Problems with the 7300

[Adam V. Reed]

The following views are my own, NOT my company's. Aah, Flames....

I have used the UNIX PC for three weeks now, and have found it an
excellent machine if used right, with several caveats:

1. The consumer shell (called ua) is an excellent tool for easy
performance of all those system adminstration tasks that I never quite
became fluent in, like updating uucp control files. I never dreamed uucp
administration, or lp queue setup, or port configuration, etc. etc.
could be made so easy (even an utter non-programmer can do things on
a UNIX PC that require a skilled SA on traditional UNIX systems,
and never even notice having done them). But for things that one is
fluent in, going through the menus of the ua just slows you down.

2. If you want the 7300 to show its stuff as a UNIX engine, USE IT AS A
UNIX ENGINE. Note that you can avoid the ua altogether by logging in as
root, or by removing the "exec ua" line from your $HOME/.profile. That
is a good idea for anyone who knows how to use an "expert friendly"
shell; the ua takes forever to start up (this is why a login takes so
long if you leave "exec ua" in your profile), and slows everything down
whenever it is running. If you need it, you can always "exec ua" later
from your login shell.

3. If you avoid the ua, the UNIX PC can support up to 3 users with
reasonable speed. It slows down with more than 3, but that is to be
expected: after all, a 68010 is not a 32100.

4. You don't need the ua to have windows. I have implemented a blit-like
borderless asynchronous windowing environment with a few simple kernel
calls. This needs ksh aliases, though, for full functionality, so I don't
plan to post it here unless there is a demand. Incidentally, ksh (as
distributed by the AT&T UNIX Toolchest) ports very readily to the UNIX PC.

						Adam Reed
						ihnp4!npois!npoiw!adam
						(npoiw is a UNIX PC)