Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 10:53:16 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey) Cc: dyson@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "free" SCO O/S Message-ID: <199611180023.KAA15922@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <199611171013.LAA25485@freebie.lemis.de> from Greg Lehey at "Nov 17, 96 11:13:28 am"
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Greg Lehey stands accused of saying: > >> Like hell I am. Stick it back on the shelf and worry about it some > >> other time. Anyone tells me FreeBSD is difficult to install is going > >> to get laughed out of the room. To note; I decided to give it one more go. Observations below. > I was better off. I had already installed SCO 2.0 a hundred times > from floppy. At least that came with documentation. As Mike reports, > the 12 page brochure is mainly advertising and has to be the worst > description of how to install an OS that I have ever seen. It should also be observed that the installation/setup procedure regularly refers you to some manual or other, none of which are shipped. > > Once I got it running, I was disappointed. The darned thing is > > "license-manager" city. Yup. It gets better though; I either mistyped the license spaghetti during installation (and it didn't tell me), or it's supposed to have expired when you install, so that the first time you boot off the HD the system explodes and leaves you with a root shell and no licenses. Fortunately, I've heard a few words about SCO before, so I managed to find 'scoadmin', and eventually worked out that I had to delete the license for the OS and re-add it. But selecting the 'help' button was the best; you get a blank screen with "ip_output: TCP/IP not licensed" at the bottom, and need ^\ to get anywhere. Yay. Then we talk about the package manager, which scans the entire CD every time you start it (despite reading everything off to the HD every time), a process that takes 5-10 minutes. Or should I mention that the _bare_install_ took nearly two hours on a reasonably well-configured Pentium, or that the _only_ way that I could preserve the disk partitions already on the disk was to use the "fdisk/divvy" method of partitioning, which takes me back to my bad old SCO 2.1.1 days. Aigh! > Forgive them. They've only just got a version which supports > symlinks, so they're showing off. *ouch* > How much memory do you have? I installed it on my old workhorse > 486/66 with 16 MB, and it *crawls*. Run FreeBSD on the same machine, > and it won't blow your head off, but there is an incredible > difference. Yup, noticed this. Their SCSI system stinks, is all I can guess. The box I installed on is a P83 with 32M, and the disk an ST11200N on an NCR. Not the hottest box either, but SCO felt glacial. > (the $$ version really does, or did the last time I bought one). The > documentation falls flat on Free SCO, and I wonder whether the > availability of applications is enough incentive to go through all the > pain. Not if we can get them to work out-of-the-box under FreeBSD, that's for sure. > Greg -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
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