Comparison of 386 UNIX offerings
Karl Denninger
karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM
Fri Feb 2 07:29:42 AEST 1990
In article <206 at emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM> ewasser at emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM (Ed.Wasser) writes:
>I am currently in the process of gathering information about UNIX offerings
>from various UNIX vendors for INTEL 386/486 based microcomputers. The two
>vendors that I am currently interested in are INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. and
>Santa Cruz Operation. Both ISC and SCO currently offer versions of the UNIX
>operating system based on AT&T UNIX System V Release 3.2. It is also my
>understanding that both vendors are currently working on versions of UNIX
>based on AT&T UNIX System V Release 4.0.
This is correct. If experience from the past serves, ISC will be first with
the V.4 release.
>Can someone who has experience with or compared the current versions of ISC
>386/ix Release 2 and SCO UNIX V.3.2 enlighten me as to what the advantages of
>one product over the other are from a technical standpoint.
Ok, here 'ya go...
Good points:
o ISC - Faster file system performance.
- Better SCSI support at the present time (higher speed)
- System V.3 core system; no add-on "security features" that break
applications.
- High performance X-windows server
- Lower cost for complete system
o SCO - Better Xenix compatibility
- Ability to develop for Xenix, System V.3 I386, or MSDOS systems
- Security features (if you need them, they can be nice)
- More hardware devices supported in the base release
Bad points:
o ISC - Support, if not purchased through a reseller, can be a problem.
- Hardware support is spotty -- fewer peripherals have drivers for ISC.
o SCO - SCO Unix 3.2 has a few "warts" at present, including problems with
mouse recognition and the development system. Tape drive trouble
has also been reported.
- SCO Unix 3.2 is a >new release<; some products are not yet shipping.
- SCO's TCP/IP uses broadcast packets to identify license numbers;
this causes performance problems in large ethernet installations.
>In addition, I need information concerning what features each vendor will be
>adding to their AT&T UNIX V.4 based release. I would appreciate any preliminary
>information that can be provided for comparison purposes.
>
>The areas that I am most interested in are:
>
> DOS Compatibility (VP/ix, dossette, other forms of DOS/UNIX support)
> - Any differences in VP/ix implementation or release level ?
Not if you have the current stuff. Both seem to work about the same as far
as we can determine, and have the same problems.
> - Will future VP/ix releases support DOS 4 ?
No information.
> Performance enhancements
> - What areas does one vendor have a performance advantage over the
> other ? (networking, disk i/o, video, etc.)
ISC's X11 support is excellent. Disk I/O also is faster on ISC at the
present time; we've seen more than 1MB (megaBYTE)/second through the
filesystem on ISC using SCSI adapters! SCO can't touch this right now,
although I understand they are working on it.
> Networking support
> - Is either vendor planning to provide an LM/X interface for UNIX
> applications ?
No idea.
> - What networking support currently exists ?
TCP/IP & NFS for ISC, TCP for SCO at present. NFS is orderable, but I
haven't heard of any production releases actually making their way to
customers yet.
> Security enhancements
SCO has "C2" security certification; ISC does not.
Disclaimer: We sell both.
--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"
More information about the Comp.unix.i386
mailing list