Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!fts1!latour!mcr
From: mcr@Latour.Sandelman.Ocug.On.Ca (Michael Richardson)
Subject: Re: Unix/X Windows (was Re: Windows for Amiga?? Maybe!!)
Message-ID: <1990Nov24.232517.2862@Latour.Sandelman.Ocug.On.Ca>
Keywords: painful, unwieldy
Organization: /etc/organization
References: <1990Nov23.160840.10973@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 23:25:17 GMT

In article <1990Nov23.160840.10973@maytag.waterloo.edu> giguere@csg.uwaterloo.ca (Eric Giguere) writes:
>In article <2642@kirk.nmg.bu.oz> cameron@kirk.nmg.bu.oz (Cameron Stevenson) writes:
>>Not wanting to put a dampener on this discussion, but surely Unix/X is the

>user environment.  Given the choice between Exec/AmigaDOS/Intuition and      
>Unix/X Windows, I would certainly choose the former!

  Yes, but one thing X windows get you is the ability to run across
a network. 
  I'm sorry to say that a Sun 3/60 has quite nearly supplanted my 2000
as my main system, and I've only had it a week. 
  My intention however, is to run X windows on the Amiga w/ethernet
connection to the Sun. 

>Unix and X Windows work, but only because (a) they were designed for multi-user
>environments, (b) they work on fairly high-powered machines, and (c) they have

  3000s are more powerfull than 3/60s, and 3/60s do QUITE nicely for
most stuff. (But running a 1180x900 screen can take a lot of power out
of any system. Agnus gives the 3000 an obvious advantage.)

>full-time support staff.  Now (a) doesn't mean that a single user can't use

  On this one you are right.
  However, the SVR3.2 admin scripts are quite nice, (except when they
do the wrong thing, or something that isn't exactly documented). I expect
the SVR4 stuff to even nicer.

>No one who uses Unix can actually realize how much work and how many arcane
>incantations you have to go through to administer a Unix system.  Imagine

  Since my primary source of income is administering Unix systems, I
must protest somewhat: day-to-day admin is really just bothersome, 
not difficult. Once the system is set up, things go quite nicely. The
trick, of course, is setting up. 
  AmigaDOS isn't that easy to set up from scratch either, although 
I'm told that the 2091 hd stuff, and the addition of rigidblocks 
makes things a snap. I don't know. I have 2090.

>   1. Joe Shmoe goes to his local dealer and buys a Unix box.  The Unix
>	  is pre-installed so he doesn't have that headache to worry about.
  Well, if Joe Shmoe's dealer managed to do the install, then Joe Shmoe's
dealer is probably far more competent than most. He should have no 
further problems.

>Really, I think there's a problem here.  Of course, setting up X Windows
>is non-trivial if it doesn't come preinstalled as well.  And we haven't
>even mentioned networking/UUCP.
  
  The average user doesn't have the disk space to compile X windows.
  It would have to come pre-installed.
  Networking and UUCP are never easy, on any system. (Easier under
Unix than AmigaDOS for sure!) 

>And in many situations I think that the multi-user philosophy gets in
>the way when the machine is really just being used by one person.

  I disagree really. Multi-userness can always be turned off, either
by running everything as root, or not setting any passwords. 
  Appropriate use of group permissions, etc.. and things go very 
nicely.

>Also, don't forget that X Windows is such a resource hog that you'll need
>lots of memory and/or swap space.
  
  X Windows under Unix is. Unix is not real time, and therefore really
shouldn't be doing real time things like people. ("People are real time
events too!")


-- 
   :!mcr!:            |    The postmaster never          |  So much mail,
   Michael Richardson |            resolves twice.       |  so few cycles.
 mcr@julie.UUCP/michael@fts1.UUCP/mcr@doe.carleton.ca -- Domain address
    - Pay attention only to _MY_ opinions. -         registration in progress.
