Rumours about "new" U*IX ? (mild flames)

[Fletcher Kittredge]

In article <1991Jan13.070816.24882 at ircam.fr> fingerhu at ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut) writes:
>Jim Gettys writes:
>>Folks are certainly working on it (hard).
>
>Some questions arise...

I have no relationship with DEC, but even I know the answers to some of
these questions.

>1.  Will it work on *all* of DEC's platforms, i.e., the famous 58x0 as well
>    as DECstations 3100, for instance?  We have both, and it would be unthinka-
>    ble to upgrade one type of machine without the other and have users lost
>    with yet another brand of U*ix.
>
>2.  If it does, does this mean it's a multiprocessor U*ix?  One that works ade-
>    quately with the 58x0?

If you don't know that OSF/1 is based on Mach and Mach has become the
operating system of choice for MIDI multiprocessors such as DEC's 58x0
series, then you don't deserve one of these computers and should have your
wizard licence removed(;-).  Since current versions of Mach are much more
highly parallelized than Unix, OSF/1 will work much better on 58x0s than
current the DEC offering (which is not saying much from what I hear).

>3.  If so, what about the other rumors about SCO UNIX?

What rumors?  I read several places the announcement that DEC is selling
SCO Unix on their 386 boxes.  Doesn't seem like a rumor to me.

>4.  What about the *reliability* of OSF/1 tools?  *If* I am not mistaken, their
>    compiler is derived from gcc, which has known problems with DEC/MIPS archi-
>    tecture, and provides less debugging options than cc (which has some
>    problems too). (Is this why Jim Gettys says "We certainly ran large piles
>    of exiting executable we have here "... )
>       ^^^^^^^

Well, you are mistaken.  If you had been following gcc on the MIPS systems
at all, you would have noticed over the last year a stream of high quality
patches for gcc for DEC RISC systems emerging out of Michael Meissner at
OSF.  In fact, the DECStation is one of the OSF's reference ports for OSF/1.

As for less debugging options, I don't believe you.  There are many more
error checking and debugging options for gcc than for MIPS cc.  However, I
am open to persuasion, could you list the debugging options available with
MIPS cc and not with the gcc OSF ships?

In addition, DEC will probably offer both compilers on their Ultrix-OSF/1
merge.

>5.  Will this software be supported by DEC?

Give me a break.

>'d much like to understand DEC's strategy -- after all we (the end users)
>have to plan ahead too...

Strategy, what strategy?


Fletcher Kittredge
Platforms and Tools Group, BBN Software Products
10 Fawcett Street,  Cambridge, MA. 02138
617-873-3465  /  fkittred at bbn.com  /  fkittred at das.harvard.edu