting a reply acknowledging the report.
There are 5 engineers in their second-line support pool.
Dell maintains a pair of Internet servers (dell1.dell.com and
dell2.dell.com) which hold patches, updates and free software usable with
Dell UNIX.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't fixed a release date for 4.0.4 or X11R5 yet. One USENET
poster has claimed inside information that X11R5 will be folded in during
March/April 1992.
X.desktop 3.0 will be supported soon. NeWS isn't going to happen at all;
they couldn't get it to work reliability.
Dell is committed to sell and support Solaris 2.0 when it happens. Dell
spokespeople have insisted that this doesn't jeopardize the SVr4 product's
future; they say they intend to position the two differently, aiming SVr4 at
UNIX developers and selling Solaris primarily as an application platform for
end-users. However, the person who articulated that policy is no longer at
Dell and the question of what SVr4 to Solaris upgrade costs will be hasn't
been resolved even internally.
About upgrades, Dell says "If you have a support contract, the upgrade is
free, unless we've added something with significant royalty burden to us. We
may make a charge at that point. We didn't when we added Graphical Services
4.0 at the introduction of Dell UNIX 2.1. If you don't have a contract, then
the cost is basically Media+Royalty+Admin+Shipping."
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The big plus in the Dell code is that they've fixed a lot of the annoying
bugs and glitches present in the stock USL tape.
The installation procedure has been improved and simplified. You can
install Dell UNIX through your network from another Dell box once you've booted
the hardware with a special disk provided.
Both benchmarks and anecdotal reports make them significantly faster than a
stock USL system. Interestingly, Dell's manager for UNIX development tells me
this is all due to bug fixes and careful choices of some OS parameters.
The DOS bridge is Locus Merge 2.1.
A source at Dell has asked me to point out that Dell's SLIP can be set up,
configured, and stopped while UNIX is running; some other versions (such as
SCO's) require a reboot.
Dell device drivers are *very* unlikely to work on other SVR4 versions.
Dell includes some kernel extensions (not required, so other SVR4 device
drivers should work) to make life in support a little easier. A program
called showcfg will list all recognised device drivers and the IRQ,
I/O address, shared memory and so on. The device driver has to register
this info. Dell has told USL how to do this, it's up to them when or even
if they want to use this in a future release.
Dell device drivers are also auto configuring, for the most part. Check out
/etc/conf/sdevice.d/* and see how most of the devices are enabled, but with
zeroes in all fields for IRQ, I/O and memory. Those are autoconfiguring
drivers. Dell thinks that this makes life much easier; you only need to set
one of the configurations that we probe for! The device registration helps
this, by eliminating possible overlapping memory or I/O address usage. (On the
other hand, idconfig(1) is no longer helpful, when I/O, IRQ and mem are all
zero).
Dell UNIX also has drivers for the Dell SmartVu found on some machines (a
little four character LED display on the front panel). By default this shows
POST values, then disk accesses, finally "UNIX" when running and "DOWN" when
halted. You can write to the device.
Some Dell systems have a reset button. On the Laptops these are wired
directly to the CPU. On the desktop and floor-standing systems Dell UNIX can
catch the interrupt; it's used to do a graceful (init 0) shutdown. Other
UNIXes will do a processor reset when the button is pushed.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
Dell doesn't maintain a list of non-Dell motherboards and systems known to
work. And they're not willing to talk about the list they don't maintain,
because it would amount to endorsing someone else's hardware.
Dell promises that you can bring its UNIX up on any Dell desktop or tower
featuring a 386SX or up (it's hard to get the product on to the notebooks).
Notebooks can't drive a QIC tape and there aren't drivers for the pocket
Ethernet or token-ring adapter.
Jeffrey James Persch <using a friend's account> reports that he couldn't
get the X supplied with Dell UNIX 2.1 to work with a Microsoft bus mouse hooked
to the mouse port on a Compaq 486/33M or Systempro.
See the appendix for more.
COMMENTS:
Dell sells hardware, too :-). They are, in fact, one of the most successful
clonemakers, and will cheerfully sell you a Dell computer with SVr4 pre-
installed. Their systems are expensive by cloner standards (with as much as a
$1000 premium over rock-bottom street prices) but they have a rep for quality
and reliability their competition would probably kill for.
You can get Dell product information by sending an email request to
i...@dell.com.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Most people who've seen or used it seem to think pretty highly of the
Dell product, in spite of minor problems.
Some people are very annoyed with the length of Dell's support queues.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, I'd have to call Dell the market leader. The combination of low
price, highest added value in features, and reputation for quality makes them
very hard to beat.
The only serious negative I've seen is that their support system seems to be
very badly overloaded, so you can end up on hold for a while when calling. The
techs themselves are sufficiently cranked about this that they'll complain of
understaffing and corporate shortsightedness on the phone to a stranger.
Dell also compartmentalizes the support operation more than any of the
other vendors I contacted; the support techs aren't told much about the
product's future direction and even lack basic pricing information.
Both these things are probably functions of the organization's size; Dell is
a larger outfit than the rest of its competitors put together.
On the other hand, Dell's UNIX development manager responded to the first
issue of this FAQ with about three hundred lines of intelligent, thoughtful and
extremely candid comment, including a whole pile of the hardware-compatibility
info I couldn't get lower-level people to divulge and a number of excellent
suggestions for improving the FAQ.
NAME:
Esix Revision A
VENDOR
Esix Computers
1923 E. St. Andrew Place
Santa Ana, CA 92705
(714)-259-3020 (tech support is (714)-259-3000)
uunet!zardoz!everex!esixtech
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking and X11R4 (includes TCP/IP, NFFS/RFS, SLIP).
GUI I -- Open Look and X11/NeWS.
GUI II -- Motif.
Development tools.
SUPPORT:
Purchase buys you unlimited free phone support. However, be warned that
there are only two engineers assigned to the job and they are swamped.
Esix offers a support BBS at (714)-259-3011 and 3013 (the 11 line
has a Trailblazer on it). They plan to bring up an Internet server in
the near future.
FUTURE PLANS:
4.0.4 will happen in the near future. They'll be going to Xwin 4 (AT&T's
X11R4 server) at around the same time, and will also include X.desktop. They
say they don't plan to support DOS Merge because it's still horribly buggy.
Later in '92 they plan to release a multiprocessing UNIX.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
D'arcy McCain <da...@druid.uucp> has written a device driver for Everex's
STEP systems that can control the LED array on the front of the box.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. Esix supports an unusually wide
range of peripherals.
They advertise support for the Textronix X terminal.
No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.
KNOWN BUGS:
According to Esix, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it
must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
Another subsidiary of a clonemaker (Everex). They don't sell
bundled hardware/software packages yet.
Esix will sell you manuals troffed off the SVr4 source tapes for somewhat
less than the cost of the Prentice-Hall books. The content is almost
identical but the organixation into volumes a little different.
Unlimited free support sounds wonderful, and might be Esix's
strongest selling point. However, Esix users on the net have been
heard to gripe that in practice, you get the support you've paid for
from Esix --- that is, none. That isn't at all surprising given
Esix's staffing level. If this guarantee is to be more than a hollow
promise, their technical support has to get more depth.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
In email to me, one long-time netter (Evan Leibovich, <e...@telly.on.ca>)
who does UNIX consulting says he has eight client sites running Esix happily.
It's reliable.
Ron Mackey <r...@dsiinc.com> writes "In general, we are pleased with Esix.
We still have problems driving the serial ports at speeds greater than 9600
baud. We also still see occasional PANICs. These appear to be related to
problems with the virtual terminal manager." This may be the generic USL asy
problem again.
A longer appeciation from Ed Hall <edh...@rand.org>: "I had a problem with
the ESIX X server. I got through to technical support immediately, and was
promised a fix disk. The guy on the phone was actually able to chat with on of
the developers to check to see if the disk would solve the problem. The disk
came four days later."
"On the other hand," he continues, "I get the feeling that ESIX has only
made a mediocre effort to shake out the bugs before releasing their system-- or
even their fixes. For example, they `repaired' their X server, but the new
server only ran as root (it made some priviledged calls to enable I/O
ports)--they quickly had to release a second update to fix this new problem.
They obviously fixed a lot of things in the new server, and performance is
improved quite a bit as well, but the stupid error they made in the first
"fixed" version should have been found with only the most minimal of testing."
"They've done some work on the serial driver, but there are still some
glitches (occasional dropped characters on a busy system at 38400bps, and a
real doozy of a problem--a system panic--when doing simultaneous opens and
ioctl's on a tty0xh and ttyM0xh device. This latter problem was due to my
using the M0xh and 0xh devices improperly, but panics are inexcusable. No idea
if this is a SYSVR4 problem or due to their fixes.)"
"So my impressions of them are mixed. Perhaps I just lucked out in geting
such rapid response on my support call, but I was impressed by it nonetheless.
On the other hand, their QA needs work..."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
The tech I spoke with at Esix seemed knowledgeable, bright, and very
committed to the product. Nevertheless, when I asked what he thought
distinguished Esix from the competition, he had no answer.
This reinforced the feeling I got from the spec sheets that Esix has kind of
an also-ran mentality, with no market strategy or clear priority for improving
SVr4 that positions it against its competition. It doesn't have Dell's
steak-with-all-the-trimmings appeal, it's not pushing price like Consensys or
support quality like UHC or performance like Microport. (I'm told that
at one time, Everex was the price leader).
When I asked Esix's chief marketroid about this, he said that he thinks
Esix's best asset is that the product isn't going to go away, and muttered
unkind things about the possibility that Dell would deep-six their SVr4 in
favor of Solaris 2.0. This does not a long-term strategy make.
NAME
MST UNIX
VENDOR:
Micro Station Technology, Inc.
1140 Kentwood Ave.
Cupertino, CA. 95014
(408)-253-3898
sa...@mst.com (product info & orders)
c...@mst.com (support)
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
C Development System
Networking
X11R4 and X11R3
Motif
Open Look
SUPPORT:
30 days of support free with purchase.
1 year of fax/email support is $299, 1 year of phone support is $599.
FUTURE PLANS:
They expect to upgrade to Motif 1.2 and X11R5 Summer '92. No plans for
4.0.4 yet.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
They've promised to email me a list of hardware known to work, which
will appear in a future posting.
They decline to release information on hardware known *not* to work
for fear of offending vendors.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
The DOS support is only 2.0-compatible (< 32-meg DOS partitions).
COMMENTS:
Another outfit offering stock USL real cheap. They were actually the first
to try this (in Fall '91) and were the price leader until Consensys blew past
them.
These guys really want to sell you preinstalled UNIX on their clone
hardware. Configurations range from $1349 to $5599 and look like pretty
good value.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I have one experience report from Ray Hill, <h...@ghola.nicolet.com>, who's
been running MST on a 486 for a month or so. He says it works; elm, cnews, and
trn are up, so standard UNIX sources compile up and work fine. His only
criticism is the relative skimpiness of the printed docs.
Harlan Stockman <hwst...@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov> writes "MST has been very
helpful at every step of the way; phone and e-mail support have been timely."
Geoffrey Leach <ge...@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> warns that some of the files
(specifically, socket library headers) necessary to build X11R5 are bundled in
the networking option --- this may meen you have to buy it even if you don't
actually intend to network any machines.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Anyone who's been to a hobbyist computer expo in the last five years knows
that the low-price clone-hardware market is full of small, hungry companies run
by immigrants, often family businesses. Their English is sometimes a little
shaky but (in my experience) they're honest and their product is good, and
their prices are *real* aggressive.
MST seems to be one of these outfits. Right now they're eclipsed by
Consensys, but Consensys's promo prices are *so* low that they may be taking a
net loss to gain market share. In any case, two super-low-cost-vendors are
much more effective pressure on the upper tier than one --- long may MST
flourish.
NAME:
Microport System V/4 Version 4
VENDOR:
Microport, Inc.
108 Whispering Pines Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(800)-367-8649
sa...@mport.com (sales and product info)
supp...@mport.com (support)
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking (TCP/IP, NFS)
Software Development
User Graphics Module (X GUIs)
Graphics Development Module (X toolkits + man pages).
DOS Merge
ADD-ONS:
A few freeware utilities are included, notably kermit(1) and less(1).
They include a single-user copy of a program called `JSB MultiView'. It's a
character-oriented desktop program that front-ends conventional UNIX services
for character terminals and also provides a pop-up phone-book.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
They have been very lightly edited for the Microport environment.
The base price includes 30 days or 1 year of phone support respectively
depending on whether you bought the base or complete system. Support is
said to be excellent for serious problems, not so good for minor ones (this
is understandable if one assumes their support staff is very good but
overworked, a hypothesis which is plausible on other evidence).
They have a support BBS at (408)-438-7270 or 438-7521. However, the level
of activity is low; one customer said (late February) that they hadn't put
anything useful on it in six months (Microport responds that they've
been too busy hammering on r4 to spend lots of energy on it).
FUTURE PLANS:
DOS Merge will be folded into the system soon.
Also working on improved performance for the Adaptec 1742 and other SCSI
controllers, expect that in may.
Microport believes they have a lead in multiprocessing UNIX and intend to
push it.
File-system support for CD-ROMs is coming.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
Math co-processors: Cyrix 20/25/33, Intel 80387 20/25/33, Weitek.
No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet. Bernoulli boxes
and Irwin tapes won't fly, but who cares.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
When I asked what differentiates Microport from the other SVr4 products,
the answer I got is "performance". The Microport people feel they've put
a lot of successful work into kernel tuning.
And, indeed, benchmarks from independent sources show that Microport's
fork(2) operation is quite fast. Other vendors show about 60 forks per
second on the AIM Technologies SUITE II benchmarks; Microport cranks 80.
This is the most dramatic performance difference the AIM tools reveal
among any of these products. Microport's other benchmark statistics
are closely comparable to those of its competitors.
Microport also offers a symmetric multiprocessing SVr4 which will run on the
Compaq SystemPro, the ALR PowerPro, the DEC 433MP, and the Chips & Technologies
Mpax system.
Microport has moved the socket headers and libraries necessary to build X
out of the networking option package into the development system, so you
don't have to buy an extra module to hack X.
KNOWN BUGS:
According to Microport, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus
it must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the
BSD-compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
These people sold a lot of shrink-wrapped UNIXes years ago before going
chapter 11. They're back, leaner and meaner (with a total staff of just
15).
Microport says it's primarily interested in the systems-integration market,
where customers are typically going to be volume buyers qualifying for deep
discounts. Thus, they're relatively undisturbed by the certainty that their
high price point is losing them sales to individuals.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've received one good comprehensive experience report, largely favorable,
from David Wexelblat <d...@att.com>.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Microport is a small, hungry outfit with a lot to prove; they've already
gone bust once (I was a customer at the time :-() and they haven't yet
demonstrated that they've got a better strategy this time out.
They're perhaps a mite too expensive for the support quality they can offer
with less than fifteen people, and kernel-tuning isn't going to win them a
following on hardware that every year swamps those tweaks with huge increases
in speed for constant dollars. It may be that they're counting on the
symmetric-multiprocessor version to be their bread-and-butter product; there,
at least, they're offering something that is so far unique and promises
performance levels unattainable with conventional hardware.
And, like UHC, they have techies answering the phones and the techies have a
clue. This certainly improves them as a bet for wizards and developers. If
multiprocessing is important to you, and/or you're looking for a small outfit
where you can develop personal working relationships with the tech people who
matter, Microport might be a good way to go.
They've offered to send me a copy of their OS gratis for review and
evaluation purposes.
NAME:
UHC Version 3.6
VENDOR:
UHC Corp.
3600 S. Gessner
Suite 110
Houston, TX 77063
(713)-782-2700
supp...@uhc.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking package (TCP/IP).
X + Motif
X + Open Look
ADD-ONS:
None reported.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
30 days free phone support with purchase.
All their engineers take tech-support calls for part of their day.
They have 2 doing it full-time. The product manager is a techie himself
and takes his share of calls.
A support contract costs $1195 for one year. This includes 75% off
on all upgrades.
They are in the process of bringing up a BBS with a window into their
bug report and fix/workaround database.
It was emphasized to me that UHC wants to be known for the quality of
their support, which they feel is the product's strongest differentiating
feature.
FUTURE PLANS:
X11R5 by mid-May or thereabouts. They have it running now but don't
consider it stable enough to ship.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
The asy driver in version 2.0 won't talk to the NS16550AFN UART, which
is supposed to be pin-compatible with the standard 16450.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
They claim that according to USL they have the largest installed base of
SVr4 customers, and to have been first to market with a shrink-wrapped
SVr4 (in 1990).
UHC also claims to have performed and maintained IBM's official UNIX port
for the MicroChannel machines.
A subsidiary of Anam, "a holding company with a diversified portfolio".
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The only comment I've yet seen on UHC itself was an extended description of
a successful installation by a satisfied netter. He made it sound like a good
solid product.
I have one absolutely incandescently glowing report on UHC support from a
developer named Steve Showalter <shw...@Texaco.COM>. He says: "We've been
running UHC's OS for about a year now...been EXTREMELY happy with it. The
support we receive is without a doubt, the finest we have received from any
vendor."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I found both the people I talked to friendly, candid, technically
knowledgeable, and willing to answer sticky questions. I came away with a very
positive impression of the outfit's operating style.
There are experienced UNIX developers who value dealing with a small,
responsive outfit where they can develop good working relationships with
individuals. UHC says it likes to sell to wizards and might be a good choice
for these people.
The second time I called (*after* I'd formed the above impressions) one of
their guys offered to trade me a copy of UHC UNIX with all the trimmings for an
autographed copy of _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_. So they have taste, too.
I'm too ethical to let this sway my evaluations, but not too ethical to take
the software... :-)
NAME:
BSD/386
VENDOR:
Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
Falls Church, VA 22042 USA
(800)-800-4BSDI
bsdi-i...@bsdi.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. You get an unlimited user license, binaries *and sources*
for the entire system. What more could you want?
SUPPORT:
The purchase price include 60 days of phone support.
A telephone-support contract is $1500 per year; email-only support is
$500/year. Either kind includes upgrades.
FUTURE PLANS:
The current release (0.3) is a fairly stable beta. Production release is
planned for June 1992.
Capability to run SVr3.2 binaries (including SCO binaries), 3Q92.
They intend to add a DOS bridge by the end of '92.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. New drivers are being added all the time.
Multiport serial boards aren't supported (they're working on it).
The Orchid graphics co-processor is not supported.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
Alone among the 386 UNIX versions described here, this version is *not*
based even in part on USL code and has no AT&T license restrictions. Rather,
it derives from Berkeley UNIX (the CSRG Networking 2 release, somewhere between
4.3 and 4.4).
Many of the BSD/386 tools, including the compiler, are GNU code.
This system's libraries, header files and utilities conform to X3J11,
POSIX 1003.1 and POSIX 1003.2 standards.
COMMENTS:
What these people are trying is audacious --- something functionally like
the SVr4 merge, but starting from a ported BSD kernel and with System V
compatibility hacks, rather than the other ways. By all accounts the product
is in far better shape right now than one would expect for a beta pre-release,
which argues that the developers have done something right.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The few who've seen this system display an evangelistic fervor about it.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I expect this will become a hackers' favorite.
All this, and sources too...I salivate. I am tempted. Not sure I'm ready
to change OSs at the same time as I switch machines, though. SVr4's got better
continuity with the 3.2 I'm running now. Ghu, what a dilemma!
When I mentioned that I'm doing elisp maintenance for GNU EMACS these days,
Rob Kolstad, one of the principal developers, offered me a copy and a year
of support if I'd field their (so far nonexistent) EMACS problems.
NAME
Mach386
VENDOR:
Mt. Xinu
2560 Ninth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510)-644-0146
mtxinu-m...@mtxinu.com
ADD-ONS:
Kernel sources! You get can sources for the Mach 3.0 microkernel for
$195 over base price.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
The base package includes: Mach 2.5 kernel and utilities, 4.3 BSD interface,
GNU utilities (GCC, GDB, GAS, EMACS, BISON), and on-line reference manuals (man
pages) for Mach and 4.3 BSD. The following options are available:
Networking (SUN NFS, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe release,
on-line NFS man pages).
X (X11R4 with programmer's environment and complete X manual pages).
On-line Documentation (Complete source for Mach and 4.3 documentation,
including Mach Supplementary Documents, System Manager's Documentation, 4.3 BSD
Programmer's Supplementary Documents, 4.3 BSD User's Supplementary Documents).
Optional Microkernel Add-on, Mach 3.0 (Complete Mach 3.0 microkernel source
code; complete build environment with tools to modify and rebuild the Mach 3.0
microkernel; binary BSD server which runs on top of the microkernel in place
of the standard /vmunix kernel; source for an example of a server (POE)
running on top of the Mach 3.0 microkernel and sources for some utilities
which are kernel-dependent.
SUPPORT:
You get 30 days phone support with purchase.
A support contract is available for $150 quarterly or $500 per year; this
includes upgrades. There is a support BBS open to contract holders only.
An ftp server at autosupport.mtxinu.com carries patches, enhancements
and freeware adapted for the system
FUTURE PLANS:
They plan to move to OSF/1 this year. X11R5 and Motif support are
also in the works.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the Appendix for details.
Color X windows is supported on VGA boards via extended 8-bit color mode.
Toshiba and Toshiba-compatible floppy drives and controllers work.
All current motherboards tested have worked. There were a few problems with
early Compaq DeskPros. They add "Please note that we do not support the
microchannel bus, EISA extended modes, IBM PS2, and some NCR machines. We are,
however, considering new devices so let us know your interests!".
TECHNICAL NOTES
This product is essentially a 4.3 port built on the Mach project's
microkernel technology. This is a truly nifty architecture which builds a
4.3BSD-compatible kernel out of a collection of communicating lightweight
processes. The distinction between user and kernel mode almost vanishes, and
things like the schedular and virtual-memory manager which are normally
embedded deep in the kernel become semi-independent, modifiable modules.
COMMENTS:
Very appealing for the educational market --- lets CS students and hobbyists
tinker creatively with the guts of UNIX in a way that would be impossible under
more conventional UNIXes. It's not clear who else will be interested in this.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Eric Baur <e...@ventoux.assabet.com> writes:
"The system is a very faithful emulation of BSD43 on top of Mach. For our
purposes it is a super deal. For about $2000.00 in hardware and $995.00 in
software we have a Mach development platform that integrates almost seamlessly
into our network development environment. As a general-purpose UNIX (whatever
that means) Mach386 gives up a lot in features to the System V vendors.
(Virtual terminals, DOS emulation, etc etc) For the home hacker, except for
UUCP problems it seems like it would be a good deal. You obviously could never
run "shrink-wrapped" software, but most public domain and GNU stuff should port
easily."
Mark Holden <l00...@eeyore.stcloud.msus.edu> adds "Mt. Xinu's tech support
is absolutely top-notch, and I've found them quite willing to deal with matters
even after the official support runs out. [...] Not that Mach386 is without
its quirks. I've had problems getting a Western Digital ethernet board to
work correctly, and things required a fair bit of tweaking to set things on a
smooth course, but then I've never worked with a BSD that didn't."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, this product is a solution looking for a problem --- a solution I
find technically fascinating, to be sure. But even the company admits to not
being sure who its market is. I wish 'em luck.
KNOWN BUGS:
From Eric Baur <e...@ventoux.assabet.com>: "I have not been able to
get the supplied uucp to work when calling a telebit modem. The
connection is established but the Mach end hangs up and exits without
any indication why. Taylor uucp ported in about 1 hour and works
fine. There is no support, however, for bi-directional lines if you
use the Taylor uucp. The uucp supplied with the system has the
gawd-awful acucntrl hack, but I don't know if it even works. [...]
Overall I remain very pleased with Mach386. [...] It has yet to
manifest any truly bad behavior. No panics - no hangs. It interacts
flawlessly with our network of Suns. NFS and X are very robust. I
would ditch my System V at home and buy Mach386 is a minute if I could
get bi-directional serial lines to work."
V. HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS.
Overview:
The central fact about 386/486 clone hardware that conditions every aspect of
buying it is this: more than anywhere else in the industry, de-facto hardware
standards have created a commodity market with low entry barriers, lots of
competitive pressure, and volume high enough to amortize a *lot* of development
on the cheap.
The result is that this hardware gives you lots of bang-per-buck, and it's
getting both cheaper and better all the time. Furthermore, margins are thin
enough that vendors have to be lean, hungry, and *very* responsive to the
market to survive. You can take advantage of this, but it does mean that much
of the info in the rest of this section will be stale in three months and
probably obsolete in six.
Technical points:
Ask your potential suppliers what kind and volume of documentation they supply
with your hardware. You should get, at minimum, operations manuals for
the motherboard and each card or peripheral; also an IRQ list and a bad-block
listing for the Winchester. Skimpiness in this area is a valuable clue
that they may be using no-name parts from Upper Baluchistan, which is not
necessarily a red flag in itself but should prompt you to ask more questions.
Cases are just bent metal. Doesn't matter who makes those, as long as they're
above an easy minimum quality (on some *really* cheap ones, cards fail to line
up nicely with the slots, or the motherboard is ill-supported and can ground
out against the chassis). Power supplies can matter but quality is cheap; look
for at least a 230-watt model so you've got headroom, and if you're buying a
tower case with extra expansion bays it should be 300 watts.
Motherboards and BIOS chips don't vary much in quality either. There are only
six or so major brands of motherboard inside all those cases and they're pretty
much interchangable; brand premiums are low to nonexistent and cost is strictly
tied to maximum speed and bus type. There are only two major brands of BIOS
chip and not much to choose between 'em but the look of the self-test screens.
There are a few potential gotchas to beware of, especially in the cheaper
off-brand boards. One is "shadow RAM", a trick some boards use for speeding up
DOS by copying the ROM contents into RAM at startup. It should be possible to
disable this. Also, on a caching motherboard, you need to be able to disable
caching in the memory areas used by expansion cards. Some cheap motherboards
that fail to pass bus-mastering tests and so are useless for use with a good
SCSI interface; on others, the bus gets flaky when the turbo (high-speed) mode
is on. Fortunately, these problems aren't common. They can be avoided by
sticking with a motherboard design that's been tested with UNIX (some help with
that below).
(About that annoying fan noise, ask if the fan on a target system has a
variable speed motor with thermostatic control --- this will cut down on noise
tremendously. If not: I have seen a rave about, but haven't used, a
thermostatic fan controller called "The Silencer". This tiny device mounts
inside your power supply and connects to the fan's power leads. It
automatically varies the fan motor speed to hold a 79 to 82F temperature.
Write Quiet Technology, Inc. PO Box 8478, Port St. Lucie FL 34985.)
Peripherals are another matter, especially hard disks. A good rule of thumb
for balanced configurations is that the hard disk should comprise about half
(or maybe a bit more) of the total system price. Unless you're the exception
who has to invoke warranty due to a system arriving dead, most of what you buy
from a dealer or mail-order house is their ability to surf the Winchester
market, make volume buys, and burn in your disks before shipping.
Don't bother with SX machines. Under UNIX the 16-bit bus-to-CPU path can leave
you permanently I/O-bound. Anyway there's not enough of a DX premium to matter
in the desktop market any more (laptops are a whole 'nother story).
Buy lots of RAM, it's the cheapest way to improve real performance on any
virtual-memory system. At $30-$50 maximum per megabyte it's just plain silly
to stick with the 2-4mb now standard on most clone configurations. Go to 8,
you won't regret it; 16 if you're going to use X. Above 16 is a little iffy on
ISA boxes because the stock USL 4.0.3 kernel may try to do DMA from a location
the bus can't deal with (but some vendors fix this).
Be sure to choose a motherboard that can take 4MB SIMS (as opposed to just the
older 1MB kind). This may soon be a non-issue as board designs continue to
turn over rapidly.
One basic decision to make is: 16-bit ISA vs. 32-bit EISA? You'll pay a
$600-$900 premium for the latter. What you get in return is the ability to use
things like fast 32-bit SCSI controllers and a smoother upward-migration path.
On the other hand, EISA cards are significantly more expensive. There comes a
point, though, where increasing processor speed can saturate the I/O capacity
of the poor old 8MHz ISA bus; the vendors all seem to think this starts at
around 33MHz and that if you're buying 50MHz it definitely pays to go EISA.
This is a bigger issue under UNIX than DOS because UNIX hits the disk more
heavily. So far, though, there isn't much support for EISA-specific hardware
--- a couple of vendors will drive EISA SCSI disk and tape controllers and
that's about it (of course those *are* the most important bandwidth-eaters).
All ISA cards will still work.
Another basic decision is IDE vs. SCSI. Either kind of disk costs about the
same, but the premium for a SCSI card varies all over the lot, partly because
of price differences between ISA and EISA SCSI cards and especially because
many motherboard vendors bundle an IDE chip right on the system board. SCSI
gives you better speed and throughput, a win for larger disks and an especially
significant consideration in a multi-user environment; also it's more
expandable.
Look at seek times and transfer rates for your disk; under UNIX disk speed and
throughput are so important that a 1-millisecond difference in average seek
time can be noticeable. Disk caching is good, but there can be too much of a
good thing. Excessively large caches will slow the system because the overhead
for cache fills swamps the real accesses (this is especially a trap for
databases and other applications that do non-sequential I/O). More than 100K
of cache is probably a bad idea for a general-purpose UNIX box; watch out for
manufacturers who inflate cache size because memory is cheap and they think
customers will be impressed by big numbers.
Yet another basic decision, of course, is processor speed and type. Forget the
20MHz and 25MHz 386s, they're history. Right now the hot sellers in this
market are the 386/33DX and AMD 386/40DX, which I'd say are reasonable
minimum-speed engines UNIX with X (xterm scrolling is painfully slow on my
present 386/20DX machine). Lots of relatively inexpensive 486/33DX systems are
out there now; estimates for the speed advantage from the 486 range from 20 to
50% with 30% pretty widely heard (thus one of these is equivalent to about a
386/40DX). Most of the advantage comes from the pipelining and on-chip cache.
The higher level of integration also implies better reliability. And of
course, the on-chip FPU really sizzles if you're into scientific computing or
graphics.
Right now you'll pay as much as a $1500 premium for a 486-50, as that's
relatively new technology and (of course) demands very fast memory. Also,
these processors run really hot (one correspondent described the 50 as a
"toaster on a chip"). If you go this route, be sure your configuration has an
extra-heavy-duty cooling fan. Or two. And, for preference, a hefty heat sink.
Of course, if you do this you'll be ready to drop in Intel's 50MHz-external/
100MHz-internal part when it comes out later this year, and blow the doors off
all those fancy proprietary-technology workstations.
Which brings up a *minor* decision. Desktop or tower? My advice is go with
tower unless you're building a no-expansions personal system and expect to be
using the floppies a lot. Many vendors charge nothing extra for a tower case
and the absolute *maximum* premium I've seen is $100. What you get for that is
less desktop clutter, more and bigger bays for expansion, and often (perhaps
most importantly) a beefed-up power-supply and fan. Airflow is also an issue;
if the peripheral bays are less cramped, you get better cooling. This is a good
argument for a full tower rather than the `baby tower' cases some vendors
offer. Be prepared to buy extension cables for your keyboard and monitor,
though; vendors *never* include enough flex.
You should have a tape drive for backup, and because most UNIX vendors like to
distribute their OS on tape. Ideally, your tape backup should be able to image
your entire disk. Unfortunately, this can get *very* expensive for large
disks; 60/120MB QIC drives are fairly cheap now but larger sizes (typically
150, 250, 525 QIC tapes and 1.3gig DAT) are not. One interesting point is that
if you've gone SCSI, a 150MB QIC (comparable to the drives now popular on
Suns) may well be cheaper than older 60MB technology due to differences in the
adaptor boards required.
These days, most vendors bundle a 14" monitor and super-VGA card with 1024x768
resolution in with their systems. Details to watch are whether the card comes
loaded with 512K or 1MB of VRAM (which will affect how much of that maximum
resolution and how many colors you actually get) and whether the monitor is
interlaced or non-interlaced. The latter is better and should no longer cost
extra; look for the abbreviation NI in the ad or quote and be suspicious if you
don't see it.
One good way to boost your X performance is to invest in a graphics card with a
dedicated blitter or high-speed local-bus connection, like the ATI series or
the S3-based Quantum, Wind/X and Orchid Fahrenheit 1280. A number of clone
vendors offer these accelerator options relatively cheap (about $300) and can
make your X go like a banshee; however, stock X doesn't support them yet ---
and the third-party servers that do (such as MetroLink's or SGCS's) ain't
cheap.
If you're feeling *really* flush, plump for a 15", 17" or even 20" monitor.
The larger size can make a major difference in viewing comfort. Also you'll be
set for VESA 1280x1024 when everybody gets to supporting that. In the mean
time, the bigger screen will allow you to use fonts in smaller pixel sizes so
that your text windows can be larger, giving you a substantial part of the
benefit you'd get from higher pixel resolutions.
Finally, I strongly recommend that you buy a power conditioner to protect your
hardware. MOV-filtered power bars make nice fuses (they're cheap to replace),
but they're not enough. Get yourself a box with a good big soft-iron
transformer and a couple of moby capacitors in it and *no* conductive path
between the in and out sides and you can laugh at brownouts and electrical
storms. I've been delighted with my TripLite 1200, which you can get for less
than $200. A fringe benefit of this little beauty is that if you accidently
pull your plug out of the wall you may find you actually have time to
re-connect it before the machine notices!
Of mice and machines:
In a previous issue, I claimed that all mice and trackballs are the same for
compatibility purposes. I was wrong -- seriously wrong. The more I found out,
the messier the picture gets. The following is an attempt to sort out all the
confusion. Thanks to Jim McCarthy at Logitech for digging into the matter
and somewhat alleviating my ignorance.
Mice and trackballs used to be simple; now, thanks to Microsoft, they're
complicated. In the beginning, there was only the Mouse Systems 3-button
serial mouse; this reported status to a serial port 30 times a second using a
5-byte serial packet encoding now called "C" protocol. The Logitech Series 7
and 9 mice were Mouse Systems-compatible. All UNIXes that have any mouse
support at all understand C-protocol serial mice.
Then Microsoft got into the act. They designed a two-button serial mouse which
reports only deltas in a three-byte packet; that is, it sends changes in button
status and motion reports only when the mouse is actually moving. This is
called `M' protocol. Microsoft sold a lot of mice, so Logitech switched from
`C' to `M' --- but they added a third button, state changes for which show up
in an optional fourth byte. Thus, `M+' protocol, upward-compatible with
Microsoft's `M'. Most UNIX vendors add support for M+ mice, but it's wise to
check.
Bus mice are divided into 8255 and InPort types. These report info
continuously at 30 or 60 Hz (though InPort mice have an option for reporting
deltas only), and you get interrupts on events and then have to poll hardware
ports for details. More on these next issue.
All things considered, UNIX users are probably best off going with a serial
mouse (most current clone motherbords give you two serial ports, so you can
dedicate one to this and still have one for the all-important modem). Not only
are the compatibility issues less daunting, but a serial mouse loads the
multitasking system less due to interrupt frequency. Beware that most clone
vendors, being DOS oriented, bundle M-type mice for which UNIX support is
presently spotty, and they may not work with your X. Ignore the adspeak about
dpi and pick a mouse/trackball that feels good to your hand.
When, where and how to buy:
If you're a serious UNIX hacker for either fun or profit, you're probably in
the market for what the mail-order vendors think of as a high-end or even
`server' configuration, and you're going to pay a bit more than the DOS
lemmings. On the other hand, prices keep dropping, so there's a temptation to
wait indefinately to buy. A tactic that makes a lot of sense in this market,
if you have the leisure, is to fix in your mind a configuration and a trigger
price that's just a little sweeter than the market now offers and buy when
that's reached.
Direct-mail buying makes a lot of sense today for anyone with more technical
savvy than J. Random Luser in a suit. Even from no-name mail-order houses,
parts and system quality tend to be high and consistent, so conventional
dealerships don't really have much more to offer than a warm fuzzy feeling.
Furthermore, competition has become so intense that even mail-order vendors
today have to offer not just lower prices than ever before but warranty and
support policies of a depth that would have seemed incredible a few years back.
For example, many bundle a year of on-site hardware support with their medium-
and high-end "business" configurations for a very low premium over the bare
hardware.
Note, however, that assembling a system yourself out of mail-order parts is
*not* likely to save you money over dealing with the mail-order systems
houses. You can't buy parts at the volume they do; the discounts they command
are bigger than the premiums reflected in their prices.
Cruise through "Computer Shopper" and similar monthly ad compendia. Even if
you decide to go with a conventional dealer, this will tell you what *their*
premiums look like.
Another alternative to conventional dealerships (with their designer "looks",
stone-ignorant sales staff, and high overheads that *you* pay for) is to go
with one of the thousands of the hole-in-the-wall stores run by immigrants from
the other side of the International Date Line. They're usually less ignorant
and have much lower overheads; they do for you locally what a mail-order house
would, that is assemble and test parts they get for you from another tier of
suppliers. You won't get plush carpeting or a firm handshake from a white guy
with too many teeth and an expensive watch, but then you didn't really want to
pay for those anyway, right?
A lot of vendors bundle DOS 5.0 and variable amounts of DOS apps with their
hardware. You can tell them to lose all this cruft and they'll shave $50
or $100 off the system price.
Don't forget that (most places) you can avoid sales tax by buying from an
out-of-state mail-order outfit, and save yourself 6-8% depending on where you
live. If you live near a state line, buying from a local outfit you can often
win, quite legally, by having the stuff shipped to a friend or relative just
over it. Best of all is a buddy with a state-registered dealer number; these
aren't very hard to get and confer not just exemption from sales tax but
(often) whopping discounts from the vendors. Hand him a dollar afterwards to
make it legal.
(Note: I have been advised that you shouldn't try either tactic in Florida --
they charge tax on out-of-state mail order and are notoriously tough on "resale
license" holders).
Things to check when buying mail-order:
The weakest guarantee you should settle for should include ---
* 72-hour burn-in to avoid that sudden infant death syndrome.
* 30 day money-back guarantee. Watch out for fine print that weakens this
with a restocking fee or limits it with exclusions.
* 1 year parts and labor guarantee (some vendors give 2 years).
* 1 year of 800 number tech support (many vendors give lifetime support).
Additionally, many vendors offer a year of on-site service free. You should
find out who they contract the service to. Also be sure the free service
coverage area includes your site; some unscrupulous vendors weasel their way
out with "some locations pay extra", which translates roughly to "through the
nose if you're further away than our parking lot".
Reading warranties is an art in itself. A few tips:
Beware the deadly modifier "manufacturer's" on a warranty; this means you have
to go back to the equipment's original manufacturer in case of problems and
can't get satisfaction from the mail-order house. Also, manufacturer's
warranties run from the date *they* ship; by the time the mail-order house
assembles and ships your system, it may have run out!
Watch for the equally deadly "We do not guarantee compatibility". This gotcha
on a component vendor's ad means you may not be able to return, say, a video
card that fails to work with your motherboard.
Another dangerous phrase is "We reserve the right to substitute equivalent
items". This means that instead of getting the high-quality name-brand parts
advertised in the configuration you just ordered, you may get those no-name
parts from Upper Baluchistan --- theoretically equivalent according to the
spec sheets, but perhaps more likely to die the day after the warranty expires.
Substitution can be interpreted as "bait and switch", so most vendors are
scared of getting called on this. Vety few will hold their position if you
press the matter.
One absolute show-stopper is the phrase "All sales are final". This means you
have *no* options if a part doesn't work. Avoid any company with this policy.
There are various cost-cutting tactics a vendor can use which bring down the
system's overall quality. Here are some good questions to ask:
* Is the memory zero-wait-state? One or more wait states allows the vendor to
use slower and cheaper memory but will slow down your actual processor
throughput.
* Is the monitor non-interlaced? Does it have a tilt-and-swivel base? Is it
*color*? Yes, if you don't see it in the ad, ask; some lowball outfits will
try to palm off so-called "black & white VGA" monitors on you. What's the
vertical scan rate? 60Hz is SVGA standard; 72Hz is VESA standard and
minimal for flicker-free operation; 80Hz is cutting-edge. What's the dot
pitch? .31mm is minimal, .28mm or .27mm is good. You need .28mm for X.
A slightly larger dot pitch is acceptable in a larger monitor (15" or more).
* Does the vendor pay for shipping? What's the delivery wait?
* If you need to return your system, is there a restocking fee? and will the
vendor cover the return freight? Knowing the restocking fee can be
particularly important, as they make keep you from getting real satisfaction
on a bad major part. Avoid dealing with anyone who quotes more than a 15%
restocking fee --- and it's a good idea, if possible, to avoid any dealer
who charges a restocking fee at all.
It's a good idea to pay with AmEx or Visa or MasterCard; that way you can
stop payment if you get a lemon, and may benefit from a buyer-protection plan
using the credit card company's clout. However, watch for phrases like "Credit
card surcharges apply" or "All prices reflect 3% cash discount" which mean
you're going to get socked extra if you pay by card.
Which clone vendors to talk to:
I went through the March 1992 issue of Computer Shopper calling vendor 800
numbers with the following question: "Does your company have any
configurations aimed at the UNIX market; do you use UNIX in-house; do
you know of any of the current 386 or 486 ports running successfully
on your hardware?
I didn't call vendors who didn't advertise an 800 number. This was only partly
to avoid phone-bill hell; I figured that toll-free order & info numbers are so
standard in this industry sector that any outfit unable or unwilling to spring
for one probably couldn't meet the rest of the ante either. I also omitted
parts houses with token systems offerings and anybody who wasn't selling
desktops or towers with a 386/33DX or heavier processor inside.
After plundering Computer Shopper, I called up a couple of "name" outfits that
don't work direct-mail and got the same info from them.
The answers I get revealed that for most clone vendors UNIX is barely a blip on
the screen. Only one that I talked to has tested with an SVr4 port. Most seem
barely aware that the market exists. Many seem to rely on their motherboard
vendors to tell them what they're compatible, without actually testing whole
systems. Since most compatibility problems have to do with peripheral cards,
this is a problem.
Here's a summary of the most positive responses I got:
A --- Advertises UNIX compatibility.
C --- Has known UNIX customers.
I --- Uses UNIX in-house.
T --- Have formally tested UNIX versions on their hardware.
F --- Have 486/50 systems
* --- Sounded to me like they might actually have a clue about the UNIX market.
Vendor A C I T F * Ports known to work
--------------- - - - - - - -----------------------------------------------
ARC . . X X . . SCO XENIX 2.3.2, SCO UNIX 3.2.1
AST . X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.4, ODT 2.0 Microport V/4
Allegro . . X X . . SCO XENIX 3.2.4
Altec . X . X . . XENIX (no version given).
Ares . X X X X * AT&T 3.2, ISC (version unknown)
Basic Time . X X X X * SCO XENIX 2.3.2, have in-house UNIX experts.
Binary Tech . X . X X . Claims to work with all versions.
Blue Dolphin . X . X X * SCO XENIX.
CCSI X X . . X . They've used SCO XENIX, no version given.
CIN . X . . . . SCO UNIX (version not specified)
CSS . X . X . * SCO 3.2.2, ISC 3.0, SCO ODT. See Will Harper.
Centrix X . . . . . No specifics on versions.
Compudyne . X X X X . Couldn't get details on which versions.
Comtrade . X . X X . Couldn't get details on which versions.
Datom X X X X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.
Dell X X X X X * See Dell SVr4 data.
Desert Sands X X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2.4
Digitech . X . X . . SCO UNIX 3.2.1, XENIX 2.3.1
EPS X X X X . * SCO XENIX 3.2.4, ISC & AT&T (versions not sp.)
Gateway X X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.0. XENIX 2.3.4 ISC 3.0, ESIX 4.0.3
HD Computer . X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2, SCO XENIX 3.2.2
HiQ . X . X . . SCO UNIX (version not specified)
Infiniti . X . X X . SCO UNIX (versions not specified)
Insight . . X . X . SCO XENIX 3.2.4. No tech support for UNIX
Keydata X . X X X * SCO version 4, ISC 3.2
Legatech . X . . X . SCO UNIX, ISC (versions not specified)
MicroGeneration . . X . . . Uses XENIX.
MicroLab X . . . . . SCO UNIX, SCO XENIX
MicroSmart X X . X . . SCO XENIX (version not specified)
Microlink X . . X X . SCO XENIX (version not specified)
Myoda X X . X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.2, ISC 3.2
Naga . X . X X * SCO & XENIX 3.2.
Northgate X X . X X * SCO UNIX 3.2
PC Brand . X X X . . SCO XENIX, ISC UNIX
PC Professional . X . X . . ISC 3.2
PC-USA X X . X . . ISC 5.3.2 and SCO 3.2
Profex . X . X . . SCO XENIX 3.2.
Royal Computer . X . . X . No details on versions.
SAI X X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2.2.
Santronics . . X X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.4
Solidtech . X . . . . Dell (no version given), ISC 3.2.
Strobe . . . X X . SCO, Microport, ISC (no version numbers given)
Swan X X X X X * SCO 2.3.1, UNIX 3.2, ISC 3.2v2.0.2
TriStar . X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.2, XENIX 2.3.2, ISCr4
Zenon . X . X X * SCO UNIX (version not specified)
Zeos . X X X X * SCO XENIX 3.2.4, AT&T 3.2
Special notes about a few vendors who appear to have a clue:
Ares targets some of its systems for UNIX CAD use. They have a house wizard
name Ken Cooper (everybody calls him "K.C.").
EPS targets some 486 EISA configurations for UNIX.
Though Gateway has a decent reputation overall, there have been several
independent reports on USENET of bus hangs during tape access when Gateway EISA
motherboards are used with an Adaptec 1742 SCSI controller. Gateway is said to
be aware of the problem and working on a fix.
Swan doesn't know the UNIX market very well yet, but their project manager
wants a bigger piece of it and is interested in doing some of the right
things. They have a house wizard, one John Buckwalter.
Dell, of course, supports an industry-leading SVr4 port. They're a bit on
the pricy side, but high quality and very reliable. Lots of UNIX expertise
there; some of it hangs out on the net.
Zeos is planning to come on the net as zeos.com, with a uunet connection. They
will support a UNIX BBS beginning May 1st. They have an in-house UNIX group;
talk to Ken Germann for details.
Special notes about a lot of vendors who appear to have *no* clue:
Vendors where I couldn't get a real person on the line, either because
no one answered the main number or because I couldn't raise anyone at
tech support after being directed there: Sunnytech, Quantex, AMS, USA
Flex, Lapine, Syntax Computer, MicroTough, PAC International, The Portable
Warehouse.
Vendors where the question met with blank incomprehension, puzzlement,
consternation, or "We've never tested with UNIX": Allur, AmtA, Aplus, HiTech,
Locus Digital Products, LodeStar, TriStar Computers, Ultra-Comp, UTI Computers,
PC Turbo Corp, Evertek, Microcomputer Concepts, Jinco Computers, UWE, ToughCom,
System Dynamics Group, Terribly Fast Bus Systems.
Vendors who understood the questions but had no answer: Bulldog Computer
Products, LT Plus, Standard Computer, JCC.
Vendors who said "Yes, we're UNIX-compatible" but had no details of any tests:
CompuCity.
Vendors who said "Go ask our motherboard vendor": Ariel Design, Lucky Computer
Co., V-com, Professional Computer, MicroLine, MileHi.
Vendors who sent me to a toll number: Absec, Hokkins, New Technologies, Mirage.
Vendors that believe they have UNIX customers, but can't be any definite than
that: Austin Computer Systems, PC Professional, Treasure Chest Computer
Systems, CompuAdd Express, FastMicro, MidWest Micro.
Final note:
If you order from these guys, be sure to tell them you're a UNIX customer
and don't need the bundled DOS. This will shave some bucks off the system
price, *and* it may encourage them to pay more attention to the UNIX market.
VI. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES
These tables summarize vendor claims and user reports on which hardware will
work with which port.
To save space in the tables below, we use the following *one-letter*
abbreviations for the OS ports:
S SCO UNIX version 3.2.4
C Consensys UNIX Version 1.2
D Dell UNIX Issue 2.1
E Esix Revision A
M Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX
P Microport System V/4 version 4
U UHC Version 3.6
B BSD/386 (0.3 beta)
X Mach386
A `c' indicates that the hardware is claimed to work in vendor literature.
A `y' indicates that this has been verified by a user report.
A `.' indicates that whether this combination works is unknown.
An `n' indicates that the vendor advises that the combination won't work.
A `*' points you at footnote info.
A blank column indicates that I have received no vendor info on the
hardware category in question.
The following general caveats apply:
* All ports support EGA, VGA, CGA and monochrome text displays.
* All ports support generic ISA serial-port cards based on the 8250 or 16450
UART. According to the vendors, the asy drivers on Dell, Esix, Microport,
BSD/386 and Mach386 support the extended FIFO on the NS16550AFN UART chip.
Indeed, Dell tech support will tell you this feature was present in the
base USL code. UHC says its 2.0 drivers *don't* talk to 16550s but
says that will be fixed in March '92.
* I have not bothered listing ordinary ST-506/IDE/RLL drives, though lists
of them are given in vendor literature. This is a very mature commodity
technology; anything you buy should work with one of the supported
controllers unless it's defective.
* Vendors' supported hardware lists are not models of clarity. Some iterms
may be listed under a couple of different names because I don't know that
they're actually the same beast. I have been very careful not to make
assumptions where I am ignorant; thus, some hardware may appear less
widely supported than it actually is.
* These tables are grossly incomplete.
All the SVr4 systems inherit support for a fairly wide range of hardware from
the base USL code (version 4.0.3 or 4.0.4). This includes:
* All PC disk controllers (ESDI, IDE, ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
* The Adaptec 1542B SCSI adapter. Note: you'll have to jumper your
SCSI devices to fixed IDs during installation on most of these.
* Western Digital's 8013EBT Ethernet card, and its equivalents
the WD8003 and WD8013.
* VGA adapters in 640x480 by 16 color mode.
* "C" protocol serial mice like the Series 7 and Series 9 from Logitech and
the PC-3 mouse from Mouse Systems. See the "HOT TIPS" section for details.
If you can fill in any of the gaps, or convert a `c' to `y', send me email.
S C D E M P U B X Systems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . c . Acer (all 386/486 models)
. . . c ACCELL 486/33 ISA and 386/40 ISA
. c . . ADDA AD-428P-25, Portable 486/25, 486/33, AD-328D-25
. c c . ALR Business VEISA 386/33-101
c . . . ALR (all 386 and 486 models)
c . . . applicationDEC 316,316+,325,325C,333,425,433MP
c . . . Apricot LS, LS 386SX, XEN-S 386
c . . . Arche 486, Master 486/33
. . c . AST (models not specified)
. c c . AST Premium (models not specified)
c . . . AST Premium 386,386/33,486/25T*E*,486/33T*E*
c . c . AT&T 6386 machines
. . c . Compaq (models not specified)
c c c . Compaq DeskPro 386/33.
c . . . Compaq DeskPro 486s/20,486/25/486/33L,386/20,386/25
c . . . Compaq Portable III 386, SystemPro
c y y y y y y . CompuAdd Model 333
c . . . DEC DS486, DECpc 433, DECpc 433T
c . . . DECstation 320,325,425
. y . c . Dell (models not specified)
c . . . EasyData 386 model 333
c . . . Epson Equity 386/20PC,386/25,386SX; Epson PC AX3,AX3/25
. c c . Everex (models not specified)
c . . . Everex 33,386/20,486,486/33
. c c . Gateway (models not specified)
. . c c y Gateway 2000 (486/33 ISA)
. . . y . Gatway 486/25
c . . . Goupil Uniprocessor 25MHz Tower
c . . . GRiDCase 1530,1550SX
. . c c High Definition Systems 486/25 ISA and 386 SX/16 ISA
. y . . High Definition Systems 386/40 ISA
c . . . HP 486 Vectra series
c . . . IBC 486
c . . . ITT 486
c . . . Intel 302
c . . . Mitac 386, MC3100E-02, S500
c . . . Mitsuba 386
c . . . Mitsubishi PC-386
c . . . NCR 316,316SX,3386
c . . . NEC 386/20,486/25, BusinessMate and PowerMate
. c c . Mylex MI-386/20
c . . . Noble 386
c . . . Nokia Alfaskop System 10 m52, m54/55
c . . . Northgate 33
. c c . Northgate 386/33
. y . . . Northgate 486/33
c . . . Olivetti 386/486 machines
c . . . Packard 386x
c . . . PC Craft PCC 2400 386
c . . . Phillips 386, P3464 486
. c c . Primax (models not specified)
c . . . SNI 8800-50, 8810-50, PCD series
c . . . Schneider 386 25-340, 386SX System 70
c . . . Siemens Data Systems Model WX200
c . . . Starstation
c . . . Tandy 4000
c . . . Tatung Force 386x, TCS-8000 386, TCS-8600 386
. c c . Tangent (models not specified)
. y . . Tangent 386/25C
. c y . Tangent 433E (486/33 EISA)
. c c . Televideo (models not specified)
c . . . Televideo 386/25
c . . . Texas Instruments System 1300
c . . . Toshiba T3100,T3200,T5100,T5200,T8500,T8600
. c c . Twinhead (models not specified)
. c c . Unisys (models not specified)
c . . . Unisys PW2 Series 800/16,800/20,800/25
c . . . Victor 386 25, V486T
c . . . Wang MX200, PC 380
c . . . Wyse 386
c . . . Zenith 386 and 486 machines
S C D E M P U B X Motherboards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . AGI
. c . ALR
. c . AMAX
. c . AMI (model not specified)
y c . AMI Enterprise II (33 & 50)
. c . ARC
N . c . Cache Computer
. c . Chips & Technologies chipset
y . c . Chips & Technologies 33DX
c c . Club AT
. c . DataExport
y . c . Dell
. c n . DTK (model not specified)
y . n . DTK 386/33
. . c EISA Tech 80386SX MHz
y . . . Eteq 386
n . . Eteq 486
. c . Free Technology
. c . Microlab
c y c y c Micronics 386/25
c c y c y Micronics 486/33
. c . Mitac
. c . Mylex
y . c . OPTI 486
. c . Orchid
. c . PC-craft
. y . Tangent MAE486/33
Notes:
* These two tables probably way *understate* the compatibility of most ports.
Most ISA or EISA motherboards will work with all of them. However, Jeff
Coffler <coff...@jeck.amherst.nh.us> reports: "I couldn't get the Cache
Computer CPU board to work at all with Dell UNIX, even though they claimed
they work with SCO. Flaky, timing-related failures."
* A source at UHC describes the DTK boards as "dogshit" --- he says they
generate a lot of spurious interrupts that DOS is too cretinous to be
bothered by but which completely tank UNIX. He says DTK seems uninterested
in fixing the problem. Also, Dave Johnson <d...@gradient.com> reports that
since upgrading from a 386 to an Eteq 486, they've had lots of UHC random
panics due to page faults in kernel mode. UHC is looking into this.
S C D E M P U B X SuperVGA Cards Max Res ChipSet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . c y * . . Appian Rendition II ???? TIGA34010
. . . c . . ARC V-16 (Paradise) ???? ????
. . . c c . AT&T VDC 600 (Paradise clone) SVGA ????
. . y . c . . ATI Ultra ???? ????
. . c . c . . ATI Vantage 1280x1024 ????
c . c c n . ATI WonderCard 1280x1024 ????
. . . c c . ATI (type not specified) ???? ????
. . y . . . . Boca SuperVGA ???? ET[34]000
c . . . . . Chips 451 & 456 1024x768 ????
c . . . . . Cornerstone SinglePage 1008x768 ????
c . . . . . Cornerstone PC1280 1280x960 ????
c . . . . . Cornerstone DualPage 1600x1280 ????
. c . . . c Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
. . y . . c . Dell VGA 1024x768 ????
. c y c c y c y Diamond SpeedStar 1024x768 ET4000
. c . . . c EIZO MD-10 800x600 ET3000
c . . . . . Eizo MD-B07 800x600 ????
c . . . . . MD-B10, Extra/EM 1024x768 ????
. . c . . . Everex ViewPoint VRAM SVGA+ ????
. . c . . . Everex ViewPoint True Color SVGA+ ????
. . c . . . Everex UltraGraphics II EV-236 1664x1200 mono
. . . c . c Genoa 5300/5400 ???? ????
c . . . . . Genoa 6000 ???? ????
. c . c . c Genoa 6400 800x600 GVGA
c . c c c . Genoa SuperVGA SVGA ????
c . c c . . Hercules monographics display 720x348 mono
c . . . . . IBM 8514/A 1024x768 ????
