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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!news.new-york.net!news.way.com!usenet From: "Ismaeel Abdur-Rasheed, et. al." <ismaeel@gcsnet.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: which Unix to choose? Date: Wed, 06 Nov 1996 13:33:42 -0500 Organization: JCBM - Java crazed brilliant minds Lines: 50 Message-ID: <3280DA06.383@gcsnet.com> References: <327F5727.179F@citynet.net> <327FC59A.6E48@gcsnet.com> <55phr2$5ln@newsbr.eunet.fr> Reply-To: ismaeel@gcsnet.com NNTP-Posting-Host: port03.gcsnet.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) To: Frederic MARAND <Frederic.Marand@osinet.fr> CC: ismaeel@gcsnet.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.sco.misc:28667 comp.unix.misc:26113 comp.unix.questions:90644 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:30727 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:4824 Just for the record, our 12 years of SUN server use has suffered only two incidences of disruption in service. The first was our fault for putting a server in a corner with inadequate ventilation, so that on a particularly hot day - the hard disk controller failed. It was operational within 4 hours. The second incident was a software failure of the NIS name server daemon, ypserv, which has a bug in 2.4 which caused it to dump core. The patch was downloaded from SunSolve and the system was restored within 1 hour. I have found Sun hardware to be remarkably reliable. I have been delighted with the technical competence of their hotline staff. And, apart from the problem with ypserv, have not had any problems with Solaris since version 2.3. I consider the fact that Solaris releases come with accompanying patch CD's, and monthly patch CD additions to be a excellent form of support! I do not have to wait months or years to have a problem resolved in a next major release. As anonmolies are uncovered in production, the Sun technical staff is very responsive in providing fixes. In fact, the easiest thing to do, is when a patch CD is received, execute patchinstall, and simple select "suggested" patches, and off you go. What could be easier. IBM, on the other hand, turns it's nose up at the entire unix industry, who after great effort finally consolidated their versioning around AT&T SVr4. AIX, however, uses it's own proprietary methods of system administration (smitty). SO when you move from one unix box to another - if they are SVr4 you have a good chance of being able to administrate the system using the command line syntax; but if you move to a AIX machine - your sunk! IBM is like Microsoft in that way. Insisting on doing things with their own flavor and to hell with the rest of the industry. Well, ever since Compaq build the first x86t clone, "we've had all we can stand and we're not going to take it anymore!" What happened with Microchannel? The same story. IBM says "jump", and anyone with half a brain says "f**k you!". 'nuf said. (flame, flame) -- The knowledge revealed herein ultimately came from sources beyond me. The insights came from my higher self. Everything else is nonsense.