--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EF500002 Date: 11/02/97 From: GARETH MORRIS Time: 10:10pm \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: Which PD UNIX clone ? Evening All I'm considering running a UNIX box based on some kind of 486 PC rustled up with surplus components. I've looked at all the websites and read lots of magazine articles but I still cannot decide which public domain UNIX variant to run. I have narrowed the list to the three major players : Linux, netBSD and freeBSD and am leaning towards the netBSD option but the fact Linux seems to be more popular worries me: will drivers for new peripherals be avalible in the future? What do people think ? Gareth http://www.compura.com/martbean --- Terminate 4.00 * Origin: Q)Whats the point ? A)Gareth's Point @ The Tavern BBS (2:254/108.22) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFA00000 Date: 11/03/97 From: KURT WEISKE Time: 09:26pm \/To: LAWRENCE GARVIN (Read 4 times) Subj: Netscape under UNIX Lawrence Garvin wrote in a message to Dave St.Germain: LG> Ahh... if it weren't for the 386, I'd point out that FreeBSD should LG> include an X-capable display system. However, you'll not want to LG> try to run X on a 386 machine. I've found that the minimum LG> processor to run X on the console of a unix box is a 486DX2/66. I've run X11R5 on MINIX-vmd 1.70, running on a 386/33 with 8 megs of RAM and an ISA video card. It was decent. MINIX-vmd, however, does have several limitations that make it not the bext choice as a learning tool. --- timEd 1.10+ * Origin: realitycheckBBS - San Francisco, CA +1 415 666 0339 (1:161/418) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFA00001 Date: 11/05/97 From: JOHN DONOHUE Time: 11:12am \/To: GARETH MORRIS (Read 4 times) Subj: Which PD UNIX clone ? GM> I'm considering running a UNIX box based on some kind of 486 PC rustled up GM> with surplus components. I've looked at all the websites and read lots f GM> magazine articles but I still cannot decide which GM> public domain UNIX variant GM> to run. I have narrowed the list to the three major GM> players : Linux, netBSD GM> and freeBSD and am leaning towards the netBSD option but the fact Linux GM> seems to be more popular worries me: will drivers for new peripherals be GM> avalible in the future? What do people think ? Picking what to run needs to be based on your answers to 2 questions 1) do you prefer a) a BSD type setup b) a System V type setup c) you know/like both types equally, so you don't care 2) what do you want to DO with this box? - put an web server on the net - do firewalling/gatewaying for a private network - personal workstation for games, productitivity, dial-up internet access - etc Answer these, and we can probably come up with recommendations as to which distribution(s) best suit your purpose. --- Maximus 2.02 * Origin: McAllen Memorial Library FidoNet (1:397/5258) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFA00002 Date: 11/03/97 From: DAVID J PORTER Time: 10:05am \/To: ALBERT ALCOCEBA (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Quake Albert Alcoceba, In a message on 1 November, to Dennis McCunney, wrote : AA> Not true... there are non X-Windows versions of the 3D games Quake AA> and Doom. You can't get more graphical than that. Are there in fact versions of Quake available for Unix in general, and Linux specifically? If so, what are the requirements to running it? Cheers, DJP ... * ATP/Linux 1.42 * If you try to be too sharp, you will cut yourself. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: The Farm - Christchurch, NZ, +64-3-385-4750 (3:770/255) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFA00003 Date: 11/01/97 From: ROB VANDEWEYER Time: 04:07pm \/To: DAVE ST.GERMAIN (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Netscape under UNIX From: ikke@pentium133.glo.be (Rob Vandeweyer) On Sun, 26 Oct 97 14:00:00 +0100, Dave St.Germain wrote: DSG> Do you need X Windows to use Netscape Navigator under UNIX? Yes. DSG> Also, when you get the distribution, does it need to be compiled to n? Are you talking about the distribution of Netscape or about X Windows ??? Netscape is ONLY available in binaries (for lots of platforms: linux, irix, sunOS, HPUX, freebsd, ...). X-Windows can be found as sources (you still need to compile), but there are binaries available to form most platforms. -- Groetjes, Rob Vandeweyer - 2:292/401.115 - robvdw@glo.be => My Linux Homepage: http://surf.to/linux ... Window Error:00E Window open, do not look in. --- ifmail v.2.12-tx8.6 * Origin: World domination. Fast! (2:292/401.115@fidonet) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFB00000 Date: 11/04/97 From: KURT WEISKE Time: 06:40am \/To: DAVE ST.GERMAIN (Read 4 times) Subj: Netscape under UNIX Dave St.Germain wrote in a message to Lawrence Garvin: DSG> I finally downloaded the rest of FreeBSD today and was just trying DSG> to install it. I have a 130meg harddrive, which I THOUGHT was DSG> large enough for UNIX. Minix-vmd is a unix-like OS, just like FreeBSD, but has much smaller hardware requirements. It's an offshoot of minix, an OS written by Andy Tannenbaum as a teaching aid. The OS and sources are something like 50 megs, and there's a version of X in another 20 that should run adequately in 8 megs on a 386. There are limitations to the X server - it can't use dynamic libraries, but statically compiled programs are OK. They just wrote a SLIP driver for it, so connecting to the net from home is now possible. http://www.ca.vu.nl should have a pointer to the minix-vmd collection. It's definitely funky, but is a good learning