🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <13283@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) writes:
>In article <6055@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>In article <13236@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) writes:
>>> 	Any Unix will require lots of hardware to make it useful (you need
>>> ~100 Meg of disk, ~200 is better, and a SCSI tape drive for loading
>>> release tapes, etc).
>
>>40 Meg is plenty for UNIX, a swap device, and a small (say, 5 meg) user area.
>
>What can you really do in 5 Megs?  Sure, that's enough space for a bit of
>wordprocessing, but certainly not enough for serious Desktop Publishing.
>Not to mention any CAD work, or even programming on a medium sized C program.
>As long as your programs aren't very large.  The NeXT folk, who do seem to
>run pretty large executable/data spaces, are using a 40 Meg drive just for
>swap space.
>

And on my desk at work, I am using 48 meg for swap.  DEC suggests, actually, 
that I use *67* meg for swap on their workstations running X.  Unfortunately,
they shipped our machines with a single 104-meg drive, not enough for their
operating system alone.  We had to jump up and down just to get 208 meg drives
to hold the OS and some other niceties.  And I *work* there.  This does not
mean that this is _A Good Thing_.  I can run V7 on a PDP with a single RL02 -
about 10 meg.  I don't mind V7, it's rather nice after SYS V and BSD monsters.

>>80 Meg is nicer. 
>
>That's about minimally acceptible for a system that's actually going to be
>used.  
>

Oh, come on.  Mark Williams Co. sells a UNIX clone called "Coherent".  It has
a 64K kernel.  They recommend 10 meg of disk.  I don't believe it'll be too
useful in 10 meg, but I plan to put it on my dad's laptop with 40.  UNIX is
beautiful because it's SMALL.  I should NOT have to pay 1/2 the cost of the
machine for disk to run the OS.  Shared libraries are a step in the right 
direction, as are streams, but a SunOS kernel has those and is 600K - I
suppose V.4 comes in around there somewhere. What is the world coming to?

(1/4 ;-)

>>Now if you're talking about what *Commodore's* UNIX requires, that's fine, but
>>I've done plenty of useful work with System V.3.2 on a single 40 Meg drive. If
>>AMIX needs more than that you'll have a hell of a time competing with the 386
>>clone world.
>
>However, I have yet to play with a System V.4 on a Clone, either.  Most of
>them are V.3.2 and very little else.  Certainly these vendors will _sell_
>you NFS, X and Motif, some Berkeley tools, etc. to bring you up to the level 
>of a V.4, but then you're not running on a 40 Meg drive with 2 Meg of RAM
>anymore.  Randell's thinking of the full system here, not a subset.  Modern
>UNIX ain't small.
>

Then "Modern UNIX" ain't UNIX.  UNIX = small.  LARGE = something else.  Swap
doesn't count, and neither does X windows or applications for this purpose,
but today's UNIXes take up far too much disk space for just the heart of the
system.  Where's a AMIX system come in with and without the manuals?  I bet 
it's about 30 meg or so without, and 40 with?  Am I way too high? I hope so.
Am I way too low?  Please, I hope not.  I had hoped Commodore, who could fit
most of the functionality of UNIX into AmigaDOS, could squeeze the beast down
to size some.  But That's nto really fair, I suppose.

>>Older versions have been quite frugal. I remember a PC/XT with a 20 Meg under
>>Xenix Version 7... I had nearly half the disk free for user files.
>
>And I have this rather smallish AmigaOS here on my office system, with 180
>megs, and have about 80 megs free at the moment.  And I'm not working with 
>video stuff or anything like that.  What does the actual OS part of this
>really take up, 2 megs or so.  But then you add in the good PD stuff, a
>couple of commercial applications, NFS, custom applications, some source code 
>directories, the chip simulation data I'm working on now, etc. and little old
>AmigaOS starts eating disk space.  It's not going to be any different under
>UNIX, only the OS (which of course includes things I don't have in the AmigaOS
>right now like on-line documentation) is larger.  If all you're using the 
>system for is a bit of wordprocessing, then a small hard disk will be just 
>dandy.  But if that's it, why even bother with UNIX.  A small disk only makes
>sense in a network environment, where the central file server has a large
>disk to make up for it.
>

Because disks cost a lot of money.  And using or managing a large, ponderous
system like UNIX could well become is unpleasant.  UNIX is called UNix because
it is MULTics made simple.  I wish it had stayed that way.  I don't fault 
Commodore for offering UNIX - I applaud them, I like UNIX, even its oversized
modern incarnations.  I just wih they could have cut it down to size a bit.
And the reason that people still use UNIX when they're cramped for space or
are only doing a bit of wordprocessing is because enough of its original 
personality remains to make it fun to use.     

>>Peter da Silva.   `-_-'
>><peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
>
>
>-- 
>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
>   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
>	"I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM



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