Quote:> I am an A/UX user, looking to leap to a floating ship. I have a fairly
> underpowered laptop (Toshiba T1910: 486sx/33, 8 MB ram, about 120 MB HD
> available to UNIX. I currently am using Linux without X. How do
> Interactive UNIX and Solaris/x86 compare to each other (price,
When I last looked, Interactive UNIX was a lot more expensive, but that
was a while back. I asked Sun why and the reply was that they have to
pass on heavy licence fees for it. This was probably 2 years ago; things
might have changed and pricing here in the UK might be different.
Quote:> functionality)
Well, that depends what you are wanting to do. Interactive UNIX is faster
than Solaris x86 for simple tasks, with the OS and X being much faster
on medium sized systems (say 16Mbytes). (It was designed to work in much
smaller machines than are typical today.) However, I think I would
avoid Interactive UNIX now for anything new since it's future is at best
likely to be static. (I have just decided to stop purchasing updates.)
OTOH, Solaris is based on System 5 Release 4, which has many performance
enhancing features over System 5 Release 3.2 (Interactive UNIX). Some of
these come for free, and others must be explicitly exploited. If your
apps can benefit from these, you would do better under Solaris x86. It
won't run on small machines (less than 16Mbyte).
Solaris x86 is my current preferred choice.
Quote:> and Linux (functionality)?
I've not used it for a while, but performance wise, it was similar to
Interactive UNIX, scoring particularly well on small and medium sized
machines. At that time, it could only be described as a Unix emulator (not
something one would have said in a Linux newsgroup however), but I think
it has now "come of age" and for most practical purposes can be regarded
as a real Unix. It is being developed much faster than any commercial
Unix, and although not my own personal preference yet, it could well
be within the next couple of years. (This should be worrying the
commercial unix vendors much more than it seems to be.)
Quote:> I checked www.sun.com, and it
> mostly had hype. Eventually I will be moving to a much more powerful
> notebook, but not immediately. I do need a C compiler, either bundled,
> purchased seperately, or gcc. Thanks...
Your current RAM, and probably hard disc too, are too small for Solaris.
gcc is available for all three unixs. Interactive and Solaris also have
unbundled compilers. The Solaris one is very expensive, but is often
reduced on special offers. Interactive's is very reasonable (IIRC, there
is more than one).
One comment I would make if you are looking for a new system on which
to run Solaris is (in addition to checking out the hardware compatibility
list) to go for a good video adaptor which is driven in accelerated mode.
I run Solaris on a 486DX33 at home with an accelerated card, and at work
on a P100 with an accelerated card which Solaris does not seem to drive
in accelerated mode. The 486 is *much* faster for anything GUI related
than the P100 !
It would be helpful if Sun said which cards they drive in accelerated
mode in the hardware compatibility list (last time I looked, they didn't).
For a notebook, this area is probably even more tricky.
Hope that helps. You'll get as many different opinions as replies!
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