tool. --- timEd 1.10+ * Origin: realitycheckBBS - San Francisco, CA +1 415 666 0339 (1:161/418) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFB00001 Date: 11/03/97 From: ROB VANDEWEYER Time: 04:20pm \/To: LAWRENCE GARVIN (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Netscape under UNIX From: ikke@pentium133.glo.be (Rob Vandeweyer) On Tue, 28 Oct 97 22:27:05 +0100, Lawrence Garvin wrote: LG> Graphical for Unix means you have to have X. It's the only way graphical LG> is implemented. If you use Linux there's a non-X graphical library called svga. Lots of Linux games like doom and quake use it. But then again, it's very hardware dependant. If you have some kind of 'exotic' card, svgalib won't recognise it and you will see nothing :) -- Groetjes, Rob Vandeweyer - 2:292/401.115 - robvdw@glo.be => My Linux Homepage: http://surf.to/linux ... Window Error:009 Horrible bug encountered. God knows what has happened. --- ifmail v.2.12-tx8.6 * Origin: World domination. Fast! (2:292/401.115@fidonet) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFB00002 Date: 11/06/97 From: DAVE ST.GERMAIN Time: 02:45pm \/To: KURT WEISKE (Read 4 times) Subj: Netscape under UNIX KW> Minix-vmd is a unix-like OS, just like FreeBSD, but has KW> much smaller hardware requirements. It's an offshoot of KW> minix, an OS written by Andy Tannenbaum as a teaching aid. I've never heard of that...is it well supported? KW> a version of X in another 20 that should run adequately in KW> 8 megs on a 386. There are limitations to the X server - it KW> can't use dynamic libraries, but statically compiled KW> programs are OK. They just wrote a SLIP driver for it, so KW> connecting to the net from home is now possible. Is that version of X only for minix, or could I use it on my FreeBSD box? ttyl -DAVE --- FMail/2 1.22+ * Origin: Dave's RA! Lowell Ma (1:324/278) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFB00003 Date: 11/06/97 From: DENNIS MCCUNNEY Time: 11:40pm \/To: LAWRENCE GARVIN (Read 4 times) Subj: Netscape under UNIX ** From Lawrence Garvin to Dennis McCunney on 03 Nov 97 23:35:00 ** Re: Netscape under UNIX LG> Dennis McCunney said in a message to Albert Alcoceba: AA> Not true... there are non X-Windows versions of the 3D games Quake and AA> Doom. You can't get more graphical than that. DM> For what platforms? LG> Well.. Linux and OpenServer for starters. :) Translation: running on a PC compatible platform, with PC hardware. That does make it more feasible to port graphical programs like Doom and Quake, and you probably don't care about portability. --- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 * Origin: Lunatic Fringe * Richardson, TX * 972-235-5288 * (1:124/2113) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 176 UNIX Ref: EFB00004 Date: 11/06/97 From: JONATHAN MICHAELS Time: 01:34pm \/To: DAVE ST.GERMAIN (Read 4 times) Subj: Netscape under UNIX Dave St.Germain wrote in a message to Lawrence Garvin: LG> Ahh... if it weren't for the 386, I'd point out that LG> FreeBSD should include an X-capable display system. LG> However, you'll not want to try to run X on a 386 machine. LG> I've found that the minimum processor to run X on the LG> console of a unix box is a 486DX2/66. DSG> That's weird, since UNIX is supposed to be able to run even on DSG> slow 386's. i have an old 386 (intel at 33 mhz, with 387) with 8 mb of dram and an equally old esdi harddisk and wd controller .. even in an optimised freebsd environment x is slow .. it swaps, sorry pages and pages and pages. no slower than linux or nt for that matter on twice or three times the horsepower. having said that, just up the road here i have a former client who has an x server built on a 386 (intel 33 mhz, with 387) but this one flies even when comparted with the 100 mhz pentiums .. which are sortta just marginally jazzed up intel 386's architecture with internal clocks at 3x or someting like that (to the silicon and hardware engineers i konw its more than 'just' that but at the end of the road it isn't that much more) getting back to this 386, it has some 32 mb of fast ram, four scsi (quick and cached) harddisks sitting on 3 adaptec 1542-b host adapters and real matrox graphics accelerators .. from the days when it was a two card set costing some $7,000 (seven thousand plus) you added dram in 8 meg blocks, oh and you had to write your own device drivers, and matrox in canada actually were interested in what thier customers were doing with thier hardware. yes, this machine was and still is pretty special but if you had the nouse and the money you too could build a similar device and have vga at 2048x2048 (we tried the 4096x4096 mode but things slowed down a tad .. the onboard graphics processor started running out of steam) at speeds that were indistiguishable from dos text mode and one hell of a lot faster than ms windows of the day. we were building a process control platform and looking at incorporating qnx for the actual logistics and resource management .. back then x on qnx was a dream, so we decided to throw money at the problem. DSG> I thought X Windows would work the same. Have you DSG> ever tried to run it on a 386? ttyl it does, bust as regards to how well, that will depend on how much money you plan to pour into the project. as is always the case in engineering, all things are possible given enought effort. to answer your second part, yes, i have given the above qualifications. regards ... jonathan EMail: jlm@caamora.com.au ... i do all i can, with what i have, are you able to say the same ? --- * Origin: Fire&Ice CBCS +61 2 96659249 - Microcom DPF+ v34&vfc (3:712/808)