interested in Unix on PC's? If not, delete...
David G. Hough on validgh
dgh
Wed Nov 3 21:16:12 PST 1993
If you are interested in Unix on PC's, I'd be pleased to receive your
comments on the following. When I have the performance numbers filled in
I will publish it in relevant USENET newsgroups.
===============================================================================
This first draft report describes process and results of searching for a PC
capable of running Solaris 2.1. I'm in the process of producing -g compile
time and -O execution time results for SPECfp92 and Perfect codes. Comments
and suggestions for improvement are welcome to dghavalidgh.com. For the final
report, source will be available for producing formatted copies in this way:
tbl searching | troff -ms
Sun has always claimed that its workstations were competitively priced in
comparison to comparably-equipped PC's. This was a gedanken-claim until Sun
announced that its new operating system, Solaris 2, would be ported to PC's
with adequate power. That raised the interesting possibility that if
commodity-priced PC's were able to run workstation software, then the advan-
tages of RISC Unix workstations would disappear over time, due to the usual
economy of scale volume arguments. So I decided to determine for myself how
much a PC-based workstation cost and how well it performed, at least in com-
parison to the SPARCstations with which I was familiar, both for my own
interest and to publish a report of the results to stimulate my consulting
business.
I registered for the Solaris developers conference in March, which
included a copy of Solaris for x86 and a C compiler, and a discount on a
SPARCclassic, which is intended to compete with PC's. So I had software, a
cheap SPARCstation for comparison, and a Sun SCSI CD drive from another
SPARCstation, so all I needed was a suitable PC.
Requirements
The suitable PC requirements were derived from my SPARCstation experience
with Solaris 2: 32 MB RAM, 400 MB SCSI disk, 3.5" 1.44MB floppy disk,
1024x768x256 graphics controller (I prefer 1152x900 but Solaris doesn't sup-
port it), 16" or larger color monitor (I prefer monochrome but Solaris doesn't
support it), ethernet controller with 16KB buffer, three-button serial port
mouse. My reading suggested that an EISA bus was the way to go for the time
being, and a 66DX2 or 50DX x86 CPU. Sun's documents suggest that 12 MB RAM,
200 MB disk, ISA bus, and 33 MHz 386/7 are usable for something by somebody,
but that's just marketing nudge-nudge wink-wink as far as technical users are
concerned.
60 MHz Pentium systems have since become available and might be a better
choice now. Most current 486DX EISA systems are "Pentium-ready" in the lim-
ited sense of "if Intel ever builds a Pentium derivative that will work reli-
ably in this socket in this system at this clock rate, then if you can buy one
and install it, we guarantee that you will get whatever performance increment
you can measure in this socket in this system at this clock rate." And as Pen-
tiums become more prevalent, the PCI bus may displace EISA on performance-
oriented PC's.
In addition, the graphics controller, SCSI controller, and ethernet con-
troller had to be supported by Solaris for x86, and that requirement kept the
list of candidates short. A Sound Blaster Pro and a couple of cheap computer
speakers are supported for all the audio applications available under Solaris
2.1 for x86, namely... well if I find any, I'll be able to exercise them.
The 16KB ethernet buffer is essential to avoid performance tragedies in
mixed environments with SPARC NFS servers. SMC 8003's, for instance, and
some 3Com adapters are unusable in such a mixed environment despite being
listed as "supported" in the Solaris for x86 documentation. They are only
usable if the NFS packet size parameters are changed from the default 8K bytes
to 4K bytes. This can be done but in a large SPARC installation it prob-
ably implies changing the automount maps and the packet size for all clients,
PC or not, and thus may be politically incorrect.
So I resolved the issue by standardizing on SMC Elite 16T's which work
fine as far as mixed ethernet environments go.
