Craig D. Lansing ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: We have several 3000s and 9000s (800's) here and the developer's choice
: is hands down HP-UX.  Having to work on the 3000 is generally look upon as
: a fate worse than death.  HP-UX's operating system interface shells are far
: more powerful (and far less proprietary) than MPE.  HP-UX has a real
: directory structure MPE has no directory structure, but this is supposed
: to get better when MPE becomes POSIX compilant (a retro fit which may or
: may not go well).  The last time I checked, MPE would not even serve
: X terminals without the help of a 9000.
 
Well, you've got some valid points here.  Keep in mind that UNIX was
originally designed to be a devopment OS.  MPE, on the other hand is
targeted as a commercial OS- not a development OS.
 
I do agree that there are a lot of tools missing (like X terminal support)
for the 3k.
 
: The 9000's tend to run with
: less operator intervention for longer periods of time.
 
I disagree with this completely.  One of the things MPE customers like
most about the HP3000 is how little operator intervention is required.
(Can someone back me up on this?)
 
As an example of reliability, consider the UNIX file system.  NFS is
particularly unreliable (and used on most UNIX systems).  It uses UDP as
its underlying transport, allowing packets to be lost, delivered out of
order, truncated, or even changed!  Even a local UNIX file system will
often be corrupted when a kernel panic occurs because a dirty superblock
can be left unflushed in memory.  That WON'T HAPPEN on an MPE box.  MPE
goes through a lot of work to maintain filesystem integrity even through
an unexpected crash.  UNIX will gladly trash your filesystem if you just
forget to call sync().
 
So, if you have business to do and can't afford losing/corrupting
your disk and spending a day to reconstruct it, I think you'll be a lot
better off with MPE.
 
As a note, you can run NFS on MPE as well, so it may be unfair for me to
pick on UNIX for using NFS when MPE can use it as well.  It is used
*far* more commonly on Unix systems than on MPE, however.
 
: The last time we checked the 3000 didn't support ftp or telnet,
: but I think the POSIX version is supposed to?  There are other reasons to
: choose HP-UX over MPE, but I'll refrain from wasting bandwidth :)
 
FTP has been available for several years, telnet is here with 5.0.  More,
of course, is on the way :-)
 
Mike
 
---
Mike Belshe
[log in to unmask]
HP CSY Networking Lab