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From: windemut@lisboa.ks.uiuc.edu (Andreas Windemuth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT as a vanilla UNIX box (...and major disappointment (long))
Message-ID: <1991Jun27.030530.7056@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 91 03:05:30 GMT
References: <1991Jun23.001024.171@orbus.uucp>
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 69

In article <1991Jun23.001024.171@orbus.uucp> gn@orbus writes:
> 
> The NeXT Rathe bought is now relegated to my home machine, and I've come to
> the conclusion this is for the best (for Rathe not NeXT, our client is the
> largest RR in the world, and NeXT could of sold alot machines into this 
> market.) I believe this for several reasons:
> 
I believe that you were just very unlucky in what happened to you
My experiences (with 4 old cubes, 4 NeXTstations and one Color station
in different configurations) are quite different.

In particular (some points deleted):

> Documentation: 
> 
> The Documentation for the NeXT is at best sparse, incomplete, and in several
> case just plain wrong. They do not include printed Unix documentation. The 

That may be right. However, even if I had perfect printed documentation,
I would hardly use it. I am completely spoiled by Librarian.
And the on-line documentation in 2.1extended seems at least reasonably
complete.

> 
> Unix:
> 
> Security is weak. The worst, I feel is, dump/restore doesn't work, and > 

I feel security is as good or better than on any other Unix machine.
Dump/restore have been working flawlessly for me. I use them often to
make backups on Optical and a remote sgi's exabyte tape. The only
problems I had where with the sgi.

> Hardware:
> 
> Since receiving my NeXT I have had problems with:
> 
> The Printer (flaky).

I found it very dependable and an order of magnitude better than Laserwriters.
However, there seems to be a problem with the lpd and/or npd daemons, 
which have to be restarted sometimes.

> The Disk Drive (replaced).

No problems on any of 8 drives.

> and next week Motorola is coming out to replace the processor board  
(Panicking
> at least a couple times a week).

This happened to us too, with 2.0. Since 2.1, no more.
Seems to be software after all.

> Even the 2.8 meg floppy disk shipped with the NeXT has gone bad.

None of ours has done that.

Just to give a more balanced picture ...

--
		Andreas Windemuth

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