I also discovered later that it's not wise to get a PC without a 5.25"
1.2MB floppy disk as well, because commercial software you may need to use,
such as test programs to run under MSDOS, is as likely to be distributed on
big floppies as small. In fact I discovered eventually that most people keep
a small MSDOS partition on their Solaris disk, so they can boot and run such
essentials as the EISA configuration program as well as the SMC test programs.
More about those later.
Another thing I learned is that it's not wise to get anything but a large
tower configuration if you are the type of person who can't leave the insides
of the computer alone. As you will see, that includes everybody running
Solaris on PC's, so you better get one. And if you're going to get a large
tower case, it might as well have a large power supply to help filter out
glitches. 200W is said to be marginal, 230W adequate, 300W rock-solid even
for very large systems.
SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS with the benefit of hindsight:
Item Example Source Price
EISA bus motherboard with BIOS
50DX or 66DX2 CPU
adequate secondary cache (at least 128K)
keyboard
3.5" 1.44MB floppy
5.25" 1.2MB floppy
large tower case, 300W power supply AMG 250
32MB RAM AMG 50/MB
SCSI disk controller Adaptec 1742 AMG 375
>=400 MB SCSI disk Seagate ST3600N NCA 680
>=16" color monitor Viewsonic 17 NCA 1079
1024x768x256 graphics controller Orchid PD IIs 1 MB Access 120
3-button serial mouse Logitech Mouseman Frys 70
16KB, twisted pair ethernet controller SMC Elite 16T Frys 130
Sound Blaster Pro card Frys 115
2 cheap speakers Sonic 100 Frys 7
Solaris 2.1 for x86 SunX 695
SCSI CD drive SunCD SunX 825
MSDOS MSDOS 6.0 Frys 45
SunX is Sun Express; Frys, NCA, and Access are local Silicon Valley retailers.
Prices are changing constantly, not always downward.
METHODS
I've discerned three distinct methods of obtaining a Solaris PC:
* Buy a collection of components, put them together, and try to get it to
work with Solaris.
* Buy an integrated Windows 3.1 system and try to get it to work with
Solaris.
* Buy an integrated Solaris system and try to get it to work. I know of
two sources of such systems, AMG and Mobius.
Unlike a SPARCstation, just turning on the power and watching it boot
Unix is not a realistic expectation with any of these scenarios. For
that matter, it's not realistic on SPARCstations any more, thanks to
Jumpstart.
PURCHASES
After starting looking in February and progressing fitfully to becoming
more or less confused, in August I finally faxed an order to Gateway for their
EISA system 4DX2-66E. It was listed in a Sun document as self-tested by the
manufacturer for Solaris compatibility. I didn't hear from Gateway for a
while so I figured they hadn't gotten the fax - I've had lots of trouble with
my fax software - and after an interminable email discussion I ordered a
Solaristation from AMG in September. I was well on my way to getting it
working by the end of September when Gateway left a message on my voice mail
announcing my system would arrive in two days. Oh well, I could see by then
that I could use two PC's for various purposes, so that was OK. But then I
had two machines to get going.
AMG Solaristation
I chose AMG (salesaamg.com) because Ed Whittemore, a principal, is a fre-
quent net contributor and he's the only person I encountered anywhere in my
prospecting who actually knew what Solaris was. He has definite opinions
about most of his equipment preferences and, right or wrong, they are based on
experience, and he can actually ship a system which has been running Solaris
successfully. Or any of a number of other PC Unix implementations.
To save money and to make life hard for Ed I asked him to integrate three
components, which I already had, into the system he built for me: an Adaptec
1742 that I got for half price with a coupon from the Solaris Developers
Conference, a Seagate ST11200N borrowed from a SPARCstation, and an SMC Elite
16T from Frys that I had already checked out successfully in a borrowed Gate-
way. Ed prefers Quantum disks and 3Com adapters but he accepted the chal-
lenge. I probably didn't save any money but I did succeed in making life
hard.
