Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!ucla-cs!tek
From: tek@penzance.cs.ucla.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: RS6000s & Suns
Message-ID: <38848@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 10 Sep 90 22:41:34 GMT
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: tek@CS.UCLA.EDU (Ted Kim (Random Dude))
Organization: UCLA
Lines: 45

My university research group is is considering getting some RS6000s.
My question to the net is how well do they integrate into the
hodge-podge university environment? In particular, they would have to
cooperate with/tolerate our SUN machines.

1. BSD support 

   How easy is it to run in the BSD command environment? 
   Does putting /usr/ucb before /usr/bin really do the trick?
   
   Can one get away with using only BSD system administration tools?
   Or is use of System V administration tools necessary?

   We grab a lot of stuff off the net requiring the BSD C environment.
   How easy is it to port BSD C-language applications? 
   Does the BSD environment variable really do the trick?

2. Network Services

   Any problems with the provided versions of:
    sendmail, named (Hopefully, these are modern versions with MX records?)
    NFS, YP
    net daemons: inetd, lpd, rshd, etc. 

   Can you network boot and run run diskless (and swap via NFS)?

   Does an X11 R4 server exist for all the displays?
   Dose the IBM X11 software come with Motif?

3. General Impression

   Bugginess of the OS? 
     (eg like the spectacular security holes in vanilla SUNOS 4.0)
   Reliability of the Hardware?
     (eg like the high failure rate of SUN's 19" monochrome monitors on 3/60s)

   Any other comments?


-ted

Ted Kim                           Internet: tek@penzance.cs.ucla.edu
UCLA Computer Science Department  UUCP:    ...!{uunet|ucbvax}!cs.ucla.edu!tek
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