386 clones and unix compatibility

[Don Kossman]

i'm trying to put together a cost-effective (read: cheap :-)) 386
box which will initially run dos but must eventually run a real
386 unix, probably bell technologies (365$ for a complete 2-user
development system) or perhaps interactive systems 386/ix if i
can scratch up the cash.

in addition i'd like to be able to (eventually) run one of the
dos/unix merge products (eg from LOCUS) and one of the smart x-windows
cards (bell blit card for example).

i've been talking to various mail-order houses and some local
distributors, but few have experience with anything except sco
286 xenix, and they won't make any guarantees.

according to people at bell technologies, many of these boxes
will NOT run unix, although reasons weren't always known.  for example,
i was warned against using systems with micronics motherboards,
or the phoenix bios, or disk controllers that take over the dos bios
to get past the dos 32meg partition limit.

i understand the need for 32bit memory expansion to at least 8megs,
but beyond that, what questions should i ask?  or has anyone gone
through this and come up with a list of wills and won'ts?  

i've looked at the cheaper alr, everex, compuadd, dell, ccc (heritage),
acer, northgate, etc. models.  (16mhz/1M with a micropolis or miniscribe 71m
and monochrome graphics). i'm trying to stay below 3000$.

if this has not been recently discussed in this group or elsewhere, 
PLEASE FOLLOWUP TO COMP.UNIX.XENIX .  otherwise send me mail, as i don't
receive the other group.  i'll summarize to the net if there is
sufficient feedback.

thanks!

-- 
Don Kossman, SEI Information Technology, Los Angeles
usenet:  ...sun!tsunami!seila!don, ...uunet!mahendo!jplgodo!seila!don