ISC vs SCO UNIX review

[williams at cs.umass.edu]

I just came across a review comparing ISC and SCO UNIX (not Xenix) in the
August '89 issue of UNIX Review magazine.  Maybe you can find it in a
technical library.  It's a freebie to qualified subscribers and says in the
masthead that article and issue photocopies are available from University
Microfilms International, 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106, Tel.:
313-761-4700.  Below are some excerpts.  THIS IS NOT THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
Leo Pinard    c/o    williams at cs.umass.edu

OFF THE SHELF			page 83		UNIX REVIEW August 1989
The 80386 UNIX Wars
by Tom Yager

PROFILE
ISC 386/ix 2.0
List Price $1995 - $2995
Reviewer's Comments:
A mature, fast implementation which is easily maintained and extended;
manuals are few and poorly done, but attractive to experienced UNIX users;
X11 is solid and with dozens of user-contributed programs and support for
most interesting graphics devices.

PROFILE
SCO UNIX System V/386 3.2
List Price $3470
Reviewer's Comments:
Delivers the most robust base system, with Posix, C2 security and on-line
manuals standard; C development system is among the best available;
administrative interface is fancy but incomplete, hampering enhancement
and maintenance.

	Report Card 80386 UNIX
			ISC	SCO
Installation		B-	B-
Documentation		C-	A+
System Administration	A	C
Performance		A	B+
Development System	B	A
X Window System		B+	B-
Support			B	B+
Feature Set		B	A
----------------------------------------------------
FINAL GRADE		B+	B

Hardware Considerations
	Several types of tape-backup drives are supported, but while SCO
ships a variety of drivers with its product, ISC provides support for
Wangtek drives only.  Other 386/ix-compatible drivers must be obtained from
drive manufactures.  This can mean frustrating delays, and not all vendors
can be counted on to keep their drivers current with ISC's latest release.
SCO includes support for SCSI tape, while ISC's release notes mention that
SCSI tape support will be provided in the future.

Documentation
	If quality of documentation were the deciding factor for potential
buyers, SCO could walk away with the market...
	Only SCO includes on-line documentation in the form of man pages.
Berkeley users have long bemoaned the absence of this useful facility in
System V, so SCO is sure to win many friends with its decision to include
them.  Shipped in compressed format, they have surprisingly little impact on
storage space.  The man pages are very complete and the installation of
the development system adds its own programmer's reference volumes.  This
makes and already excellent manual seem nearly perfect.
	Like many vendors of AT&T-based UNIX, ISC includes only scan
documentation with its release, forcing customers to pay extra for the
rest....
	Some ISC-specific portions of the manual set are incomplete. ...

Network Mail
	Network and uucp mail are implemented differently in the ISC and
SCO operating systems.  Under AT&T's System V, shipping mail across network
connections, unless they support the uucp protocols, is either not done or,
at least, not gracefully done.  SCO take a stab at solving this problem by
providing a network mailer called MMDF, the Multi-channel Memorandum
Distribution Facility.  This set of programs works from an array of
configuration files.  After hours of following along in the manual and
playing with MMDF, I was unable to get it to deliver any mail to my network
host.
	ISC, however, has chosen a more popular approach by porting in the
familiar Berkeley sendmail program enhance with smail, a utility that helps
the System V mail and mailx programs send and receive network mail.  Both
sendmail and MMDF would be difficult to configure from scratch, but the
single configuration file required for sendmail is included, and it has the
ability to handle most mail-delivery requirements with only simple
modifications.

	I've been working with multiuser PC operating systems since the first
ones became available, and I have always hoped that, one day, a real UNIX
would rescue me from the pit of unportability and mediocrity.  I've now
sampled two such packages, and I can honestly say I've never been more pleased
with the state of PC operating systems.  While doing the research for this
review, I was able to shape a comfortable environment for myself (with the
exception of electronic mail) using both packages.  They didn't crash unless I
did something stupid in juggling devices between systems.  Response time was
excellent in most cases, and stayed quite respectable even under a heavy load.
	ISC is a quicker, leaner company and has become tremendously
aggressive since its acquisition by Kodak.  It has managed to be first in many
important ways, and is largely responsible for creating the market into which
all these new players are crowding.  I expect this trend will continue, and
the ISC will always be a few technological steps ahead of SCO and the others.
This is meaningful for software developers looking to get a jump on their
competitors and design leading-edge products.  Volume purchases and system
integrators will enjoy ISC's quickness as well - it will give them room to
have fully configured system put together when most other UNIX vendors are
still in the beta-test stage.  Despite this evident drive to be first, the
quality of ISC's software has not suffered.
	ISC's documentation, as dISCussed earlier, is quite a different
story.  With software offerings this complex, manuals should not be optional.
Making them so does little to dispel the popular notion that UNIX is
unwieldly.  The haphazard construction of ISC's manuals contrasts sharply with
the overall tightness and attention to detail found in the rest of the
product.  Documentation gives users their first impression of every operating
system, and as ISC gains momentum the company may put the proper degree of
importance on it.
	SCO has introduced thousand of users to UNIX, and it adopts a calmer,
more considered approach to new products.  Every SCO customer is familiar with
missed release deadlines, and even inside the company there are people who
joke about it: "They say it will be out in May, but from experience I'd
interpret that to mean July."  This make it touch on those who need to make
time-critical decisions.  On the other hand, the extra time-to-market gives
SCO a chance to build in more added value, and those who tough it out will
continue to find SCO's products more feature-laden than those if its
competitors.  This first foray into true UNIX find SCO adding C2 security,
Posix compliance (as much as has been defined, anyway), a menu-driven visual
shell, and support for a broad range of tape and serial devices.
	Retailers will have an easier time selling the SCO product because of
its completeness and because it is better tuned for new UNIX users.  While it
is not as easily extensible as ISC's 386/ix, applications-oriented users have
little need for simple ways to modify the kernel.  Much of SCO System V/386's
unique appeal derives from efforts to maintain compatibility with Xenix.  More
BSD commands are included than in 386/ix, on-line manual pages are
standard-issue, and the compiler's ability to generate Xenix (also DOS and
OS/2) binaries is a plus.  DOS developers familiar with the Microsoft C
compiler will feel right at home.  Sometimes the drive to make things easy for
newcomers pushes SCO too far, though.  The system administrator's shell is
just too fancy, particularly since no alternate simpler interface is offered.
I see sysadm as an integral, invaluable part of System V, and SCO's decisions
no to include it impedes portability.
	Many users have been holding back for years now, fearing UNIX as some
awesome, puzzling curiosity but vowing to pick it up "when the time comes".
Others figure that a small machine couldn't possible deliver the stability and
performance their big boxes do.  These two high-quality, robust
implementations, however, show that the time has come.  The intense
competitiveness of the fledgling UNIX market will drive its players to
continue to enhance and tune their products.  There's no longer any need to
wait.

--------------------------------------------
Tom Yager, this month's reviewer, is a UNIX software engineer and freelance
technical writer.  He maintains a UNIX test lab in Westboro, MA.  His e-mail
address is tyager%maxx at m2c.m2c.org.

Richard Morin, column editor, operates Canta Forda Computer Laboratory, a
consulting firm in San Bruno, CA.  His e-mail address is
{hoptoad,pacbell}!cfc!rdm.