. . c . . . MaxLogic SVGA ????
. . . . . c . . Microfield V-8 1280x1024 ????
. . . . . * . . Mylex GXE (EISA) 1280x1024 TIGA34020
. . c . . . Oak Technology OTI-067 1024x768 16, 256
. c . . . c Optima Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
c c y c c c Orchid ProDesigner 800x600 ET3000
. c y y y . y Orchid ProDesigner II/1024 1024x768 ET4000
c . . . . . Paradise VGA Plus 800x600 ????
. c c c c c Paradise VGA Professional 1024x768 PVGA1A
c c c . c . . Paradise VGA 1024 640x480 WD90C00
c . . . . . Paradise 8514/A 1024x768 ????
. . . c . c Renaissance GRX-II VGA ???? ????
c . . . . . Renaissance Rendition II 1024x768 ????
c c y . c . c Sigma Legend 1024x768 ET4000
. . . c c . Sigma VGA/H ???? ????
c . c c c . STB EM-16 VGA SVGA ????
c . . . . . STB Extra/EM 1024x768 ????
. c c c . c STB PowerGraph w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
. c . . . c Swan SVGA with VCO chip 1024x768 ET4000
c . c . . . Tecmar VGA AD SVGA ????
. c . . . c TRICOM Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
. . . c . . Trident SuperVGA ???? ????
c . . . . . Trident TVGA 8900 1024x768 ????
. . . c c . Tseng Labs VGA ???? ????
. . c . . . Vectrix VX1024 (TI-34010) 1024x768 ????
c . . . . . Verticom MX/AT 800x600 ????
c . c c c . Video7 FastWrite VGA 800x600 x2, x16 ????
c . . c c . Video7 VRAM VGA ???? ????
c . . c c . Video7 VEGA VGA EGA 640x380 ????
In this table, an `SVGA' resolution code signifies the following resolutions:
1024x768 at 2 and 16 colors, 800x600 at 2, 16, 256 colors, and 640x480 at 2,
16, 256 colors. SVGA+ adds 1280x1024 at 2 or 16 colors.
Caveats in interpreting the above table:
* All super-VGA cards will work at VGA resolutions and below (that is, resolu-
tions up to 640x480 in 16 colors).
* This list is not exclusive. Many (perhaps even most) dotted combinations
will work; UHC claims that any SVGA based on an ET3000, ET4000, Paradise
or Genoa chip-set will fly, and the same is probably true of all other
vendors (since the SVGA dependencies are localized in X and they're all
porting from the same X sources).
* Consensys's list is just MIT's list of cards certified to work with X11R5;
Consensys is careful to note that they haven't tested all these themselves.
* An Esix reseller says all the TIGA34010-based SVGA cards are pretty much
alike and ESIX will drive any of them. Esix also supports 720x348
resolution on cheap Hercules-compatible monochrome tubes, and the Everex
UltraGraphics display at 1664x1200 resolution.
* UHC says they expect to have the drivers for the ATI WonderCard in place by
mid-March.
* Beware the Trident and Oak chipsets. Many clone vendors bundle these with
their systems because they're cheap, but they break the Roell server and
some other X implementations.
* Third party server technology from companies like MetroLink can support
higher performance, higher resolution TIGA and proprietary technology.
S C D E M P U B X Mice
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . c y y y c (Logitech-compatible) 3-button serial mice (C protocol)
c . . c c n y (Logitech-compatible) 3-button bus mice (C protocol)
. . . c . n . ATI Wonder+ bus-mouse port
c . . . . . . HP C1413A Mouse
. . n c c . n Logitech MouseMan (M+ protocol)
. c y c c c c Logitech Trackman (serial, M+ protocol)
. c y c c n y Logitech Trackman (bus, M+ protocol)
c . . . . . . Logitech hi-res Keyboard Mouse
c . . c c . y Microsoft 2-button (serial, M protocol)
c . . c c n y Microsoft 2-button (bus, M protocol)
c . . . . . . Olivetti Bus Mouse
c . . . . . . Olivetti hi-res Keyboard Mouse
. . . . . . c SummaMouse
c . . . . . . Summagraphics Bitpad
Notes:
* See the discussion of mice at the beginning of this section for details.
* BSD/386 says it supports all 1200-9600 baud serial mice, specifying Logitech
as an example. This is probably true of all vendors.
S C D E M P U B X Multi-port serial cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . . . AMI lamb 4 and 8-port
. . . c c n Arnet (models not specified)
c . . . . . Arnet 2,4 and 8-port and TwinPort
c . . c c n AST 4-port
. . . . c n Central Data
. . . . c n Chase Research
. . c . c n Computone (models not specified)
c . . . . . Computone ATvantage-X 8-port
c . . . . . Comtrol Hostess-4
c . . c c n Comtrol Hostess-8
. c . c y n Consensys PowerPorts
c . . . . . CTC Versanet 4AT and 8AT
c . . . . . Digiboard 4 and 8-port
. . c c c n Digiboard DigiChannel PC/8.
. . c . y n Equinox
. . c . c n Intelliport
c . . . . . Kimtron Quartet 4-port
. . . c c n Maxspeed
c . . . . . Olivetti RS232C Multiport board
. . c . . n OnBoard:32
c . . . . . Quadram QuadPort 1 and 5-port
. . c . c n Specialix
. . c . c n Stallion
. . . . c n Stargate (models not specified)
c . . . . . Stargate OC4400 (4-port) and OC8000 (8-port)
c . . . . . Tandon Quad serial card
. . c . c n Technology Concepts
c . . . . . Unisys 4-port
Notes:
* Only Consensys, Esix and Microport listed multiport cards at all. As these
typically require special device drivers, you should *not* assume that a
board is supported on a particular port unless the vendor explicitly says so.
* MtXinu says they have *no* multiport support right now.
* The Consensys PowerPort card has troubles; see the vendor report on
Consensys for details.
S C D E M P U B X Disk controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . . . Adaptec 2320
c . c c . . Adaptec 2322 (ESDI)
c . . c . . Adaptec ACB 2730C (RLL)
c . y . c . . Adaptec ACB 2732C (RLL)
c . . . . . Adaptec 4525 SCSI ESDI Disk Controller
c . . . . . Compag 32-bit Intelligent Drive Array Controller
c . . . . . Compag 32-bit Intelligent Drive Array Expansion
. . . c . c CCAT100A (IDE)
. . . c . . Chicony 101B
c . . . . . Compag SCSI Option Adapter and Compression Adapter
. . c c . . Data Tech Corp 6280 (ESDI)
. . . c . c DTG 6282-24
. . c c . . Everex EV-346 (ST506)
. . c c . . Everex EV-348 (ESDI)
. . c c . . Everex EV-8120 (IDE)
. . c c . . OMTI 8240 (ST506)
. . . . c . PSI Caching controller (ESDI)
c . . . . . SMS OMTI 8620 and 8627 (ESDI)
. . . c . . Ultrastor ESDI
. . . . c . Ultrastor 12C, 22F
. . . . c c Ultrastor 12F
. . . . n . Ultrastor 22C
. . . c . c Western Digital V-SE2
c c y c c . . Western Digital 1003 (RLL)
c . . . . . Western Digital 1005
c . y c . . Western Digital 1007A (ESDI)
c . c c . . Western Digital 1007SE/2 (ESDI)
. . . c . . Western Digital 1009 SE1
Notes:
* All these ports should support all standard PC hard-disk controllers (ESDI,
IDE,ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
S C D E M P U B X SCSI controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c c y c y c c c c Adaptec 1540, 1542
. . y c c n . . Adaptec 1740,1742 (EISA) (1542 emulation mode)
. . . y . * . . Adaptec 1740,1742 (EISA) (enhanced mode)
. . . c . . . Adaptec 2320/2
. . . c . . . Always IN2000
. . c . . . . Future Domain 1660, 1680, 885, 860
. . . c c . . DPT caching controller (MFM emulation)
. . . . . c . . . DPT caching SCSI controller in SCSI mode
. . c . . . . Everex EV8118/8110
. . c c . . . BusTek BT-542B
. . c c . . . BusTek BT-742A (EISA) (mPort specifies Revision F)
. . . c . . . Mylex DCE (EISA)
. . . . c . . PSI caching controller
. . . c . . . Ultrastor 32k 12u
c . c c c c . . Western Digital WD7000
Notes:
* UHC started shipping a native-mode 1740/1742 driver in mid-April. It
requires a full SCSI-2 tape drive.
* Dell presently supports the Adaptec 1740 in 1542 compatibility mode only.
S C D E M P U B X Network cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . . . . y 3COM EtherLink I 3C501 and 3C502
c . . y c . . c 3COM EtherLink II 3C503
. . . . . . c . 3COM EtherLink 16 (3C507)
. . . c . . . . Everex EV-2015, EV-2016, EV-2026, EV-2027
. . c c c c . c Intel PC-586 aka iMX-LAN/586
. . . . . . c . Novell NE2000
c c c y c c c c c Western Digital WD-8003 and WD-8013 and variations
. . . . c . . n SMC EtherCards
. . . . c c c n WD EtherCard Plus and Elite series
. . c . . . . . WD TokenRing card
Notes:
* Dell's next release should include a 3C503 driver.
S C D E M P U B X Tape drives
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. y c y . c . Archive 2150S (SCSI, QIC-150)
. . c c . . c Archive Viper VP150E
. . . c c . . Archive Viper 60 21116
c . . y c . . Archive Viper 150 21247
c . . c c . . Archive Viper 150 25099
c . . c c . . Archive Viper 2525 25462.
. . . c . . . Archive 60 - 525MB (QIC-02 and SCI)
. . . c . . . Archive 4mm 4520 DAT
. . . c c . . Archive Python models 25501-003, -005 and -008 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Archive Python DDS 4520NT and 4521NT DAT drives
. . . c c . c Archive XL80
. . c c . . . Archive 5580 floppy tape
. . . c c . . Archive 3800
. . . . c . . AT&T KS22762 and KS23495 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Bell Technologies XTC-60
. . c . . . . Caliper CP150
. . . . c . . CDC 92181 and 92185 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Cipher CP-60B, CP-125B
. . c . . . . Cipher ST150S-II
c . . . c . . Cipher ST150S2/90 (SCSI)
. . . c . . . CMS Jumbo - 60MB QIC-40
. . . . c . . Emulex MT02/S1 +CCS INQ (SCSI)
. . c c . . . Everex Excel Stream 60, 125, 150
. . c c . . . Everex5525ES (SCSI)
. . c c . . . Everex EV-811, EV-831, EV-833
c . . c c . . Exabyte EXB-8200 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . HP 35450A (SCSI)
. . . . c . . HP 88780 (SCSI)
. . . . c . . HPCIPHER M990 (SCSI)
. . . . c . . NCR H6210-STD1-01-46C632 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Mountain 8mm Cartridge
. . y . . . . . Sankyo 525ES (SCSI)
. . . . c . . Sony SDT-1000 (SCSI)
. . . c . . . Tallgrass 150 - 525MB SCSI
c . . . . . . Tandberg DQIC (SCSI)
. . . . . . c TUV DAT
. . y . c . . . Wangtek 150SE (SCSI)
. . c c y . . Wangtek 5150ES (SCSI)
. . . c . . . Wangtek 60 - 525MB (QIC 02 and SCSI)
. . . c . . . Wangtek 6130 - HS 4mm DAT.
. . . c c . . Wangtek 5125ES ES41, 5150ES ES41, 5150ES FA0 (SCSI)
. . . c c . . Wangtek 5150ES SCSI-3 (SCSI)
. . . c . c . WangTek 5150PK QIC-02 (QIC-150)
c . y . . . . . Wangtek 5525 (SCSI)
c . . c c . . Wangtek 6130-F (SCSI)
. . . c c . . Wangtek KS23417, KS23465, KS24569 (SCSI)
Notes:
* All SVr4s inherit USL support for QIC-02, QIC-36 1/4", or SCSI tape
interfaces, using QIC-24 (9-track, 60MB), QIC-120 (15-track, 125MB) or
QIC-150 (18-track, 150MB) formats.
* A user says of Dell: it appears that anything using Wangtek QIC02/QIC36
controllers works; this should include the Wangtek 525MB, Cipher ST150S2,
and Archive 2150S drives.
* UHC specifies the following tape controller/drive combinations: Wangtek
PC-36 + Wangtek 5099-EN, Everex 811 + Wangtek 5150-EN, Bell Tech + Wangtek
5150-EN, Archive SC499-R + Archive External FT-60, Archive VP402 + Archive
Viper 2150L, Everex 811 + Archive Viper 2150L, Bell Tech + Archive Viper
2150L, Archive VP402 + Archive Viper 2150L.
* UHC claims that Any floppy tape supporting the QIC-107 physical and QIC-117
logical interface specs and QIC-80 or QIC-40 recording formats should work.
This is probably true of other vendors as well.
* BSDI says it supports any Wangtek 1/4" standard 3M streamer with a
QIC-02 or QIC-36 interface.
* Floppy tapes don't work on Dell; USL provides the support, but it collides
with Dell's code for auto-detecting the density of a diskette.
* SCO's tape compatibility table lists drive/controller pairs; not all drives
listed have been included here. They allege that any QIC-02 drive should
work.
S C D E M P U B X Non-Winchester mass storage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. c . . . Bernoulli 90MB exchangeable SCSI
. . c . Hitachi, Toshiba (models not specified)
. . . c Maxtor RXT-800HS
. c c . Storage Dimensions XSE1-1000S1 optical disk
. c c . SyQuest cartridge media
. c . . . Tandata
. c c c Toshiba TXM-3201A1 CD-ROM
. . c c Toshiba WM-C050
. c c c Toshiba WM-D070 WORM drive
VII. KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE
The most serious problem anyone has reported is that the USL asy driver is
flaky and occasionally drops characters at above 4800 baud.
Microport, Dell, Esix, and UHC say that they believe they've fixed this.
However, Dell, at least, was mistaken when they first made this claim; a more
detailed description of the problem is given below. I have been assured that
this is on the fix list for the next Dell release.
Mark Snitily of SGCS says that under many SVr4s, signalling a process that
is running suid root will cause it to core-dump. Dell and MST have fixed this.
On ISA machines with more that 16MB of RAM, SVr4 may try to do DMA
from outside the bus's address space, causing serious problems. UNIX ought
to do an in-memory copy to within the low 16MB but the USL base code doesn't.
Dell says they've fixed this, and that's been confirmed by a user.
UHC says they've fixed this; they add that the special buffer-allocation
logic to handle the problem can be turned off with a tunable kernel parameter
if you've got less than 16M.
Microport says they've fixed this in their new 4.1 release, shipping early
March.
Esix offers a patch to correct this problem.
Stock USL code is limited to 1,024 cylinders per Winchester, which
might cause problems with a few very large disk drives.
Microport, Dell, Esix, and UHC have fixed this. MST has not.
The shmat(2) call is known to interact bady with vfork(2). Specifically,
if you attach a shared-memory segment, vfork(), and then the child releases
the segment, the parent loses it too! Workaround; use fork(2). UHC and
Microport both suspect that they still have this bug and opine that anyone
who uses vfork deserves to lose. Dell has no plans to fix it.
Stock X11R4 hogs the processor if you use the LOCALCONNECT option. UHC
says their server has been successfully optimized for speed and quotes
48,000 xstones.
In stock USL 4.0.3, you can't use a UFS file system as the root; the
system hangs if you try. Dell, Esix, Microport, MST and UNIX have fixed this.
David Aitken, the UNIX product manager at UHC, writes "The ufs as root file
system [problem] was not really a bug, just a little oversight on USL's part -
we have fixed it completely by adding one line to the /stand/boot script:
rootfstype=ufs!" He adds that they've been using ufs on their lab machines for
over 10 months with no trouble, and the latest UHC release defaults to ufs if
you have more than 120MB of disk.
David Wexelblat <d...@mtgzfs3.att.com> reports: "There is a HUGE security
hole in /bin/login in all USL derived SVR4s before 4.0.4. Refer to CERT
advisory CA-91:08, dated 5/23/91. This is known to be present in AT&T SVR4
2.1, and Microport SVR4 3.1. ESIX claims to have fixed it, Microport reports
that it is fixed in 4.1. I won't give any more details unless necessary.
Suffice to say that this bug allows any non-privileged user on an SVR4 system
to get read-write access to any file on the system."
A source at Dell urges: "Our SVR4v2 did some stuff that USL didn't get
around to until SVR4v4. Try Dell UNIX 2.1 with a COFF program on a large UFS
filesystem in a directory with long names. Runs on Dell UNIX. Breaks on
others." I don't have more definite info yet.
Dell reports that USL's Wangtek device driver is seriously flaky. "How'd
you like a multi volume backup where the second and subsequent volumes don't
follow on from the previous volumes?" UHC confirms this and is actively
working on the problem.
A botch in Dell's /etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/space.c (which may also be
present in other SVr4s) can step on the linesw[] table. The problem is
that the domain name array initialization is wrong and too short; thus,
when it's set, data past the end of the array can be stomped. To fix this,
find the following near line 247:
char srpc_domain[] = SRPC_DOMAIN;
and change it to
char srpc_domain[256] = SRPC_DOMAIN;
then rebuild the kernel. The value 256 is not magic; you just want to make
sure the array is sufficiently large to contain your domain name.
Ed Hall <edh...@rand.org> writes: "Unlike the raw read() system call,
fread() is supposed to be able to make several partial read's to satisfy the
data requested by its arguments. The exceptions are an EOF or an error on the
stream. This characteristic is quite useful when moving data through pipes or
over network connections, since partial reads are quite common in these cases.
Well, the version of fread() in ESIX 4.0.3 (and likely other Sys5R4's) only
does a single physical read, and if it only satifies part of the requested
number of bytes, that's all you get. This can sting you even if you carefully
check the value returned by fread(), since the value returned is rounded down
to the number of complete "nitems" read, although your position in the stream
can be up to size-1 bytes beyond that point. Neither ferror() nor feof()
indicate anything is wrong when this happens."
This bug (which is also present in 4.0.4) is serious and nasty and should
be high on every porting house's list to fix.
A USL source claims it has been fixed in 4.1.
SCSI SUPPORT PROBLEMS:
Sar -d doesn't work on SCSI drives. No report of anyone having fixed
this yet.
Stock USL requires you to jumper your SCSI devices to fixed IDs
during installation (it can be changed to any other ID after).
Dell and UHC have fixed this. The requirement is definitely still present
in Esix.
David Wexelblat <d...@mtgzfs3.att.com> reports: "Stock SVR4.0.3 will hang
the SCSI bus with a 1542 in synchronous mode. Dell fixed this, and this has
been given to Microport [ed note: MST UNIX and Esix 4.0.3 still have this
problem; I have not yet been able to determine if ESIX 4.0.4 does]. In the
file /sbin/bcheckrc, change the line:
echo MARK > /dev/rswap
to
echo MARK | dd of=/dev/rswap bs=512 conv=sync > /dev/null 2>&1
The magic is apparently the conv=sync, which forces a 512 byte block
to be written. The original echo writes 4 bytes, which apparently causes
synchronous SCSI to go out to lunch.
Now, you ask, how can I fix this, since the system won't boot? There are
a couple of methods. First, if possible, disable synchronous negotiation
(1542 jumper J5-1 removed, plus whatever you may need to do to your drive).
Then boot up, edit /sbin/bcheckrc, then shutdown, restrap for synchronous,
then reboot. Everything should be OK.
That's the easy way. Unfortunately, some hard drives will only work
in synchronous mode. Well, you can still recover from this phenomenon.
Here's how:
1) Install on your hard drive
2) Boot from the first boot floppy. When it tells you to, insert
the second boot floppy. At the first prompt, hit <DEL> to
break out to a shell.
3) Mount your hard drive under /mnt with the following command
(replace FS-TYPE with s5, s52, or ufs, whichever you used for
for your root partition):
/etc/fs/FS-TYPE/mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 /mnt
4) Now edit /mnt/sbin/bcheckrc:
ed /mnt/sbin/bcheckrc
You may want the 'ed' man page handy (I barely remember how to
to use 'ed' :->). For simplicity, you can delete/comment out
the offending line, then replace it with the correct line later.
5) Unmount the hard drive:
umount /mnt
6) Reboot from the hard drive. Everything should come up OK. and
you can finish editing /sbin/bcheckrc, if necessary.
Note that you perform these actions at your own risk. The first version was
performed by me on Microport SVR4, and the second was performed by someone
else (on my suggestion) on ESIX SVR4."
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS PROBLEMS:
The BSD compatibility libraries were badly broken in USL code. A Dell
source adds "That meant that almost all the apps derived from them were broken
too. Most stuff like automount will die when you send a SIGHUP, instead of
rereading the map file. You can get a system into very strange states when
that happens." Esix and UHC's BSD libraries are USL stock. I don't yet know
the status of other ports. Microport has run into things they think may be
symptoms of this but have no fix yet.
A different source reports that the the USL implementatation of BSD signals
is broken; in particular, the sigvec() family doesn't work properly. It is
possible to make minor tweaks to source to make such apps work properly
with the native USL signals implementation.
There are also persistent rumors of problems in the BSD-emulation string
libraries. I have not been able to pin down specifics on this, but Ron
Guilmette <r...@ncd.com> writes "This fact may be easily demonstrated by
attempting to build and link the GNU C compiler with `-L/usr/ucblib -lucb'.
The resulting compiler will most certainly crash and die."
Ronald Guilmette <r...@ncd.com> also reports the following:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Here is a bug in the original SVR4 C compiler (aka C Issue 5) which
effectively prevents you from making good use of the `const' and
`volatile' qualifiers defined by ANSI C in conjunction with pointer
types and typedef statements. Compile this code and you will get:
"qualifiers.c", line 23: left operand must be modifiable lvalue: op "="
...if your copy of the svr4 C compiler still has the bug. Note that
given these declarations, the ANSI C standard say that the thing pointed
to by the variable `pci' should be considered to be constant... not the
variable `pci' itself. (The GCC compiler, either version 1.x or version
2.x, correctly compiles this example without complaint.)
*/
typedef const int *ptr_to_const_int;
ptr_to_const_int pci;
int i;
void main ()
{
pci = &i;
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Here is a subtle bug in the original SVR4 C compiler (aka C Issue 5)
which prevents you from first declaring a tagged type (i.e. a struct
type or a union type) in a parameter list, and then defining that tagged
type later on within the same scope. (Note that according to the ANSI C
standard, the scope in which parameters get declared and the outermost
block of a function body are one and the same scope. Thus, this really
is legal ANSI C code!)
Try compiling this with your C compiler on SVR4. If your compiler still
has the bug, you will get:
"tagged_type.c", line 24: warning: dubious tag declaration: struct S
"tagged_type.c", line 28: warning: improper member use: i
"tagged_type.c", line 28: warning: improper member use: i
"tagged_type.c", line 31: warning: dubious tag declaration: struct S
"tagged_type.c", line 35: warning: improper member use: i
"tagged_type.c", line 35: warning: improper member use: i
(The GCC compiler also had this bug in version 1.x, but it has been fixed
in version 2.x.)
*/
void foobar1 (arg) /* use old-style without prototypes */
struct S *arg;
{
struct S { int i; }; /* define the type `struct S' */
arg->i = arg->i; /* legal according to ANSI C rules! */
}
void foobar2 (struct S *arg) /* use new-style with prototypes */
{
struct S { int i; }; /* define the type `struct S' */
arg->i = arg->i; /* legal according to ANSI C rules! */
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Here is a serious bug in the original SVR4 `dump' program which dumps
out parts of object files in either plain hex form or symbolically.
To see the `dump' program get a segfault and die, save this code under
the name `dump-bug.c' and then do:
cc -g -c dump-bug.c
dump -v -D dump-bug.o
The bug arises whenever `dump' tries to read Dwarf debugging information
for an array of pointers to any "user defined" type (e.g. `struct S' in
this example). Past that point, `dump' is totally confused, so further
Dwarf debugging information finally causes it to go belly-up.
*/
struct S { int i; };
struct S *array[10];
int j;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FUBYTE BUG:
(Thanks to Christoph Badura <b...@flatlin.ka.sub.org> for this info)
The kernel function fubyte() is documented to return a positive value when
given a valid user space address and -1 otherwise. In the latter case u.u_error
is set to EFAULT. USL SysV R4.0.3 has a sign extension bug in the
implementation of fubyte() for local file descriptors (i.e. not opened via
RFS), which causes fubyte() to return negative values if the byte fetched has
its high bit set. This bug doesn't affect STREAMS drivers, as they don't call
(and in fact are normally unable to call) fubyte(). Thus writing a byte with
the high bit set to certain character device drivers returns with -1 and errno
set to EFAULT.
The bug may affect any character device driver that calls fubyte(). It's not
limited to serial card drivers. The bug is noticed most often with serial card
drivers, since uucp uses byte values > 127 very early during g-protocol setup
and drivers for serial cards tend to use fubyte() quite often.
Note also that the bug's effect is different if the driver checks for a -1
return value of fubyte() or just a negative one. In the former case it is
possible to pass bytes with the 8 bit set through fubyte(), except for 0xff
which is -1 in two's complement. That makes the bug more obscure.
The fix is easy. First, make a backup copy of the kernel object file
/etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o! A disassembly of vm.o(lfubyte) should reveal
*exactly* one mov[s]bl (move byte to long w/sign extend). That one needs to be
patched into a movzbl (zero extend). The difference is one bit in the second
byte of the opcode.
The movsbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011111w mod/rm-byte.
The movzbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011011w mod/rm-byte.
The 'w' bit is 0 for the instruction in question. So the opcodes are 0f be and
0f b6. Here is the diff -c from dis -F lfubyte showing the patch applied to
the Dell 2.1 kernel:
*** vm.o Mon Mar 9 00:31:38 1992
--- vm.o.org Mon Mar 9 00:32:40 1992
***************
*** 22,28 ****
11c90: 85 c0 testl %eax,%eax
11c92: 75 09 jne 0x9 <11c9d>
11c94: 8b 45 08 movl 8(%ebp),%eax
! 11c97: 0f b6 00 movzbl (%eax),%eax
11c9a: 89 45 fc movl %eax,-4(%ebp)
11c9d: c7 05 d8 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 movl $0x0,0x13d8
11ca7: 83 3d dc 13 00 00 00 cmpl $0x0,0x13dc
--- 22,28 ----
11c90: 85 c0 testl %eax,%eax
11c92: 75 09 jne 0x9 <11c9d>
11c94: 8b 45 08 movl 8(%ebp),%eax
! 11c97: 0f be 00 movsbl (%eax),%eax
11c9a: 89 45 fc movl %eax,-4(%ebp)
11c9d: c7 05 d8 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 movl $0x0,0x13d8
11ca7: 83 3d dc 13 00 00 00 cmpl $0x0,0x13dc
Of course there is a workaround at the driver level. Canonically, one would do
this by checking for fubyte() returning -1 *and* u.u_error being set to EFAULT
(u.u_error is cleared upon entering a system call). However, in R4.0.3
fubyte() does NOT set u.u_error. It *does* set u.u_fault_catch.fc_errno.
Cristoph reports that Dell V.4 can be object-patched successfully to fix this.
I do not know the status of the other ports.
Another poster (Marc Boucher <m...@cam.org>) adds:
On ESIX SVR4.0.3 Rev. A, the instruction movsbl in question can be changed to
movzbl (as described above) with a binary-editor on file
/etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o. At offset 0x11eb0, change 0xbe to 0xb6.
Before patching, verify that your /etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o is the same as
mine! On my system, the /bin/sum generated checksum of vm.o was "4440 222".
VIII. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS:
As a potential customer for one of the SVr4 ports, it's to my advantage to
have everybody in this market competing against one another as hard as
possible. Accordingly, some free advice to vendors, which I'm broadcasting to
all of them and the public so as to put just that much more pressure on each
vendor. :-)
SCO:
You have a serious image problem with many hackers which you've exacerbated
recently by falling behind the SVr4 leading edge and then engaging in what
certainly appears to be an attempt to sucker careless buyers with deceptive
product naming. But the reaction to this wouldn't be nearly so vehement if
it didn't come on top of years of discontent with more technical choices.
There's too much stuff in the SCO kernel and admin tools that's different from
USL and *not better*; too much stuff that raises weird little compatibility
problems that shouldn't be there. Verbum sap.
