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From: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.questions,comp.os.mach,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: Unix close for 486 - commens requested
Date: 5 Aug 1993 15:23:01 GMT
Organization: Montana State University, Bozeman MT
Lines: 68
Distribution: inet
Message-ID: <23r8kl$la4@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
References: <CEH.93Aug5102012@alouette.sce.carleton.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bsd.coe.montana.edu
In article <CEH.93Aug5102012@alouette.sce.carleton.ca>,
Curtis Hrischuk <ceh@alouette.sce.carleton.ca> wrote:
>Hi. I am looking for comments about using 80486 PCs as Unix boxes.
>Before the flame throwers come out, here is the reason: I am in an
>acedemic environment that runs a large amount of simulations. Rather
>than have a $40K workstation run 10 simulations, it would be faster to
>run the simulations on 10 80486 PCs (and more reliable).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In my opinion, you should consider getting BSDI's commercial
BSD *nix. For $2K you get one-year unlimited licenses + support,
and you can't beat that with ANY other PC unix product that I'm aware
of. There are free *nices around as well, but if you desire stability
and you require it to work right, then you really need to look at
something that is supported commercially.
Some of the other free *nix folks might disagree, but you can't touch
BSDI's support staff for knowlege and for having a rock-solid product.
>To achieve this, there are some functions that are necessary:
>- Transparent NFS. Should be able to access files on the PC just like
>any other NFS connected workstation.
>- Use gcc or g++ compiler, and other GNUish tools. If it came with
>its own compiler even better.
>- Remote login capabilities, so that users could remotely login and
>start batch simulation jobs.
All of this and more is available from BSDI, and the networking code is
very stable and VERY usable. (At times more so than some of the
workstations on campus) Note, I have not run BSDI, but I run one of the
freely available *nices based on the same code, and although my box is
not as stable as far as uptimes as BSDI boxes, my box is not crashing due
to any network problems (knock-on-wood.)
>This brings us to the question of hardware - what are typical
>requirements for Unix (clones+) for 80486 platforms? Your experience
>is invaluable.
We have seen very acceptable (!) performance out of 486/66 EISA boxes
with 32MB of memory + SCSI systems, and also out of 486/66 EISA/VLB +
SCSI systems.
The reason for EISA is that it is a better bus for doing higher I/O and
video, and it allows you to have free access to all your memory, whereis
the ISA machines are limited to DMA up to 16MB, or you have to implement
a slower bounce-buffer system to get to the memory above 16MB.
Get a good EISA SCSI controller (adaptec 1742 works well), and you can
put multiple disks, tape drives, cd-players, etc... on the machie plus
get much better performance using a multi-tasking, multi-user system.
I have not seen an IDE system come close to the performance of a EISA
SCSI box.
Note, you can run *nix on 386SX/16 + 4MB, but it isn't recommended.
(Right Jaye!)
If you want to use the system with X11R5, I suggest getting an
accelerated graphics card with an S3 chipset, which is supported by
BSDI. A good monitor is a must if you're doing X, so get one of the PC
rags and find out what they think are good monitors. I have a Nanoa
550i, and I absolutely love it.
--
nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu | In the middle of it ........ again.
nate@cs.montana.edu | Running/supporting one of many freely available
work #: (406) 994-4836 | Operating Systems for [34]86 machines.
home #: (406) 586-0579 | (based on Net/2, name changes all the time :-)