From: ritz@ritz.mordor.com (Christopher Mauritz)
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent
Subject: Re: Linux-Coherent comparison (was Priorities...)
Date: 14 Dec 92 02:01:17 GMT
Organization: Ritz International, Inc. -- Import/Export Consultants
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Jeff Tomich (Jeff.Tomich@p1.f260.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG) wrote:
OS/2> Hello CHRISTOPHER!
OS/2> 
OS/2> Answering a msg of <29 Nov 92>, from CHRISTOPHER MAURITZ to ALL:
OS/2> 
OS/2> Where does one get Linux? I'm currently a Coherent user, would like
OS/2> to see how Linux works. Is it an 32bit system and were do I purchase it?

Yep, it is a 32bit operating system which is supposed to be POSIX
compliant.  It is free!  You can get it from any number of FTP
sites, but the main site in the US is tsx-11.mit.edu in the
directory /pub/linux.  If you don't have access to anonymous FTP,
you can send me diskettes and I'll copy it for you.  There is
also a commercial enterprise somewhere in Canada that will prepare
everything for you and send you disks (or was it CD-ROM?) for
$99.

My impressions (I only used it for a day as a flood forced me to
take my computer down):

It seems faster than Coherent for similar tasks (but not by much).
I attributed this to the new file system (which is only in alhpa
right now).

Virtual memory worked as advertized.  Just to try it out, I
fired up 4 GNUemacs processes, ran uucp, and compiled some small
C programs with GCC all at the same time.  No crash.

It was quite easy to install (I got the SLS (soft landing system).

I got X windows up and running (though only at 800x600 since my video
card, Diamond Speedstar, isn't supported due to the fact that the
manufacturer won't give out timing information.

GCC came with it in addition to several hundred other (many GNU)
tools.

Uucp, news, and mail (Taylor uucp, cnews and elm) worked fine for me,
though I only had a bare bones cnews going.

TCP/IP seemed to work, but I don't have an ethernet card on my
machine or a network to try it out on. :-)  SLIP was sent to me,
but I didn't try it out.  There is at least one person who has
his box connected to the internet and has been using the machine
as an (linux?) archive site.  So if you're in a university with
a friendly sysadmin this could be interesting. :-)

There is a DOS emulator available for it, but I didn't try it
out.  

I have also heard talk about the ACM X flight simulator being
available <grin>.  Yep, a FREE flight simulator to play with
in one window while you do your compiles in another. :)

You can mount DOS partitions directly instead of using those
neat little dosdir/doscp/etc.. programs.

Caveats:

While it seemed stable to me, I cannot vouch for its robustness.
It is still in beta test (version .98 patch level 6).  Also, there
is *NO* documentation.  You'll need to go out and buy docs for unix
System V and/or BSD.  BTW, the Coherent 4.0 manual makes an EXCELLENT
reference.  At this point, I would hesitate to recommend linux to
anyone without a net connection.  There are frequent updates to the
kernel and new tools are constantly being ported.  There is no
technical support line, HOWEVER, if you post a question to comp.os.linux
you will be literally inundated with replies in less than 2 hours.

For more information, check out comp.os.linux.  You will be pleasantly
surprised at the capabilities of linux.

For myself, I intend to stick with Coherent 4.0 for at least another
month or so (waiting for a few more iterations of patching to linux)
then I will probably switch over.  If you are not very comfortable
hacking around with your system (I'm still not very comfortable with
it myself) I think you should probably stick with Coherent.  It is
very comforting to know that in emergencies you can squeal to MWC
on the phone and have someone help you out of trouble. :)

Best regards and good luck,

Chris

p.s.  Followups to comp.os.linux please.

--
Christopher Mauritz                 | My views reflect those of my
ritz@ritz.mordor.com                | company since I own the company.
{backbone}!rutgers!spcvxb!ritz!ritz | Ritz International, Inc.
OS/2 OS/2 OS/2 OS/2 OS/2 OS/2 OS/2  | Import/Export Consultants
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