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From: rml@hpfcdc.hp.COM (Bob Lenk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.workstations
Subject: Re: Sun 3/260CXP versus HP-UX (Summary of Responses)
Message-ID: <11400001@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Mar 88 01:35:51 GMT
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Approved: works@rutgers.edu


I'd like to correct a few points.  Some may be based on old
information.  I will not argue with anyone's experiences or opinions.

>        One observation I had is that I assume the Sun uses a 4.2
>        file system where as HP-UX probably uses the SYS 5 file
>        system.

The HP-UX machines use a 4.2BSD-based file system.  It has been
modified In a few ways to give an application appearance of a Sys V
file system, but is equivalent to 4.2 in performance.  The main
modification was in file name length, since many applications have a
14 character limit hard-coded.  However, the recent 2.0 release for
the series 800 permits a choice of 14-character or 255-character file
names by file system.

>        this will be much more difficult. Also, HP is still
>        ~basically~ running BSD4.1 networking code. HP promised 4.3
>        code in January, but it is now March. HP is still in it's
>        beta phase for NFS.

There has never been 4.1 networking code in HP-UX.  The current
releases are all based on 4.2 (with various enhancements and bug
fixes).  I don't know anything about 4.3 promises, and comment on
that.  NFS is released for both the series 300 (December) and 800
(March), but may not be in customer hands in all cases.

>        the logical approach is to take a BSD box and add SYSV
>        extensions (the way Sun does it), not the other way around
>        (the way ~I~ think HP has done it.)

HP-UX was implemented by starting with 4.2BSD.  We chose to modify it
to look indistinguishable from System V by default.  Sun chose to be
pure BSD and support System V via libraries.  Both approaches have
merit.

>             For instance, they once decided for who knows what
>        reason, to put both the swap and root portions of disk on the
>        same partition.  Well, the swap area is the stuff most likely
>        to get corrupted, ie.  trashed in a power glitch.  Being on
>        the same partition as root, instead of it's own, meant that
>        if it was corrupted, you lost the root information also.
>        Which means you've lost the entire disk. Time to reformat.

The disk is laid out with a file system at the front, and the unused
portion beyond that is swap space.  The swap space is not part of the
file system, and its content is of no interest across reboots or power
failures (or to fsck).

Of course I speak for myself, not HP.

		Bob Lenk
		{ihnp4, hplabs}!hpfcla!rml