Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!mordor!sri-spam!sri-unix!quintus!pds
From: pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Why UNIX?
Message-ID: <908@sandino.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 28 Apr 88 00:04:59 GMT
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 21

I don't want to start a flame war; I mean this question quite literally.
Why would anyone want UNIX running on their Amiga?

I use shell on my Amiga, and find it nicer than csh or sh on my Sun3 at
work (although I wish AmigaDOS could handle job control like csh).
Amiga processes are lighter than UNIX processes.  The Amiga has assign,
and generalized devices.  All this makes UNIX look like a step down to
me.

I can only see two reasons for wanting UNIX.  1) Firewalls between
processes, so a runaway or sick process doesn't bring down the whole
machine; and 2) standardization/portability, i.e., being able to easily
port UNIX programs to the Amiga.  For 1, you don't need UNIX to have
firewalls.  And I guess I wouldn't be willing to loose all the good
things I have in AmigaDOS now just for UNIX compatibility.

It seems better to me for CA to add to AmigaDOS the parts of UNIX that
we want and don't have, rather than to create an incompatible OS.
-- 
-Peter Schachte
pds@quintus.uucp
...!sun!quintus!pds