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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!psgrain!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!nntp.coast.net!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!news.kth.se!nada.kth.se!obg From: obg@nada.kth.se (Olof Backing) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: Benifts of NetBSD over Ultrix 4.0? Date: 1 Mar 96 17:39:29 GMT Lines: 41 Message-ID: <obg.825701969@nada.kth.se> References: <4h6d2o$581@hermes.cair.du.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: byse.nada.kth.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In <4h6d2o$581@hermes.cair.du.edu> jventer@phoebe.cair.du.edu (mOdNaR) writes: > Hi, > I've recently 'inherited' and old Decstation 5000/200 from a company that >didn't have a clue how to us it. I must say I'm not much better, but I can >get it running. It's basically been sitting in a closet since 1990 or so. >Anyways my question is what functionality/performance over Ultrix does NetBSD >offer. It definantly seems like a pain to get installed (and I haven't figured >out how to make a boot tape for ultrix yet...) The machine is pretty minimal, >8Mb ram, RZ55 338Mb, I believe Frame buffer (CX?) video card, a thin-net >ethernet adapter, TK50 tape drive, and a Floppy disk (RX23?). It's running >Ultrix 4.0 and X ok, but a bit slow. Frankly though their's not really much >I can do with the machine, I have APL and SQL for it but don't really need >either. So if anhone can tell me why it would be worth the effort(besides the >fun of a new personality) of getting NetBSD onto this machien I'd appreciate it. >I have quite a bit of experience fiddiling around with Linux on a couple of Pc's >and OSF/1 / Digital UNIX on a nice AlphaStation, so the gory details don't scare >me as long as the goal is worth the effort. Thanks. Well, as I see it with a DECStation 3100 I can give you two options: * Upgrade to Ultrix 4.3, 4.4 or even 4.5 :-) _BUT_ stay away from DECWindows! Don't install that CPU-hog. Go for X11R6 instead. * Install NetBSD (I wish I had the guts and space to do that!) and X11R5 (as of reading others posts on the topic). The 8 megs might make the machine a little bit slow with Ultrix, but I can't speak for NetBSD. I hope it's Gods gift for DECStation users. The RZ55 is more of a 300 meg drive giving you either 293 or 303 megs depending on how you mkfs:s the drive. The standard inode size is not efficient (4096 that is) so try 8192 instead ( think that is the number that I used). /Olof -- WHOAMI: Olof Backing EMAIL: WHERE: Royal Institute Of Technology, Stockholm obg@nada.kth.se SNAIL: Skarpnacks Alle 45, 3tr, S-128 33 SKARPNACK, Sweden VOICE: + 46 8 931619