Some really easy questions (batteries not included)

[John Campbell]

In article <4792 at emory.mathcs.emory.edu>, arasmith at mathcs.emory.edu (David Arasmith) writes:
> 
> This will be a personal machine, for the most part, since Suns dominate my
> work place.  My concerns are as follows:
> 
> 	1) Is 2M going to be sufficient RAM to run some flavor of UNIX
> 	     with the expectation that it will not be loaded with users?

	2Meg will work :-) for XENIX 386, but for any UNIX (SCO's or ISC)
	I would _strongly_ recommend a minimum of 4M.  Besides, 4Meg using
	1Meg parts gives you a nice 32-bit access...

	If you're gonna wanna use a windowing system, 8Meg would probably be
	better since you'll be spinning off lots of processes like shells
	and stuff.

> 	2) Will the lack of a RAM cache severely cripple me?

	Not necessarily.  I've played with Wyse 3216's with no cacheing
	under XENIX 386 and found it usable.  True, it won't win any prizes,
	but it wuz usable (but stay away from Wyse products)

> 	3) Are the DOS emulators out there reasonably robust?  Also,
> 	     are they reasonably cheap?

	I hope you're kidding :-)  IBM's AIX is the first with the
	"dos merge" that seems to do a really decent job.  What do
	they know that we don't?

> 	4) Am I going to be sorely dissappointed after working on Sun's all day?

	Well,  X-windows on a PS/2-80 @ 20MHz doesn't impress me, but it
	_does_ seem to pull even with a Sun 2/120 I once worked with.  Beats
	me what kind of overhead Motif is gonna impose...

> remarks about X windows, NFS, text formatters ([nt]roff, TeX, etc).

	X-Windows:  not bad, but once spoiled by GEM, Amiga's workbench and
	Macs is kinda weird.  Of course, it feels nicer than Windows (even
	Windows 386) will _ever_ be.

	BTW, I'm a believer in [nt]roff.  I've never gotten enough information
	to deal with TeX.


--
 John R. Campbell					  (soup at penrij.LS.COM)
		 "In /dev/null no one can hear you scream"