Internet Surfer 2.0/Internet Surfer 2.0 (Wayzata Technology) (1996).iso/pc/text/mac/faqs.419

Text File | 1996-02-12 | 28.1 KB | 597 lines

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.419



REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Right now, I'd have to call Dell the market leader in SVr4s.  The
combination of low price, highest added value in features, and reputation for
quality makes them very hard to beat.
   The only serious negative I've seen is that their support system seems to be
very badly overloaded, so you can end up on hold for a while when calling.  The
techs themselves are sufficiently cranked about this that they'll complain of
understaffing and corporate shortsightedness on the phone to a stranger.
   Dell has recently doubled their support staff and fixed a bad bug in their
call-handling system that was freezing the queue for up to two hours at a
time.  This will certainly help matters.
   On the other hand, Dell's UNIX development manager responded to the first
issue of this FAQ with about three hundred lines of intelligent, thoughtful and
extremely candid comment, including a whole pile of hardware-compatibility info
and a number of excellent suggestions for improving the FAQ.  He has
continued to send voluminous, factual feedback to later issues --- an example
other UNIX vendors would do well to emulate!


NAME:
   ESIX System V Release 4.0.4

VENDOR
   Esix Computers
   1923 E. St. Andrew Place
   Santa Ana, CA 92705
   (714)-259-3020   (tech support is (714)-259-3000)
   [e-mail]

ADD-ONS:
   None.

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   ESIX can be bought in the following pieces:
                            Unlim    2-user
   Base system                        784    384
   Base system + Networking                866    396
   Development system                    131    N/A
   GUI module (X, Motif, Open Look, X.desktop)        610    380

Note that the base system without networking cannot be upgraded to the
base system with networking; you'd have to replace at full cost.

SUPPORT:
   Purchase buys you unlimited free phone support.  However, be warned that
there are only two engineers assigned to the job and they are swamped.
   Esix offers a support BBS at (714)-259-3011 and 3013 (the 11 line
has a Trailblazer on it).  They plan to bring up an Internet server in
the near future.
   Patches are available via anonymous ftp to esix.everex.com.

FUTURE PLANS:
   They don't plan to support DOS Merge because it's still horribly buggy.
   Later in '92 they plan to release a multiprocessing UNIX.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   Stephen J. Friedl and D'Arcy Cain <[e-mail]> have written a device
driver for Everex's STEP systems that can control the LED array on the front of
the box.
   Relative to 4.0.3, 4.0.4 includes numerous bug fixes, a rewritten SCSI
driver, and better SCO binary compatibilty.  The GUI package is significantly
different, changing from a home-grown ESIX implementation of X to a licenced
implementation of AT&T's xwin implementation (with ESIX support for additional
video cards added in.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.  ESIX supports an unusually wide
range of peripherals.
   They advertise support for the Textronix X terminal.
   No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.

KNOWN BUGS:
   According to Esix, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.  Thus it
must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
   James D. Cronin <[e-mail]> writes: When developing X applications
under Esix, watch out for mmap(2) failure.  This is caused by an incorrect
version of mmap() defined in libX11.a and libX11.so.  This bug existed in Esix
4.0.3, and continues in 4.0.4 and the recently shipped Xwindow bug fix it
(which seems to have more bugs than the original version).  One workaround is
to remove the offending file, XSysV.o, from libX11.a and link with the Bstatic
option.

