🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3tnb92$ia1@espresso.eng.umd.edu>,
David Paper <cerb@Glue.umd.edu> wrote:
> In article <3tmma8$1ec@yage.tembel.org>,
> Michael Shields <shields@tembel.org> wrote:
> >In article <pingpongDBBB8v.E21@netcom.com>,
> >Robert Shain <pingpong@netcom.com> wrote:
> >> Could someone tell me the advantages of Solaris.
> >
> >Do you already have hardware?  Linux runs on Intel systems (common PCs),
> >and Solaris runs on Suns only.
> 
> not quite.  Linux runs on PC's, and is now in testing on DEC Alpha's and 
> as of the announcement in my mailbox this morning, also on the 
> PowerPC's.  So far, Linux runs *best* on a PC, as far as I can tell, if 
> someone has seen different, let me know :)

I don't like to recommend that in general, though, although Alpha
support is looking pretty good.  (There's now an actual minimal Alpha
distribution, BLADE -- from DEC, no less.)  But it's not up to the
stability of Linux/i386 and its three years of testing.

From the fact that the original poster (a) was considering Solaris and
(b) had to ask, I'd guess they're not interested in dealing with kernel
bugs; so I wouldn't recommend alpha code to them.

On the other hand, if you were looking to buy a fast machine in six
months, I'd recommend an Alpha.  It's a better platform than a PC.

Meanwhile, if you want a commercial, supported OS, I'd probably recommend
BSDI; I've heard many people praise it.  (First license is $600, I think,
or $1000 with source; but additional licenses are only $200.)

> Solaris 2.4 runs on sun Sparc workstations (as well as non-sparc's I 
> think, but I am not positive on this), and the Solaris 2.4 for X86 runs 
> on the Intel x86 platform.  

Oh -- I thought the Sun 386 systems weren't a normal PC architecture.  Ok.

> Linux's hardware requirements are significantly less, 4MB ram and about 
> 50MB of disk space to get the system up.

Linux's RAM and especially disk space requirements depend very much
on what you want to do.  4MB is the minimum, but I highly recommend 8,
and 16 if you want X.  As for disk space, it will boot from floppy; how
much more you need depends on what you want to install.  But I used to
run a complete system, including gcc, TeX and X, on a 240MB drive.

In the last year, however, disk prices have dropped *a lot*.  Just buy
a gig ($200) and never have to worry about how much space you have.
-- 
Shields.