Everybody but SCO:
SCO's documentation set is to die for, and they add a lot of value over the
base UNIX with things like ODT DOS and CodeView. Only Dell comes even close to
matching SCO in the nifty add-ons department, and even they have a lot of room
for improvement. If you want to compete with them, you have to be *better*;
this means (at minimum) supporting a windowing debugger and ISAM libraries and
embedded SQL and DOS support that goes beyond 2.0.
Consensys:
Fix the Powerports bugs everyone is reporting. They're doing you real
damage. Nobody expects real support from an outfit selling at $1000 below
market average, but you've *got* to make your own hardware work right or look
like idiots.
Beyond this, I think you have a serious attitude problem. So far, you're
the only outfit out of eight to refuse to divulge information for the
comparison tables. While you have a perfect right to do so, it smells bad ---
as though you think you have weaknesses to hide. I tried to discuss this with
your VP of sales (Gary Anderson) and got back very little but evasions,
suit-speak, defensiveness, and attempts to divert me from the issues (and I
don't mind admitting that the conversation made me pretty angry and didn't end
very pleasantly). This man's behavior is all too consistent with reports of
Consensys's dismissive behavior towards customers and continued refusal to
acknowledge technical problems.
In this corner of the industry we have a tradition of collegiality, mutual
trust, informality, and candor. If you plan to be here for the long haul, you
need to learn how to work with that rather than fighting it. Behaving like IBM
will only get you hammered.
Consensys and Esix:
Get a real support address. Bang-path accessibility doesn't impress anyone
any more --- in fact, it looks faintly quaint. You guys ought to be
supp...@everex.com and supp...@consensys.com to follow the simple and logical
convention Dell and Microport and UHC have established.
Dell:
Don't get fat and lazy. You've got the lead in this market at the moment
and you've got the money and resources to keep it, *if* you use them. If you
staff up your UNIX support operation so customers don't get pissed off by
infinite hold, *and* keep your prices the lowest in the upper tier, no one will
be able to touch you. Don't let Microport et al. get ahead of you in releases
and new technology, and try to reverse that creeping corporatitis (the
no-comment-on-unreleased-products policy is a bad sign).
Everybody but Dell:
Offer all the free software Dell does --- and *more*. All it will cost you
is the media, right? Even if you have to plaster CONTRIBUTED SOFTWARE, NOT
SUPPORTED on it, include perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs, gdb, mush, patch,
compress, etc on your distribution tapes. Heck, include some *games*.
Nethack, empire, zork, stuff like that. Your engineers use and play with all
this in-house anyhow, yes? And you're selling to guys just like your
engineers. They'll love you for it. Trust me.
Set up a `sales' address to take product queries if you don't already have
one.
Set up an 800 number for tech support. Support customers hate spending time
on hold, and they hate it like poison when they have to *pay* for the hold
time. The more overloaded your support staff is, the more important this
gets. Verbum sap.
Esix:
You're *boring*. You seem to make a decent product, but there's nothing
I've seen about Esix that'd make me say "I might want to buy Esix because...".
Position yourselves; pick something like price or support quality or
reliability or add-on features and push it hard. Warning: if you decide to
push support, *hire more engineers*. Your rep for following up on support
problems is bad enough that your "unlimited free support" ain't much of a draw.
Esix, MST, UHC:
Get 800 numbers for product info, too.
MST:
Set up a supp...@mst.com alias to your cs address, see above. What would
that take, a whole five minutes? :-)
If you don't start planning for 4.0.4 now, you'll get left behind this
spring and early summer whan all the other vendors move to it.
On present trends, your software prices are cheap enough; you'd probably
get more sales mileage out of pulling down the hardware prices for your
pre-configured systems.
Everybody but MST and Microport:
Set up a `sales' alias to your info and orders email address. A universal
convention for this means just one less detail prospective customers need to
remember.
Microport:
Your complete system is way overpriced relative to what other vendors in the
top tier are selling. If I were a corporate customer, there is no *way* I
could justify spending the $1K or $2K premium over Dell's price --- not when
Dell has the rep it does for quality and features. You aren't offering
anything but a crippled copy of JSB Multiview to justify that premium and
that ain't enough.
There's some evidence that you've got a technical lead on the competition.
Push it; push it *hard*. You're first off the blocks with 4.0.4; keep that up,
be first out with a stable 4.0.5. Market yourselves as the leading-edge
outfit, court the hard-core wizards as their natural ally, detail somebody
who's fluent in English as well as C to listen and speak for you on USENET, and
keep the promises you make there.
UHC:
You've decided to push support; that's good, but follow through by getting
that 800 number. Don't lose those small-company virtues of candor and
flexibility, trade on them. Your policy of having all techs clear up to the
product manager take turns on the support lines is a damned good idea, stick
with it. And I'm sufficiently impressed with what I've heard from your guys
that I think you might be able to fight Microport for the friend-to-wizards
mantle, too. Maybe you should try.
Everybody except BSDI:
BSD/386 include *sources*. For *everything*. Be afraid; be very afraid.
In effect, this recruits hundreds of eager hackers as uncompensated development
and support engineers for BSDI. Don't fool yourselves that the results are
necessarily going to be unfocused, amateur-quality and safe to ignore --- it
sure didn't work that way for gcc or Emacs. The rest of you will have to work
that much harder and smarter to stay ahead of their game.
BSDI:
Don't you get complacent either. The 386BSD distribution is breathing
down *your* neck...
The most effective things you can do to to seriously compete with SVr4
vendors are: a) emphasize standards conformance --- POSIX, FIPS, XPG3, etc.,
and b) follow through on your support promises. Just another flaky BSDoid
system isn't really very interesting except to hobbyists, even with sources ---
but if it were proven a reliable cross-development platform it could capture
a lot of hearts and minds among commercial software designers.
I think the absence of Korn shell hurts you (at any rate *I* find it a
significant negative). Fortunately there's an easy workaround; FSF's bash(1).
Port it and support it.
Everybody:
Do something about your product names! Even the cases that don't appear
to be deliberate deception are very confusing to the customer. If you're
releasing an enhanced 4.0.3 or 4.0.4 that's what you ought to *call* it. I
recommend:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.2 --> Consensys UNIX 4.0.3 revision 1.2
Dell UNIX Issue 2.1 --> Dell UNIX 4.0.3 revision 2.1
Esix Revision A --> Esix UNIX 4.0.3 revision A
MST SVr4 UNIX --> MST UNIX 4.0.3
Microport System V/4 version 4 --> Microport UNIX 4.0.4
UHC Version 3.6 --> UHC UNIX 4.0.3 revision 6
The fact is, all these idiosyncratic version-numbering systems do you no
good and considerable harm. At worst, they make it look like you're trying to
pull a scam by deceiving people about the level of the base technology. At
best, they parade your internal revision number (which conveys no useful
information unless one is an existing customer considering an upgrade already)
and obscure the really important information. Do your product differentiation
elsewhere, in substance rather than nomenclature; it's not useful here.
You're *all* badly understaffed in support engineering, and it shows. Boy
does it show --- in poor followup, long hold times, and user gripes. The first
outfit to invest enough to offer really first-class quick-response support is
going to eat everyone else's lunch. Wouldn't you like to be it?
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI
Some of the material in this posting was originally assembled by Jason
Levitt <ja...@cs.utexas.edu> of "Open Systems Today". Grateful acknowledgement
is made to him for permission to re-distribute and update this information.
Many netters sent me email contributing technical information, feedback,
and comment. Thanks to all. It's in combinations of individual mission and
collective cooperation like this one that the net really shines, and I'm
grateful to everybody who's worked with me to improve the signal/noise ratio.
The level of cooperation I've experienced from vendors' program managers,
techies and marketing people since the first issue has generally been
outstanding. Particular high marks go to Jeremy Chatfield at Dell, Kristen
Axline at Microport, and David Aitken at UHC, with very honorable mentions to
Jeff Ellis at Esix and Rob Kolstad at BSDI. By cooperating intelligently with
this FAQ, they've done a great job of serving the market and representing their
corporate interests.
One dishonorable mention goes to Gary Anderson, V.P of sales at Consensys
and the only person I've encountered who's behaved like the classic stereotype
of the slippery, stonewalling marketroid. An impression of this kind is
exactly what Consensys needs to solve their credibility problems...NOT!
So far, I've found that the technical merit of each of these eight products
(insofar as I have data to judge; I haven't used any of them yet) seems to
correlate pretty well with the degree of cooperation I've received. I wasn't
explicitly expecting this result, but I'm not surprised by it either.
I'm already planning the logical next step; a competitive review of UNIX
on high-end clone hardware, "The Great UNIX Dream Machines Bake-Off". Watch
for it soon on a screen near you!
--
Send your feedback to: Eric Raymond = e...@snark.thyrsus.com
Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,news.answers
Subject: 386 UNIX and clone hardware buyer's FAQ
Summary: One-stop buyer's guide to commercial UNIX versions on the 386/486
Also includes tips on how and where to buy hardware for your UNIX.
Message-ID: <1gdpTw#8QQHjx5DmgOr0Kf3dR6YfHvC=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: 1 Jun 92 22:12:45 GMT
Expires: 31 Aug 92 23:00:00 GMT
Sender: e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Followup-To: comp.unix.sysv386
Lines: 3062
Approved: news-answers-requ...@MIT.Edu
Archive-name: 386-buyers-faq
Last-update: Mon Jun 1 11:49:45 EDT 1992
Version: 4.0
You say you want cutting-edge hacking tools without having to mortgage the
wife'n'kids? You say arrogant workstation vendors are getting you down? You
say you crave fast UNIX on cheap hardware, but you don't know how to go about
getting it? Well, pull up a chair and take the load off yer feet, bunky,
because...
This is v4.0 of the 386 UNIX and clone-hardware buyer's FAQ posting current to
June 1st 1992.
0. CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION. What this posting is. How to help improve it. Summary of
the 386/486 UNIX market, including 6 SVr4 vendors and 2 BSD ports. What's new
in this issue.
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. A brief discussion of general hardware
requirements and compatibility considerations in the base SVR4 code from UNIX
Systems Laboratories (referred to below as the USL code). None of this
automatically applies to SCO or the two BSD-like versions, which break out the
corresponding information into their separate vendor reports.
III. FEATURE COMPARISON. A feature table which gives basic price & feature
info and summarizes differences between the versions.
IV. VENDOR REPORTS. Detailed descriptions of the different versions and
vendors, including information collected from the net on bugs, supported
and unsupported hardware and the like.
V. HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS. Useful general tips for anybody buying
clone hardware for a UNIX system. Overview of the market. Technical points.
When, where, and how to buy.
VI. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES. A set of tables summarizes vendor claims
and user reports on hardware compatibility.
VII. KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE. A discussion of bugs known or believed to
be generic to the USL code, with indications as to which vendors have fixed
them. None of this applies to the two BSD-based versions.
VIII. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS. Your humble editor's soapbox. An open letter
to the UNIX vendors designed to get them all hustling to improve their products
and services as fast as possible.
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI. Credit where credit is due. Some praises
and pans. What comes next....
I. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this posting is to pool public knowledge and USENET feedback
about all leading-edge versions of UNIX for commodity 386 and 486 hardware. It
also includes extensive information on how to buy cheap clone hardware to
support your UNIX.
This document is maintained and periodically updated as a service to the net by
Eric S. Raymond <e...@snark.thyrsus.com>, who began it for the very best
self-interested reason that he was in the market and didn't believe in plonking
down several grand without doing his homework first (no, I don't get paid for
this, though I have had a bunch of free software and hardware dumped on me as a
result of it!). Corrections, updates, and all pertinent information are
welcomed at that address.
This posting is periodically broadcast to the USENET group comp.unix.sysv386
and to a list of vendor addresses. If you are a vendor representative, please
check the feature chart and vendor report to make sure the information on your
company is current and correct. If it is not, please email me a correction
ASAP. If you are a knowledgeable user of any of these products, please send me
a precis of your experiences for the improvement of the feedback sections.
What's new in this issue:
* Lots more on avoid the shaft when buying hardware.
* Yet more peripherals compatibility info.
* Lots more technical info on SCO.
* Minor corrections to Linux info.
* Some info on Coherent
At time of writing, here are the products in this category:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.2 abbreviated as "Cons" below
Dell UNIX Issue 2.1 abbreviated as "Dell" below
Esix Revision A abbreviated as "Esix" below
Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX abbreviated as "MST" below
Microport System V/4 version 4 abbreviated as "uPort" below
UHC Version 3.6 abbreviated as "UHC" below
SCO Open DeskTop 1.1 abbreviated as "ODT" below
BSD/386 (0.3 beta) abbreviated as "BSDI" below
Mach386 abbreviated as "Mach" below
The first six of these are ports of AT&T's System V Release 4. Until very
recently there was a seventh, by Interactive Systems Corporation. That product
was canned after half of ISC was bought by SunSoft, evidently to clear the
decks for Solaris 2.0 (a SunOS port for the 386 to be released late in
1992). The only Interactive UNIX one can buy at present is an SVr3.2 port
which I consider uninteresting because it's no longer cutting-edge; I have
ignored it.
Earlier issues ignored SCO because (a) 3.2 isn't leading-edge any more and (b)
their `Release 4' is a 3.2 sailing under false colors. Can you say deceptive
advertising? Can you say bait-and-switch? Can you say total marketroid-puke?
However, the clamor from netters wanting it included was deafening. The day
SCO landed an unsolicited free copy of ODT on my doorstep I gave in. I don't
expect to actually use it, but I summarize the relevant facts along with
everything else below. Note that ODT is their full system with networking and
X windows; what they call SCO UNIX is missing most of those trimmings.
BSD/386 is *not* based on USL code, but on the CSRG NET2 distribution tape.
Complete sources are included with every system shipped! Mach386 is basically
BSD tools with the monolithic Mach 2.5 kernel and does entail a USL license;
it's based on the Tahoe BSD distribution. For a few extra bucks, you can
get Mach 3.0 (a true microkernel) with *source*!.
LynxOS is a 386 UNIX specialized for real-time work, available from Lynx
Real-Time Systems Inc. of Los Gatos, California. It includes TCP/IP, NFS, X,
etc. Most of the development tools are GNU. The kernel is pre-emptable and
supports threads and dynamically-loased device drivers.
Siemens AG plans to offer a SVr4 port optimized for real-time work in
June 1992. This product will be called SORIX.
AT&T's own 386 UNIX offering is not covered here because it is available and
supported for AT&T hardware only.
All the vendors listed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but they'll be
sticky about it except where there's an insuperable hardware compatibility
problem or you trip over a serious bug. One (UHC) charges a 25% restocking fee
on returns. BSDI offers a 60-day guarantee and says: "If a customer is
dissatisfied with the product, BSDI unconditionally refunds the purchase
price."
There are some freeware alternative UNIXes available for the 386/486. None of
these are yet complete and mature hacking environments, but they show promise
(and require much less in minimum hardware to run). They are:
386BSD:
Under development by Bill & Lynne Jolitz & friends (this is the same 386BSD
project described in Dr. Dobbs' Journal some time back). This OS is based on
the NET/2 tape from Berkeley and strongly resembles the commercial BSD/386
release described below, and like it is distributed with full source. The aim
is to produce a full POSIX-compliant freeware BSD UNIX. At the moment it comes
up single-user in root, and utilities as basic as grep are still missing.
However, the whole kernel is working (which means the hard part is done) and
development is proceeding rapidly. There's a lot of traffic in comp.unix.bsd
about this project.
Linux:
This is a POSIX-emulating UNIX lookalike, being written from scratch
and currently in beta. At the moment, it's less complete than 386BSD because
it doesn't leverage as much pre-existing code, but the kernel and development
tools are up and usable. Linux is changing so fast that more description would
probably be more misleading than enlightening. There's an active linux group
om USENET, comp.os.linux, and a (now less active) linux-activists mailing list;
to subscribe, mail to "linux-activists-reque...@niksula.hut.fi". Up-to-the
minute info is also available by fingering torva...@kruuna.helsinki.fi.
Hurd:
This is the long-awaited and semi-mythical GNU kernel. It's being worked on
by the Free Software Foundation (the people who brought you emacs, gcc, gdb and
the rest of the GNU tool suite) but it's not ready for prime time yet. It's
said to be a set of processes layered over a Mach 3.0 kernel. The 386BSD and
Linux developments both lean heavily on GNU tools.
There is one other not-quite-freeware (cheapware?) product that deserves a
mention:
Minix:
This is a roughly V7-compatible UNIX clone for Intel boxes, sold
with source by Prentice-Hall for $169 (there's an associated book for
a few bucks more). It's really designed to run in 16-bit mode on 8086
and 286 machines, though the UK's MINIX center offers a 32-bit kernel.
UUCP and netnews clones are available as freeware but not supplied
with the base system. A large international community is involved in
improving Minix; see comp.os.minix on USENET for details.
These freeware and "cheapware" products exert valuable pressure on the
commercial vendors. Someday, they may even force AT&T to unlock source to stay
competitive...
Finally, there is a class of commercial UNIX clones that claim to emulate UNIX
or improve on it without being derived from AT&T source. The leading products
of this kind for 80x86 machines seem to be Coherent and QNX. The following
information about these has been supplied by various USENETters:
COHERENT is a small-kernel UNIX-compatible multi-user, multi-tasking
development O/S for $99.95 that uses less than 14Mb of disk space, runs on most
286-386-486 CPU systems, has a 64k limit C compiler and over 230 UNIX commands
including text processing, program development, administrative and maintenance
functions. It resides on a partition separate from DOS and can access the DOS
file system with the DOS command. It has no network or Xwindows support, but
cnews and rn have been ported and it has its own newsgroup, comp.os.coherent.
It is fully documented with both a comprehensive 1200 page manual and an
on-line manual. Mark Williams Company provides excellent support including a
UUCP access BBS and has just announced Release 4.0, the 386 version of
COHERENT.
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
To run any of this systems, you need at least the following: 4 MB of RAM and
80MB of hard disk. However, this is an absolute minimum; you'll want at least
8 MB of RAM for reasonable performance. And depending on options installed,
the OS will eat from 40 to 120 meg of the disk, so you'll want at least 200 meg
for real work. To run X you'll need a VGA monitor and card, and 12-16MB RAM
would be a good idea.
Installation from these systems requires that you boot from a hi-density
floppy (either 3.5" or 5.25"). Most vendors offer the bulk of the system on a
QIC 1/4-inch tape; otherwise you may be stuck with loading over 60 diskettes!
In general, if the initial boot gets far enough to display a request for
the first disk or tape load, you're in good shape.
All SVr4s conform to the following software standards: ANSI X3.159-1989 C,
POSIX 1003.1, SVID 3rd edition, FIPS 151-1, XPG3, System V ABI, and iBCS-2.
The SVr4 C compiler (C Issue 5) includes some non-ANSI extensions. SCO meets
all these except System V ABI and SVID 3rd edition; however, it does conform to
SVID 2nd edition.
All SVr4 versions include support for BSD-style file systems with 255-character
segment names and fragment allocation. In general this is a Good Thing, but
some SVr3.2 and XENIX binaries can be confused by the different size of
the inode index. You need to run these on an AT&T-style file system. SCO
UNIX 3.2v4 (thus, ODT 2.0 but not 1.1) has an `AFS' file system which adds
symlinks and long filenames. Old SCO binaries can be confused by long
filenames.
All SVr4 versions include the UNIX manual pages on-line. Dell stocks
Prentice-Hall's SVr4 books and will sell them to you with your system (in lieu
of printed manuals) at extra cost. You can order them direct from
Prentice-Hall at (201)-767-5937. Warning: they ain't cheap! Buying the whole
13 volumes will cost you a couple hundred bucks. Esix, Microport and UHC
have their own manual sets derived from the same AT&T source tapes as the
Prentice-Hall set; Esix charges extra for them, but Microport and UHC both
include them with their systems.
SVr4 includes hooks for a DOS bridge that allows you to run DOS applications
under UNIX (the two products that actually do this are DOS Merge and VP/ix).
Most vendors do not include either of these with the base system, however.
VP/ix was a product of the half of ISC that was sold to SunSoft, and its
future is in some doubt.
All these systems support up to 1024x768 by 256 color super-VGA under X. The
640x480 by 16 colors of standard VGA is no problem; everybody supports that
compatibly. However, X servers older than the Roell or X11R5 version (that is,
MIT X11R4 or anything previous) are hard to configure for the clock timings of
your controller and monitor scan frequency unless you have one of the standard
combinations USL supports or your vendor has configured for it.
There are a couple of known hardware compatibility problems the USL code
doesn't yet address. See the KNOWN BUGS section near the end of this document.
III. FEATURE COMPARISON
To interpret the table below, bear in mind the following things:
All these products except BSDI/386, Mach386 and SCO ODT are based on the
SVr4 kernel from UNIX Systems Laboratories (USL), an AT&T spinoff. Thus they
share over 90% of their code and features. Product differentiation is done
primarily through support policy, bug-fix quality and add-on software.
The `USL support?' column refers to the fact that USL support is a separate
charge from the source license. With the former, a porting house gets access
to AT&T's own OS support people and their bug fix database, and the porting
house's bug fixes can get folded back into the USL code.
These systems come either in a "crippled" version that supports at most two
simultaneous users, or an unlimited version. Generally the vendors do allow
you to upgrade your license via a patch disk if your requirements, but this
invariably costs slightly more than the base price difference between 2-user
and unlimited systems.
The "run-time" system in the price tables below is a minimum installation,
just enough to run binaries. The "complete" system includes every software
option offered by the vendor; it does *not* bundle in the cost of the
Prentice-Hall docs offered by some vendors as an option. You may well get
away with less, especially if you're willing to do your own X installation.
The numbers under support-with-purchase are days counted from date
of shipment. The intent is to help you get initially up and running.
The engineer counts below are as supplied by vendors; .5 of an engineer
means someone is officially working half-time. The `Uses USENET' column is
`yes' if there is allegedly at least one person in the engineering department
who reads USENET technical groups regularly and is authorized to respond to
USENET postings reporting problems.
A dash `-' means the given feature or configuration is not offered. A `yes'
means it is currently offered; `soon' means the vendor has represented that it
will be offered in the near future. A `no' means it's not offered, but there's
some related information in the attached footnote.
Vendor SCO Cons Dell Esix MST uPort UHC BSDI Mach386
Base version: 3.2.2 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.4 4.0.3 BSD Mach
USL support? ?? ?? y y(a) n y ??(b) n n
System price:
Run-time
2-user 1395 - - 545 249 500 695 - -
Unlimited 2495 - - 945 449 1,000 1,090 - -
Complete
2-user - 495 1,250 1,645 799 3,000 1,990 - 995
Unlimited 2495 695 1,599 2,045 999 3,500 2,385 995 (c)
Printed docs? y(k) - - y(d) - y(e) y - -
Upgrade plan?
From SVr3.2 ?? - - y - y - - -
Future SVr4s ?? - (g) (f) - (g) - - -
Support
W/purchase: 30 (h) 90 (i) 30 30 30 60 30
800 number? y - y - - - - - -
By contract y n(j) y n(i) y y y y y
Support BBS? y y - y - y soon - y
FTP server? y - y soon - - - - y
Read USENET? y ?? y y - y n(l) y y
# Engineers:
Support: 60+ 1 5 2 2 4 2 1.5 1
Development: 55+ ??(m) 9(n) ~20 3 6 27 5.5 5
Distribution media:
3.5" 1.44MB y y(o) - y y y y - y
5.25" 1.2MB y y(o) - y y y y - y
60MB ctape y y - y y y y - -
125MB ctape - - - - y - y - -
150MB ctape - - y - y y y y -
Via network? - - y - - - - - -
X options:
X11/NeWS R3 - - - y - - y - -
MIT X11R4 y(q) - y y - - - - y
AT&T Xwin 3 - - - - y - - - -
AT&T Xwin 4 - - - - - y - - -
Roell X386 - - y - y - y - -
X11R5 - y - - - - - y soon
Open Look - - 4i 1.0 2.0 4i 4i - -
Motif 1.1 1.1 1.1.2 1.1.0 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.3 - soon
X.desktop 2.0 - 2.0F - - 3.0 2.0 - -
Also included:
DOS bridge? y - y - - soon - soon -
SLIP? y - y y - y soon y -
PPP? (r) ?? - n(p) - - soon soon n
(a) Esix's UNIX support contract with USL will technically begin with 4.0.4.
(b) UHC had a support contract at one time but may have let it lapse. I
expect to have better information on this soon.
(c) No unlimited licenses have been sold yet. Talk to Mt. Xinu about one.
(d) Extra-cost option.
(e) With complete system only.
(f) Small media charge.
(g) Free with support contract, charge otherwise (charge ~$500).
(h) 90 days or until product is installed successfully.
(i) Unlimited free phone support.
(j) Charges by the half-hour phone call.
(k) SCO omits many of the paper docs from its "personal" (2-user) system.
(l) UHC says they used to be net-active and want to be again when they can
afford the man-hours.
(m) Consensys explicitly refuses to release this information.
(n) Dell says "The number of engineers varies according to the current problem
load and may be up to 20". Interpret this as you will.
(o) There's an $80 media charge for the diskettes equivalent to the normal
60MB distribution tape.
(p) Mark Boucher <m...@cam.org> has written a PPP driver for Esix
(q) SCO's own X11R4 implementation (based on Locus's VGA driver code)
(r) The SCO networking bundle includes PPP, as will ODT 2.0.
The SCO information is included by popular demand for comparison purposes.
In general, the SVr4 market breaks into two tiers. The bottom tier is
Consensys and MST; low-ball outfits selling stock USL with minimal support for
real cheap. The top tier is Dell, Esix, Microport and UHC; these guys are
selling support and significant enhancements and charge varying premiums for
it. Your first, most basic buying decision has to be which tier best serves
your needs.
One further note: it *is* possible to buy these systems at less than the list
the vendor charges! I found some really substantial discounts in one
mail-order catalog ("The Programmer's Shop"; call 1-(800)-426-8006 to get on
their mailing list, but be prepared to wade through a lot of DOS cruft).
IV. VENDOR REPORTS
Vendor reports start here. Each one is led by a form feed.
NAME:
SCO Open DeskTop
VENDOR:
400 Encinal Street
PO Box 1900
Santa Cruz,CA 95061-9969
1-(800)-726-8649 (sales)
1-(800)-347-4381 (customer service and tech support)
i...@sco.com --- product info by email
sa...@sco.com --- sales requests
supp...@sco.com --- support requests (support contract customers only)
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
SCO's package and option structure is complicated. At the moment the
`bundles' to keep track of are:
SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 4.0
SCO UNIX networking bundle, consisting of:
SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 4.0
SCO TCP/IP 1.2.0
SCO NFS 1.2.0
SCO Open Desktop 1.1, consisting of:
SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 2.0
SCO TCP/IP 1.1.3
SCO NFS 1.1.1
LAN Manager Client
X (currently X11R4 server/clients, Motif 1.1.2, X.desktop 2.0)
Ingres
DOS Merge (2.0)
SCO Open Desktop 2.0, starts shipping in 2-3 months, consisting of:
SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 4.0
SCO TCP/IP 1.2.0
SCO NFS 1.2.0
LAN Manager Client
X (X11R4 server/clients, Motif 1.2 (?), X.desktop 3.0)
DOS Merge (2.2?)
Note that Ingres (the database) is being *removed* from the ODT bundle.
There will probably be some kind of special Ingres price for ODT customers.
ADD-ONS:
There are piles of them. I was most impressed by the docs for the CodeView
debugger and MASM assembler, but the presence of ISAM support, SQL support, and
what looks like a commercially-viable database tool would probably be more
significant to the ordinary commercial user.
SUPPORT:
You get 30 days of free phone support with purchase.
ODT support is $895 per year.
FUTURE PLANS:
ODT 2.0 will include X.desktop 3.0.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. SCO provides a Hardware Compatibility
Guide with its software.
COMMENTS:
The docs are impressive; you could get a hernia trying to lift them all.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
There's an `MPX' kernel available from SCO that supports symmetric
multiprocessing.
Though this is a 3.2 kernel, SCO has added support for SVr4-like symbolic
links and long filenames to Version 4.
SCO has a standard driver announcement protocol which allows the
utility hwconfig(C) to print out detailed hardware configuration info by
inspecting a file generated at boot time.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
XENIX is the UNIX port hackers love to hate, but at 70% of the market SCO
must be doing something right. In general, SCO UNIX and XENIX are reputed to
be a very polished and stable systems. Unfortunately, they also drive
developers crazy because of numerous tiny and undocumented divergences between
the SCO way and the USL-based releases.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
The SCO support system is heavily bureaucratized and prone to thrash when
processing questions of unusual depth or scope. While probably adequate for
the random business luser, hackers are likely to find the contortions
required to get to a master-level developer very frustrating.