COMMENTS:
   Another subsidiary of a clonemaker (Everex).  They don't sell bundled
hardware/software packages yet.
   Esix will sell you manuals troffed off the SVr4 source tapes for somewhat
less than the cost of the Prentice-Hall books.  The content is almost identical
but the organixation into volumes a little different.
   Unlimited free support sounds wonderful, and might be ESIX's strongest
selling point.  However, ESIX users on the net have been heard to gripe that in
practice, you get the support you've paid for from Esix --- that is, none.
That isn't at all surprising given Esix's staffing level.  If this guarantee is
to be more than a hollow promise, their technical support has to get more
depth.
   Evan Leibovich <[e-mail]> is a long-time netter who makes his living
as a consultant and owns an Esix dealership.  He says you can get ESIX at a
substantial discount from him or other dealers, also that dealers are supposed
to do first-line support for their customers (which he does, but admits other
dealers often fail to).  Evan is obviously devoted to the product and probably
the right guy to email first if you think you'd be interested in it.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   Ron Mackey <[e-mail]> writes "In general, we are pleased with ESIX.
We still have problems driving the serial ports at speeds greater than 9600
baud.  We also still see occasional PANICs.  These appear to be related to
problems with the virtual terminal manager."  This may be the generic USL asy
problem again.
   William W. Austin <uunet!baustin!bill> writes "The support from Esix seems
to be usable if (a) you are a hacker, (b) you know unix (sVr4 internals help a
lot), and (c) you get past the sales guy who answers the help line (Jeff
[Ellis] is *very* helpful).  If I were a computer-semi-literate, commercial
user who only wanted his printer to work, etc., I might be up a creek for some
problems (no drivers for some boards, no support for mouse tablets, etc., but
that's what VARs are for). All in all, the support is at least a little better
than what I expected for free -- in many cases it is *far* better than the
support I got from $CO (is SCO really owned by Ebenezer Scrooge?)"
   [Note: Jeff Ellis has since left.]
   A longer appreciation from Ed Hall <[e-mail]>: "I had a problem with
the ESIX X server.  I got through to technical support immediately, and was
promised a fix disk.  The guy on the phone was actually able to chat with on of
the developers to check to see if the disk would solve the problem.  The disk
came four days later."
   "On the other hand," he continues, "I get the feeling that ESIX has only
made a mediocre effort to shake out the bugs before releasing their system-- or
even their fixes.  For example, they `repaired' their X server, but the new
server only ran as root (it made some privileged calls to enable I/O
ports)--they quickly had to release a second update to fix this new problem.
They obviously fixed a lot of things in the new server, and performance is
improved quite a bit as well, but the stupid error they made in the first
"fixed" version should have been found with only the most minimal of testing."
   "They've done some work on the serial driver, but there are still some
glitches (occasional dropped characters on a busy system at 38400bps, and a
real doozy of a problem--a system panic--when doing simultaneous opens and
ioctl's on a tty0xh and ttyM0xh device.  This latter problem was due to my
using the M0xh and 0xh devices improperly, but panics are inexcusable.  No idea
if this is a SYSVR4 problem or due to their fixes.)"
   "So my impressions of them are mixed.  Perhaps I just lucked out in geting
such rapid response on my support call, but I was impressed by it nonetheless.
On the other hand, their QA needs work..."

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   The tech I spoke with at Esix seemed knowledgeable, bright, and very
committed to the product.  Nevertheless, when I asked what he thought
distinguished ESIX from the competition, he had no answer.
   This reinforced the feeling I got from the spec sheets that Esix has kind of
an also-ran mentality, with no market strategy or clear priority for improving
SVr4 that positions it against its competition.  It doesn't have Dell's
steak-with-all-the-trimmings appeal, it's not pushing price like Consensys or
support quality like UHC or performance like Microport.  (I'm told that
at one time, Everex was the price leader).
   When I asked Esix's chief marketroid about this, he said that he thinks
ESIX's best asset is that the product isn't going to go away, and muttered
unkind things about the possibility that Dell would deep-six their SVr4 in
favor of Solaris 2.0.  This does not a long-term strategy make.
   Despite numerous "repositionings" since I wrote the first version of this
comment in May 1992, I've seen no reason to change any of the above.

NAME
   MST UNIX

VENDOR:
   Micro Station Technology, Inc.
   1140 Kentwood Ave.
   Cupertino, CA.  95014
   (408)-253-3898
   [e-mail] (product info & orders)
   [e-mail] (support)

ADD-ONS:
   None.

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   C Development System
   Networking
   X11R4 and X11R3
   Motif
   Open Look

SUPPORT:
   30 days of support free with purchase.
   1 year of fax/email support is $299, 1 year of phone support is $599.

FUTURE PLANS:
   They expect to upgrade to Motif 1.2 and X11R5 Summer '92.  No plans for
4.0.4 yet.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   They've promised to email me a list of hardware known to work, which
will appear in a future posting.
   They decline to release information on hardware known *not* to work
for fear of offending vendors.

KNOWN BUGS:
   This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.  Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.
   The DOS support is only 2.0-compatible (< 32-meg DOS partitions).

COMMENTS:
   Another outfit offering stock USL real cheap.  They were actually the first
to try this (in Fall '91) and were the price leader until Consensys blew past
them.
   These guys really want to sell you preinstalled UNIX on their clone
hardware.  Configurations range from $1349 to $5599 and look like pretty
good value.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   I have one experience report from Ray Hill, <[e-mail]>, who's
been running MST on a 486 for a month or so.  He says it works; elm, cnews, and
trn are up, so standard UNIX sources compile up and work fine.  His only
criticism is the relative skimpiness of the printed docs.
   Harlan Stockman <[e-mail]> writes "MST has been very
helpful at every step of the way; phone and e-mail support have been timely."
   Geoffrey Leach <[e-mail]> warns that some of the files
(specifically, socket library headers) necessary to build X11R5 are bundled in
the networking option --- this may meen you have to buy it even if you don't
actually intend to network any machines.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Anyone who's been to a hobbyist computer expo in the last five years knows
that the low-price clone-hardware market is full of small, hungry companies run
by immigrants, often family businesses.  Their English is sometimes a little
shaky but (in my experience) they're honest and their product is good, and
their prices are *real* aggressive.
   MST seems to be one of these outfits.  Since Consensys ended their promo
MST is now the low-price leader in this market.


NAME:
   Microport System V Release 4.0 version 4

VENDOR:
   Microport, Inc.
   108 Whispering Pines Drive
   Scotts Valley, CA 95066
   (800)-367-8649
   [e-mail] (sales and product info)
   [e-mail] (support)

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   Networking (TCP/IP, NFS)
   Software Development
   User Graphics Module (X GUIs)
   Graphics Development Module (X toolkits + man pages).
   DOS Merge

ADD-ONS:
   A few freeware utilities are included, notably kermit(1) and less(1).
   They include a single-user copy of a program called `JSB MultiView'.  It's a
character-oriented desktop program that front-ends conventional UNIX services
for character terminals and also provides a calendar service and
pop-up phone-book.  It's something like a character-oriented X windows; each
on-screen window looks like a terminal to the application.

SUPPORT:
   The base price includes printed docs.  This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
They have been very lightly edited for the Microport environment.
   The base price includes 30 days or 1 year of phone support respectively
depending on whether you bought the base or complete system.  Support is
said to be excellent for serious problems, not so good for minor ones (this
is understandable if one assumes their support staff is very good but
overworked, a hypothesis which is plausible on other evidence).
   They have a support BBS at (408)-438-7270 or 438-7521.  However, the level
of activity is low; one customer said (late February) that they hadn't put
anything useful on it in six months (Microport responds that they've
been too busy hammering on r4 to spend lots of energy on it).

FUTURE PLANS:
   DOS Merge will be folded into the system soon.
   Also working on improved performance for the Adaptec 1742 and other SCSI
controllers, expect that in May.
   Microport believes they have a lead in multiprocessing SVr4 UNIX and intend
to push it.
   File-system support for CD-ROMs is coming.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.
   Math co-processors: Cyrix 20/25/33, Intel 80387 20/25/33, Weitek.
   No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.  Bernoulli boxes
and Irwin tapes won't fly, but who cares.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   When I asked what differentiates Microport from the other SVr4 products,
the answer I got is "performance".  The Microport people feel they've put
a lot of successful work into kernel tuning.
   And, indeed, benchmarks from independent sources show that Microport's
fork(2) operation is quite fast.  Other vendors show about 60 forks per
second on the AIM Technologies SUITE II benchmarks; Microport cranks 80.
This is the most dramatic performance difference the AIM tools reveal
among any of these products.  Microport's other benchmark statistics
are closely comparable to those of its competitors.
   Microport also offers a multiprocessing SVr4 which will run on the
Compaq SystemPro, the ALR PowerPro, the DEC 433MP, and the Chips &
Technologies Mpax system.
   Microport has moved the socket headers and libraries necessary to build X
out of the networking option package into the development system, so you
don't have to buy an extra module to hack X.

