Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!haven!adm!xadmx!senetza%vp.uleth.adhocnet.ca%UNCAEDU.BITNET@CORNELLC.CIT.CORNELL.EDU From: senetza%vp.uleth.adhocnet.ca%UNCAEDU.BITNET@CORNELLC.CIT.CORNELL Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Ultrix/32 & VMS Summary Message-ID: <18621@adm.BRL.MIL> Date: 9 Mar 89 17:01:11 GMT Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL Lines: 79 Here's a summary of what was sent regarding VMS and Ultrix/32... From: David R. Stampf 1) file formats 2) signals - there simply aren't that many on vms 3) ioctl - simply isn't there 4) fork - works differently 5) select - ain't there either. 6) #includes - the directory names don't work without some work on your part to define some alises. 7) complexity - easy stuff on unix is difficult on VMS (ie:- ioctl a terminal) 8) pipes - there aren't any in VMS From: Ray Curci (scri) 1. The only way you can have file transfer and remote login is to buy DECNET for your vms system and DECNET/ULTRIX for your ultrix system. DECNET is a real hog and will substancially show down your systems. 2. Most systems today are UNIX-based, but most DEC people are VMS-based. I have tried to get ultrix questions answered by their technical support people only to find out that the vast majority of them have are well versed in VMS, but UNIX illiterate. (Note: someone from here got a VMS guru to admit that the sales of Ultrix will be more than VMS within 5-6 years!! LJS) 3. If you want to speak to most other hosts, you will want to have TELNET, FTP, SMTP mail, and perhaps NFS. Ultrix comes with these programs, although there are incompatibility problems between their implementations and NCSA-telnet for the PC/XT/AT, CMU-TEK-TCP for VMS software, and others. DEC does not offer TELNET, SMTP, or NFS for VMS systems, only FTP in something they sell for extra $$$ called the "vms/ultrix connection?" 4. As you have found out, the VAX11-C compiler for vms has many differences with the standard 'CC' compiler under UNIX. ULTRIX v3.0 has a VAX11-C compatible compiler to solve thie problem in their mind. Ultrix v3.0 has both cc and vax11-c that come with it. 5. I help manager (1) VAX 8700, (1)11/780, (2)3500s, (25)VS2000s, (1)uVAXII under VMS and (2)VS2000s and (1)11/780 under Ultrix. We also have about 15 Sun3s some Iriss, MacIIs, etc. The ultrix has more bugs than any other Unix implementation I have seen. DEC's VMS is very propriatary and limits your options. If you stick with the more standard UNIX machines that have TELNET, FTP, SMTP, NFS, etc., you can minx and match systems from SUN, HP, IRIS, Apollo, and (in theory only) DEC. 6. In my opinion, VMS is dying. DEC's newest machines that use the MIPS cpu do not run vms, they use ultrix only. VMS is written primarily in assembly language and BLISS (a weird dec assembly-like language). We have the source code to earlier versions of VMS on microfische. It is an incredably large program. The effort to ever port VMS to a non-DEC cpu is pretty much impractical. 7. DECNET-DOS (software that runs on ibmpc/xt/at to use file system, etc., on a decnet machine) is a piece of junk, whereas SUN PC-NFS works very well. --------------------- Also, a healthy discussion deciding whether a DECstation 3100 or a VAXstation 3100 could run Ultrix or VMS prevailed. Summarized below is what was decided. 1) DECstation 3100 can only run (now) Ultrix. This is because it is a MIPS chip (RISC). 2) VAXstation 3100 can run either. It depends upon the boot-node chosen. DEC has assured us that it could boot from the DECstation 3100, but that is yet to be seen. That's about it. Thanks for the input, it really started us thinking. Leonard Senetza "Pretend to spank me, I'm a pseudo-masochist"