SCO in general has the fairly serious case of corporatitis you'd predict
from their relatively large size --- no-comment policies and
compartmentalization out the wazoo.
On the other hand, they sent me an unsolicited free copy, and I got huge
amounts of useful technical and hardware-compatibility info "unofficially" from
SCOer Bela Lubkin <be...@sco.com>. Gee. Maybe I should flame vendors more
often... :-)
NAME:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.3
VENDOR:
Consensys
1301 Pat Booker Road
Universal City, TX 78148
(800)-387-8951
{dmentor,dciem}!askov!root
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. With the whole system selling for $495 why bother?
ADD-ONS:
Basically this is a stock USL system with the stock USL bugs, except the
installation sequence has been improved considerably. Good tools for
configuration management and system administration on a network of Consensys
machines are included.
SUPPORT:
You get free phone support until your system is installed, to a maximum of
90 days. After that they charge per half-hour of phone time. They like to
do support by fax and callback.
They have 1 (one) support tech. Ask for Reuben.
They have a support BBS at (416)-752-2084.
Knowledgeable customers report they're good about supporting the bits they
wrote (see below) but terrible at dealing with generic SVr4 problems.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't settled on an upgrade policy yet.
There are plans for a disk array product.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
Though most reports say the Consensys PowerPorts board is fine for UUCP use,
at least two USENETters have reported problems with interactive sessions; see
below.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The X stuff is straight off the MIT X11R5 tape, patchlevel 8.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
One `Andy', mailing from <hoop...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> says "You should also
blast Consensys for advertising that they provide DOS file system utilities.
They do, but they were written for DOS 2.0! They do NOT work for DOS 5.0..."
Syd Weinstein <s...@dsinc.dsi.com> reports: "The most major [bug in the
PowerPorts support] is delays in various output codes.... Even if not using
the multi-screen stuff, a clear to end of line escape code, and some others,
cause noticable delays in the output. (About 0.1 seconds). It makes running
Elm a real bitch". He is in touch with Consensys about this.
It has been reported on USENET (by Gerry Swetsky <lis...@vpnet.chi.il.us>
among others) that if you drop off of a PowerPorts line without manually
closing all your sessions, the unclosed sessions may be accessible to the next
person to pick up the line.
Gil Kloepfer, Jr. <g...@limbic.ssdl.com>, managing the Houston UNIX User's
Group's system, says that during interactive use the board frequently does not
handle typeahead properly (this may be related to Syd Weinstein's problems with
EOL delay). He also says he hasn't been able to bring up stable UUCP with the
board.
COMMENTS:
Their UNIX product is an outgrowth of their main line of business, selling
serial boards. It is easy to configure the OS to support the board.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've spoken with one experienced wizard using Consensys and seen a detailed
email report from another. They're happy, although they both warn that newbies
should probably *not* try this at home :-).
On the other hand, Consensys has a dismal reputation on USENET; horror
stories of nonexistent followup on bugs abound. They'll need to work hard to
shuck their take-the-money-and-run image. Better followup on the reported
serial-port board bugs would be a big help. Unfortunately, Consensys's favored
response seems to be to deny that they have a problem.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
These guys are trading off everything else to be the market's price-buster.
They have the toughest support policy of any vendor and obviously don't want to
hear from you once you've gotten past initial boot.
A Consensys marketroid that I spoke with twice while gathering this
information offered to send me an evaluation copy of their system. They were
clearly hoping for some good publicity if I like it. However, I doubt they
like me that well any more...
Consensys explicitly refuses to say how many development engineers they have
on staff. In this and some other matters (such as the way they deal with
allegations of PowerPorts problems) they've adopted a corporate style that
appears defensive, evasive, secretive, and not conducive to trust. I couldn't
make their V.P. of sales understand that this appearance is a serious
liability in dealing with UNIX techies and distinguishes them from the
competition in a distinctly negative way.
NAME:
Dell UNIX System V Release 4 Issue 2.1.
VENDOR:
Dell Computer
9505 Arboretum Road
Austin TX 78759
(800)-BUY-DELL (info & orders)
(800)-624-9896 (tech support: x6915 to go straight to UNIX support)
supp...@dell.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Basically, there aren't any. You get the development system with all the
trimmings for a lower list than anybody else in the top tier. Whaddya
want, egg in yer beer?
ADD-ONS:
Dell bundles a DOS bridge with their base system. They also include cnews,
mmdf, perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs gdb, and other freeware, including a bunch
of nifty X clients! However, stock gcc doesn't yet generate SVr4's new DWARF
debugger format. Patches for g++ 1.40.3 and libg++ 1.39.0 to get these working
under SVR4 are available via ftp from ftp.physics.su.oz.au.
SUPPORT:
Dell *does* support their UNIX on non-Dell hardware. They are quite
definite about this. They will deal with software problems reported from
non-Dell hardware, but you're on your own when dealing with hardware
incompatibility problems.
You get 90 days of free phone support on a toll-free number.
Yearly service contracts range are $350 per year for the limited
license, $500 for the unlimited.
Dell accepts software problem reports from anyone, Dell or non-Dell
hardware and whether or not they have a support contract. If you don't have
a support contract, don't count on getting a reply acknowledging the report.
There are 5 engineers in their second-line support pool.
Dell maintains a pair of Internet servers (dell1.dell.com and
dell2.dell.com) which hold patches, updates and free software usable with
Dell UNIX.
FUTURE PLANS:
They haven't fixed a release date for 4.0.4 or X11R5 yet. One USENET
poster has claimed inside information that X11R5 will be folded in during
March/April 1992.
X.desktop 3.0 will be supported soon. NeWS isn't going to happen at all;
they couldn't get it to work reliability.
Dell is committed to sell and support Solaris 2.0 when it happens. Dell
spokespeople have insisted that this doesn't jeopardize the SVr4 product's
future; they say they intend to position the two differently, aiming SVr4 at
UNIX developers and selling Solaris primarily as an application platform for
end-users. However, the person who articulated that policy is no longer at
Dell and the question of what SVr4 to Solaris upgrade costs will be hasn't
been resolved even internally.
Dell has demonstrated a 486 port of NeXTSTEP at trade shows.
About upgrades, Dell says "If you have a support contract, the upgrade is
free, unless we've added something with significant royalty burden to us. We
may make a charge at that point. We didn't when we added Graphical Services
4.0 at the introduction of Dell UNIX 2.1. If you don't have a contract, then
the cost is basically Media+Royalty+Admin+Shipping."
TECHNICAL NOTES:
The big plus in the Dell code is that they've fixed a lot of the annoying
bugs and glitches present in the stock USL tape.
The installation procedure has been improved and simplified. You can
install Dell UNIX through your network from another Dell box once you've booted
the hardware with a special disk provided.
Both benchmarks and anecdotal reports make them significantly faster than a
stock USL system. Interestingly, Dell's manager for UNIX development tells me
this is all due to bug fixes and careful choices of some OS parameters.
The DOS bridge is Locus Merge 2.1. Thus, it doesn't understand DOS 5.0.
A source at Dell has asked me to point out that Dell's SLIP can be
set up, configured, and stopped while UNIX is running; some other
versions (such as SCO's) require a reboot. However, others claim that
SCO's can actually be reconfigured without a reboot and that the SCO
*manuals* are at fault here for misleading people.
Dell device drivers are *very* unlikely to work on other SVR4 versions.
Dell includes some kernel extensions (not required, so other SVR4 device
drivers should work) to make life in support a little easier. A program
called showcfg will list all recognised device drivers and the IRQ,
I/O address, shared memory and so on. The device driver has to register
this info. Dell has told USL how to do this, it's up to them when or even
if they want to use this in a future release.
Dell device drivers are also auto configuring, for the most part. Check out
/etc/conf/sdevice.d/* and see how most of the devices are enabled, but with
zeroes in all fields for IRQ, I/O and memory. Those are autoconfiguring
drivers. Dell thinks that this makes life much easier; you only need to set
one of the configurations that we probe for! The device registration helps
this, by eliminating possible overlapping memory or I/O address usage. (On the
other hand, idconfig(1) is no longer helpful, when I/O, IRQ and mem are all
zero).
Dell UNIX also has drivers for the Dell SmartVu found on some machines (a
little four character LED display on the front panel). By default this shows
POST values, then disk accesses, finally "UNIX" when running and "DOWN" when
halted. You can write to the device.
Some Dell systems have a reset button. On the Laptops these are wired
directly to the CPU. On the desktop and floor-standing systems Dell UNIX can
catch the interrupt; it's used to do a graceful (init 0) shutdown. Other
UNIXes will do a processor reset when the button is pushed.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
Dell doesn't maintain a list of non-Dell motherboards and systems known to
work. And they're not willing to talk about the list they don't maintain,
because it would amount to endorsing someone else's hardware.
Dell promises that you can bring its UNIX up on any Dell desktop or tower
featuring a 386SX or up (it's hard to get the product on to the notebooks).
Notebooks can't drive a QIC tape and there aren't drivers for the pocket
Ethernet or token-ring adapter.
Jeffrey James Persch <using a friend's account> reports that he couldn't
get the X supplied with Dell UNIX 2.1 to work with a Microsoft bus mouse hooked
to the mouse port on a Compaq 486/33M or Systempro.
Andrew Michael <Andrew.Mich...@brunel.ac.uk> says "If you're buying Dell
UNIX for non-Dell hardware, first try booting the Dell floppy on it. From
experience, some BIOS ROMs cause Dell SVR4 to lock up at the point where it
tries to talk to the hard disk. If it gets to the point where it asks you
whether you want to install or not you can be pretty sure that all is well. An
AMI or Phoenix BIOS is OK; be careful of anything else."
See the appendix for more.
COMMENTS:
Dell sells hardware, too :-). They are, in fact, one of the most successful
clonemakers, and will cheerfully sell you a Dell computer with SVr4 pre-
installed. Their systems are expensive by cloner standards (with as much as a
$1000 premium over rock-bottom street prices) but they have a rep for quality
and reliability their competition would probably kill for.
You can get Dell product information by sending an email request to
i...@dell.com.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Most people who've seen or used it seem to think pretty highly of the
Dell product, in spite of minor problems.
Some people are very annoyed with the length of Dell's support queues.
A user in England observes: "Dell is the only firm that I found supplying
Unix at the real monetary exchange rate, not the usual computer pounds=dollars
nonsense. In the UK the 2 user version costs 699 pounds, which is pretty close
to the US price in dollars. For those of us who don't live on the left-hand
side of the pond (there are a few of us!) that's a distinct advantage." He
adds "Dell's UK support is pretty good. Not as good as Sun, but then you don't
pay as much! From previous experience, SCO support in the UK is, well, pretty
non-existent."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, I'd have to call Dell the market leader in SVr4s. The
combination of low price, highest added value in features, and reputation for
quality makes them very hard to beat.
The only serious negative I've seen is that their support system seems to be
very badly overloaded, so you can end up on hold for a while when calling. The
techs themselves are sufficiently cranked about this that they'll complain of
understaffing and corporate shortsightedness on the phone to a stranger.
Dell also compartmentalizes the support operation more than any of the
other vendors I contacted; the support techs aren't told much about the
product's future direction and even lack basic pricing information.
Both these things are probably functions of the organization's size; Dell is
a larger outfit than the rest of its competitors except SCO put together.
On the other hand, Dell's UNIX development manager responded to the first
issue of this FAQ with about three hundred lines of intelligent, thoughtful and
extremely candid comment, including a whole pile of the hardware-compatibility
info I couldn't get lower-level people to divulge and a number of excellent
suggestions for improving the FAQ.
NAME:
Esix Revision A
VENDOR
Esix Computers
1923 E. St. Andrew Place
Santa Ana, CA 92705
(714)-259-3020 (tech support is (714)-259-3000)
uunet!zardoz!everex!esixtech
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking and X11R4 (includes TCP/IP, NFFS/RFS, SLIP).
GUI I -- Open Look and X11/NeWS.
GUI II -- Motif.
Development tools.
SUPPORT:
Purchase buys you unlimited free phone support. However, be warned that
there are only two engineers assigned to the job and they are swamped.
Esix offers a support BBS at (714)-259-3011 and 3013 (the 11 line
has a Trailblazer on it). They plan to bring up an Internet server in
the near future.
FUTURE PLANS:
4.0.4 will happen in the near future. They'll be going to Xwin 4 (AT&T's
X11R4 server) at around the same time, and will also include X.desktop. They
say they don't plan to support DOS Merge because it's still horribly buggy.
Later in '92 they plan to release a multiprocessing UNIX.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
Stephen J. Friedl and D'Arcy Cain <da...@druid.uucp> have written a device
driver for Everex's STEP systems that can control the LED array on the front of
the box.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. Esix supports an unusually wide
range of peripherals.
They advertise support for the Textronix X terminal.
No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.
KNOWN BUGS:
According to Esix, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it
must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
Another subsidiary of a clonemaker (Everex). They don't sell
bundled hardware/software packages yet.
Esix will sell you manuals troffed off the SVr4 source tapes for somewhat
less than the cost of the Prentice-Hall books. The content is almost
identical but the organixation into volumes a little different.
Unlimited free support sounds wonderful, and might be Esix's
strongest selling point. However, Esix users on the net have been
heard to gripe that in practice, you get the support you've paid for
from Esix --- that is, none. That isn't at all surprising given
Esix's staffing level. If this guarantee is to be more than a hollow
promise, their technical support has to get more depth.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
In email to me, one long-time netter (Evan Leibovich, <e...@telly.on.ca>)
who does UNIX consulting says he has eight client sites running Esix happily.
It's reliable.
Ron Mackey <r...@dsiinc.com> writes "In general, we are pleased with Esix.
We still have problems driving the serial ports at speeds greater than 9600
baud. We also still see occasional PANICs. These appear to be related to
problems with the virtual terminal manager." This may be the generic USL asy
problem again.
A longer appeciation from Ed Hall <edh...@rand.org>: "I had a problem with
the ESIX X server. I got through to technical support immediately, and was
promised a fix disk. The guy on the phone was actually able to chat with on of
the developers to check to see if the disk would solve the problem. The disk
came four days later."
"On the other hand," he continues, "I get the feeling that ESIX has only
made a mediocre effort to shake out the bugs before releasing their system-- or
even their fixes. For example, they `repaired' their X server, but the new
server only ran as root (it made some privileged calls to enable I/O
ports)--they quickly had to release a second update to fix this new problem.
They obviously fixed a lot of things in the new server, and performance is
improved quite a bit as well, but the stupid error they made in the first
"fixed" version should have been found with only the most minimal of testing."
"They've done some work on the serial driver, but there are still some
glitches (occasional dropped characters on a busy system at 38400bps, and a
real doozy of a problem--a system panic--when doing simultaneous opens and
ioctl's on a tty0xh and ttyM0xh device. This latter problem was due to my
using the M0xh and 0xh devices improperly, but panics are inexcusable. No idea
if this is a SYSVR4 problem or due to their fixes.)"
"So my impressions of them are mixed. Perhaps I just lucked out in geting
such rapid response on my support call, but I was impressed by it nonetheless.
On the other hand, their QA needs work..."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
The tech I spoke with at Esix seemed knowledgeable, bright, and very
committed to the product. Nevertheless, when I asked what he thought
distinguished Esix from the competition, he had no answer.
This reinforced the feeling I got from the spec sheets that Esix has kind of
an also-ran mentality, with no market strategy or clear priority for improving
SVr4 that positions it against its competition. It doesn't have Dell's
steak-with-all-the-trimmings appeal, it's not pushing price like Consensys or
support quality like UHC or performance like Microport. (I'm told that
at one time, Everex was the price leader).
When I asked Esix's chief marketroid about this, he said that he thinks
Esix's best asset is that the product isn't going to go away, and muttered
unkind things about the possibility that Dell would deep-six their SVr4 in
favor of Solaris 2.0. This does not a long-term strategy make.
NAME
MST UNIX
VENDOR:
Micro Station Technology, Inc.
1140 Kentwood Ave.
Cupertino, CA. 95014
(408)-253-3898
sa...@mst.com (product info & orders)
c...@mst.com (support)
ADD-ONS:
None.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
C Development System
Networking
X11R4 and X11R3
Motif
Open Look
SUPPORT:
30 days of support free with purchase.
1 year of fax/email support is $299, 1 year of phone support is $599.
FUTURE PLANS:
They expect to upgrade to Motif 1.2 and X11R5 Summer '92. No plans for
4.0.4 yet.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
They've promised to email me a list of hardware known to work, which
will appear in a future posting.
They decline to release information on hardware known *not* to work
for fear of offending vendors.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
The DOS support is only 2.0-compatible (< 32-meg DOS partitions).
COMMENTS:
Another outfit offering stock USL real cheap. They were actually the first
to try this (in Fall '91) and were the price leader until Consensys blew past
them.
These guys really want to sell you preinstalled UNIX on their clone
hardware. Configurations range from $1349 to $5599 and look like pretty
good value.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I have one experience report from Ray Hill, <h...@ghola.nicolet.com>, who's
been running MST on a 486 for a month or so. He says it works; elm, cnews, and
trn are up, so standard UNIX sources compile up and work fine. His only
criticism is the relative skimpiness of the printed docs.
Harlan Stockman <hwst...@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov> writes "MST has been very
helpful at every step of the way; phone and e-mail support have been timely."
Geoffrey Leach <ge...@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> warns that some of the files
(specifically, socket library headers) necessary to build X11R5 are bundled in
the networking option --- this may meen you have to buy it even if you don't
actually intend to network any machines.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Anyone who's been to a hobbyist computer expo in the last five years knows
that the low-price clone-hardware market is full of small, hungry companies run
by immigrants, often family businesses. Their English is sometimes a little
shaky but (in my experience) they're honest and their product is good, and
their prices are *real* aggressive.
MST seems to be one of these outfits. Right now they're eclipsed by
Consensys, but Consensys's promo prices are *so* low that they may be taking a
net loss to gain market share. In any case, two super-low-cost-vendors are
much more effective pressure on the upper tier than one --- long may MST
flourish.
NAME:
Microport System V/4 Version 4
VENDOR:
Microport, Inc.
108 Whispering Pines Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(800)-367-8649
sa...@mport.com (sales and product info)
supp...@mport.com (support)
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking (TCP/IP, NFS)
Software Development
User Graphics Module (X GUIs)
Graphics Development Module (X toolkits + man pages).
DOS Merge
ADD-ONS:
A few freeware utilities are included, notably kermit(1) and less(1).
They include a single-user copy of a program called `JSB MultiView'. It's a
character-oriented desktop program that front-ends conventional UNIX services
for character terminals and also provides a calendar service and
pop-up phone-book. It's something like a character-oriented X windows; each
on-screen window looks like a terminal to the application.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
They have been very lightly edited for the Microport environment.
The base price includes 30 days or 1 year of phone support respectively
depending on whether you bought the base or complete system. Support is
said to be excellent for serious problems, not so good for minor ones (this
is understandable if one assumes their support staff is very good but
overworked, a hypothesis which is plausible on other evidence).
They have a support BBS at (408)-438-7270 or 438-7521. However, the level
of activity is low; one customer said (late February) that they hadn't put
anything useful on it in six months (Microport responds that they've
been too busy hammering on r4 to spend lots of energy on it).
FUTURE PLANS:
DOS Merge will be folded into the system soon.
Also working on improved performance for the Adaptec 1742 and other SCSI
controllers, expect that in May.
Microport believes they have a lead in multiprocessing UNIX and intend to
push it.
File-system support for CD-ROMs is coming.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
Math co-processors: Cyrix 20/25/33, Intel 80387 20/25/33, Weitek.
No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet. Bernoulli boxes
and Irwin tapes won't fly, but who cares.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
When I asked what differentiates Microport from the other SVr4 products,
the answer I got is "performance". The Microport people feel they've put
a lot of successful work into kernel tuning.
And, indeed, benchmarks from independent sources show that Microport's
fork(2) operation is quite fast. Other vendors show about 60 forks per
second on the AIM Technologies SUITE II benchmarks; Microport cranks 80.
This is the most dramatic performance difference the AIM tools reveal
among any of these products. Microport's other benchmark statistics
are closely comparable to those of its competitors.
Microport also offers a symmetric multiprocessing SVr4 which will run on the
Compaq SystemPro, the ALR PowerPro, the DEC 433MP, and the Chips & Technologies
Mpax system.
Microport has moved the socket headers and libraries necessary to build X
out of the networking option package into the development system, so you
don't have to buy an extra module to hack X.
KNOWN BUGS:
According to Microport, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus
it must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the
BSD-compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
These people sold a lot of shrink-wrapped UNIXes years ago before going
chapter 11. They're back, leaner and meaner (with a total staff of just
15).
Microport says it's primarily interested in the systems-integration market,
where customers are typically going to be volume buyers qualifying for deep
discounts. Thus, they're relatively undisturbed by the certainty that their
high price point is losing them sales to individuals.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
I've received one good comprehensive experience report, largely favorable,
from David Wexelblat <d...@att.com>.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Microport is a small, hungry outfit with a lot to prove; they've already
gone bust once (I was a customer at the time :-() and they haven't yet
demonstrated that they've got a better strategy this time out.
They're perhaps a mite too expensive for the support quality they can offer
with less than fifteen people, and kernel-tuning isn't going to win them a
following on hardware that every year swamps those tweaks with huge increases
in speed for constant dollars. It may be that they're counting on the
symmetric-multiprocessor version to be their bread-and-butter product; there,
at least, they're offering something that is so far unique and promises
performance levels unattainable with conventional hardware.
And, like UHC, they have techies answering the phones and the techies have a
clue. This certainly improves them as a bet for wizards and developers. If
multiprocessing is important to you, and/or you're looking for a small outfit
where you can develop personal working relationships with the tech people who
matter, Microport might be a good way to go.
They've offered to send me a copy of their OS gratis for review and
evaluation purposes.
NAME:
UHC Version 3.6
VENDOR:
UHC Corp.
3600 S. Gessner
Suite 110
Houston, TX 77063
(713)-782-2700
supp...@uhc.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
Networking package (TCP/IP).
X + Motif
X + Open Look
ADD-ONS:
None reported.
SUPPORT:
The base price includes printed docs. This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
30 days free phone support with purchase.
All their engineers take tech-support calls for part of their day.
They have 2 doing it full-time. The product manager is a techie himself
and takes his share of calls.
A support contract costs $1195 for one year. This includes 75% off
on all upgrades.
They are in the process of bringing up a BBS with a window into their
bug report and fix/workaround database.
It was emphasized to me that UHC wants to be known for the quality of
their support, which they feel is the product's strongest differentiating
feature.
FUTURE PLANS:
X11R5 by mid-May or thereabouts. They have it running now but don't
consider it stable enough to ship.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details.
The asy driver in version 2.0 won't talk to the NS16550AFN UART, which
is supposed to be pin-compatible with the standard 16450.
KNOWN BUGS:
This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries. Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
COMMENTS:
They claim that according to USL they have the largest installed base of
SVr4 customers, and to have been first to market with a shrink-wrapped
SVr4 (in 1990).
UHC also claims to have performed and maintained IBM's official UNIX port
for the MicroChannel machines.
A subsidiary of Anam, "a holding company with a diversified portfolio".
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The only comment I've yet seen on UHC itself was an extended description of
a successful installation by a satisfied netter. He made it sound like a good
solid product.
I have one absolutely incandescently glowing report on UHC support from a
developer named Steve Showalter <shw...@Texaco.COM>. He says: "We've been
running UHC's OS for about a year now...been EXTREMELY happy with it. The
support we receive is without a doubt, the finest we have received from any
vendor."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I found both the people I talked to friendly, candid, technically
knowledgeable, and willing to answer sticky questions. I came away with a very
positive impression of the outfit's operating style.
There are experienced UNIX developers who value dealing with a small,
responsive outfit where they can develop good working relationships with
individuals. UHC says it likes to sell to wizards and might be a good choice
for these people.
The second time I called (*after* I'd formed the above impressions) one of
their guys offered to trade me a copy of UHC UNIX with all the trimmings for an
autographed copy of _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_. So they have taste, too.
I'm too ethical to let this sway my evaluations, but not too ethical to take
the software... :-)
NAME:
BSD/386
VENDOR:
Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
Falls Church, VA 22042 USA
(800)-800-4BSD
bsdi-i...@bsdi.com
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
None. You get an unlimited user license, binaries *and sources*
for the entire system. What more could you want?
SUPPORT:
The purchase price include 60 days of phone support.
A telephone-support contract is $1500 per year; email-only support is
$500/year. Either kind includes upgrades.
FUTURE PLANS:
The current release (0.3) is a fairly stable beta. Production release is
planned for June 1992.
Capability to run SVr3.2 binaries (including SCO binaries), 3Q92.
They intend to add a DOS bridge by the end of '92.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the appendix for details. New drivers are being added all the time.
Multiport serial boards aren't supported (they're working on it).
The Orchid graphics co-processor is not supported.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
Alone among the 386 UNIX versions described here, this version is *not*
based even in part on USL code and has no AT&T license restrictions. Rather,
it derives from Berkeley UNIX (the CSRG Networking 2 release, somewhere between
4.3 and 4.4).
Many of the BSD/386 tools, including the compiler, are GNU code.
This system's libraries, header files and utilities conform to X3J11,
POSIX 1003.1 and POSIX 1003.2 standards.
COMMENTS:
What these people are trying is audacious --- something functionally like
the SVr4 merge, but starting from a ported BSD kernel and with System V
compatibility hacks, rather than the other ways. By all accounts the product
is in far better shape right now than one would expect for a beta pre-release,
which argues that the developers have done something right.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
The few who've seen this system display an evangelistic fervor about it.
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
I expect this will become a hackers' favorite.
All this, and sources too...I salivate. I am tempted. Not sure I'm ready
to change OSs at the same time as I switch machines, though. SVr4's got better
continuity with the 3.2 I'm running now. Ghu, what a dilemma!
When I mentioned that I'm doing elisp maintenance for GNU EMACS these days,
Rob Kolstad, one of the principal developers, offered me a copy and a year
of support if I'd field their (so far nonexistent) EMACS problems.
NAME
Mach386
VENDOR:
Mt. Xinu
2560 Ninth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510)-644-0146
mtxinu-m...@mtxinu.com
ADD-ONS:
Kernel sources! You get can sources for the Mach 3.0 microkernel for
$195 over base price.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
The base package includes: Mach 2.5 kernel and utilities, 4.3 BSD interface,
GNU utilities (GCC, GDB, GAS, EMACS, BISON), and on-line reference manuals (man
pages) for Mach and 4.3 BSD. The following options are available:
Networking (SUN NFS, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe release,
on-line NFS man pages).
X (X11R4 with programmer's environment and complete X manual pages).
On-line Documentation (Complete source for Mach and 4.3 documentation,
including Mach Supplementary Documents, System Manager's Documentation, 4.3 BSD
Programmer's Supplementary Documents, 4.3 BSD User's Supplementary Documents).
Optional Microkernel Add-on, Mach 3.0 (Complete Mach 3.0 microkernel source
code; complete build environment with tools to modify and rebuild the Mach 3.0
microkernel; binary BSD server which runs on top of the microkernel in place
of the standard /vmunix kernel; source for an example of a server (POE)
running on top of the Mach 3.0 microkernel and sources for some utilities
which are kernel-dependent.
SUPPORT:
You get 30 days phone support with purchase.
A support contract is available for $150 quarterly or $500 per year; this
includes upgrades. There is a support BBS open to contract holders only.
An ftp server at autosupport.mtxinu.com carries patches, enhancements
and freeware adapted for the system
FUTURE PLANS:
They plan to move to OSF/1 this year. X11R5 and Motif support are
also in the works.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
See the Appendix for details.
Color X windows is supported on VGA boards via extended 8-bit color mode.
Toshiba and Toshiba-compatible floppy drives and controllers work.
All current motherboards tested have worked. There were a few problems with
early Compaq DeskPros. They add "Please note that we do not support the
microchannel bus, EISA extended modes, IBM PS2, and some NCR machines. We are,
however, considering new devices so let us know your interests!".