KNOWN BUGS:
   According to Microport, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.4 libraries.  Thus
it must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the
BSD-compatibility string functions.
   David Wexelblat reports that "Microport's enhanced asy driver does not work
correctly (or at all) for hardware flow control - you can't open the ttyXXh
devices under any circumstances.  This was true in 3.1, and is still true in
4.1.  The good news is that SAS (Streams-FAS) works fine for modems.  But SAS
won't work with the AT&T serial mouse driver.  So I've got asy on my mouse port
and SAS on the other one on my dumb-card. [...] Microport is still prone to
silly errors.  The Motif development system, which is described in the release
notes as being included with the Motif runtime system in the 'complete'
package, is in fact missing from the tape.  They have it available seperately,
but I had to call them to get it.  The 'pixed' application for X.desktop 3.0 is
compiled with shared libraries that are not included with the release.  Hence
it does not work.  I had to call them about this, too."

COMMENTS:
   These people sold a lot of shrink-wrapped UNIXes years ago before going
chapter 11.  They're back, leaner and meaner (with a total staff of just
15).
   Microport says it's primarily interested in the systems-integration market,
where customers are typically going to be volume buyers qualifying for deep
discounts.  Thus, they're relatively undisturbed by the certainty that their
high price point is losing them sales to individuals.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   I've received one good comprehensive experience report, largely favorable,
from David Wexelblat <[e-mail]>.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Microport is a small, hungry outfit with a lot to prove; they've already
gone bust once (I was a customer at the time :-() and they haven't yet
demonstrated that they've got a better strategy this time out.
   They're perhaps a mite too expensive for the support quality they can offer
with less than fifteen people, and kernel-tuning isn't going to win them a
following on hardware that every year swamps those tweaks with huge increases
in speed for constant dollars.  It may be that they're counting on the
multiprocessor version to be their bread-and-butter product; there, at least,
they're offering something that is so far unique and promises performance
levels unattainable with conventional hardware.
   And, like UHC, they have techies answering the phones and the techies have a
clue.  This certainly improves them as a bet for wizards and developers.  If
multiprocessing is important to you, and/or you're looking for a small outfit
where you can develop personal working relationships with the tech people who
matter, Microport might be a good way to go.
   They've offered to send me a copy of their OS gratis for review and
evaluation purposes.


NAME:
   UHC Version 3.6

VENDOR:
   UHC Corp.
   3600 S. Gessner
   Suite 110
   Houston, TX 77063
   (713)-782-2700
   [e-mail]

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   Networking package (TCP/IP).
   X + Motif
   X + Open Look

ADD-ONS:
   None reported.

SUPPORT:
   The base price includes printed docs.  This is effectively the same content
as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4 source tapes.
   30 days free phone support with purchase.
   All their engineers take tech-support calls for part of their day.
They have 2 doing it full-time.  The product manager is a techie himself
and takes his share of calls.
   A support contract costs $1195 for one year.  This includes 75% off
on all upgrades.
   They are in the process of bringing up a BBS with a window into their
bug report and fix/workaround database.
   It was emphasized to me that UHC wants to be known for the quality of
their support, which they feel is the product's strongest differentiating
feature.

FUTURE PLANS:
   X11R5 by mid-May or thereabouts.  They have it running now but don't
consider it stable enough to ship.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.
   The asy driver in version 2.0 won't talk to the NS16550AFN UART, which
is supposed to be pin-compatible with the standard 16450.

KNOWN BUGS:
   This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.  Thus it probably
has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug in the BSD-
compatibility string functions.

COMMENTS:
   They claim that according to USL they have the largest installed base of
SVr4 customers, and to have been first to market with a shrink-wrapped
SVr4 (in 1990).
   UHC also claims to have performed and maintained IBM's official UNIX port
for the MicroChannel machines.
   A subsidiary of Anam, "a holding company with a diversified portfolio".

