wanted: UNIX or clone

[Chin Fang]

In article <1991Apr29.031654.17360 at agate.berkeley.edu> ilan343 at violet.berkeley.edu (Geraldo Veiga) writes:
>In article <1991Apr28.225644.10469 at nstar.rn.com> larry at nstar.rn.com (Larry Snyder) writes:
>>ilan343 at violet.berkeley.edu (Geraldo Veiga) writes:
>>
>>>By the way, are there any mainstream commercial applications
>>>(WordPerferct, 123, Dbase, etc) that won't run under  some 386 Unix
>>>variants? 
>>
>>Sure - look at Norton - they are specifically for Interactive.
>
>Is this for real or is just Interactive's marketing?  They distribute
>Norton, right?  Does the software use any ISC specific feature (file
>system, drivers) ?
>
>>Look at Word Perfect, they have a version for SCO Unix and Interactive
>>Unix - but not for ESIX.
>
>Now for the follow-up question.  Why?   How come a text-based
>application  like Wordperfect can't be made to run under all of the 386
>plataforms.  How bad are things going to get when they come out with
>an X-Window version?  You would also have software written to a
>specific X-Server?
>

All are interesting discussions.  All valid from one point of view or the 
other, so I would like to give my view as well:

I know nothing about UNIX commerical software since I don't use/need them. 
But I think an inexpansive OS, as long as it's reasonably robust, is good
for home systems.  As a student, I can't afford any commerical software other
than the OS. Below is how I get by for my basic needs:

Word Processing -> Tex and LaTex from Prof. Knuth -> labrea.stanford.edu
                   (should I call it text formatting to please purists?
                    For scientific symbols, WP simply won't cut it! I 
                    graduated from MSDOS, it was a pain for me using WP to
                    any thing with lots eqns.  LaTax is much better)

Text Editor     -> FSF's emacs and Crisp (a Brief clone for UNIX, where I got
                                          it?  Can't recall now)

X windows viewing -> seetax -> contrib dir of export.lcs.mit.edu

Spread Sheet    -> sc. 6.14 and lately Oleo from FSF -> prep.ai.mit.edu

Data Base       -> Perl by Larry Wall + Jinx and cterm by Prof. Hank P. Penning
                -> prep.ai.mit.edu and sol.cs.ruu.nl

Communication   -> ckermit from watson.cc.columbia.edu and ECU3 from         
                   uunet.uu.net

X server        -> everyone now should be using Thomas Roell's X386 as  
                   an alternative to the vendor supplied stuff I guess.

Drawing         -> xpic and xfig.  contributed xclients. kind of like MacDraw 

Scientific plotting -> gnuplot, what else.  [Well, I am still having problems
                                             getting it to work on my ESIX box
                                             in X.  But heck, I run it on Suns]
                       too numerous places to mention 

Compilers       -> gcc/g++/gdb  from FSF -> prep.ai.mit.edu

Matrix Manulipulations -> Class Matlab and f2c from research.att.com
                          [I can't tell you where to get the former due
                           to leagailty problem]

Statistic Data Analysis -> stat by Gary Perlman [don't ask me how to get it]

I don't have enough disk space for building the EZ integrated document
preparation pkg from Andrew Tool Kit.  But I use it on my school's Suns.
It's nice too. with built-in spreadsheet/drawing tool/mailer/etc.  It's 
rated as the best word processor for X in the FAQ of comp.windows.x newsgroup.
For people out there with a monster hard disk and enough patience, this
thing is available from prep.ai.mit.edu and you shouldn't need to pay a 
penny for it.

For on line info, there are lots man programs available and it's fairly 
easy to hack up a shell script to do the same thing.  For FSF's texinfo stuff,
xinfo is almost a straightforward make in ESIX, work right out of box from 
prep.ai.mit.edu.  Xman is easy to hack too.

So I would say, for some people (myself included), after the price for an 
inexpansive OS, the rest is just some time/effort and Internet access to 
get the box useful.  Whether my OS runs commerical software or not doesn't 
really bother me at all. (yup. I know, not everyone has internet access...)

Hmm.. Now I need to learn more so when FSF OS is out, I can hack it and make
it up and running.  If that can be done, cost for an OS is nil too.
Then Bye to all commerical 386 Unices.  Long life free ware!

Regards,

Chin Fang
Mechanical Engineering Department
Stanford University
fangchin at leland.stanford.edu