Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Bob Eager Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old commercial UNIX in '26 Date: 16 Jun 2026 09:19:29 GMT Lines: 47 Message-ID: References: <110pk59$2tr$1@reader1.panix.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net qLyr+BptwbwEKZpPFhRX5gkcYWDfwI6HNuWJyuTsU7FiWFlVmi Cancel-Lock: sha1:7EfCwC48IfmEbtbxK4LA4DbRm1o= sha256:9I8z/d2p+36TulevEJ8goE8oUhf2nSmVKxdAdM5DnoY= User-Agent: Pan/0.145 (Duplicitous mercenary valetism; d7e168a git.gnome.org/pan2) Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:235049 On Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:40:12 +0000, Scott Lurndal wrote: > cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes: >>In article , >>Piper McCorkle wrote: >>>I've always been quite curious about commercial Unices, but when I was >>>born Linux had already put the writing on the wall for them. I think it >>>would be quite fun to set up a UNIX server in my homelab and have it >>>host some services (WWW, Gopher, Gemini, etc), but I've heard plenty of >>>horror stories about actually operating these things. Are there any >>>commercial UNIX variants from the '90s-early '00s that aren't a >>>complete and utter pain in the ass to administer? (especially coming >>>from a Linux background) >>> >>>I'm thinking of going with Solaris, if only because I have some >>>hardware (a Sun Fire system in unknown condition) that I could try to >>>restore. But I know the installation process will definitely be a pain >>>in the ass. The system doesn't have an optical drive, so I'll need to >>>install Solaris over the network. No clue how to set up the server >>>necessary for that - hopefully I can do it on OpenIndiana! >> >>I hate to be the one saying it, but ... it wasn't that cool. :-) > > As a long-time SVR3/4/4.2MP user, I found SunOs foreign, but Solaris was > much more comfortable to work with. > > I have a T1 in storage, with an external SCSI CDROM. Have no idea if it > still works. > > >>Something that is kind of fun is to set up 4.3BSD on an emulated VAX, >>though. > > I recently got VMS running on simh - it's been fun to revisit the late > 70's and early 80's. I started on a PDP-8 (TSS8.24) in 1976, > followed by the HP-3000 in 1977 and the VAX in 1979. I now have all > three running in simulation for old-times-sake. I take it you found a PAK generator for VMS. Thew HP simulator guy broke away from the SIMH 4 project as it was (a) a moving target and (b) the scandal about trying to restrict the code was getting messy. The latest official versions are here: https://simh.trailing-edge.com/hp/ (I am basing my new simulator on the Classic SIMH for similar reasons).