Need Recommendations On 386/486 UNIX systems

[Larry Snyder]

cpcahil at virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes:

>In article <2710 at sixhub.UUCP> davidsen at sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>>  I would go with Xenix. It's not remotely state of the art, but it is
>>well tested and very reliable. I'm painfully aware that more modern
>>systems, and most versions of V.3.2, are not quite as reliable. It
>>supports multiport serial very well, it supports TCP if you don't need
>>NFS, and is generally a good solution to your particular problem.

>I have found System V R3.2.2 (ie latest releases from the respective
>vendors) to be very reliable.  The only panic's we have had in the past
>year have been due to memory problems.  The only reboots we have had to 
>do have been because of a hung archive tape drive (that's archive's problem
>not the OS).  We bang the hell out of our system and have had it up for 
>months at a time with no problems.

I agree with Conor - I can't image anyone with the hardware resources
these days wanting to go with Xenix.  If he has 10 grand (I believe
that was the amount) to work with - he could put together a screamer
Unix based system with FAST SCSI drives.   The Xenix file system is
so very slow - and the chance that continued  development for third
party applications is grim.

>>|     3. disk controller? Adaptec 1740? 
>>
>>  Garder variety ESDI. Use two drives to improve performance. I will

>Two drives does not get you that much performance improvement on ESDI.  However
>it does get you much more with a SCSI system.   I would recommend SCSI (perhaps
>adaptec 1542, or bustek equivalent) especially if the OS you choose is
>ISC (because ISC has highly optimized SCSI performance).

Again, I agree with Conor - a pair of SCSI drives that support SYNC transfers
will scream past all the ESDI systems I've seen (including the 15m variety)..

>The additional benefit of SCSI is that the tape drive can use the same 
>controller (thereby saving costs of the controller and saving precious
>slots and interrupts).

Plus - DAT and optics - and lots of devices without the need to add another
controller..

>>|     4. 16 port serial card?
>>
>>  Two 8's. You might find performance a hair better one way or the
>>other, but redundancy says use two, and there's no drawback I can see.
>>*Smart* cards, please.

>I would recommend a single card.  (Slots are precious commodities, don't
>waste them).  The card I like best (and of course this is just personal
>opinion) is the Megaport-24.

I don't have enough experience with this to comment..

-- 
       Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN USA 
  {larry at nstar.rn.com, uunet!nstar!larry, larry%nstar at iuvax.cs.indiana.edu}
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