Very Computer

We are about to buy some X-terminals for new employees. We are looking
at Tektronix XP421CH X-terminals, but we have also considerd buying
smaller SparcStation 5's. If we buy X-terminals, we intend to run them
with our Ultra2's. If we buy SparkStation 5's (Who are about one forth
to one fifth more expensive) we intend only to run the CPU-intensive
task on the Ultra2's.

What should we choose!?

Have I missed any option?

--
/BE

It depends on how large an installation you are speaking of.  Xterminals
are notoriously heavy network hogs.  Although this has improved since
the days I was last using Xterminals, they are still host-reliant
devices.  If the Xterminals you are considering have local windowing
software, then the network load is reduced considerably and may be worth
looking at, if not, I wouldn't even consider using them.  Just my
opinion...

Chris Coleman
Kistler Rocket Project
Northrop/Grumman

I use my PC as an X-terminal using SmartTerm Enterprise.
This might be even cheaper for you.

Ian Smith

We use PCs (W95) and Exceed with no problems.
John.

   We are about to buy some X-terminals for new employees. We are looking
   at Tektronix XP421CH X-terminals, but we have also considerd buying
   smaller SparcStation 5's. If we buy X-terminals, we intend to run them
   with our Ultra2's. If we buy SparkStation 5's (Who are about one forth
   to one fifth more expensive) we intend only to run the CPU-intensive
   task on the Ultra2's.

   What should we choose!?

   Have I missed any option?

I read some of the other responses, and I agree that the Xterminals
are network hogs, but that is minimized by using ether switches.  As
for using PCs with some Xterms, we have that here as well, and that
adds additional administration strains.

How many machines are we talking about?  If we are talking less than 5
machines, I don't see the Xterms causing any great effects on the
network.  Any more than that, I would start looking at the Sparc5s.
Now, with the Sparc5s, you will be adding more adminstration problems,
but I think they would be much less than the PC route.

Also, I have heard that Sun is releasing a low end Ultra in early 98
to compete with the home computer realm.  I read this on their home
page I think, but this thing will be geared toward individuals
attaching to larger machines.  This might be an option to explore.
--
Wayne Huling                                http://www.cs.odu.edu/~wayne/
NASA Langley Research Center          http://www.larc.nasa.gov/larc.html/
Structural Mechanics Branch                     http://smb.larc.nasa.gov/  
8 West Taylor Rd MS 190      
Hampton, VA  23681

Quote:>We are about to buy some X-terminals for new employees. We are looking
>at Tektronix XP421CH X-terminals, but we have also considerd buying
>smaller SparcStation 5's. If we buy X-terminals, we intend to run them
>with our Ultra2's. If we buy SparkStation 5's (Who are about one forth
>to one fifth more expensive) we intend only to run the CPU-intensive
>task on the Ultra2's.

>What should we choose!?

>Have I missed any option?

Leon
--

Amateur Radio Callsign G1HSM    Tel: +44 (0) 118 947 1424
See http://www.lfheller.demon.co.uk/rcm.htm for details of a
low-cost reconfigurable computing module using the XC6216 FPGA

: It depends on how large an installation you are speaking of.  Xterminals
: are notoriously heavy network hogs.  Although this has improved since
: the days I was last using Xterminals, they are still host-reliant
: devices.  If the Xterminals you are considering have local windowing
: software, then the network load is reduced considerably and may be worth
: looking at, if not, I wouldn't even consider using them.  Just my
: opinion...

What about NFS on Unix or SMB under windows? Transfering 10 to 20 Mbyte
executables across a network all day long will hog a network in a hurry
with lots of complaints from everyone.

Under solaris one can setup a cacheing file system that will help.

Where X is a problem is with screen savers and intensive graphics -
real-time graphics.

Another advanatage of X-terminals is it allows you to put your resources
in one box. While it is nice to have 10 workstations with 64 Meg and
9 G disk with all the application local, it is also very nice to have
one machine with 512 Meg for those big Synopsys compiles :)

If one is really worried, simply buy a ethernet switch, or several
ethernet cards for the computation server and have each xterminal
on a dedicated network.

Simply having to avoid NIS/NIS+ and NFS makes xterminal attractive in
my book. One computation server with xterminals reduces administrations
dramatically. There are issues of users using a shared resource, but,
wait till a user does an "find" on a 4G NFS mounted partition....

The computation server for xterminals must be at a 2 processor + configuration.

-Rich Auletta

However, if you've got a half-decent Unix network admin person/staff,
and do the up-front research to evaluate just what hardware, monitors
and video cards you need (What will Linux support?), it's a great way to
go.  I'd recommend experimenting with only a couple of units at first to
get the bugs worked out, and determine if it fits your needs.

If you've got a couple of spare 486's or low end pentiums around your
office, your only cost would be sys admin time and the cost of a Linux
CD.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"...Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. A
little voice inside my head said, `Don't look back.  You can never look
back.'"  - Don Henley, "The Boys of Summer".

I was about to reply to the original post with the same info.  For a
little investment in learning how to administer/install Linux, you get
a lot of bang for your buck.  With PC prices at rock bottom these
days, you can put a pretty powerful system together for only a little
cash.  I use a Linux PC at work regularly and it does a great job.  It
is an old 486-100 but it ran circles around the Sparc Classic as a
simple X windows workstation.

Jim.

-snip

Quote:>I'll add my vote of support for Linux here as well, along with a
>caveat.  PCs running Linux seem to be the most inexpensive hardware
>option I've found for adding X terms to our Sun network.  However, Linux
>requires a bit of research up front, and it's not a "plug and play" as
>far as initial setup and istallation goes.

here at the university we use Xterms, both real Xterms and Xterms based on a pc's.
The pc Xterms are just pc's with no harddisc, just a graphicscard and a netadapter with a bootprom and they boot with some sort special made  linux-xwin thingy from the net.
and it works very well.

By  the way, do any of you now anything about winframes. It should be Microsofts
answer to xterm's, it should be able to run on a 286 with 640Kb RAM and use a WIN-NT machine as a server.

-Lasse
----------------------------------------------------------
Lasse Langwadt Christensen, M.Sc. EE (to be in 1999)
Aalborg University Department of control engineering      

snail-mail: Lobovej 20 - 9230 Svenstrup - Denmark
Phone: +45 4026 5572 (remove NOSPAM to reply)

: I'll add my vote of support for Linux here as well, along with a
: caveat.  PCs running Linux seem to be the most inexpensive hardware
: option I've found for adding X terms to our Sun network.  However, Linux
: requires a bit of research up front, and it's not a "plug and play" as
: far as initial setup and istallation goes.

I would go with Solaris in xterminal mode. Why? Because you will have less
problems with fonts etc etc. Also you are running the same Xserver and
while sun is moving way from Display Postscript (in the sense that
answer book is html) you simply avoid incompatabilities.

We dual boot NT/x86 and the x86 fits into 129Meg with just a straight install
(no tricks with removing unneeded packages). Then we add one line to inittab

xs:234:wait:/usr/openwin/bin/Xsun :0 -nobanner -query SPARC_HOST_NAME

and we are up as xterminals. Works great.

But absolutely - do one machine, and check everything. We found that Lsim
in Mentor exercised a bug in the graphics card on the x86 machines. Going
from a Matrox Ultima to a generic S3 card fixed that. (It also made programs
like xfig behave oddly.)

This hardware/software applies to Linux/Solaris etc.

-Rich Auletta

PS Buy three button mice :)

Brian