'386 Unix Wars

[Jay Ts]

In article <94408977 at bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tneff at bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
> In article <350 at metran.UUCP> jay at metran.UUCP (Jay Ts) writes:
> >I am *scared* of SVR4!!  When/if my clients have to upgrade, they will have
> >to add at least 4 Mb of memory and probably suffer a performance degradation
> >as well.  (Someone please tell me this isn't really true!)  And it won't
> >markedly improve the functioning of their existing software, either.
> 
> I'll tell you it's not true if you'll tell us why you thought it WAS true.

Mostly a number of informal and unreliable sources...  But then there's
Microport's product info with words to the effect that "you can use a
minimum of 4Mb, but you should really have 8", and a usenet posting a
couple of months ago from an employee from Unisoft stating that SVR4 does
not run smoothly in any less than 5 Mb.  This means my clients with 4Mb
systems that already run smoothly will need to get another 4 Mb chunk.

> For equivalent functionality -- note that phrase please -- SVR4 looks
> about 20% bigger than the comparable SVR3v2.2 system.  But remember that
> SVR4 adds a lot of functionality!

None of which will be used by my clients.  I am trying not to nitpick at this
point (I still want to be friends, after all), (ahem...)  but, if the
functionality is *equivalent* and the kernel takes up 20% more space with a
lot *more* functionality, then ... um ... what were your trying to say,
anyway???

> Anyway, memory is so damn cheap these days.

I remember reading that just about *everywhere* immediately prior to the
big RAM drought a couple years ago.

I am not going to be happy until RAM is less than $25 per Mbyte.  (And 
available :-)

Hey, I didn't mean to be so negative, after all, I'm a UNIX enthusiast, too!
My point is that for the common office automation environment, UNIX is getting
to be serious overkill.  It's hard to sell UNIX against, for example, TurboDOS,
which is small, efficient, inexpensive, and easy to administrate.

I'm not trying to suggest we all switch to a CP/M-variant or a Mach-derivative
:-), but I think that UNIX is getting a little too monolithic for small
systems.  OK?

In fact, what really scares me is not the size of the kernel, but the size
of the documentation.  Back in the days when computers costed millions of
dollars, took up their own rooms and had their own air conditioners, it was
not unreasonable to hire a team of system managers to be experts on the
bookshelf full of documentation.  But now the computer sits under a table
in an office and costs about $5000.  There is no team of system managers,
there is just me.  And I happen to think that a bookshelf-full of
documentation is a bit much.  I first became interested in UNIX because
it was a neat, simple, efficient and sensible alternative to the big, bad,
ugly IBM, Burroughs and Sperry mainframes.

I am starting to feel like someone is weaning me away from my favorite toy.

> My only beef is that, for a
> UNIX release packing so many additional files, SVR4/386 doesn't have better
> support for huge ESDI disks.  It chafes to have to throw away 100MB of
> my Maxtor just to keep upder 1024 cylinders.  I would like to see this
> addressed in a future rev.

You're kidding?  There must be a way around that problem!  Someone help
this guy.

				Jay Ts, Director
				Metran Technology
				Tampa FL
				uunet!pdn!tscs!metran!jay
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I feel like going into a submarine for a few months.