Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!sun-barr!rutgers!spcvxb!terry From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: How to get BSD for DEC VAXStation 3100? Message-ID: <1993Mar11.002741.5344@spcvxb.spc.edu> Date: 11 Mar 93 05:27:41 GMT References: <1993Mar8.131136.290@nhqvax.hq.nasa.gov> Organization: St. Peter's College, US Lines: 89 In article <1993Mar8.131136.290@nhqvax.hq.nasa.gov>, RWINTERS@NHQVAX.HQ.NASA.GOV (Robert N. Winters) writes: > Followups via e-mail please, unless you think this is > general enough to be interesting (I don't). Well, the general question of "how do I get a Unix for my VAX whatever..." does come around a bit, so maybe by posting this someone will archive it or FAQ it. > I have the opportunity to buy a DEC VAXStation 3100/30, > 8 meg memory, 400+ meg total HD, ethernet, color graphics. > Architecturally, I believe this thing resembles a VAX > mini and will run VMS or Ultrix. Yes - they're nifty little boxes, about 3 times the performance of a VAX 780. If you have color, it's probable that you have the SPX video option, which is a nice 1280x1024, 256-color system. > 1) How works BSD distribution? Is is distributed over the > net anywhere? Can I buy a media distribution from UCB? > What are the restrictions? Somebody sell me a clue! You can buy various releases of 4BSD from UCB. These require an AT&T source license for 32V or later. You also have to sign a UCB license. You can obtain the non-AT&T pieces of 4BSD (known as Net-2) from various FTP archives. However, this is not a complete operating system and there is a good bit of work involved to get it going. Look at the Jolitz 386 version or the BSDI product, both of which have large numbers of talented folks working on them (for *long* periods of time). > 2) Will BSD run on the aforementioned VAXStation? Assuming you mean the complete, licensed 4BSD release, not quite. There are various system-specific things that need to be done. These fall into two gen- eral groups: a) things specific to this VAX CPU chip, and b) drivers for the devices found in this system. A lot of a) has been done in recent 4BSD re- leases (the VS3100/30 and the MicroVAX III share the same CPU chip). However, things like reading the memory size and other registers not actually in the CPU chip would need to be done. As far as b), not a lot has been done in this area. I've seen drivers for the Ethernet and the mono frame buffer, but none for the disk controller or SPX. Also, recent BSD distributions have been less and less functional on the VAX platform. Reno was just buggy (probably on all platforms), and 4.4 does not appear to have VAX architecture support for the new VM system. It's be- come harder and harder to build a VAX kernel throughout the 4.4 development cycle, probably because the CSRG doesn't (I think) have any VAXes any more. > 2a) Does anyone have a rough idea what Ultrix would cost > for the same system? (I assume it's prohibitive.) Well, it's less than an AT&T source license, but still more than you'd care to spend. If you must know, drop me a line and I'll look it up. > 2b) If not BSD, any idea what else might run on it? I know of the following: Ultrix VAX System V (maybe) VMS (sorry, but you *did* ask) resident diagnostics 8-} > 3) Opinions please: If had the opportunity to buy the > aforementioned system inexpensively and run BSD on it, > should I do it, or just get a 486 and use 386/BSD. > Uses would include X server, network applications > software hacking, and general use. I guess I'm looking > for stability and function comparisons. I can figure > out the hardware costs for myself. The VAXStation will > probably be cheaper, but it's used equipment. Once it > breaks, it'll be a doorstop, since I'm sure the cost > of repair (or memory upgrade, for that matter) will > approach the cost of the equipment. I would probably go with the PC. I have a PC running BSDI's code, which is quite solid. At the time I looked at the Jolitz code, it was a good deal less solid and it appeared to have made some changes to the general "style" of BSD. Apparently some of these were just bugs and not design changes, as they were put back in the later patches. I'd suggest that you borrow a PC and load the code on it and see how it works for you - if you like it, you're all set. If you don't, then you may want to plan for another $1000 for BSDI's code - I did, and I'm running the 386 as a hobby. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.bitnet St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA terry@spcvxa.spc.edu +1 201 915 9381