Which Version Of Xenix to Buy??

[William E. Davidsen Jr]

In article <6902 at thorin.cs.unc.edu> hamilton at harrison.cs.unc.edu (Johnny Hamilton) writes:

| SYSTEM:  IBM PS/2 Model 50/z
| 	 - 3.5" (1.44mb) diskette drive
| 	 - Intel 80286 processor
== you will really wish for the 386, not for speed but for the ability
== to run DOS programs.
|  	 - 3MB core (1MB motherboard, 2MB XMA Adapter)
| 	 - 300/1200 Baud Internal Modem
== you're not going to like this, either
| 	 - 60MB Hard Drive

| Options I would like to have in an OS: (Muli-tasking is a default)
| 1. Offers or promots some type of windowing system such as X-Windows
|    or as the Suns do with Suntools.
| 2. Provide good documentation to the OS and perhaps telephonic
|    support. 
== I don't know of any good documentation, Xenix is somewhat less terse
== than MicroPort, the last Interactive docs I saw were "how to use"
== flavor, rather than "how it works."
| 3. Able to read/run dos or OS/2 programs and files.  
== As far as I know you can't run OS/2 progs under *any* UNIX.
| 4. Provide C compiler with some type of debugger as in "dbxtool"
== what you get is 'sdb.' "sdb, you're no CodeView."

| The mandatory list is that I have:
| 1.  The windowing environment.
| 2.  That the OS provides (or the Company  have for sale) a C compiler
|     and perhaps a good window debugger as in Codview or dbxtool

  Honestly, why don't you buy PC-SLIP and X-windows for your PC, run
DOS, and use QuickC or MSC with CodeView? If you need OS/2 you can't run
it under UNIX, and a 286 only runs well behaved DOS programs under UNIX,
since an ill-behaved program can crash the system (also OS/2).

  I love UNIX of many flavors, but you seem to have a better fit with
DOS at this time. Xenix is slightly a better fit than other flavors of
UNIX because its C compiler will produce DOS executables directly. The
SCO3.2 version (about 3Q89) will produce OS/2 executables, too, but I
don't know if they're 'real' OS/2, or the so-called 'family model' which
will run on either DOS or OS/2.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu at ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me