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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news.sprintlink.net!helena.MT.net!nate From: nate@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison) Date: 9 Jan 1996 23:45:32 GMT Organization: SRI Intl. - Montana Operations Lines: 56 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <4cuums$bi1@helena.MT.net> References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <cnordin.821050414@news.vni.net> <4crliv$smk@olympus.nwnet.net> Reply-To: "Nate Williams" <nate@sneezy.sri.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: trout.sri.mt.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1868 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2004 comp.unix.solaris:56760 comp.unix.aix:68295 In article <4crliv$smk@olympus.nwnet.net>, Anthony D'Atri <aad@nwnet.net> wrote: >>BSDI is going to run around SunOS, Solaris, and AIX . It is faaaaast. >>The Sparc20s are very nice and some of them might actually be an >>improvement -- but why move yourself off of the commodity prices of >>Intel sub-systems ? > >Because commodity-priced Intel-architecture stuff doesn't run reliably or >cheaply. So don't buy the commodity-proced Intel stuff. >In order to configure such a box to run a Unix decently, you don't >use a flinky $25 mass-market enclosure -- you pay more for one with a decent >power supply and cooling. You pay more if you want a halfway-usable keyboard, >for any machines that need one. In the end, though, memory and disk costs >for this sort of application are going to dwarf the CPU costs anyway, which >kinda makes the argument moot. Acually, no. The CPU cost still is significant. >IMHO, the Unix-on-MSDOS-hardware route can be by far the most time-consuming >and headache-prone. Hardware and software vendor support can be even worse >than that of Unix-hardware vendors. Find a good HW vendor. How hard is that? It'll cost you a bit more (10-15%), but once you've found a good vendor you won't have to worry about it anymore. >It can take a week to get a machine to simply recognize two SCSI >controllers. Nobody expects you to put two into a machine, so nobody >tells you the convolutions needed to do so. You'll have the same problem with PC unices as you do with SUN/DEC/SGI workstations. How do I stick one in my Sparc 10, I've avoided doing it simply because it's a pain? (BTW - I know how, it's almost *exactly* the same procedure as doing it under any of the BSD's) > Essential utilities like a >disk analysis tool can be missing, and lots of tools may not build at >all on the platform -- eg., lsof. I think you'll find that most of the newer software is ported first to Linux (students have more free time on their hands), so again this is a moot point and irrelevant. Software support isn't perfect on *ANY* OS you choose, but if you stick with the standard OS's already discussed you'll be pretty safe. Nate -- nate@sneezy.sri.com | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations nate@trout.sri.MT.net | Loving life in God's country, the great state of work #: (406) 449-7662 | Montana. home #: (406) 443-7063 | A fly pole and a 4x4 Chevy truck = Heaven on Earth