venix versus xenix

[Davidsen]

In article <1135 at cp1.UUCP> hart at cp1.UUCP (Rod Hart) writes:
>
>	I am getting ready to purchase a pc version of Unix and would
>to like to know which is the best between xenix and venix. Has anyone
>had experience with both and can make a recommendation. Compatibility
>with Sys V is important. Thanks!
>-- 

I have not used venix (the lack of troff ended consideration at our site)
but have used SCO XENIX SysV.2, and find it to be compatible with the SysV
on the VAX, Cray2 (yes I have used one) and 3B2. The C compiler is not
pcc, but rather a variant which knows about small, medium, and large
models, as well as huge (linear address space) model on 286 version only.

The C compiler and word processing are unbundled, leading to a reduced
price if you don't really need the whole thing. So far we have given this
to five users having varying levels of skill, and all have been happy. For
fancy configuration a guru is helpful, but the average user will be fine.
Everybody thought the manuals were better than the VAX manuals,
particularly the word processing manuals. The manuals are unbundled, too,
which helps our word processing types but means an occational extra lookup
for the heavy UNIX types.

Avoid at all costs the IBM version of XENIX (SysIII), which has many
"learning experiences" missing in the SCO version. The SCO hotline is fair
on response time, very good on finally getting to someone who knows the
answer (and they do call you back).

NOTE: (1) this is not a comment on the relative or absolute value of
venix, (2) although I evaluated XENIX for my company and submitted these
same finding, these opinions have not been officially adopted by my
company as yet.
-- 
	-bill davidsen

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