Upgrade 386 PC to UN*X

[William E. Davidsen Jr]

In article <336 at csun1.UUCP> weyrich at csun1.UUCP (Orville Weyrich) writes:
| 
| I have a 16-MHz 80386-based AT-clone (Goldstar Technology GST-386) which
| is built around a Micronics motherboard and which has an Adaptec 2372 RLL 
| controller, Seagate ST-4096 hard drive, 1.2 Meg floppy, 8087 coprocessor,
| two standard RS-232 ports, two standard parallel ports, a CGA video board,
| 2-Meg of main memory, and AWARD BIOS version C3.03.  I am currently running
| MS-DOS 3.30 and am using TURBO-Pascal type applications.  I only want a
| one- or two-user system.
| 
| QUESTION # 1:  Has anyone brought up some flavor of UN*X on any or all of the
| hardware described above?  Any recommendations?  [I realize that I may need
| more memory -- but how much?]

  I'm using the controller and hard disk you mention, but do you mean an
80287? 2MB of memory is tight for UNIX, but it will run. I use
Xenix/386.

| QUESTION # 2:  How heavily does UN*X utilize the PC BIOS?  I had trouble
| getting my hard disk to function reliably using Phoenix BIOS, and am
| concerned about how UN*X will handle my disk/controller configuration.

  Xenix doesn't use the BIOS.

| QUESTION # 3:  I still need to use this box for MS-DOS applications.
| Eventually I would like to migrate my applications to UN*X, and so would
| like to be able to run TURBO Pascal and applications implemented in TURBO
| Pascal under UN*X with the ability to have the applications under MS-DOS
| communicate with processes running under UN*X.  Some of my TP applications 
| use LIM EMS.  Any recommendations?
  
  Xenix is available with Vp/ix, which lets you run DOS under UNIX. It
mentions LIM memory, but I haven't tried it. It seems to be supported.

| QUESTION # 4: Alternatively, how hard is it to have both UN*X and MS-DOS
| to reside on the hard disk and choose one or the other when booting?

  With Xenix you type "dos" at the boot prompt.

| QUESTION # 5: Finally, I am considering upgrading my CGA card to a
| Paradise VGA-Professional.  Will this mess up UN*X?

  Not Xenix.

Sorry I don't want to comment on other flavors of UNIX, I have expressed
my opinions before.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu at ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me