Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!cs.uoregon.edu!ogicse!milton!sumax!polari!rwing!dsinet!johnny5!garvey From: garvey@johnny5.uucp (Joe Garvey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: Switching from Sun to HP: some general questions Message-ID: <1991Apr14.053212.24266@johnny5.uucp> Date: 14 Apr 91 05:32:12 GMT References: <16710082@hpisod2.cup.hp.com> Organization: J5 Research -- Bothell, Wa. Lines: 183 In article <16710082@hpisod2.cup.hp.com>, decot@hpisod2.cup.hp.com (Dave Decot) writes: > > Does HPUX include DWB? > > No, but Documenter's Work Bench for HP-UX can be obtained from companies > such as ELAN. Note, however that nroff, eqn, and tbl are all provided in > stock HP-UX. But, HP actively discourages use of these tools by suspending internal support and upgrades for them years ago. Bugs go unfixed, and not everything you'd expect is there. I know, I bitched about it... and got the above answer. It is marginally useful... portable is another thing. > > Does HPUX support long filenames, symlinks, job control, sockets, NFS? > > Yes, since HP-UX Releases 6.5 [s300] and 2.0 [s800], respectively. Long file name support is there only if you've converted your file systems. If you're writing commercial software you'll have to work with the 14 character limit. Not all third parties have adapted to the 6.0 changes much less 6.5 and 7.0. There are issues regarding building your own libraries too. The 14 character limit crops up again. > > Does uucp work reliably at 19200 bps? Is it a solid version of uucp? > > It is HoneyDanBer UUCP, if that means anything to you. Yes, HP runs HDB, and is solid an 19200. If you're using a series 300 machine the internal port is a no-no (it is serviced by main CPU... and thus slows things down). You'll want a 4 port mux... of which only one port can be used with a modem. Argh. > > Does HPUX provide lpr or does it only provide lp? > > There is no command called "lpr", but HP's lp also provides most of the > other services associated with lpr, including remote spooling and > cancellation. The printing subsystem is based on SysV. It uses a printer script and there is no printcap (ala BSD printer subsystem). Having used both I prefer the System V... I found it easier to bend to my will. > > Somebody said that OSF/1 was going to be available by the end of this > > year. Does this mean that a production version suitable for end users > > will be available by then? Does this mean HP will be shipping OSF/1 > > as their standard OS by then? Will OSF/1 run HPUX binaries? > > Nobody in HP can comment on future products. BS. Some do, and marketing/sales advertises. HP has a clear path mapped to OSF/1. You'll see pieces of it as time goes on. I beleive last I heard (probably out of date) that 8.0 was to be OSF/1. HP is *very* good about compatiblity issues. But this is the realease where the rubber meets the road. All of Apollo gets folded in. I'd expect this to be difficult to do. Count on HP to do its best (better than you'll ever see from Sun). As with such an extrodinary effort expect delays and a significant number of small problems. HP's OS QA is very good. It'll be their applications that really hickup ME10, database, etc. > > Is BSD 4.4 likely to be available? If so, will the machine dependent > > parts be freely redistributable? If not, does HP document their > > hardware enough that it would be possible for somebody to port it? > > Someone (the University of Utah, I think) has ported BSD 4.3 for HP > hardware, so it should be possible. I don't know its distribution > status, and obviously can't guarantee anything about future BSD releases. HP has pretty good BSD compatibility. To do this they have a special BSD library that you link in. I expect HP will keep it reasonably up to date. > > How good (fast, robust) is HP's implementation of X? Does it include > > all of X11R4? Is it reasonably close to X11R4? Does the MIT X11R4 > > distribution build on a 9000/730? Is the R5 distribution likely to? > > Do HP document their graphics hardware enough to port a window system? > Standard benchmarks of "good", "fast", and "robust" have not been > developed, to my knowledge. It's certainly seems to be very fast on > the Series 700. I think the answer is yes to all the rest of these. I agree. HP does a solid job here. X is really to be considered part of the OS groups responsiblity. It'll be clean (er than Sun's for sure). Note: HP does add a few of their own eccentricites (compressed fonts for example). This makes X-terminals barf... just uncompress them and put them in their own directory. > > How does HP's 19'' monitor compare to the Trinitron that Sun ships? > > How