TECHNICAL NOTES
This product is essentially a 4.3 port built on the Mach project's
microkernel technology. This is a truly nifty architecture which builds a
4.3BSD-compatible kernel out of a collection of communicating lightweight
processes. The distinction between user and kernel mode almost vanishes, and
things like the schedular and virtual-memory manager which are normally
embedded deep in the kernel become semi-independent, modifiable modules.
COMMENTS:
Very appealing for the educational market --- lets CS students and hobbyists
tinker creatively with the guts of UNIX in a way that would be impossible under
more conventional UNIXes. It's not clear who else will be interested in this.
WHAT THE USERS SAY:
Eric Baur <e...@ventoux.assabet.com> writes:
"The system is a very faithful emulation of BSD43 on top of Mach. For our
purposes it is a super deal. For about $2000.00 in hardware and $995.00 in
software we have a Mach development platform that integrates almost seamlessly
into our network development environment. As a general-purpose UNIX (whatever
that means) Mach386 gives up a lot in features to the System V vendors.
(Virtual terminals, DOS emulation, etc etc) For the home hacker, except for
UUCP problems it seems like it would be a good deal. You obviously could never
run "shrink-wrapped" software, but most public domain and GNU stuff should port
easily."
Mark Holden <l00...@eeyore.stcloud.msus.edu> adds "Mt. Xinu's tech support
is absolutely top-notch, and I've found them quite willing to deal with matters
even after the official support runs out. [...] Not that Mach386 is without
its quirks. I've had problems getting a Western Digital ethernet board to
work correctly, and things required a fair bit of tweaking to set things on a
smooth course, but then I've never worked with a BSD that didn't."
REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
Right now, this product is a solution looking for a problem --- a solution I
find technically fascinating, to be sure. But even the company admits to not
being sure who its market is. I wish 'em luck.
KNOWN BUGS:
From Eric Baur <e...@ventoux.assabet.com>: "I have not been able to
get the supplied uucp to work when calling a telebit modem. The
connection is established but the Mach end hangs up and exits without
any indication why. Taylor uucp ported in about 1 hour and works
fine. There is no support, however, for bi-directional lines if you
use the Taylor uucp. The uucp supplied with the system has the
gawd-awful acucntrl hack, but I don't know if it even works. [...]
Overall I remain very pleased with Mach386. [...] It has yet to
manifest any truly bad behavior. No panics - no hangs. It interacts
flawlessly with our network of Suns. NFS and X are very robust. I
would ditch my System V at home and buy Mach386 is a minute if I could
get bi-directional serial lines to work."
V. HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS.
Overview:
The central fact about 386/486 clone hardware that conditions every aspect of
buying it is this: more than anywhere else in the industry, de-facto hardware
standards have created a commodity market with low entry barriers, lots of
competitive pressure, and volume high enough to amortize a *lot* of development
on the cheap.
The result is that this hardware gives you lots of bang-per-buck, and it's
getting both cheaper and better all the time. Furthermore, margins are thin
enough that vendors have to be lean, hungry, and *very* responsive to the
market to survive. You can take advantage of this, but it does mean that much
of the info in the rest of this section will be stale in three months and
probably obsolete in six.
One good general piece of advice is that you should avoid both the highest-end
new-technology systems (those not yet shipping in volume) and the very cheapest
systems put out by vendors competing primarily on price. The problem with
the high end is that it usually carries a hefty "prestige" price premium, and
may be a bit less reliable on average because the technology hasn't been
through a lot of test/improve cycles. The problem with the low end is that
price-cutters sometimes settle for marginal components. UNIX is more
sensitive to hardware flakiness than DOS, so cut-price systems that might
deliver consistently for DOS lemmings can come around and bite you. Use a
little care, and spend the $200-$300 to stay out of the basement. It's worth
it.
The last point deserves a little amplification. In the PC world, there's a lot
of "if it doesn't fail, it's OK". It is common to ignore normal engineering
tolerances --- the allowances for variations in components, temperature,
voltage margins, and the like --- and to assume that anything which doesn't
fail outright must work. Watch out! For example, the AT bus was designed for
6 MHz, yet there are motherboards that will let you run it at 12 MHz. Some
cards are actually designed to work at that speed with proper tolerances.
Others might work...or they might flake out when they get warm. Any systems
vendor above the fly-by-night level is going to shoot for a little more
reliability than this, burning in systems and (often) doing at least a token
system test with some kind of UNIX (usually XENIX). Pay the few extra
bucks it costs to deal with a more careful vendor.
Technical points:
Ask your potential suppliers what kind and volume of documentation they supply
with your hardware. You should get, at minimum, operations manuals for the
motherboard and each card or peripheral; also an IRQ list, and a bad-block
listing if your Winchester is ESDI rather than IDE or SCSI (the latter two
types of drive do their own bad-block mapping internally). Skimpiness in this
area is a valuable clue that they may be using no-name parts from Upper
Baluchistan, which is not necessarily a red flag in itself but should prompt
you to ask more questions.
Cases are just bent metal. Doesn't matter who makes those, as long as they're
above an easy minimum quality (on some *really* cheap ones, cards fail to line
up nicely with the slots, drive bays don't align with the access cutouts, or
the motherboard is ill-supported and can ground out against the chassis). If
you're fussy about radio-frequency emissions, it's worth finding out whether
the plastic parts of the case have conductive coating on the inside; that will
cut down emissions significantly, but a few cheap cases omit it. Power
supplies can matter but quality is cheap; look for at least a 230-watt model so
you've got headroom, and if you're buying a tower case with extra expansion
bays it should be 300 watts. Give preference to power supplies with a
Underwriter's Laboratories rating.
(About that annoying fan noise, ask if the fan on a target system has a
variable speed motor with thermostatic control --- this will cut down on noise
tremendously. If not: I have seen a rave about, but haven't used, a
thermostatic fan controller called "The Silencer". This tiny device mounts
inside your power supply and connects to the fan's power leads. It
automatically varies the fan motor speed to hold a 79 to 82F temperature.
Write Quiet Technology, Inc. PO Box 8478, Port St. Lucie FL 34985.)
Provided you exercise a little prudence and stay out of the price basement,
motherboards and BIOS chips don't vary much in quality either. There are only
six or so major brands of motherboard inside all those cases and they're pretty
much interchangable; brand premiums are low to nonexistent and cost is strictly
tied to maximum speed and bus type. Unless you're buying from a "name" outfit
like Compaq or AST that rolls its own motherboards and BIOSes, there are only
two major brands of BIOS chip (AMI and Phoenix) and not much to choose between
'em but the look of the self-test screens. One advantage UNIX buyers have is
that UNIXes are built not to rely on the BIOS code (because it can't be used in
protected mode without more pain than than it's worth). If your BIOS will boot
properly, you're usually going to be OK.
If the above sounds too rosy, there is a catch; it describes *current*
hardware, not some of the historical botches. And it's hard to know how old
what you're buying is. You might actually be buying a motherboard that's been
sitting on the dealer's back shelf for a year, with a BIOS chip in it that was
in the drawer for another year before he ever stuck it in the board. And some
of those older BIOSes and board designs are to be desperately avoided. There
have been quite a few bogus cache designs that either don't work at all
(instant panic under UNIX) or that severely degrade performance. A lot of
earlier designs have bus timing problems that show up in bad interactions with
host adapters and fancy graphics boards. Bad memory designs were also not
uncommon.
A good, tricky way to keep the vendor from shipping you these fossils is to
specify a motherboard that can take 4MB SIMs (as opposed to just the older 1MB
kind). You want to do this anyhow for functional reasons.
There are a few other potential gotchas to beware of, especially in the cheaper
off-brand boards. One is "shadow RAM", a trick some boards use for speeding up
DOS by copying the ROM contents into RAM at startup. It should be possible to
disable this. Also, on a caching motherboard, you need to be able to disable
caching in the memory areas used by expansion cards. Some cheap motherboards
that fail to pass bus-mastering tests and so are useless for use with a good
SCSI interface; on others, the bus gets flaky when its turbo (high-speed) mode
is on. Fortunately, these problems aren't common.
You can avoid both dangerously fossilized hardware and these little gotchas by
sticking with a system or motherboard design that's been tested with UNIX (some
help with that below).
Some other good features to look for in a motherboard include:
* Ability to go to 64MB on the motherboard (that is, without plug-in
daughterboards). All EISA boards seem to have this.
* The board should be speed-rated as high as your processor, of course.
It's good if it's rated higher, so upgrade to a faster processor is
just a matter of dropping in the chip.
Peripherals are another matter, especially hard disks. A good rule of thumb
for balanced configurations is that the hard disk should comprise about half
(or maybe a bit more) of the total system hardware price (exception: if you're
buying a really good monitor, like 16" or over, it's going to be expensive
enough to bust this rule). Unless you're the exception who has to invoke
warranty due to a system arriving dead, most of what you buy from a dealer or
mail-order house is their ability to surf the Winchester market, make volume
buys, and burn in your disks before shipping.
Don't bother with SX machines. Under UNIX the 16-bit bus-to-CPU path can choke
your throughput. Anyway there's not enough of a 386DX premium to matter in the
desktop market any more (laptops are a whole 'nother story). The 486SX is even
worse, a stupid marketing crock with no technical justification whatsoever.
It's a 486DX with the floating-point unit lobotomized out; the difference
*will* bite you in unobvious ways, for example if you use X which does a lot of
FP for graphics. (One respondent opined that "SX" is Intel-internal code for
"sucks".)
Buy lots of RAM, it's the cheapest way to improve real performance on any
virtual-memory system. At $30-$50 maximum per megabyte it's just plain silly
to stick with the 2-4mb now standard on most clone configurations. Go to 8,
you won't regret it; 16 if you're going to use X. Above 16 is a little iffy on
ISA boxes because the stock USL 4.0.3 kernel may try to do DMA from a location
the bus can't deal with (but some vendors fix this).
One basic decision to make is: 16-bit ISA vs. 32-bit EISA? You'll pay a
$600-$900 premium for the latter. What you get in return is the ability to use
things like fast 32-bit SCSI controllers and a smoother upward-migration path.
On the other hand, EISA cards are significantly more expensive. There comes a
point, though, where increasing processor speed can leave it spending all its
time waiting on the limited I/O capacity of the poor old 5.3MB/sec ISA bus; the
vendors all seem to think this starts at around 33MHz and that if you're buying
50MHz it definitely pays to go EISA. This is a bigger issue under UNIX than
DOS because UNIX hits the disk more heavily. So far, though, there isn't much
support for EISA-specific hardware --- a couple of vendors will drive EISA SCSI
disk and tape controllers and that's about it (of course those *are* the most
important bandwidth-eaters). All ISA cards will still work.
If you're contemplating any kind of heavy-duty networking, EISA network
adapters will become rather important. A correspondent tells me he's seen
benchmarks showing what percentage of bus bandwidth is consumed by various
cards when flooding an ethernet (i.e. consuming the entire 10Mbit bandwidth of
a quiet net, as you might be when doing an FTP transfer, for instance). 8-bit
ISA cards consume 40-60% of bus bandwidth; 16-bit cards, 20-40%. 32-bit EISA
cards consume only about 5-10%. This would be particularly important in a
machine being used as a bridge, where you might be handling a large portion of
the traffic on two or more separate nets. The advantage of EISA cards may be
due to their shorter-cycle bus mastering DMA. At time of writing, only
SCO supports these, but other UNIX vendors are known to have their own drivers
in the pipeline.
Another basic decision is IDE vs. SCSI. Either kind of disk costs about the
same, but the premium for a SCSI card varies all over the lot, partly because
of price differences between ISA and EISA SCSI cards and especially because
many motherboard vendors bundle an IDE chip right on the system board. SCSI
gives you better speed and throughput and loads the processor less, a win for
larger disks and an especially significant consideration in a multi-user
environment; also it's more expandable.
Another important win for SCSI is that it handles multiple devices much more
efficiently. If you have two IDE (or ST506 or ESDI) drives, only one can
transfer between memory and disk at once. In fact, you have to program them at
such a low level, one drive might actually be blocked from *seeking* while
you're talking to the other drive. SCSI drives are mostly autonomous and can
do everything at once; and current SCSI drives are not quite fast enough to
flood more than 1/2 the SCSI bus bandwidth, so you can have at least two drives
on a single bus pumping full speed without using it up. In reality, you don't
keep drives running full speed all the time, so you should be able to have 3-4
drives on a bus before you really start feeling bandwidth crunch.
All this having been said, don't write off IDE too quickly. Sure, it's
compatible with the nasty old ST506 interface, but it's *much* faster. It
remains the cost-effective choice for smaller drives (up to 500MB) on systems
that won't be hitting the disk constantly. Unless you're running a heavily
used network or database server, don't assume SCSI will make any noticeable
difference.
(If you can do your own installation, I hear that used 150/250MB SCSI drives
are getting quite common and cheap on the net. All 150MB QIC type drives can
do 250MB on extended-length tapes. But back to disks...)
Look at seek times and transfer rates for your disk; under UNIX disk speed and
throughput are so important that a 1-millisecond difference in average seek
time can be noticeable.
Previous issues said "Disk caching is good, but there can be too much of a
good thing. Excessively large caches will slow the system because the overhead
for cache fills swamps the real accesses (this is especially a trap for
databases and other applications that do non-sequential I/O). More than 100K
of cache is probably a bad idea for a general-purpose UNIX box; watch out for
manufacturers who inflate cache size because memory is cheap and they think
customers will be impressed by big numbers." This may no longer be true on
current hardware; in particular, most controllers will interrupt a cache-fill
to fulfill a `real' read request.
However, it may be that *any* hardware disk caching is a lose for UNIX! Scott
Bennett <benn...@mp.cs.niu.edu> reports a discussion on comp.unix.wizards:
"nobody found the hardware disk caches to be as effective in terms of
performance as the file system buffer cache...In many cases, disabling the
hardware cache improved system performance substantially. The interpretation
of these results was that the caching algorithm in the kernel was superior to,
or at least better tuned to UNIX accesses than, the hardware caching
algorithms."
Yet another basic decision, of course, is processor speed and type. Forget the
20MHz and 25MHz 386s, they're history. Right now the hot sellers in this
market are the 386/33DX and AMD 386/40DX, which I'd say are reasonable
minimum-speed engines for UNIX with X (xterm scrolling is painfully slow on my
present 386/20DX machine). Lots of relatively inexpensive 486/33DX systems are
out there now; estimates for the speed advantage from the 486 range from 20 to
50% with 30% pretty widely heard (thus one of these is equivalent to about a
386/40DX). Most of the advantage comes from the pipelining and on-chip cache.
The higher level of integration also implies better reliability. And of
course, the on-chip FPU really sizzles if you're into scientific computing or
graphics.
One of Intel's most recent wrinkles is the "clock-doubler" chips. The 50DX2
runs at 25MHz externally but computes at 50MHz. A clock-doubled 33DX (compute
speed 66MHz) is scheduled for release from Intel soon, and there are persistent
rumors of a clock-doubled 50 in the works that would compute at a blistering
100MHz! Intel likes to quote a 70% throughput increase for the doublers over
their undoubled brethren, but don't you believe it. Allow for the flexible way
marketroids have with the truth, and reflect that UNIX chronically tends to be
I/O- rather than compute-bound. Our best guess is you'll be lucky to see a
third of that speedup.
If your motherboard offers multiple cache sizes, make sure you know whether the
larger cache is required when using more than a certain amount of memory. Or,
in general, fill the cache all the way -- cache speed RAM is getting pretty
cheap.
Right now you'll pay as much as a $1500 premium for a 486-50, as that's
relatively new technology and demands extra-fast memory to run full-out. Also,
these processors run really hot (one correspondent described the 50 as a
"toaster on a chip"). If you go this route, be sure your configuration has an
extra-heavy-duty cooling fan. Or two. And, for preference, a hefty heat sink.
Of course, if you do this you'll be ready to drop in Intel's 50MHz-external/
100MHz-internal part when it comes out later this year, and blow the doors off
all those fancy proprietary-technology workstations.
Which brings up a *minor* decision. Desktop or tower? My advice is go with
tower unless you're building a no-expansions personal system and expect to be
using the floppies a lot. Many vendors charge nothing extra for a tower case
and the absolute *maximum* premium I've seen is $100. What you get for that is
less desktop clutter, more and bigger bays for expansion, and often (perhaps
most importantly) a beefed-up power-supply and fan. Putting the box and its
fan under a table is good for maybe 5db off the effective noise level, too.
Airflow is also an issue; if the peripheral bays are less cramped, you get
better cooling. This is a good argument for a full tower rather than the `baby
tower' cases some vendors offer. Be prepared to buy extension cables for your
keyboard and monitor, though; vendors *never* include enough flex.
You should have a tape drive for backup, and because most UNIX vendors like to
distribute their OS on tape. Ideally, your tape backup should be able to image
your entire disk. Unfortunately, this can get *very* expensive for large
disks; 60/120MB QIC drives are fairly cheap now but larger sizes (typically
150, 250, 525 QIC tapes and 1.3gig DAT) are not. One interesting point is that
if you've gone SCSI, a 150MB QIC (comparable to the drives now popular on
Suns) may well be cheaper than older 60MB technology due to differences in the
adaptor boards required.
These days, most vendors bundle a 14" monitor and super-VGA card with 1024x768
resolution in with their systems. Details to watch are whether the card comes
loaded with 512K or 1MB of VRAM (which will affect how much of that maximum
resolution and how many colors you actually get) and whether the monitor is
interlaced or non-interlaced. The latter is better and should no longer cost
extra; look for the abbreviation NI in the ad or quote and be suspicious if you
don't see it.
One good way to boost your X performance is to invest in a graphics card with a
dedicated blitter or high-speed local-bus connection, like the ATI series or
the S3-based Quantum, Wind/X and Orchid Fahrenheit 1280. A number of clone
vendors offer these accelerator options relatively cheap (about $300) and can
make your X go like a banshee; however, stock X doesn't support them yet ---
and the third-party servers that do (such as MetroLink's or SGCS's) ain't
cheap.
S3 is an interesting phenomenon. Though several vendors advertise their
S3 connector as "proprietary" it's actually an anticipation of a forthcoming
Video EISA (VEISA) standard.
If you're feeling *really* flush, plump for a 15", 17" or even 20" monitor.
The larger size can make a major difference in viewing comfort. Also you'll be
set for VESA 1280x1024 when everybody gets to supporting that. In the mean
time, the bigger screen will allow you to use fonts in smaller pixel sizes so
that your text windows can be larger, giving you a substantial part of the
benefit you'd get from higher pixel resolutions.
Finally, I strongly recommend that you buy a power conditioner to protect your
hardware. MOV-filtered power bars make nice fuses (they're cheap to replace),
but they're not enough. Get yourself a box with a good big soft-iron
transformer and a couple of moby capacitors in it and *no* conductive path
between the in and out sides and you can laugh at brownouts and electrical
storms. I've been delighted with my TrippLite 1200, which you can get for $139
or so by mail order. A fringe benefit of this little beauty is that if you
accidently pull your plug out of the wall you may find you actually have time
to re-connect it before the machine notices!
Of mice and machines:
In a previous issue, I claimed that all mice and trackballs are the same for
compatibility purposes. I was wrong -- seriously wrong. The more I found out,
the messier the picture gets. The following is an attempt to sort out all the
confusion. Thanks to Jim McCarthy at Logitech for digging into the matter
and somewhat alleviating my ignorance.
Mice and trackballs used to be simple; now, thanks to Microsoft, they're
complicated. In the beginning, there was only the Mouse Systems 3-button
serial mouse; this reported status to a serial port 30 times a second using a
5-byte serial packet encoding now called "C" protocol. The Logitech Series 7
and 9 mice were Mouse Systems-compatible. All UNIXes that have any mouse
support at all understand C-protocol serial mice.
Then Microsoft got into the act. They designed a two-button serial mouse which
reports only deltas in a three-byte packet; that is, it sends changes in button
status and motion reports only when the mouse is actually moving. This is
called `M' protocol. Microsoft sold a lot of mice, so Logitech switched from
`C' to `M' --- but they added a third button, state changes for which show up
in an optional fourth byte. Thus, `M+' protocol, upward-compatible with
Microsoft's `M'. Most UNIX vendors add support for M+ mice, but it's wise to
check.
Bus mice are divided into 8255 and InPort types. These report info
continuously at 30 or 60 Hz (though InPort mice have an option for reporting
deltas only), and you get interrupts on events and then have to poll hardware
ports for details. More on these next issue.
In addition to serial mice and bus mice, there are "keyboard mice". On PS/2s
there are two identical-looking keyboard ports, labeled (with icons) "mouse" &
"keyboard". Both are 8 or 9 pin mini-DIN's that look like the regular PC
keyboard port only smaller. I don't know what logical protocol the keyboard
mouse speaks. Physically, the connector is eventually connected to the
keyboard processor (often an 8042). The same keyboard processor that decodes
the keyboard decodes the mouse. PS/2s have this port, many newer ISA/EISA
motherboards do as well.
All things considered, UNIX users are probably best off going with a serial
mouse (most current clone motherbords give you two serial ports, so you can
dedicate one to this and still have one for the all-important modem). Not only
are the compatibility issues less daunting, but a serial mouse loads the
multitasking system less due to interrupt frequency. Beware that most clone
vendors, being DOS oriented, bundle M-type mice for which UNIX support is
presently spotty, and they may not work with your X. Ignore the adspeak about
dpi and pick a mouse/trackball that feels good to your hand.
When, where and how to buy:
If you're a serious UNIX hacker for either fun or profit, you're probably in
the market for what the mail-order vendors think of as a high-end or even
`server' configuration, and you're going to pay a bit more than the DOS
lemmings. On the other hand, prices keep dropping, so there's a temptation to
wait indefinately to buy. A tactic that makes a lot of sense in this market,
if you have the leisure, is to fix in your mind a configuration and a trigger
price that's just a little sweeter than the market now offers and buy when
that's reached.
Direct-mail buying makes a lot of sense today for anyone with more technical
savvy than J. Random Luser in a suit. Even from no-name mail-order houses,
parts and system quality tend to be high and consistent, so conventional
dealerships don't really have much more to offer than a warm fuzzy feeling.
Furthermore, competition has become so intense that even mail-order vendors
today have to offer not just lower prices than ever before but warranty and
support policies of a depth that would have seemed incredible a few years back.
For example, many bundle a year of on-site hardware support with their medium-
and high-end "business" configurations for a very low premium over the bare
hardware.
Note, however, that assembling a system yourself out of mail-order parts is
*not* likely to save you money over dealing with the mail-order systems
houses. You can't buy parts at the volume they do; the discounts they command
are bigger than the premiums reflected in their prices. The lack of any
system warranty or support can also be a problem even if you're expert enough
to do the integration yourself --- because you also assume all the risk of
defective parts and integration problems.
Cruise through "Computer Shopper" and similar monthly ad compendia. Even if
you decide to go with a conventional dealer, this will tell you what *their*
premiums look like.
Another alternative to conventional dealerships (with their designer "looks",
stone-ignorant sales staff, and high overheads that *you* pay for) is to go
with one of the thousands of the hole-in-the-wall stores run by immigrants from
the other side of the International Date Line. They're usually less ignorant
and have much lower overheads; they do for you locally what a mail-order house
would, that is assemble and test parts they get for you from another tier of
suppliers. You won't get plush carpeting or a firm handshake from a white guy
with too many teeth and an expensive watch, but then you didn't really want to
pay for those anyway, right?
A lot of vendors bundle DOS 5.0 and variable amounts of DOS apps with their
hardware. You can tell them to lose all this cruft and they'll shave $50
or $100 off the system price.
Don't forget that (most places) you can avoid sales tax by buying from an
out-of-state mail-order outfit, and save yourself 6-8% depending on where you
live. If you live near a state line, buying from a local outfit you can often
win, quite legally, by having the stuff shipped to a friend or relative just
over it. Best of all is a buddy with a state-registered dealer number; these
aren't very hard to get and confer not just exemption from sales tax but
(often) whopping discounts from the vendors. Hand him a dollar afterwards to
make it legal.
(Note: I have been advised that you shouldn't try either tactic in Florida --
they charge tax on out-of-state mail order and are notoriously tough on "resale
license" holders).
Things to check when buying mail-order:
The weakest guarantee you should settle for should include ---
* 72-hour burn-in to avoid that sudden infant death syndrome.
* 30 day money-back guarantee. Watch out for fine print that weakens this
with a restocking fee or limits it with exclusions.
* 1 year parts and labor guarantee (some vendors give 2 years).
* 1 year of 800 number tech support (many vendors give lifetime support).
Additionally, many vendors offer a year of on-site service free. You should
find out who they contract the service to. Also be sure the free service
coverage area includes your site; some unscrupulous vendors weasel their way
out with "some locations pay extra", which translates roughly to "through the
nose if you're further away than our parking lot".
Reading warranties is an art in itself. A few tips:
Beware the deadly modifier "manufacturer's" on a warranty; this means you have
to go back to the equipment's original manufacturer in case of problems and
can't get satisfaction from the mail-order house. Also, manufacturer's
warranties run from the date *they* ship; by the time the mail-order house
assembles and ships your system, it may have run out!
Watch for the equally deadly "We do not guarantee compatibility". This gotcha
on a component vendor's ad means you may not be able to return, say, a video
card that fails to work with your motherboard.
Another dangerous phrase is "We reserve the right to substitute equivalent
items". This means that instead of getting the high-quality name-brand parts
advertised in the configuration you just ordered, you may get those no-name
parts from Upper Baluchistan --- theoretically equivalent according to the
spec sheets, but perhaps more likely to die the day after the warranty expires.
Substitution can be interpreted as "bait and switch", so most vendors are
scared of getting called on this. Very few will hold their position if you
press the matter.
One absolute show-stopper is the phrase "All sales are final". This means you
have *no* options if a part doesn't work. Avoid any company with this policy.
There are various cost-cutting tactics a vendor can use which bring down the
system's overall quality. Here are some good questions to ask:
* Is the memory zero-wait-state? One or more wait states allows the vendor to
use slower and cheaper memory but will slow down your actual processor
throughput. This is a particularly important question for the *cache*
memory --- fast SRAM is expensive!
* Is the monitor non-interlaced? Does it have a tilt-and-swivel base? Is it
*color*? Yes, if you don't see it in the ad, ask; some lowball outfits will
try to palm off so-called "black & white VGA" monitors on you. What's the
vertical scan rate? 60Hz is SVGA standard; 72Hz is VESA standard and
minimal for flicker-free operation; 80Hz is cutting-edge. What's the dot
pitch? .31mm is minimal, .28mm or .27mm is good. You need .28mm for X.
A slightly larger dot pitch is acceptable in a larger monitor (15" or more).
* Does the vendor pay for shipping? What's the delivery wait?
* If you need to return your system, is there a restocking fee? and will the
vendor cover the return freight? Knowing the restocking fee can be
particularly important, as they make keep you from getting real satisfaction
on a bad major part. Avoid dealing with anyone who quotes more than a 15%
restocking fee --- and it's a good idea, if possible, to avoid any dealer
who charges a restocking fee at all.
It's a good idea to pay with AmEx or Visa or MasterCard; that way you can
stop payment if you get a lemon, and may benefit from a buyer-protection plan
using the credit card company's clout. However, watch for phrases like "Credit
card surcharges apply" or "All prices reflect 3% cash discount" which mean
you're going to get socked extra if you pay by card.
Which clone vendors to talk to:
I went through the March 1992 issue of Computer Shopper calling vendor 800
numbers with the following question: "Does your company have any
configurations aimed at the UNIX market; do you use UNIX in-house; do
you know of any of the current 386 or 486 ports running successfully
on your hardware?
I didn't call vendors who didn't advertise an 800 number. This was only partly
to avoid phone-bill hell; I figured that toll-free order & info numbers are so
standard in this industry sector that any outfit unable or unwilling to spring
for one probably couldn't meet the rest of the ante either. I also omitted
parts houses with token systems offerings and anybody who wasn't selling
desktops or towers with a 386/33DX or heavier processor inside.
After plundering Computer Shopper, I called up a couple of "name" outfits that
don't work direct-mail and got the same info from them.
The answers I get revealed that for most clone vendors UNIX is barely a blip on
the screen. Only one that I talked to has tested with an SVr4 port. Most seem
barely aware that the market exists. Many seem to rely on their motherboard
vendors to tell them what they're compatible, without actually testing whole
systems. Since most compatibility problems have to do with peripheral cards,
this is a problem.
