Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!cit-vax!tim
From: tim@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Timothy L. Kay)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Aghast at the Quality? (was: Microport Buyout )
Message-ID: <10370@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 15 Apr 89 01:35:13 GMT
References: <237@egsner.UUCP> <4178@stiatl.UUCP> <10317@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <11307@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: tim@cit-vax.UUCP (Timothy L. Kay)
Distribution: usa
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 49

In article tneff@well.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>In article tim@cit-vax.UUCP (Timothy L. Kay) writes:
>>I am aghast at the poor quality of *all* the 386 Unix's, and I am

>It might be useful if the above quoted poster gave some details here.
>"All the 386 Unix's"?  Specifically which ones has he seen?  What does
>"poor quality" mean here, and what symptoms of it do "all the 386
>Unix's" display?  Does this include SunOS? AIX? AT&T V/386? ENIX?  SCO?
>Interactive? Bell Tech?  Finally, why should we expect GNU to get
>"right" whatever it is that all these implementations got "wrong"?

OK, I'll answer.  I mispoke when I said "386 Unix's" because I was
really thinking only of 386 AT clone Unix's (if that makes any sense).

Now that you have me thinking about it, let me consider *all* 386
Unix's...

I have used SunOS for 386i, and it has the features, but it is *far*
from bug free.  I tried to ray trace on several machines at once, and
the machines kept crashing.  It seems that Sun has a few minor bugs in
their code.  But don't worry, you'll won't find them unless you try to
access the same server from several clients at the same time.  :--).
One of these years, Sun might fix it.

I have used AIX.  It isn't even at the point that we can use it for
our work.  IBM has slipped on the release date several times now.

I haven't used AT&T V/386 directly, but I have used AT&T SYS/V on
non-386 machines, and I am amazed at what little quality AT&T puts
into their Unix product.  Why are they so reluctant to take the work
that Berkeley did and integrate it into their code?  NIH, I guess.
Anyway, it seems to me that a company can't stay in business unless
they fix AT&Ts bugs before they ship Unix System V out the door.  My
guess is that many of the problems that I was refering to with respect
to 386 Unix's is directly due to the fact that AT&T has a very bad
base product.

I have used Enix.  They lied to me.  The glossy said X Windows,
Ethernet, etc., AND THEY DON'T HAVE IT.  (Well, they did deliver X
Windows, but it doesn't work!  You can't run a text editor, or the
xterm gets all screwed up.

Bell Tech couldn't offer the features I needed when I talked to them
last.  Maybe that has changed.  Nor could SCO.  They aren't Sys V
which is a requirement.

I haven't tried Interactive, so you are right.  Maybe there is hope.

Tim