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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:15981 comp.unix.advocacy:3975 comp.sys.sun.misc:17232 comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:8046 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!hpg30a.csc.cuhk.hk!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!news.uh.edu!uuneo.neosoft.com!nmtigw!peter From: peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: What do people have against BSD (or Linux for that matter)? (was: Whither NeoSoft) Message-ID: <id.A9UG1.PDB@nmti.com> Sender: peter@nmti.com (peter da silva) Organization: Network/development platform support, NMTI References: <3g3s2k$6i@villa.fc.net> <3g697f$gs0@keys.csi.net> <3g8b6m$plu@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> <3g9eev$egq@starbase.neosoft.com> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 19:15:48 GMT Lines: 79 In article <3g9eev$egq@starbase.neosoft.com>, jpsb <jpsb@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> wrote: > first off the PC you are all reffering to is not standard PC! Sure. You're talking moderately premium hardware... it's still a lot cheaper than Sparcs. Still, you're pretty much behind the times when it comes to commodity PCs. They're typically VLB or PCI with 256K to 1M of motherboard cache. > If you get into heavy swaping, the disk i/o will > bring the pc to it's knees. Now *maybe* there are new io cards and > data buses that eliminate these problem (EISA, local bus, etc) but > will all the DOS and Windows Apps still work? Why do you care? he's not talking about running Dos or Windows, but rather BSD. > Once you have beefed > up your intel with alot of chache, a fast scsi controler, a EISA > mother board a high preformance SVGA card etc, you have pushed the > price up to 5k. 5k will get you a Sun or an HP or even an RS6k. $5000 will *not* get you a Sun or an HP or an RS6000 that would serve. It'll get you a baby non-expandible box with two serial ports, one ethernet port, one SCSI port, probably no parallel port at all, and memory costs the same (or more) so you'll have to make do with less RAM. I bought *my* honking Intel PC a year ago. It's only a 486/66 with 16M, two SCSI busses, 8 serial ports, tape drive, 2GB of disk. It did in fact cost me nearly $5000, but it's a more capable box than your bottom of the line Sparc workstation. You could get as good a Sparc for ten grand, probably, but why? > Now what can you do with your free OS, probably anything you want, > you've got the source code. but how many people know how to rebuild > thier kernal? cd /sys/compile/GENERIC make > How many even know how to setup Unix on an intel, Xconfig > can be a bitch. I know it took me hours to find the right modes for > an ATI video card! Why do you need to run an X server as an internet provider? > Now let's get the modem going, mkdev() anyone? /dev/MAKEDEV sio0 sio1 sio2 sio3 sio4 sio5 sio6 sio7 > and don't forget your /etc/remote file if you want tip to work. That was actually easier on FreeBSD than on SunOS, since the bidirectional serial modes in sio mean you don't have to guess at uucp locking. > Now the intel is an NT host so i'm sure > that has a lot to do with it being a barking dog. I'm sure it is. My 486/66 is way faster than the Sparc-2s and I can't tell the difference between it an the Sparc-10. > But the 486 (33dx,scsi, > 16meg ram, 256k cache). running Linux is *much* slower (compile > times) than the slowest sparc 1. You must be doing something wrong. Seriously, my FreeBSD box is much better at just plain running stuff than the Sparcstation-2s here. They have faster graphics, I will admit, but for an ISP who cares? One thing that really helps ANY UNIX box is having more than one drive. If you can put /tmp, swap, bin, and /home on separate spindles (or at least have /tmp and /swap on a separate drive) you get radically better compile times. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' Network Management Technology Incorporated 'U` 1601 Industrial Blvd. Sugar Land, TX 77478 USA +1 713 274 5180 "Hast du heute schon deinen wolf umarmt?"