Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
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From: vancleef@iastate.edu (Van Cleef Henry H)
Subject: Re: SCO Unix vs. Xenix
Message-ID: <1991Mar27.004933.18337@news.iastate.edu>
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
References: <1991Mar17.180605.25133@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1991 00:49:33 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <1991Mar17.180605.25133@rodan.acs.syr.edu> ldstern@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Larry Stern) writes:
>Could anyone briefly outline for me the differences between SCO's Unix and
>Xenix? I am looking for a Unix system to run on my AT clone.
>Thank you in advance.
>
I note that you are from Syracuse University and may want a Unix system
as a learning platform rather than a commercial system with all the bells 
and whistles.  May I suggest Minix, available from Prentice-Hall for
$169.  It is a "clone" of system 7 (late 1970's) that comes with source
code.  It is NOT a "public domain" system, and therefore not available
by FTP.  It is a very neatly done package, and comes with a comprehensive
book.  It is also capable of serious things---I am writing this response
from a laptop with 2 720K floppies only using the Kermit supplied with the
package.  You can ftp a demo disk from plains.nodak.edu (internet) and 
has a newsgroup comp.os.minix.  Supported by all sorts of add-ons available
through ftp and a very good teaching/learning package.

Those who yelp about SCO prices ought to consider the number of extensions
that the SCO packages provide.  However, I would suggest that SCO 386
products be used, which does not support an "AT Clone"--presumably 286.
SCO Xenix 386 and SCO System V are completely different products.  The 
latter, as I recall, requires about 58 meg for the OS, development system,
and man pages.  SCO provides a very comprehensive doc set.  I have, in
past years, evaluated the Interactive, AT+T, and Intel Sys V products but
have stuck with SCO as a development platform because it provides more
toys and goodies and has less bugs, at least in the versions I have used.


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