Here's a summary of the most positive responses I got:
A --- Advertises UNIX compatibility.
C --- Has known UNIX customers.
I --- Uses UNIX in-house.
T --- Have formally tested UNIX versions on their hardware.
F --- Have 486/50 systems
* --- Sounded to me like they might actually have a clue about the UNIX market.
Vendor A C I T F * Ports known to work
--------------- - - - - - - -----------------------------------------------
ARC . . X X . . SCO XENIX 2.3.2, SCO UNIX 3.2.1
AST . X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.4, ODT 2.0 Microport V/4
Allegro . . X X . . SCO XENIX 3.2.4
Altec . X . X . . XENIX (no version given).
Ares . X X X X * AT&T 3.2, ISC (version unknown)
Basic Time . X X X X * SCO XENIX 2.3.2, have in-house UNIX experts.
Binary Tech . X . X X . Claims to work with all versions.
Blue Dolphin . X . X X * SCO XENIX.
CCSI X X . . X . They've used SCO XENIX, no version given.
CIN . X . . . . SCO UNIX (version not specified)
CSS . X . X . * SCO 3.2.2, ISC 3.0, SCO ODT. See Will Harper.
Centrix X . . . . . No specifics on versions.
Compudyne . X X X X . Couldn't get details on which versions.
Comtrade . X . X X . Couldn't get details on which versions.
Datom X X X X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.
Dell X X X X X * See Dell SVr4 data.
Desert Sands X X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2.4
Digitech . X . X . . SCO UNIX 3.2.1, XENIX 2.3.1
EPS X X X X . * SCO XENIX 3.2.4, ISC & AT&T (versions not sp.)
Gateway X X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.0. XENIX 2.3.4 ISC 3.0, ESIX 4.0.3
HD Computer . X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2, SCO XENIX 3.2.2
HiQ . X . X . . SCO UNIX (version not specified)
Infiniti . X . X X . SCO UNIX (versions not specified)
Insight . . X . X . SCO XENIX 3.2.4. No tech support for UNIX
Keydata X . X X X * SCO version 4, ISC 3.2
Legatech . X . . X . SCO UNIX, ISC (versions not specified)
MicroGeneration . . X . . . Uses XENIX.
MicroLab X . . . . . SCO UNIX, SCO XENIX
MicroSmart X X . X . . SCO XENIX (version not specified)
Microlink X . . X X . SCO XENIX (version not specified)
Myoda X X . X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.2, ISC 3.2
Naga . X . X X * SCO & XENIX 3.2.
Northgate X X . X X * SCO UNIX 3.2
PC Brand . X X X . . SCO XENIX, ISC UNIX
PC Professional . X . X . . ISC 3.2
PC-USA X X . X . . ISC 5.3.2 and SCO 3.2
Profex . X . X . . SCO XENIX 3.2.
Royal Computer . X . . X . No details on versions.
SAI X X . X X . SCO UNIX 3.2.2.
Santronics . . X X X . SCO XENIX 3.2.4
Solidtech . X . . . . Dell (no version given), ISC 3.2.
Strobe . . . X X . SCO, Microport, ISC (no version numbers given)
Swan X X X X X * SCO 2.3.1, UNIX 3.2, ISC 3.2v2.0.2
TriStar . X X X X * SCO UNIX 3.2.2, XENIX 2.3.2, ISCr4
Zenon . X . X X * SCO UNIX (version not specified)
Zeos . X X X X * SCO XENIX 3.2.4, AT&T 3.2
Special notes about a few vendors who appear to have a clue:
Ares targets some of its systems for UNIX CAD use. They have a house wizard
name Ken Cooper (everybody calls him "K.C.").
EPS targets some 486 EISA configurations for UNIX.
Though Gateway has a decent reputation overall, there have been several
independent reports on USENET of bus hangs during tape access when Gateway EISA
motherboards are used with an Adaptec 1742 SCSI controller. Gateway is said to
be aware of the problem and working on a fix.
Swan doesn't know the UNIX market very well yet, but their project manager
wants a bigger piece of it and is interested in doing some of the right
things. They have a house wizard, one John Buckwalter.
Dell, of course, supports an industry-leading SVr4 port. They're a bit on
the pricy side, but high quality and very reliable. Lots of UNIX expertise
there; some of it hangs out on the net.
Zeos is planning to come on the net as zeos.com, with a uunet connection. They
will support a UNIX BBS beginning May 1st. They have an in-house UNIX group;
talk to Ken Germann for details.
Special notes about a lot of vendors who appear to have *no* clue:
Vendors where I couldn't get a real person on the line, either because
no one answered the main number or because I couldn't raise anyone at
tech support after being directed there: Sunnytech, Quantex, AMS, USA
Flex, Lapine, Syntax Computer, MicroTough, PAC International, The Portable
Warehouse.
Vendors where the question met with blank incomprehension, puzzlement,
consternation, or "We've never tested with UNIX": Allur, AmtA, Aplus, HiTech,
Locus Digital Products, LodeStar, TriStar Computers, Ultra-Comp, UTI Computers,
PC Turbo Corp, Evertek, Microcomputer Concepts, Jinco Computers, UWE, ToughCom,
System Dynamics Group, Terribly Fast Bus Systems.
Vendors who understood the questions but had no answer: Bulldog Computer
Products, LT Plus, Standard Computer, JCC.
Vendors who said "Yes, we're UNIX-compatible" but had no details of any tests:
CompuCity.
Vendors who said "Go ask our motherboard vendor": Ariel Design, Lucky Computer
Co., V-com, Professional Computer, MicroLine, MileHi.
Vendors who sent me to a toll number: Absec, Hokkins, New Technologies, Mirage.
Vendors that believe they have UNIX customers, but can't be any definite than
that: Austin Computer Systems, PC Professional, Treasure Chest Computer
Systems, CompuAdd Express, FastMicro, MidWest Micro.
Final note:
If you order from these guys, be sure to tell them you're a UNIX customer
and don't need the bundled DOS. This will shave some bucks off the system
price, *and* it may encourage them to pay more attention to the UNIX market.
VI. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES
These tables summarize vendor claims and user reports on which hardware will
work with which port.
To save space in the tables below, we use the following *one-letter*
abbreviations for the OS ports:
S SCO UNIX version 3.2.4
C Consensys UNIX Version 1.2
D Dell UNIX Issue 2.1
E Esix Revision A
M Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX
P Microport System V/4 version 4
U UHC Version 3.6
B BSD/386 (0.3 beta)
X Mach386
A `c' indicates that the hardware is claimed to work in vendor literature.
A `y' indicates that this has been verified by a user report.
A `.' indicates that whether this combination works is unknown.
An `n' indicates that the vendor advises that the combination won't work.
A `*' points you at footnote info.
A blank column indicates that I have received no vendor info on the
hardware category in question.
The following general caveats apply:
* All ports support EGA, VGA, CGA and monochrome text displays.
* All ports support generic ISA serial-port cards based on the 8250 or 16450
UART. According to the vendors, the asy drivers on Dell, Esix, Microport,
BSD/386 and Mach386 support the extended FIFO on the NS16550AFN UART chip.
Indeed, Dell tech support will tell you this feature was present in the
base USL code. UHC says its 2.0 drivers *don't* talk to 16550s but
says that will be fixed in March '92. A user reports that SCO has
supported the 16550 since 3.2.2.
* I have not bothered listing ordinary ST-506/IDE/RLL drives, though lists
of them are given in vendor literature. This is a very mature commodity
technology; anything you buy should work with one of the supported
controllers unless it's defective.
* Vendors' supported hardware lists are not models of clarity. Some iterms
may be listed under a couple of different names because I don't know that
they're actually the same beast. I have been very careful not to make
assumptions where I am ignorant; thus, some hardware may appear less
widely supported than it actually is.
* These tables are grossly incomplete.
All the SVr4 systems inherit support for a fairly wide range of hardware from
the base USL code (version 4.0.3 or 4.0.4). This includes:
* All PC disk controllers (ESDI, IDE, ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
* The Adaptec 1542B SCSI adapter. Note: you'll have to jumper your
SCSI devices to fixed IDs during installation on most of these.
* Western Digital's 8013EBT Ethernet card, and its equivalents
the WD8003 and WD8013.
* VGA adapters in 640x480 by 16 color mode.
* "C" protocol serial mice like the Series 7 and Series 9 from Logitech and
the PC-3 mouse from Mouse Systems. See the "HOT TIPS" section for details.
SCO UNIXes from 3.2.2 up and ODT 1.1 also support all these devices.
If you can fill in any of the gaps, or convert a `c' to `y', send me email.
S C D E M P U B X Systems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . c . Acer (all 386/486 models)
. . . c ACCELL 486/33 ISA and 386/40 ISA
. c . . ADDA AD-428P-25, Portable 486/25, 486/33, AD-328D-25
. c c . ALR Business VEISA 386/33-101
c . . . ALR (all 386 and 486 models)
c . . . applicationDEC 316,316+,325,325C,333,425,433MP
c . . . Apricot LS, LS 386SX, XEN-S 386
c . . . Arche 486, Master 486/33
. . c . AST (models not specified)
. c c . AST Premium (models not specified)
c . . . AST Premium 386,386/33,486/25T*E*,486/33T*E*
c . c . AT&T 6386 machines
. . c . Compaq (models not specified)
c c c . Compaq DeskPro 386/33.
c . . . Compaq DeskPro 486s/20,486/25/486/33L,386/20,386/25
c . . . Compaq Portable III 386, SystemPro
c y y y y y y . CompuAdd Model 333
c . . . DEC DS486, DECpc 433, DECpc 433T
c . . . DECstation 320,325,425
c y . c . Dell (models not specified)
c . . . EasyData 386 model 333
c . . . Epson Equity 386/20PC,386/25,386SX; Epson PC AX3,AX3/25
. c c . Everex (models not specified)
y . . . Everex 33,386/20,486,486/33
. c c . Gateway (models not specified)
. . c c y Gateway 2000 (486/33 ISA)
. . . y . Gateway 486/25
c . . . Groupil Uniprocessor 25MHz Tower
c . . . GRiDCase 1530,1550SX
. . c c High Definition Systems 486/25 ISA and 386 SX/16 ISA
. y . . High Definition Systems 386/40 ISA
c . . . HP 486 Vectra series
c . . . IBC 486
c . . . ITT 486
y . . . Micro Way Number Smasher 486/33
c . . . Mitac 386, MC3100E-02, S500
c . . . Mitsuba 386
c . . . Mitsubishi PC-386
c . . . NCR 316,316SX,3386
c . . . NEC 386/20,486/25, BusinessMate and PowerMate
y . . . NEC 386/33 BusinessMate
c . . . Noble 386
c . . . Nokia Alfaskop System 10 m52, m54/55
c . . . Northgate 33
. c c . Northgate 386/33
. y . . . Northgate 486/33
c . . . Olivetti 386/486 machines
y . . . Packard-Bell 386x
c . . . PC Craft PCC 2400 386
c . . . Phillips 386, P3464 486
. c c . Primax (models not specified)
c . . . SNI 8800-50, 8810-50, PCD series
c . . . Schneider 386 25-340, 386SX System 70
c . . . Siemens Data Systems Model WX200
c . . . Starstation
c . . . Tandy 4000
y . . . Tatung Force 386x
c . . . Tatung Force TCS-8000 386, TCS-8600 386
. c c . Tangent (models not specified)
. y . . Tangent 386/25C
. c y . Tangent 433E (486/33 EISA)
. c c . Televideo (models not specified)
c . . . Televideo 386/25
c . . . Texas Instruments System 1300
c . . . Toshiba T3100,T3200,T5100,T5200,T8500,T8600
. c c . Twinhead (models not specified)
y . . . Twinhead 800 (486/33)
. c c . Unisys (models not specified)
c . . . Unisys PW2 Series 800/16,800/20,800/25
c . . . Victor 386 25, V486T
c . . . Wang MX200, PC 380
c . . . Wyse 386
n . . . Wyse Decision 486/33 (intermittent crashes)
c . . . Zenith 386 and 486 machines
S C D E M P U B X Motherboards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . AGI
y . . . A.I.R. 486/33EL w 256K cache
. c . ALR
. c . AMAX
. c . AMI (model not specified)
y c . AMI Enterprise II (33 & 50)
. c . ARC
n . c . Cache Computer
. c . Chips & Technologies chipset
y . c . Chips & Technologies 33DX
c c . Club AT
. c . DataExport
y . c . Dell
. c n . DTK (model not specified)
y . n . DTK 386/33
. . c EISA Tech 80386SX MHz
y . . . Eteq 386
n . . Eteq 486
. c . Free Technology
c . . . Intel 302
. c . Microlab
c y c y c Micronics 386/25
c c y c y Micronics 486/33
. c . Mitac
y . . . Motherboard Factory 386/40, 486/33 (Northgate's OEM)
. c . Mylex (model not specified)
c c . Mylex MI-386/20
y . c . OPTI 486
. c . Orchid
. c . PC-craft
. y . Tangent MAE486/33
Notes:
* These two tables probably way *understate* the compatibility of most ports.
Most ISA or EISA motherboards will work with all of them. However, Jeff
Coffler <coff...@jeck.amherst.nh.us> reports: "I couldn't get the Cache
Computer CPU board to work at all with Dell UNIX, even though they claimed
they work with SCO. Flaky, timing-related failures."
* A source at UHC describes the DTK boards as "dogshit" --- he says they
generate a lot of spurious interrupts that DOS is too cretinous to be
bothered by but which completely tank UNIX. He says DTK seems uninterested
in fixing the problem. Also, Dave Johnson <d...@gradient.com> reports that
since upgrading from a 386 to an Eteq 486, they've had lots of UHC random
panics due to page faults in kernel mode. UHC is looking into this.
S C D E M P U B X SuperVGA Cards Max Res ChipSet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . c y * . . Appian Rendition II ???? TIGA34010
. . . c . . ARC V-16 (Paradise) ???? ????
. . . c c . AT&T VDC 600 (Paradise clone) SVGA ????
c . . . AST VGA Plus 800x600x16 WDC
c . y . c . . ATI Ultra 1024x768x256 Mach 8
. . c . c . . ATI Vantage 1024x768x256 Mach 8
c . c c n . ATI Wonder+ SVGA N Wonder
. . . c c . ATI (type not specified) ???? ????
. . y . . . . Boca SuperVGA ???? ET[34]000
c . . . . . Chips 451 800x600x16 N C&T451
c . . . . . Chips 452 1024x768x16 N C&T452
c . . . . . Compaq Advanced VGA 640x480x256 N ????
c . . . . . Compaq Plasma 640x400x2 N non-VGA
c . . . . . Compaq LCD VGA 640x480x16 N ????
c . . . . . Compaq VGC 640x480x16 N ????
. c . . . c Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
c . . . . . Cornerstone SinglePage 1008x768 ????
c . . . . . Cornerstone PC1280 1280x960 ????
c . . . . . Cornerstone DualPage 1600x1280 ????
. . y . . c . Dell VGA 1024x768 ????
. c y c c y c y Diamond SpeedStar 1024x768 ET4000
c c . . . c Eizo MD-B07, MD-B10, Extra/EM 1024x768 ET3000
. . c . . . Everex ViewPoint VRAM SVGA+ ????
. . c . . . Everex ViewPoint True Color SVGA+ ????
. . c . . . Everex UltraGraphics II EV-236 1664x1200 mono
c . c c c c Genoa 5300/5400 superVGA SVGA N ????
c c . c . c Genoa 6000, 6400 SVGA N ????
c . . . . . Grid 1500 laptop 640x400x2 CGA-like
y . c c . . Hercules monographics display 720x348 mono
c . . . . . IBM 8514/A 1024x768x256 8514/A
c . . . . . IBM VGA VGA VGA
c . . . . . IBM XGA 1024x768x256 XGA
c . . . . . Matrox MWIN1280 1280x1024x256 N ????
. . c . . . MaxLogic SVGA ????
. . . . c . . Microfield V-8 1280x1024 ????
c . . . . . Miro Magic 1280x1024x256 N ????
. . . . * . . Mylex GXE (EISA) 1280x1024 TIGA34020
. . c . . . Oak Technology OTI-067 1024x768 16, 256
c . . . . . Olivetti EVC-1 1280x1024x256 ????
. c . . . c Optima Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
c . . . . . Orchid Designer SVGA ET3000
c c y c c c Orchid ProDesigner 800x600 ET3000
c c y y y . y Orchid ProDesigner II/1024 1024x768 ET4000
c . . . . . Paradise VGA Plus SVGA PVGA1A
. c c c c c Paradise VGA Professional SVGA PVGA1A
c c c . c . . Paradise VGA 1024 SVGA WD90C00
c . . . . . Paradise 8514/A SVGA+ ????
c . . . . . QuadRAM QuadVGA SVGA ????
. . . c . c Renaissance GRX-II VGA ???? ????
c . . . . . Renaissance Rendition II 1024x768 ????
c c y . c . c Sigma Legend 1024x768 ET4000
. . . c c . Sigma VGA/H ???? ????
c . c c c . STB EM-16 VGA, EM-16+ VGA SVGA ET3000
c . . . . . STB Extra-EM SVGA ET3000
. c c c . c STB PowerGraph w/1meg 1024x768 ET4000
. c . . . c Swan SVGA with VCO chip 1024x768 ET4000
c . c . . . Tecmar VGA AD SVGA ET3000
c . . . . . Toshiba Grid 1500 laptop 640x400x2 CGA-like
. c . . . c TRICOM Mega/1024 1024x768 ET4000
. . . c . . Trident SuperVGA ???? T880
c . . . . . Trident TVGA 8900 1024x768 T8900
. . . c c . Tseng Labs VGA ???? T4000
. . c . . . Vectrix VX1024 (TI-34010) 1024x768 ????
c . . . . . Verticom MX/AT 800x600 ????
c . c c c . Video7 FastWrite VGA 800x600 x2, x16 ????
c . . c c . Video7 VRAM VGA 800x600x16 Video7
c . . c c . Video7 VRAM II VGA SVGA Video7
c . . c c . Video7 VEGA EGA 640x380 Video7
c . . . . . Video7 VGA1024i SVGA Video7
In this table, an `SVGA' resolution code signifies the following resolutions:
1024x768 at 2 and 16 colors, 800x600 at 2, 16, 256 colors, and 640x480 at 2,
16, 256 colors. SVGA+ adds 1280x1024 at 2 or 16 colors. Some non-interlace
boards are marked with N.
Caveats in interpreting the above table:
* All super-VGA cards will work at VGA resolutions and below (that is, resolu-
tions up to 640x480 in 16 colors).
* This list is not exclusive. Many (perhaps even most) dotted combinations
will work; UHC claims that any SVGA based on an ET3000, ET4000, Paradise
or Genoa chip-set will fly, and the same is probably true of all other
vendors (since the SVGA dependencies are localized in X and they're all
porting from the same X sources).
* Consensys's list is just MIT's list of cards certified to work with X11R5;
Consensys is careful to note that they haven't tested all these themselves.
* An Esix reseller says all the TIGA34010-based SVGA cards are pretty much
alike and ESIX will drive any of them. Esix also supports 720x348
resolution on cheap Hercules-compatible monochrome tubes, and the Everex
UltraGraphics display at 1664x1200 resolution.
* UHC says they expect to have the drivers for the ATI WonderCard in place by
mid-March.
* Beware the Trident and Oak chipsets. Many clone vendors bundle these with
their systems because they're cheap, but they break the Roell server and
some other X implementations. Also, they appear to argue with the WD8003EP
net card, and no re-arrangement of the jumpers seems to fix it.
* Third party server technology from companies like MetroLink can support
higher performance, higher resolution TIGA and proprietary technology.
S C D E M P U B X Mice
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . c y y y c (Logitech-compatible) 3-button serial mice (C protocol)
c . . c c n y (Logitech-compatible) 3-button bus mice (C protocol)
. . . c . n . ATI Wonder+ bus-mouse port
c . . . . . . HP C1413A Mouse
y . . . . . . IBM PS/2 kwyboard mouse
c . n c c n Logitech MouseMan (M+ protocol)
c c y c c c c Logitech Trackman (serial, M+ protocol)
c c y c c n y Logitech Trackman (bus, M+ protocol)
c . . . . . . Logitech hi-res Keyboard Mouse
c . . c c . y Microsoft 2-button (serial, M protocol)
c . . c c n y Microsoft 2-button (bus, M protocol)
c . . . . . . Olivetti Bus Mouse
c . . . . . . Olivetti hi-res Keyboard Mouse
. . . . . . c SummaMouse
c . . . . . . Summagraphics Bitpad
Notes:
* See the discussion of mice at the beginning of this section for details.
* BSD/386 says it supports all 1200-9600 baud serial mice, specifying Logitech
as an example. This is probably true of all vendors.
* The MouseMan and TrackMan require a patch obtainable from SCO to run under
ODT 1.1; they're fully supported in 2.0.
S C D E M P U B X Multi-port serial cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . . . AMI lamb 4 and 8-port
. . . c c n Arnet (models not specified)
c . . . . . Arnet 2,4 and 8-port and TwinPort
c . . c c n AST 4-port
. . . . c n Central Data
. . . . c n Chase Research
. . c . c n Computone (models not specified)
. . c . . . Computone Intelliport
c . . . . . Computone ATvantage-X 8-port
c . . . . . Comtrol Hostess-4
c . . c c n Comtrol Hostess-8
. c . c y n Consensys PowerPorts
c . . . . . CTC Versanet 4AT and 8AT
c . . . . . Digiboard 4 and 8-port
. . c c c n Digiboard DigiChannel PC/8.
y . c . y n Equinox
. . c . c n Intelliport
c . . . . . Kimtron Quartet 4-port
. . . c c n Maxspeed
c . . . . . Olivetti RS232C Multiport board
. . c . . n OnBoard:32
c . . . . . Quadram QuadPort 1 and 5-port
y . c . c n Specialix
. . c . c n Stallion
. . . . c n Stargate (models not specified)
c . . . . . Stargate OC4400 (4-port) and OC8000 (8-port)
c . . . . . Tandon Quad serial card
. . c . c n Technology Concepts
c . . . . . Unisys 4-port
Notes:
* Only SCO, Consensys, Esix and Microport listed multiport cards at all. As
some are `smart' cards which require special device drivers, you should
*not* assume that a board is supported on a particular port unless the
vendor explicitly says so.
* MtXinu says they have *no* multiport support right now.
* The Consensys PowerPort card has troubles; see the vendor report on
Consensys for details.
S C D E M P U B X Disk controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . c c . . Adaptec 2320/2322 (ESDI)
c . . c . . Adaptec ACB 2730C (RLL)
c . y . c . . Adaptec ACB 2732C (RLL)
c . . . . . Compag 32-bit Intelligent Drive Array Controller
c . . . . . Compag 32-bit Intelligent Drive Array Expansion
. . . c . c CCAT100A (IDE)
. . . c . . Chicony 101B
y . c c . . Data Tech Corp 6280 (ESDI)
. . . c . c DTG 6282-24
. . c c . . Everex EV-346 (ST506)
. . c c . . Everex EV-348 (ESDI)
. . c c . . Everex EV-8120 (IDE)
y . . . . . Lark ESDI controller
. . c c . . OMTI 8240 (ST506)
. . . . c . PSI Caching controller (ESDI)
c . . . . . SMS OMTI 8620 and 8627 (ESDI)
. . . . c . Ultrastor 12C, 22F
y . . c c c Ultrastor 12F
c . . . n . Ultrastor 22C (caching version of 12F)
. . . c . . Ultrastor 22CA
c c y c c . . Western Digital 1003 (RLL)
c . . . . . Western Digital 1005
y . y c . c Western Digital 1007 A,SE2 (ESDI)
. . . c . . Western Digital 1009 SE1/SE2
Notes:
* All these ports should support all standard PC hard-disk controllers (ESDI,
IDE,ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).
S C D E M P U B X SCSI controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . . . . Adaptec 152x (non-bus mastering ISA host adapter)
y c y c y c c c c Adaptec 1540, 1542
c . . . . . . Adaptec 1640 (MicroChannel version of 154x)
c . y c c n c . Adaptec 1740,1742 (EISA) (1542 emulation mode)
c . . y . * . . Adaptec 1740,1742 (EISA) (enhanced mode)
. . . c . . . Always IN2000
y . c c . . . BusTek BT-542B
y . c c . . . BusTek BT-742A (EISA) (mPort specifies Revision F)
c . . . . . Compag SCSI Option Adapter and Compression Adapter
c . . . . . . Corollary SCSI-CPU
. . . c c . . DPT PM2102 caching controller (MFM emulation)
c . . c . . . DPT PM2102 caching SCSI controller in SCSI mode
. . c . . . . Everex EV8118/8110
c . c . . . . Future Domain 1660, 1680, 885, 860
y . . . . . . IBM HardFile (their SCSI host adapter for MicroChannel)
. . . c . . . Mylex DCE (EISA)
c . . . . . . Olivetti ESC
. . . . c . . PSI caching controller
c . . . . . . Storage Plus SCSI-AT "Sumo"
. . . c . . . Ultrastor 32k 12u
c . c c c c . . Western Digital WD7000
c . . . . . . Western Digital WD7000-EX (EISA version of WD7000)
Notes:
* UHC started shipping a native-mode 1740/1742 driver in mid-April. It
requires a full SCSI-2 tape drive.
* BSDI says they plan to support the 1740 in native mode in the production
release.
* The BusTek 542 and 742 cards are clones of the Adaptec 1542 and 1742
respectively. At least one respondent thinks they work better and
faster with the Adaptec drivers than the Adaptecs do!
S C D E M P U B X Network cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . . . . . y 3COM EtherLink I 3C501 and 3C502
c . . y c . . c 3COM EtherLink II 3C503
c . . . . . c . 3COM EtherLink 16 (3C507)
c . . . . . . . 3Com 3C523 & 523B EtherLink/MC
c . . . . . . . 3Com 3C523 EtherLink/MC TP
. . . c . . . . Everex EV-2015, EV-2016, EV-2026, EV-2027
c . . . . . . . HP 27245A EtherTwist Adapter Card/8 ISA TP
c . . . . . . . HP 27247A EtherTwist Adapter Card/16 ISA TP
c . . . . . . . HP 27250A ThinLAN Adapter Card/8 ISA BNC
c . . . . . . . HP 27248A EtherTwist EISA Adapter Card/32
c . . . . . . . IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter
c . . . . . . . IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter II (short and long card)
c . . . . . . . IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter 4/16
c . . . . . . . IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter/A
c . . . . . . . IBM Token-Ring Network 16/4 Adapter/A
c . . . . . . . Microdyne (Excelan) EXOS 205, 205T, 205T/16
c . . . . . . . Racal Datacomm NI6510 ISA and ES3210 EISA
. . c c c c . c Intel PC-586 aka iMX-LAN/586
. . . . . . c . Novell NE2000
y c c y c c c c c SMC & Western Digital 8003 and 8013 and variations
. . c . . . . . WD TokenRing card
Notes:
* Dell's next release should include a 3C503 driver.
