Why's and wherefore's.....

[William E. Davidsen Jr]

I can only speak to the 386 side of Xenix vs. Microport, and of course
based on my own experience, but I have used both quite a bit, as a user
and administrator.

Early versions of MP had problems with the serial drivers. We reported
it, MP blamed our software, then provided fixes. After 3rd fix the
system no longer crashed when serial input was used, but it drops data.
There are later fixes, but that user gave up.

286 versions of MP don't support as many memory models as Xenix. They
don't cross compile for MS-DOS as a standard feature (if you don't need
it, so what).

The Xenix compiler is not PCC and has its own set of bugs. I don't think
there are as many as MP, based on the programs I've run. Over all of the
systems and applications programs I've measured, the Xenix compiler
seems to produce faster code. MP will be slightly faster on some stuff,
while Xenix will be slightly faster to vastly faster on other programs.

Xenix uses a more V7ish tty control structure, and while the V.2 stuff is
there I don't know if it works. With 2.3.1 Xenix provides a /dev
structure which is a superset of the V.2 structure. Xenix provides HDB
uucp which will be in V.4. Much better security and lower administration
effort. They provide some useful tools to help with setup, etc.

The number of software packages available today for Xenix is about 5:1
greater than MP. In a year or two Xenix and V.x binaries will run in
both systems, but right now that's the case. Xenix claims to run V.2
binaries, and does at least some. None of the people I know with MP have
a version which will run Xenix binaries.

My experience with Xenix support has been mixed, but better than with
MP. Xenix seems to come out with fixes in new versions and has MANY fix
packages you can order for free, MP has a BBS. Xenix supports
Trailblazer, I have never seen a MP serial port read data correctly at
19.2.

Sorry this isn't a nice uniform coverage saying "X is better." You will
hear from people who favor each type. I would suggest that you look at
their experience with both and decide if they are owners of one and
casual users of the other, or experienced in both. There are lots of
people who are happy with each. Both are pigs if you don't give them
enough memory!

Money where my mouth is dept: I tried Xenix, MP, and INteractive, and
bought Xenix with my own money.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu at ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me