Hopefully not too stupid a question...

[Doug Tody X217]

>From article <6787 at sdcc6.ucsd.edu>, by ee299bw at sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Help On The Way):
> My question is: what exactly is A/UX, and what does it buy you.

A/UX is unix.  It will give you what any other good unix system gives you.
Seriously, this is a fairly difficult question to answer if you aren't
already familiar with unix.  If you don't know why you need unix, probably
you don't need it.

> Can you still run generic mac software,

MacOS applications written according to standard will run under A/UX,
but many do not (or so I hear).  But you can always shutdown unix and run
MacOS if you need to do that for a while.

> how "good" a unix is it (ie how does it compare to BSD unix).

I think it is a very good unix implementation, especially considering what
it offers for its size.  I have run into a few bugs but then that is always
the case.  I could wish for more features, but then everything would scale
up, and the Mac is a small system.  All I can say is that I have worked
extensively with unix for ten years or more, on many systems, and my opinion
is that A/UX is a good unix implementation.  I think the team that worked
on it must actually like unix, which didn't have to be the case.

> Does it give you real
> multitasking (unlike MultiFinder). Is it even a real operating
> system (unlike MultiFinder, heh heh heh)? Does it require lots of
> other peripherals to work properly?

A/UX is UNIX (they say Sys V unix but there is much of BSD in there too).
UNIX, of course, is a real operating system, multitasking, multiuser,
and more.  To run it all you need is an 80 Mb disk, at least a couple Mb
of RAM, and memory management hardware (the PMU, which is included with most
recent systems).  Whether or not you will need lots of peripherals depends
upon what you want to do with the system.  If you want to do much you will
need more disk, more memory, a larger screen, ...  Eventually you may need
a larger system than a Mac, but if you already have Macs adding A/UX may
be a good way to start gaining some exposure to unix.  Learning unix can
have tremendous payoffs, but it is not a task to be undertaken lightly.
-- 
Doug Tody, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson AZ, 602-325-9217
UUCP: {arizona,decvax,ncar}!noao!tody  or  uunet!noao.edu!tody 
Internet: tody at noao.edu             SPAN/HEPNET: NOAO::TODY (NOAO=5355)