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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!ames!cnn.nas.nasa.gov!not-for-mail From: thorpej@lestat.nas.nasa.gov (Jason R Thorpe) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison) Date: 14 Jan 1996 22:24:24 -0800 Organization: Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Project - NASA Ames Lines: 59 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <4dcruo$5eq@lestat.nas.nasa.gov> References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4cu7t0$mg5@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <4cv8j1$59k@park.uvsc.edu> <4cvjpk$rpf@durban.vector.co.za> NNTP-Posting-Host: lestat.nas.nasa.gov Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1823 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:1955 comp.unix.solaris:56527 comp.unix.aix:68116 In article <4cvjpk$rpf@durban.vector.co.za>, Gavin Maltby <gavin@durban.vector.co.za> wrote: >Featurewise, Solaris has many times more to offer an application. ...and many times the bloat. Worth noting, SunOS _4_ was over-bloated, IMHO. >No developer looks at Solaris 2 and say "I am glad none of those >features are in SunOS 4". OK so having to use the SVID etc in >development might not be what everyone would love, but I suspect >that a lot of people like the BSD enviroment just because that is >what they *know* and they refuse to adapt and learn the intracies >of the new interface. Many of us have, and, quite frankly, think the New World Order *SUCKS* :-) "Raise your hand if you're forced to code for Solaris!" Sun, IMO, should have taken the 4.4BSD approach; compatibility with BSD interfaces, but the addition of the standardized interfaces. Imagine how cool SunOS 5 *could* have been if it were a 4.4BSD-derived system... >Solaris = SVR4 + a lot of features! What you are really bitter about >is that BSD style UNIX did not win out or reach critical mass over >SVR4. That's something you just have to deal with---it happened and Bitter? *chuckle* Myself, no. I'll always have the option of running a BSD system on my SPARC hardware and still run all those Solaris 2.x applications. And, as I demonstrated recently by posting my implementation of screenblank(1) to a USENET group, software written on/for a modern BSD system is quite easily adapted to a SVR4 system, even if it uses signal facilities, etc. >isn't about to unravel. I am sure that there are those at SunSoft >who preferred the BSD way, but there was just no way to stay with it. >Sun would be a small niche-market workstation player if they had not >overhauled SunOS 4 to SunOS 5/Solaris 2. If you want a multi-billion >dollar company to slowly strangle itself while pandering just to your >needs, start it yourself! I somehow don't think that Sun would have strangled themselves by sticking with a BSD system. There's something to be said for being the defacto standard. I mean, Domain/OS still persists in engineering circles (and it's just plain _weird_ :-), HP-UX survived _forever_ as a sick combination of 4.3 and SVR3, etc. My personal belief is that if anything were to strangle Sun, it would be the hardware...I just don't get the same warm-fuzzy feeling about the SS20 as I do the SS2 (which, you must admit, is one *hell* of a little work-horse). That SS2, I might add, is about 2 to 3 times faster running NetBSD than Solaris 2.4. Now, _that's_ a feature, which I plan to take advantage of now that I can run a modern BSD system on the SS20 as well. -- Jason R. Thorpe thorpej@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center Home: 408.866.1912 NAS: M/S 258-6 Work: 415.604.0935 Moffett Field, CA 94035 Pager: 415.428.6939