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   The only comment I've yet seen on the UHC OS was an extended description of
a successful installation by a satisfied netter.  He made it sound like a good
solid product.
   I have one absolutely incandescently glowing report on UHC support from a
developer named Steve Showalter <[e-mail]>.  He says: "We've been
running UHC's OS for about a year now...been EXTREMELY happy with it.  The
support we receive is without a doubt, the finest we have received from any
vendor."
   Duke Smith (c/o [e-mail]) writes: "Another absolutely
incandescently glowing report on UHC support: I called the Programmer's Shop
about UHC & wound up talking to UHC tech support to find out if the sucker
would run on my machine. The guy took considerable time to explain all the
different things that might be causing the problem, and emphasized that the
same hardware problems which were probably causing Consensys not to run would
also hose UHC. This led me to contact ALR tech support (also a glower) who took
all of 1-1/2 days (not including shipping) to do the necessary upgrades, on
warranty because apparently their ads that it will run Unix are covered by
warranty.  The glowing thing about UHC is, the guy helped me get a competitor's
port working, and I told him he was gonna get in dutch with the marketroids and
his response was that maybe I would remember them the next time I or someone I
knew needed a system. He's right. I'll use Consensys until I can afford
something better for my own system (it's still better than DOS...), but from
now on my clients will get pointed toward UHC, not Consensys, whose
absent-parent attitude is going to keep them from ever becoming anything but
the destitute hacker's Unix vendor."
   On the other hand, William G. Bunton <[e-mail]>: "So, I give a
thumbs up for the product.  I give a thumbs down for the company, and it's
enough that I'm taking my future business elsewhere."  He tells a horror story
about the 2.0 version involving a three-month runaround, a letter to their VP
of marketing, and lots of broken promises.  Apparently UHC does sometimes drop
the ball.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   I found both the people I talked to friendly, candid, technically
knowledgeable, and willing to answer sticky questions.  I came away with a very
positive impression of the outfit's operating style.
   There are experienced UNIX developers who value dealing with a small,
responsive outfit where they can develop good working relationships with
individuals.  UHC says it likes to sell to wizards and might be a good choice
for these people.
    The second time I called (*after* I'd formed the above impressions) one of
their guys offered to trade me a copy of UHC UNIX with all the trimmings for an
autographed copy of _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_.  So they have taste, too.
I'm too ethical to let this sway my evaluations, but not too ethical to take
the software... :-)


NAME:
   BSD/386

VENDOR:
   Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
   3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
   Falls Church, VA 22042 USA
   (800)-800-4BSD
   [e-mail]

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   None.  You get an unlimited user license, binaries *and sources* for the
entire system (this includes X11R5 and full BSD networking sources with both
Internet and GOSIP OSI protocol stacks).  What more could you want?

SUPPORT:
   The purchase price include 60 days of phone support.
   A telephone-support contract is $595 per year; email-only support is
$295/year; upgrade only is $185/year.

FUTURE PLANS:
   Capability to run SVr3.2 binaries (including SCO binaries) in 1993.
   They intend to add a DOS bridge by the end of '92.
   The current release (0.3) is a fairly stable beta.  Rob Kolstad sez:
"Our current release (November 30, 1992) is titled Gamma 4 for
legal reasons.  Our 1Q1993 release will be big-fixes for even
better quality."

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.  New drivers are being added all the time.
   Most multiport serial boards aren't supported (they're working on it).
BSD/386 supports the RISCOM/8 multiport serial card (SDL: 508-559-9005) and
includes a driver for the MAXPEA serial cards.
   Rob Kolstad says BSDI has been very pleased with the cooperation
they've received from systems vendor Technology Power Enterprises.  He
says: "In a world of commodity products, they differentiate themselves
by good service.  When we (as operating system developers) have any
problems with their boxes, they're happy to help us out in finding and
fix problems -- even when the problem is hardware!"  Dave Ingalz of
that company has developed a BSD/386-ready configuration for people who
might wish to buy one; call 510-623-3834.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   Alone among the 386 UNIX versions described here, this version is *not*
based even in part on USL code and has no AT&T license restrictions.  Rather,
it derives from Berkeley UNIX (the CSRG Networking 2 release, somewhere between
4.3 and 4.4).
   Many of the BSD/386 tools, including the compiler, are GNU code.
   This system's libraries, header files and utilities conform to X3J11, POSIX
1003.1 and POSIX 1003.2 standards.  POSIX Certification is schedule for the
first half of 1993.

