UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Re: UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation
>   From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
>   Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:47:24 -0800
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"	<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>At 10:54 PM -0500 2/27/09, John Floren wrote:
>>So, I've got both a VAXstation 4000-60 and an AlphaStation 250 here
>>and after playing with it for a bit I've decided I don't really care
>>for VMS so much that I want it on both of them. I'd like to find an
>>interesting, preferably AT&T-style UNIX to run on one of them, so I'm
>>hoping some of you can help me figure out my options. So far, I know I
>>can run:
>>-NetBSD
>>-Probably some DEC/HP UNIXes (Tru64 on the Alpha?).
>>
>>I'd really appreciate perspectives on these different systems,
>>user/admin experience, etc. I'm not looking to accomplish anything in
>>particular here, I just want something to play around with on my DEC
>>hardware while I wait for the PDP-11 :)
>
>UNIX is a waste of good DEC hardware! :-)  DEC never sold a UNIX 
>variant that would run on a VAXstation 4000/60.  I think NetBSD and 
>OpenBSD will both run on it.  I'll confess that OpenBSD at least used 
>to rock on Alpha and can handle a machine with less RAM than OpenVMS 
>expects.  Your choice of OS's are a lot wider for the Alpha.

DEC sold Ultrix32 (unix BSD flavor) and it was installable on most VAXen.
I have 4.2 running on a UVAX2000.

>As for a PDP-11, I recommend RT-11, RSTS/E, or RSX-11M+, not UNIX.

For low end PDP11 Unix up to V7 runs.  If you have one of the I&D 
machines (11/44, or any of the J-11 cpus) then BSD2.11 is interesting.


>For UNIX get a Sun or SGI system, in other words cool hardware that 
>only runs UNIX.  I did buy a nice DECstation 5000/133 (a MIPS box) 
>years ago to run NetBSD.  I wonder what happened to that machine...
>

All the DEC mips machines run unix (ultrix).


Or find an Alpha and run true64.


Allison


>Zane
>
>
>-- 
>| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
>| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
>| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
>+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
>|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
>|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
>|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |