Unix & X-Windows on 386SX

[Wm E. Davidsen Jr]

In article <1990Nov23.182943.21094 at cs.dal.ca> newsome at ug.cs.dal.ca (SEX MANIAC IN TRAINING) writes:
        [ he wants DOS under UNIX and X ]

| Can anybody advise on the following:  1) The amount of Disk Space for the OS?
| 2) The availability of Unix/Xenix etc from companies (ie who makes reliable
| versions.) 3) Where can I get X-Windows systems and cost involved.  Hardware
| required?

  Two things come to mind, OpenDeskTop and Dell V.4. Therefore:

  1) ODT comes on about 60 floppies. By careful selection you can run on
an 80 MB drive, but 100+ is better. DellV4 comes on 150MB tapes only at
the moment (since you can make 60MB releases, they could, just a
marketing decision). DV4 takes about 100MB for a start.

  2) I don't see either of the companies or their products as
unreliable. Both have some warts. See below.

  3) Both include X in the base price. Both list just under $1k, ODT is
discounted as bit, as it's been on the market longer.

Very quick and dirty comparison.

  ODT features X11R3, an obsolete version of X which runs virtually
nothing of the net software. DV4 currently lacks xmkmf, which makes
porting anthing painful but possible.

  ODT includes MOTIF, Athena widgets are available if you sign a
non-disclosure (yes on public domain code). DV4 includes MOTIF,
OpenLook, TWM, UWM (yecch) and will compile tvtwm with no changes but
beating the makefile.

  ODT supports a reasonable bunch of displays and modes. DV4 supports
640x480x16 (but better stuff is in beta, etc).

  ODT doesn't include a developments set, you can get one for something
like $1500. When you do it cross compiles to OS/2, DOS, Xenix[23]86,
etc. DV4 includes the AT&T compiler, and actually doesn't do a bad job.
GCC will be available for V.4 soon if it isn't already.

  Multiuser upgrade for ODT is $1k+, DV4 is $300.

  ODT has C2 security, DV2 doesn't, but has shadow password. Both
companies consider this a feature. I would gladly pay another $200-300
for ODT with the security ripped out, but if you are running a system
under constant attack by spies or hackers it has some benefits.

  To run X on an SX you really want a 387. I added a Cyrix and found
things 5-10x faster. Although X11R4 isn't f.p. intensive, the raw f.p.
speed goes up by over 100x, so a 5x speedup occurs if the program uses
even 4% f.p.

  You will not run X with any useful speed in less than 8MB. I've added
another 4 and it didn't help without the FPU, I'll have to try again
now. Memory is cheap, use a bunch. Even a 33MHz 486 is a total pig with
4MB.

  No system which give pleasant use of X is a "bottom end system."

  Documentation is better with ODT, but both systems have man pages
online.

  System admin is vastly different between the two systems. Xenix is
currently a bit more automated and documented.

  Hope this is useful, I'm sure someone will describe the comparable
ESIX product, which lists for $825. I haven't got the experience with
it, and I believe that the package lacks NFS and SLIP, so was not
anything I evaluated.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen at sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me