Ultrix and 4.2 and der Mouse

[Armando P. Stettner]

Hi.
Regarding the news comment by der Mouse on whether or not Ultrix
is 4.2 or not:
	From mcgill-vision!mouse Sat Nov 30 15:39:41 1985
	Path: decwrl!decvax!mcnc!philabs!micomvax!musocs!mcgill-vision!mouse
	From: mcgill-vision!mouse (der Mouse)
	Newsgroups: net.unix,net.unix-wizards
	Subject: Re: 4.2 on 8600 (repeat)
	Message-Id: <339 at mcgill-vision.UUCP>
	Date: 30 Nov 85 03:30:16 GMT
	References: <285 at mupsy.UUCP>, <128 at decvax.UUCP>
	Organization: McGill University, Montreal
	Lines: 40
	Xref: pepe net.unix:4052 net.unix-wizards:5829
	Apparently-To: aps
	Status: R
	
	> Ultrix-32 runs on the 8600. It runs like the
	> proverbial "bat out of ...". Contact your DEC salesperson for further
	> information.
	(do I recall something about advertising being verboten?)
	>							Ricky Palmer
	>							DEC
	>							Ultrix Group
	>							rsp at decvax
	
	I wasn't  able to find the original article for  this, but from
	the subject  line, I assume someone  asked  whether  4.2  ran
	on the  8600.  ULTRIX IS NOT 4.2.  IF THEY ASK FOR 4.2,  DON'T
	ASSUME A CLOSE LOOKALIKE WILL DO!!  Functionally, from the user
	level, it's very close,  granted.  BUT....  When  we had a
	uVAXII here  for  evaluation it had  Ultrix, and when I wanted
	to put  in the  /dev/std{in,out,err}  driver and  the load
	average  syscall  and  the other  kernel  hacks, guess what I
	found?  No kernel  source!  UNIX source comes with it  (for
	universities).   Ultrix source costs an obscene amount (we
	looked  into  getting it).   And UNIX without  source is pretty
	pointless (for us; for example, we  had a grad student here
	whose thesis  work  would  have been  completely impossible
	without  the  kernel  source).   Guess what  we'll  be  doing
	with  our microvaxen!  Right, running 4.3 (if they have it by
	that time) or moving 4.2 (otherwise).  With UNIX  source, when
	you find a  bug,  you fix  it.  The  fix is available within  a
	few  hours, or days for the  tough ones.  With a vendor system
	like Ultrix, you send in an SPR and hope they deign to pay
	attention to it.   Even  when they  do, you're lucky  if  it
	gets back, with or without a fix, within a month.

	Sorry for such a long and heated posting, but this sort of
	attitude "whaddya  want  4.2 for when you  can have Ultrix for
	1000% more" really gets to me.
	-- 
						der Mouse
	
	USA: {ihnp4,decvax,akgua,etc}!utcsri!mcgill-vision!mouse
	     philabs!micomvax!musocs!mcgill-vision!mouse
	Europe: mcvax!decvax!utcsri!mcgill-vision!mouse
	        mcvax!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!micomvax!musocs!mcgill-vision!mouse
	
	Hacker: One who accidentally destroys /
	Wizard: One who recovers it afterward
	

Ultrix *is* 4.2 with a fair amount of work by DEC UNIX Engineering
Group.  Ultrix is not a look alike!  It is modified 4.2.  There is even
about to be some of the internal improvements from 4.3BSD.  Just
because some (re)distribution of UNIX does not include source does not
mean that it isn't UNIX (is 4.2 UNIX? as the question goes???).  There
in fact should be enough stuff distributed with Ultrix so that you can
add a driver painlessly (assumming that you require no hacks in other
parts of the kernel, because there are no sources!).  Further, many of
the tables and hard coded constants have been removed from the original
source modules and placed in modules that are shipped as sources so
that you (the customer) can get at them.

Ultrix is not really good for academic environment where students will
be doing thesis work on operating systems or other computer science
activities that involve modifying existing programs.  It is better
suited to places that have less experience with UNIX or for places that
would prefer not to maintain the staff necessary to keep up an
operating system.

As for SPR's and service: that is the primary motiviation for some
commercial organization to get Ultrix rather than 4.2 from Berkeley.
This is not to say that that which comes from Berkeley is substandard
or not useful.  In fact, DEC would have based its products on System
III (and then V) if 4BSD were not up to the tasks at hand.  However,
Berkeley is not in the business of *supporting* 4BSD for every
organization that wants to run (or now runs) their release.  DEC *is*
in this business (please no flames ...).  Realize that there is a
seperate group within DEC with a charter to measure how quickly SPR
answers are turned around to the customer.

I do not believe that the attitude of myself or members of UEG is
one of "whaddya [you] want 4.2 when you can have Ultrix".  I
think that you might not have had a very clear understanding of
what Ultrix is and how it would or would not fit *your* situation.

I don't feel sorry for people who complain that /bin/ed is not
a good full screen editor.

			Armando Stettner