COMMENTS:
   What these people are trying is audacious --- something functionally like
the SVr4 merge, but starting from a ported BSD kernel and with System V
compatibility hacks, rather than the other ways.  By all accounts the product
is in far better shape right now than one would expect for a beta pre-release,
which argues that the developers have done something right.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   The few who've seen this system display an evangelistic fervor about it.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   I expect this will become a hackers' favorite.
   All this, and sources too...I salivate.  I am tempted.  Not sure I'm ready
to change OSs at the same time as I switch machines, though.  SVr4's got better
continuity with the 3.2 I'm running now.  Ghu, what a dilemma!
   When I mentioned that I'm doing elisp maintenance for GNU EMACS these days,
Rob Kolstad, one of the principal developers, offered me a copy and a year
of support if I'd field their (so far nonexistent) EMACS problems.


NAME
   Mach386

VENDOR:
   Mt. Xinu
   2560 Ninth Street
   Berkeley, CA 94710
   (510)-644-0146
   [e-mail]

ADD-ONS:
   Kernel sources!  You get can sources for the Mach 3.0 microkernel for
$195 over base price.

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   The base package includes: Mach 2.5 kernel and utilities, 4.3 BSD interface,
GNU utilities (GCC, GDB, GAS, EMACS, BISON), and on-line reference manuals (man
pages) for Mach and 4.3 BSD.  The following options are available:
   Networking (SUN NFS, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe release,
on-line NFS man pages).
   X (X11R4 with programmer's environment and complete X manual pages).
   On-line Documentation (Complete source for Mach and 4.3 documentation,
including Mach Supplementary Documents, System Manager's Documentation, 4.3 BSD
Programmer's Supplementary Documents, 4.3 BSD User's Supplementary Documents).
   Optional Microkernel Add-on, Mach 3.0 (Complete Mach 3.0 microkernel source
code; complete build environment with tools to modify and rebuild the Mach 3.0
microkernel; binary BSD server which runs on top of the microkernel in place
of the standard /vmunix kernel; source for an example of a server (POE)
running on top of the Mach 3.0 microkernel and sources for some utilities
which are kernel-dependent.

SUPPORT:
   You get 30 days phone support with purchase.
   A support contract is available for $150 quarterly or $500 per year; this
includes upgrades.  There is a support BBS open to contract holders only.
   An ftp server at autosupport.mtxinu.com carries patches, enhancements and
freeware adapted for the system.  That site also hists an NNTP server carrying
support newsgroups for MtXinu users.  This service is called "auto-support".  A
user writes: " They post bug reports/fixes, allow general user discussion, and
let registered users download updates. I have mixed feelings about
auto-support. The user activity on the news groups is pretty low, but Mt Xinu
responds to bug posts VERY quickly.  Major updaes seem to occur about every 2-3
months. The cost is $150.00/quarter or $500/year. If you want the sources to
the 386-AT drivers and the build environment for the kernel, you need to buy an
auto-support subscription."

FUTURE PLANS:
   They plan to move to OSF/1 this year.  X11R5 and Motif support are
also in the works.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the Appendix for details.
   Color X windows is supported on VGA boards via extended 8-bit color mode.
   Toshiba and Toshiba-compatible floppy drives and controllers work.
   All current motherboards tested have worked.  There were a few problems with
early Compaq DeskPros.  They add "Please note that we do not support the
microchannel bus, EISA extended modes, IBM PS2, and some NCR machines.  We are,
however, considering new devices so let us know your interests!".

TECHNICAL NOTES
   This product is essentially a 4.3 port built on the Mach project's
microkernel technology.  This is a truly nifty architecture which builds a
4.3BSD-compatible kernel out of a collection of communicating lightweight
processes.  The distinction between user and kernel mode almost vanishes, and
things like the schedular and virtual-memory manager which are normally
embedded deep in the kernel become semi-independent, modifiable modules.