From: aty@ucssun1.sdsu.edu (young a t) Subject: Re: help with system to run unix Date: 1 Sep 1993 20:01:00 GMT
In article <Aug30.050242.31096@acs.ucalgary.ca> root@fusion.cuc.ab.ca (Superuser) writes:
...
>A few days ago, I told a computer-salesman friend of mine that I was running
>Unix on a 33 MHz 386- you should have seen the look on his face: complete and
>utter disbelief! Contrary to popular belief, Unix runs just fine on a 386,
>it runs even better on a 486, but it still works fine on just a regular
>386 (Hell, I'm still running Unix on an AT&T 3b1 (68010), and it runs fine
>as well- the machine is more I/O limited (slow disk drive) than anything
>else..). The key to running a Unix box smoothly is memory- the more you
>have the better, forget the fancy 24-bit graphics cards and big disk caches
>and other useless toys, get as much memory as you can afford, and then start
>saving up for more! If you use SIMMs, chances are good that if you ever get
>a new system, you can just pull them out of the old machine and pop them
>into the new.
Right! At home I run SCO Xenix on a 386 box that does just fine. On my
desk at work is an Intel 310 (a 286 machine with Multibus) that runs a bit
slower with Intel's version of Xenix 286. It's slow mainly because the
disk is slow.
Memory sure makes a difference. When I had only 4 MB at home, the LPI
FORTRAN compiler thrashed the disk some, and my big programs thrashed it
a LOT. With 8 MB, there's still some swapping -- still more memory would be
still better.
Last year I was working on a group of 6 or 8 people on a Sun, and things
improved greatly when we went from 32 to 64 MB on that machine. Everybody
there was using X and running 8 or 10 windows at once.
I think your formula is exactly right: use LOTS of memory, and fast disks.
Don't worry about the other stuff.
-- A.T.Young aty@mintaka.sdsu.edu Astronomy Department San Diego State University San Diego CA 92182-0540