S C D E M P U B X Tape drives
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c y c y . c . Archive 2150S (SCSI, QIC-150)
c . c c . . c Archive Viper VP150E
c . . c c . . Archive Viper 60 21116
c . . y c . . Archive Viper 150 21247
c . . c c . . Archive Viper 150 25099
c . . c c . . Archive Viper 2525 25462.
y . . c . . . Archive 60 - 525MB (QIC-02 and SCI)
c . . c . . . Archive 4mm 4520 DAT
c . . c c . . Archive Python models 25501-003, -005 and -008 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Archive Python DDS 4520NT and 4521NT DAT drives
. . . c c . c Archive XL80
c . c c . . . Archive 5580 floppy tape
. . . c c . . Archive 3800
. . . . c . . AT&T KS22762 and KS23495 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Bell Technologies XTC-60
. . c . . . . Caliper CP150
c . . . . . . Cipher CP-60B, CP-125B
. . c . . . . Cipher ST150S-II
c . . . c . . Cipher ST150S2/90 (SCSI)
n . . c . . . CMS Jumbo - 60MB QIC-40
n . . . c . . Emulex MT02/S1 +CCS INQ (SCSI)
. . c c . . . Everex Excel Stream 60, 125, 150
. . c c . . . Everex5525ES (SCSI)
. . c c . . . Everex EV-811, EV-831, EV-833
c . . c c . . Exabyte EXB-8200 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . HP 35450A (SCSI)
. . . . c . . HP 88780 (SCSI)
. . . . c . . HPCIPHER M990 (SCSI)
. . . . c . . NCR H6210-STD1-01-46C632 (SCSI)
c . . . . . . Mountain 8mm Cartridge
y . . . n . . Mountain FileSafe 150MB (QIC-02)
c . . . . . . Mountain FileSafe 60-300MB (QIC-02)
c . y . . . . . Sankyo 525ES (SCSI)
. . . . c . . Sony SDT-1000 (SCSI)
. . . c . . . Tallgrass 150 - 525MB SCSI
c . . . . . . Tandberg DQIC (SCSI)
. . . . . . c TUV DAT
c . y . c . . . Wangtek 150SE (SCSI)
c . c c y . . Wangtek 5150ES (SCSI)
c . . c . . . Wangtek 60 - 525MB (QIC 02 and SCSI)
c . . c . . . Wangtek 6130 - HS 4mm DAT.
c . . c c . . Wangtek 5125ES ES41, 5150ES ES41, 5150ES FA0 (SCSI)
c . . c c . . Wangtek 5150ES SCSI-3 (SCSI)
c . . c . c . WangTek 5150PK QIC-02 (QIC-150)
c . y . . . . . Wangtek 5525 (SCSI)
c . . c c . . Wangtek 6130-F (SCSI)
c . . c c . . Wangtek KS23417, KS23465, KS24569 (SCSI)
Notes:
* All SVr4s inherit USL support for QIC-02, QIC-36 1/4", or SCSI tape
interfaces, using QIC-24 (9-track, 60MB), QIC-120 (15-track, 125MB) or
QIC-150 (18-track, 150MB) formats.
* A user says of Dell: it appears that anything using Wangtek QIC02/QIC36
controllers works; this should include the Wangtek 525MB, Cipher ST150S2,
and Archive 2150S drives.
* UHC specifies the following tape controller/drive combinations: Wangtek
PC-36 + Wangtek 5099-EN, Everex 811 + Wangtek 5150-EN, Bell Tech + Wangtek
5150-EN, Archive SC499-R + Archive External FT-60, Archive VP402 + Archive
Viper 2150L, Everex 811 + Archive Viper 2150L, Bell Tech + Archive Viper
2150L, Archive VP402 + Archive Viper 2150L.
* UHC claims that Any floppy tape supporting the QIC-107 physical and QIC-117
logical interface specs and QIC-80 or QIC-40 recording formats should work.
This is probably true of other vendors as well.
* BSDI says it supports any Wangtek 1/4" standard 3M streamer with a
QIC-02 or QIC-36 interface.
* Floppy tapes don't work on Dell; USL provides the support, but it collides
with Dell's code for auto-detecting the density of a diskette.
* SCO's tape compatibility table lists drive/controller pairs; not all drives
listed have been included here. They allege that any QIC-02 drive should
work. Unofficial sources inside SCO claim any SCSI drive ought to work.
* A source at SCO says the CMS Jumbo is neither compatible with QIC40/QIC80
nor Irwin "standards", vendor supplies their own driver which SCO does not
support.
* The Emulex MT02 is a QIC02 bridge controller for the SCSI bus -- lets you
take an old QIC02 drive and run it on a SCSI bus. It is said to use a
very old version of the SCSI spec; caveat emptor.
S C D E M P U B X Non-Winchester mass storage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. c . . . Bernoulli 90MB exchangeable SCSI
. . c . Hitachi, Toshiba (models not specified)
. . . c Maxtor RXT-800HS
. c c . Storage Dimensions XSE1-1000S1 optical disk
. c c . SyQuest cartridge media
. c . . . Tandata
. c c c Toshiba TXM-3201A1 CD-ROM
. . c c Toshiba WM-C050
. c c c Toshiba WM-D070 WORM drive
VII. KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE
The most serious problem anyone has reported is that the USL asy driver is
flaky and occasionally drops characters at above 4800 baud.
Microport, Dell, Esix, and UHC say that they believe they've fixed this.
However, Dell, at least, was mistaken when they first made this claim; a more
detailed description of the problem is given below. I have been assured that
this is on the fix list for the next Dell release.
Bela Lubkin at SCO comments "386 interrupt latency vs. unbuffered UARTs.
This is a tough problem. Nobody's driver should drop characters with a
turned-on 16550. It's not so easy with a 16450. Anyone with 16450s or lower
should be able to solve their problems by dropping in a 16550."
Mark Snitily of SGCS says that under many SVr4s, signalling a process that
is running suid root will cause it to core-dump. Dell and MST have fixed this.
SCO doesn't suffer from this.
On ISA machines with more that 16MB of RAM, SVr4 may try to do DMA
from outside the bus's address space, causing serious problems. UNIX ought
to do an in-memory copy to within the low 16MB but the USL base code doesn't.
Dell says they've fixed this, and that's been confirmed by a user.
UHC says they've fixed this; they add that the special buffer-allocation
logic to handle the problem can be turned off with a tunable kernel parameter
if you've got less than 16M.
Microport says they've fixed this in their new 4.1 release, shipping early
March.
Esix offers a patch to correct this problem.
SCO used to have a similar bug but fixed it long ago.
Stock USL code is limited to 1,024 cylinders per Winchester, which
might cause problems with a few very large disk drives.
Microport, Dell, Esix, and UHC have fixed this. MST has not.
Bela Lubkin says "SCO's boot filesystem must lie below 1024 cylinder mark;
anything else can be anywhere. This is more-or-less a limitation of the BIOS
interface that the bootstrap loader must use. Could be circumvented by going
directly to controller hardware in the bootstrap loader, but that would be
horrendously complex with all the controllers & host adapters to be supported."
The shmat(2) call is known to interact bady with vfork(2). Specifically,
if you attach a shared-memory segment, vfork(), and then the child releases
the segment, the parent loses it too! Workaround; use fork(2). UHC and
Microport both suspect that they still have this bug and opine that anyone
who uses vfork deserves to lose. Dell has no plans to fix it.
Stock X11R4 hogs the processor if you use the LOCALCONNECT option. UHC
says their server has been successfully optimized for speed and quotes
48,000 xstones.
In stock USL 4.0.3, you can't use a UFS file system as the root; the
system hangs if you try. Dell, Esix, Microport, MST and UNIX have fixed this.
David Aitken, the UNIX product manager at UHC, writes "The ufs as root file
system [problem] was not really a bug, just a little oversight on USL's part -
we have fixed it completely by adding one line to the /stand/boot script:
rootfstype=ufs!" He adds that they've been using ufs on their lab machines for
over 10 months with no trouble, and the latest UHC release defaults to ufs if
you have more than 120MB of disk.
David Wexelblat <d...@mtgzfs3.att.com> reports: "There is a HUGE security
hole in /bin/login in all USL derived SVR4s before 4.0.4. Refer to CERT
advisory CA-91:08, dated 5/23/91. This is known to be present in AT&T SVR4
2.1, and Microport SVR4 3.1. ESIX claims to have fixed it, Microport reports
that it is fixed in 4.1. I won't give any more details unless necessary.
Suffice to say that this bug allows any non-privileged user on an SVR4 system
to get read-write access to any file on the system."
A source at Dell urges: "Our SVR4v2 did some stuff that USL didn't get
around to until SVR4v4. Try Dell UNIX 2.1 with a COFF program on a large UFS
filesystem in a directory with long names. Runs on Dell UNIX. Breaks on
others." I don't have more definite info yet.
Dell reports that USL's Wangtek device driver is seriously flaky. "How'd
you like a multi volume backup where the second and subsequent volumes don't
follow on from the previous volumes?" UHC confirms this and is actively
working on the problem.
An anonymous SCOer says "The QIC02 tape controller `standard' is seriously
flaky. Our driver's in pretty good shape but nobody will ever have a truly
solid driver that supports every QIC02 controller you can find."
A botch in Dell's /etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/space.c (which may also be
present in other SVr4s) can step on the linesw[] table. The problem is
that the domain name array initialization is wrong and too short; thus,
when it's set, data past the end of the array can be stomped. To fix this,
find the following near line 247:
char srpc_domain[] = SRPC_DOMAIN;
and change it to
char srpc_domain[256] = SRPC_DOMAIN;
then rebuild the kernel. The value 256 is not magic; you just want to make
sure the array is sufficiently large to contain your domain name.
Ed Hall <edh...@rand.org> writes: "Unlike the raw read() system call,
fread() is supposed to be able to make several partial read's to satisfy the
data requested by its arguments. The exceptions are an EOF or an error on the
stream. This characteristic is quite useful when moving data through pipes or
over network connections, since partial reads are quite common in these cases.
Well, the version of fread() in ESIX 4.0.3 (and likely other Sys5R4's) only
does a single physical read, and if it only satifies part of the requested
number of bytes, that's all you get. This can sting you even if you carefully
check the value returned by fread(), since the value returned is rounded down
to the number of complete "nitems" read, although your position in the stream
can be up to size-1 bytes beyond that point. Neither ferror() nor feof()
indicate anything is wrong when this happens."
This bug (which is also present in 4.0.4) is serious and nasty and should
be high on every porting house's list to fix. It appears to be peculiar to
USL 4.0.3 and 4.0.4; 4.0.2 does *not* have it, nor does SCO.
A USL source claims it has been fixed in 4.1.
SCSI SUPPORT PROBLEMS:
Sar -d doesn't work on SCSI drives. No report of any SVr4 having fixed
this yet. SCO fixed it in 3.2.4.
Stock USL requires you to jumper your SCSI devices to fixed IDs
during installation (it can be changed to any other ID after).
Dell and UHC have fixed this. The requirement is definitely still present
in Esix.
David Wexelblat <d...@mtgzfs3.att.com> reports: "Stock SVR4.0.3 will hang
the SCSI bus with a 1542 in synchronous mode. Dell fixed this, and this has
been given to Microport [ed note: MST UNIX and Esix 4.0.3 still have this
problem; I have not yet been able to determine if ESIX 4.0.4 does]. In the
file /sbin/bcheckrc, change the line:
echo MARK > /dev/rswap
to
echo MARK | dd of=/dev/rswap bs=512 conv=sync > /dev/null 2>&1
The magic is apparently the conv=sync, which forces a 512 byte block
to be written. The original echo writes 4 bytes, which apparently causes
synchronous SCSI to go out to lunch.
Now, you ask, how can I fix this, since the system won't boot? There are
a couple of methods. First, if possible, disable synchronous negotiation
(1542 jumper J5-1 removed, plus whatever you may need to do to your drive).
Then boot up, edit /sbin/bcheckrc, then shutdown, restrap for synchronous,
then reboot. Everything should be OK.
That's the easy way. Unfortunately, some hard drives will only work
in synchronous mode. Well, you can still recover from this phenomenon.
Here's how:
1) Install on your hard drive
2) Boot from the first boot floppy. When it tells you to, insert
the second boot floppy. At the first prompt, hit <DEL> to
break out to a shell.
3) Mount your hard drive under /mnt with the following command
(replace FS-TYPE with s5, s52, or ufs, whichever you used for
for your root partition):
/etc/fs/FS-TYPE/mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 /mnt
4) Now edit /mnt/sbin/bcheckrc:
ed /mnt/sbin/bcheckrc
You may want the 'ed' man page handy (I barely remember how to
to use 'ed' :->). For simplicity, you can delete/comment out
the offending line, then replace it with the correct line later.
5) Unmount the hard drive:
umount /mnt
6) Reboot from the hard drive. Everything should come up OK. and
you can finish editing /sbin/bcheckrc, if necessary.
Note that you perform these actions at your own risk. The first version was
performed by me on Microport SVR4, and the second was performed by someone
else (on my suggestion) on ESIX SVR4."
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS PROBLEMS:
The BSD compatibility libraries were badly broken in USL code. A Dell
source adds "That meant that almost all the apps derived from them were broken
too. Most stuff like automount will die when you send a SIGHUP, instead of
rereading the map file. You can get a system into very strange states when
that happens." Esix and UHC's BSD libraries are USL stock. I don't yet know
the status of other ports. Microport has run into things they think may be
symptoms of this but have no fix yet.
A different source reports that the the USL implementatation of BSD signals
is broken; in particular, the sigvec() family doesn't work properly. It is
possible to make minor tweaks to source to make such apps work properly
with the native USL signals implementation.
There are also persistent rumors of problems in the BSD-emulation string
libraries. I have not been able to pin down specifics on this.
On the general issue of library bugs, Ron Guilmette <r...@ncd.com>
writes "[Library lossage] may be easily demonstrated by attempting to
build and link the GNU C compiler with `-L/usr/ucblib -lucb'. The
resulting compiler will most certainly crash and die."
Ronald Guilmette <r...@ncd.com> also reports the following:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Here is a bug in the original SVR4 C compiler (aka C Issue 5) which
effectively prevents you from making good use of the `const' and
`volatile' qualifiers defined by ANSI C in conjunction with pointer
types and typedef statements. Compile this code and you will get:
"qualifiers.c", line 23: left operand must be modifiable lvalue: op "="
...if your copy of the svr4 C compiler still has the bug. Note that
given these declarations, the ANSI C standard say that the thing pointed
to by the variable `pci' should be considered to be constant... not the
variable `pci' itself. (The GCC compiler, either version 1.x or version
2.x, correctly compiles this example without complaint.)
*/
typedef const int *ptr_to_const_int;
ptr_to_const_int pci;
int i;
void main ()
{
pci = &i;
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Here is a subtle bug in the original SVR4 C compiler (aka C Issue 5)
which prevents you from first declaring a tagged type (i.e. a struct
type or a union type) in a parameter list, and then defining that tagged
type later on within the same scope. (Note that according to the ANSI C
standard, the scope in which parameters get declared and the outermost
block of a function body are one and the same scope. Thus, this really
is legal ANSI C code!)
Try compiling this with your C compiler on SVR4. If your compiler still
has the bug, you will get:
"tagged_type.c", line 24: warning: dubious tag declaration: struct S
"tagged_type.c", line 28: warning: improper member use: i
"tagged_type.c", line 28: warning: improper member use: i
"tagged_type.c", line 31: warning: dubious tag declaration: struct S
"tagged_type.c", line 35: warning: improper member use: i
"tagged_type.c", line 35: warning: improper member use: i
(The GCC compiler also had this bug in version 1.x, but it has been fixed
in version 2.x.)
*/
void foobar1 (arg) /* use old-style without prototypes */
struct S *arg;
{
struct S { int i; }; /* define the type `struct S' */
arg->i = arg->i; /* legal according to ANSI C rules! */
}
void foobar2 (struct S *arg) /* use new-style with prototypes */
{
struct S { int i; }; /* define the type `struct S' */
arg->i = arg->i; /* legal according to ANSI C rules! */
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Here is a serious bug in the original SVR4 `dump' program which dumps
out parts of object files in either plain hex form or symbolically.
To see the `dump' program get a segfault and die, save this code under
the name `dump-bug.c' and then do:
cc -g -c dump-bug.c
dump -v -D dump-bug.o
The bug arises whenever `dump' tries to read Dwarf debugging information
for an array of pointers to any "user defined" type (e.g. `struct S' in
this example). Past that point, `dump' is totally confused, so further
Dwarf debugging information finally causes it to go belly-up.
*/
struct S { int i; };
struct S *array[10];
int j;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FUBYTE BUG:
(Thanks to Christoph Badura <b...@flatlin.ka.sub.org> for this info)
The kernel function fubyte() is documented to return a positive value when
given a valid user space address and -1 otherwise. In the latter case u.u_error
is set to EFAULT. USL SysV R4.0.3 has a sign extension bug in the
implementation of fubyte() for local file descriptors (i.e. not opened via
RFS), which causes fubyte() to return negative values if the byte fetched has
its high bit set. This bug doesn't affect STREAMS drivers, as they don't call
(and in fact are normally unable to call) fubyte(). Thus writing a byte with
the high bit set to certain character device drivers returns with -1 and errno
set to EFAULT.
The bug may affect any character device driver that calls fubyte(). It's not
limited to serial card drivers. The bug is noticed most often with serial card
drivers, since uucp uses byte values > 127 very early during g-protocol setup
and drivers for serial cards tend to use fubyte() quite often.
Note also that the bug's effect is different if the driver checks for a -1
return value of fubyte() or just a negative one. In the former case it is
possible to pass bytes with the 8 bit set through fubyte(), except for 0xff
which is -1 in two's complement. That makes the bug more obscure.
The fix is easy. First, make a backup copy of the kernel object file
/etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o! A disassembly of vm.o(lfubyte) should reveal
*exactly* one mov[s]bl (move byte to long w/sign extend). That one needs to be
patched into a movzbl (zero extend). The difference is one bit in the second
byte of the opcode.
The movsbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011111w mod/rm-byte.
The movzbl has the bit pattern 00001111 1011011w mod/rm-byte.
The 'w' bit is 0 for the instruction in question. So the opcodes are 0f be and
0f b6. Here is the diff -c from dis -F lfubyte showing the patch applied to
the Dell 2.1 kernel:
*** vm.o Mon Mar 9 00:31:38 1992
--- vm.o.org Mon Mar 9 00:32:40 1992
***************
*** 22,28 ****
11c90: 85 c0 testl %eax,%eax
11c92: 75 09 jne 0x9 <11c9d>
11c94: 8b 45 08 movl 8(%ebp),%eax
! 11c97: 0f b6 00 movzbl (%eax),%eax
11c9a: 89 45 fc movl %eax,-4(%ebp)
11c9d: c7 05 d8 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 movl $0x0,0x13d8
11ca7: 83 3d dc 13 00 00 00 cmpl $0x0,0x13dc
--- 22,28 ----
11c90: 85 c0 testl %eax,%eax
11c92: 75 09 jne 0x9 <11c9d>
11c94: 8b 45 08 movl 8(%ebp),%eax
! 11c97: 0f be 00 movsbl (%eax),%eax
11c9a: 89 45 fc movl %eax,-4(%ebp)
11c9d: c7 05 d8 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 movl $0x0,0x13d8
11ca7: 83 3d dc 13 00 00 00 cmpl $0x0,0x13dc
Of course there is a workaround at the driver level. Canonically, one would do
this by checking for fubyte() returning -1 *and* u.u_error being set to EFAULT
(u.u_error is cleared upon entering a system call). However, in R4.0.3
fubyte() does NOT set u.u_error. It *does* set u.u_fault_catch.fc_errno.
Cristoph reports that Dell V.4 can be object-patched successfully to fix this.
I do not know the status of the other ports.
Another poster (Marc Boucher <m...@cam.org>) adds:
On ESIX SVR4.0.3 Rev. A, the instruction movsbl in question can be changed to
movzbl (as described above) with a binary-editor on file
/etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o. At offset 0x11eb0, change 0xbe to 0xb6.
Before patching, verify that your /etc/conf/pack.d/kernel/vm.o is the same as
mine! On my system, the /bin/sum generated checksum of vm.o was "4440 222".
SCO doesn't have this problem, which suggests it may be due to a compiler code
generation error.
VIII. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS:
As a potential customer for one of the SVr4 ports, it's to my advantage to
have everybody in this market competing against one another as hard as
possible. Accordingly, some free advice to vendors, which I'm broadcasting to
all of them and the public so as to put just that much more pressure on each
vendor. :-)
SCO:
You have a serious image problem with many hackers which you've exacerbated
recently by falling behind the SVr4 leading edge and then engaging in what
certainly appears to be an attempt to sucker careless buyers with deceptive
product naming. But the reaction to this wouldn't be nearly so vehement if
it didn't come on top of years of discontent with more technical choices.
There's too much stuff in the SCO kernel and admin tools that's different from
USL and *not better*; too much stuff that raises weird little compatibility
problems that shouldn't be there. Verbum sap.
Everybody but SCO:
SCO's documentation set is to die for, and they add a lot of value over the
base UNIX with things like ODT DOS and CodeView. Only Dell comes even close to
matching SCO in the nifty add-ons department, and even they have a lot of room
for improvement. If you want to outcompete SCO, you have to be *better*;
this means (at minimum) supporting a windowing debugger and ISAM libraries and
embedded SQL and DOS support that goes beyond 2.0.
Consensys:
Fix the Powerports bugs everyone is reporting. They're doing you real
damage. Nobody expects real support from an outfit selling at $1000 below
market average, but you've *got* to make your own hardware work right or look
like idiots.
Beyond this, I think you have a serious attitude problem. So far, you're
the only outfit out of nine to refuse to divulge information for the
comparison tables. While you have a perfect right to do so, it smells bad ---
as though you think you have weaknesses to hide. I tried to discuss this with
your VP of sales (Gary Anderson) and got back very little but evasions,
suit-speak, defensiveness, and attempts to divert me from the issues (and I
don't mind admitting that the conversation made me pretty angry and didn't end
very pleasantly). This man's behavior is all too consistent with reports of
Consensys's dismissive behavior towards customers and continued refusal to
acknowledge technical problems.
In this corner of the industry we have a tradition of collegiality, mutual
trust, informality, and candor. If you plan to be here for the long haul, you
need to learn how to work with that rather than fighting it. Behaving like IBM
will only get you hammered.
Consensys and Esix:
Get a real support address. Bang-path accessibility doesn't impress anyone
any more --- in fact, it looks faintly quaint. You guys ought to be
supp...@everex.com and supp...@consensys.com to follow the simple and logical
convention SCO and Dell and Microport and UHC have established.
Dell:
Don't get fat and lazy. You've got the lead in the SVr4 market at the
moment and you've got the money and resources to keep it, *if* you use them.
If you staff up your UNIX support operation so customers don't get pissed off
by infinite hold, *and* keep your prices the lowest in the upper tier, no one
will be able to touch you. Don't let Microport et al. get ahead of you in
releases and new technology, and try to reverse that creeping corporatitis (the
no-comment-on-unreleased-products policy is a bad sign).
Everybody but Dell:
Offer all the free software Dell does --- and *more*. All it will cost you
is the media, right? Even if you have to plaster CONTRIBUTED SOFTWARE, NOT
SUPPORTED on it, include perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs, gdb, mush, patch,
compress, etc on your distribution tapes. Heck, include some *games*.
Nethack, empire, zork, stuff like that. Your engineers use and play with all
this in-house anyhow, yes? And you're selling to guys just like your
engineers. They'll love you for it. Trust me.
Set up a `sales' address to take product queries if you don't already have
one.
Everybody but Dell and SCO:
Set up an 800 number for tech support. Support customers hate spending time
on hold, and they hate it like poison when they have to *pay* for the hold
time. The more overloaded your support staff is, the more important this
gets. Verbum sap.
Esix:
You're *boring*. You seem to make a decent product, but there's nothing
I've seen about Esix that'd make me say "I might want to buy Esix because...".
Position yourselves; pick something like price or support quality or
reliability or add-on features and push it hard. Warning: if you decide to
push support, *hire more engineers*. Your rep for following up on support
problems is bad enough that your "unlimited free support" ain't much of a draw.
Esix, MST, UHC:
Get 800 numbers for product info, too.
MST:
Set up a supp...@mst.com alias to your cs address, see above. What would
that take, a whole five minutes? :-)
If you don't start planning for 4.0.4 now, you'll get left behind this
spring and early summer whan all the other vendors move to it.
On present trends, your software prices are cheap enough; you'd probably
get more sales mileage out of pulling down the hardware prices for your
pre-configured systems.
Everybody but MST and Microport:
Set up a `sales' alias to your info and orders email address. A universal
convention for this means just one less detail prospective customers need to
remember.
Microport:
Your complete system is way overpriced relative to what other vendors in the
top tier are selling. If I were a corporate customer, there is no *way* I
could justify spending the $1K or $2K premium over Dell's price --- not when
Dell has the rep it does for quality and features. You aren't offering
anything but a crippled copy of JSB Multiview to justify that premium and
that ain't enough.
There's some evidence that you've got a technical lead on the competition.
Push it; push it *hard*. You're first off the blocks with 4.0.4; keep that up,
be first out with a stable 4.0.5. Market yourselves as the leading-edge
outfit, court the hard-core wizards as their natural ally, detail somebody
who's fluent in English as well as C to listen and speak for you on USENET, and
keep the promises you make there.
UHC:
You've decided to push support; that's good, but follow through by getting
that 800 number. Don't lose those small-company virtues of candor and
flexibility, trade on them. Your policy of having all techs clear up to the
product manager take turns on the support lines is a damned good idea, stick
with it. And I'm sufficiently impressed with what I've heard from your guys
that I think you might be able to fight Microport for the friend-to-wizards
mantle, too. Maybe you should try.
Everybody except BSDI:
BSD/386 includes *sources*. For *everything*. Be afraid; be very afraid.
In effect, this recruits hundreds of eager hackers as uncompensated development
and support engineers for BSDI. Don't fool yourselves that the results are
necessarily going to be unfocused, amateur-quality and safe to ignore --- it
sure didn't work that way for gcc or Emacs. The rest of you will have to work
that much harder and smarter to stay ahead of their game.
BSDI:
Don't you get complacent either. The 386BSD distribution is breathing
down *your* neck...
The most effective things you can do to to seriously compete with SVr4
vendors are: a) emphasize standards conformance --- POSIX, FIPS, XPG3, etc.,
and b) follow through on your support promises. Just another flaky BSDoid
system isn't really very interesting except to hobbyists, even with sources ---
but if it were proven a reliable cross-development platform it could capture
a lot of hearts and minds among commercial software designers.
I think the absence of Korn shell hurts you (at any rate *I* find it a
significant negative). Fortunately there's an easy workaround; FSF's bash(1).
Port it and support it.
Everybody:
Do something about your product names! Even the cases that don't appear
to be deliberate deception are very confusing to the customer. If you're
releasing an enhanced 4.0.3 or 4.0.4 that's what you ought to *call* it. I
recommend:
Consensys UNIX Version 1.2 --> Consensys UNIX 4.0.3 revision 1.2
Dell UNIX Issue 2.1 --> Dell UNIX 4.0.3 revision 2.1
Esix Revision A --> Esix UNIX 4.0.3 revision A
MST SVr4 UNIX --> MST UNIX 4.0.3
Microport System V/4 version 4 --> Microport UNIX 4.0.4
UHC Version 3.6 --> UHC UNIX 4.0.3 revision 6
The fact is, all these idiosyncratic version-numbering systems do you no
good and considerable harm. At worst, they make it look like you're trying to
pull a scam by deceiving people about the level of the base technology. At
best, they parade your internal revision number (which conveys no useful
information unless one is an existing customer considering an upgrade already)
and obscure the really important information. Do your product differentiation
elsewhere, in substance rather than nomenclature; it's not useful here.
You're *all* badly understaffed in support engineering, and it shows. Boy
does it show --- in poor followup, long hold times, and user gripes. The first
outfit to invest enough to offer really first-class quick-response support is
going to eat everyone else's lunch. Wouldn't you like to be it?
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI
Some of the material in this posting was originally assembled by Jason
Levitt <ja...@cs.utexas.edu> of "Open Systems Today". Grateful acknowledgement
is made to him for permission to re-distribute and update this information.
Many netters sent me email contributing technical information, feedback,
and comment. Thanks to all. It's in combinations of individual mission and
collective cooperation like this one that the net really shines, and I'm
grateful to everybody who's worked with me to improve the signal/noise ratio.
The level of cooperation I've experienced from vendors' program managers,
techies and marketing people since the first issue has generally been
outstanding. Particular high marks go to Jeremy Chatfield at Dell, Kristen
Axline at Microport, David Aitken at UHC and Bela Lubkin at SCO, with very
honorable mentions to Jeff Ellis at Esix and Rob Kolstad at BSDI. By
cooperating intelligently with this FAQ, they've done a great job of serving
the market and representing their corporate interests.
One dishonorable mention goes to Gary Anderson, V.P of sales at Consensys
and the only person I've encountered who's behaved like the classic stereotype
of the slippery, stonewalling marketroid. An impression of this kind is
exactly what Consensys needs to solve their credibility problems...NOT!
So far, I've found that the technical merit of each of these eight products
(insofar as I have data to judge; I haven't used any of them yet) seems to
correlate pretty well with the degree of cooperation I've received. I wasn't
explicitly expecting this result, but I'm not surprised by it either.
I'm already planning the logical next step; a competitive review of UNIX
on high-end clone hardware, "The Great UNIX Dream Machines Bake-Off". Watch
for it soon on a screen near you!
--
Send your feedback to: Eric Raymond = e...@snark.thyrsus.com