about the keyboard and mouse? How noisy/hot would a system with > > two internal 400Mb disks be? Would it be reasonably pleasant in an > > office environment? Does it connect directly to thinwire ethernet? Is > > HP hardware generally reliable? > > HP's monitors are all manufactured by Sony, I believe. Reducing environmental > noise and dissipated heat are important design objectives for all HP > equipment, but since I run diskless on my desk I can't provide first-hand > knowledge of this particular set-up. In general, HP hardware is the > most reliable available from any major vendor. HP's monitors are superior in resolution and clarity to what Sun ships. I consider Sun's monitors to be PC class in resolution, clarity, and quality. HP's monitors are professional. Higher resolution (if you opt for it), always clearer, and very reliable (come on now, we're talking HP here, hardware quality is a specailty of this company). > > How reliable is the standard C compiler? Are the higher optimization > > levels sufficiently reliable to be usable? > > Reliability is relative and somewhat subjective, but I haven't had any > problems with either the Classic or ANSI C compilers or their shared > optimizer in the recent releases. I believe ANSI C is avaliable. No, the conventional wisdom (last I heard, though there haven't been enough releases to convince me this has changed) is to avoid the higher optimizations. > > In general, how easy is it to port free software to HPUX? Most things > > seem to port to SunOS with little effort. To what extent is this true > > of HPUX? HPUX is an excellent integration of BSD/SYSV. You should have very little effort porting (esp if you designed your software to do so). I've ported quite a few of my non-portably-written applications with little to no trouble. If a problem occurred is was almost always my fault (for doing something sloppy). You should expect few problems here. Like I said before, expect some of the libraries to change (headers too, probably). > It depends on the general portability of the particular free software, > obviously. I'm sure that free software has been written that only runs > on PC-DOS. However, most Un*x-oriented things I've pulled off the net > port easily on HP-UX. Almost all free software (and I've compiled a lot on HP) compiles without problems. GNU stuff has been tough in the past... but is reportedly getting quite a bit easier. Enough that you shouldn't worry about this. > *********************************************************************** > DISCLAIMER: All of the information above is provided for informative > purposes only, as my own opinion, and may be false. I am not authorized > by HP to make binding statements. An HP sales representative will > be able to give you such answers. In general no, an HP sales rep can't (I SAID IN GENERAL, REREAD THE BEGINNING OF THE LINE). My experience says you'll have to weasel past the sales rep to the SE. The SE should know, or point you to someone who knows (SE's specailize, so if you change the subject area, you may well need to talk to another SE). > *********************************************************************** > > Dave Decot Who'm I? A HP system admin/programmer in the HP environment for 4+ years. I really dug in the HP stuff. The comments above are based on my experinces. I'm also a Sun admin/programmer for 1yr-. Other things you should know. HP wrote their own networking years ago. It's a little wierd. They're fixing it. 8.0 is the magic release again. They may not actually be planing to call it 8.0... but it should give you the right idea. HP support is quite a bit better that Sun support. In general they are better trained, and more able to solve problems. I suspect this derives from organizational differences more than anything. You also get pretty good help from the open net from HP (better than what I've experienced from Sun). On the other hand, everyone in Sun uses e-mail... that makes things easier to do... like report bugs. HP's learning, but it takes time to accelerate such a large mass. Then again HP doesn't have everyone and their brother calling... making the customer base HP has to work with better... maybe the "snakes" will change that :-). You can also plan on a little annoyance adjusting to a different set of manuals... no better... no worse, just different. HP's ability to support diskless/dataless nodes is vastly superior to Sun's. This is quite a (un)pleasant surprise. Depending on the direction you're migrating. Hope that helps. -- Joe Garvey uucp: sumax!quick!johnny5!garvey J5 Research map entries are wrong for johnny5. They're Bothell, Wa. being fixed. Please use address above.