Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!im4u!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Latest version of Microport Unix/386
Message-ID: <1464@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 5 Apr 88 22:59:44 GMT
References: <412@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> <24166@clyde.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 31

IN article <24166@clyde.ATT.COM>, wtr@moss.UUCP (Bill Rankin) wrote:
> I've gotten alot of response about the cc compiler included with 
> microport (from an earlier posting).  The overall judgement was:

> 	stock 286 cc: almost useless
> 	stock 386 cc: worse (hard to believe)
> 	(note: your milage may vary due to road conditions ;-)

I've done OK by not using the optimizer with the 386 compiler.

> [The amazing thing is that I *still* like microport!]
> [but I'll probably recomend SCO to anyone with (lots of) money!]

It's not that I like Microport OR THE PRICE, but that I like SysV vs. Xenix.
I recommend SCO to anyone who doesn't mind the Xenix hodge-podge (is it V7?
is it SysIII?  Is it SysV?  who knows!).  Their drivers are better.
In addition, SCO can solve problems.  I believe John Sully & others in uPort
customer support would LIKE to help, but get zippo support from the rest of
the company.  I get replies to almost all mail to uport!techs, and even get
back some answers to questions that took some research.  But I have never,
not once, not ever, received a bug fix from them.  Yes, I have an update
contract.  No, I don't have the support contract, because no one could tell
me how it would get useful support (ie, bugs fixed).

Should SCO ever become SysVr3, I don't see continuing to use a unix that,
three years later, doesn't have a working hard disk driver.  I would *prefer*
to get a working driver (and other lesser fixes), but I no longer view that
as being a realistic expectation.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen       jva@astro.as.utexas.edu         "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746