So for $3940 he integrated my components into a Solaristation EISA mini-
tower with a 50 MHz DX CPU, 32 MB RAM, 256K cache, keyboard, 3.5" and 5.25"
floppies, two 16550 serial ports, parallel port, and ATI Graphics Ultra Pro
with 2MB VRAM (in case Solaris ever supports 1152x900 or higher). He got
Solaris installed and tested before he shipped it.
There were some problems. The disk wouldn't work reliably until inter-
nal termination resistors were added to the disk (they're not used in SPARCs-
tations), removed from the Adaptec, and an external termination supplied.
And he could never get my SMC Elite 16T twisted-pair ethernet card to be
recognized by the SMC diagnostics, even under MSDOS, although some SMC Elite
16 thick ethernet cards that he had handy worked fine, as did some 3Com cards.
When the system arrived, I unpacked it, connected a monitor and mouse,
and tried booting. It didn't work. It couldn't find the SCSI controller.
I tried moving the SCSI controller card around to different slots to see what
would happen. What would happen is that I would need to run the EISA confi-
guration program from the boot disk AMG supplied. This was interesting and I
got pretty good at it, but it still wouldn't boot the hard disk. Finally I
got careless and pushed the SCSI card in a little too hard. Then it worked.
Thus I realized that the problem all along had been that the card had worked
loose a little bit during shipment, and once properly seated it works fine.
AMG now includes a note warning EISA system buyers to reseat all cards on
receipt. So does Gateway, I found later. It must be an industry standard
problem.
I was eventually able to install Solaris, once I removed the internal
Adaptec terminators and connected an external Sun SCSI CD drive with its ter-
minator. But when it became time to talk to the network, nothing happened.
It couldn't even find the SMC Elite 16T ethernet adapter. I rebooted MSDOS
(you do need an MSDOS partition on your Solaris disk!) and tried running the
SMC diagnostic software. It couldn't even detect that any ethernet card was
installed. So I removed the card and tried it in the Gateway which had
arrived by then. It worked fine. More email with AMG and a phone call to
SMC technical support yielded nothing useful. SMC thought I had set the IRQ/IO
address/RAM address wrong. I tried a variety of combinations and nothing
worked.
So I started removing cards from the AMG system, and after some sore
finger tips discovered that the SMC worked if the BOCA ATIO card was removed.
Disabling all the ports on the ATIO card wasn't enough; the card had to be
removed. The ATIO card has two 16550 high-speed serial ports and a parallel
port. I didn't need serial ports on this system, but it would be an issue if
it were the only system in my lab. I bought a couple of slow 16450-based IO
cards from NCA ($15) and Frys ($25) and tried them, and eventually found that
either would work with the SMC.
My conclusion is that at least some SMC Elite 16T's and some 16550-based
serial ports don't work together. Other SMC Elite 16 cards don't show the
problem. I don't know about other 16550-based I/O cards. Anyway SMC has
solved the problem by replacing the old Elite series with the Elite Ultra
series that does not work with Solaris 2.1 at all. Similarly Adaptec has now
replaced the 1742 with the 2742 which is supposed to be better but doesn't
work with Solaris 2.1 at all. Thus it goes in the PC world. Beware of evolu-
tion. The industry as a whole evolves faster than Sun's device drivers can.
AMG charged my credit card when they received the order. The system was
shipped some time later after the problems mentioned were resolved, Solaris
was installed, and the integrated system tested.
Mobius
I didn't have any money left to try out Mobius's (800-662-4871) product,
but they are worthy of mention here because, in their press releases at least,
they ship systems with Solaris installed. A 66MHz DX2 EISA system with
16MB+245MB and 1280x1024 17" color system is quoted at $4700 in a trade rag
article. In a different article I saw a similar Mobius system quoted at $3500.
Maybe the cheaper system wasn't EISA or SCSI. Mobius is located in Califor-
nia, which puts it at a disadvantage for California residents compared to AMG
and Gateway.
Gateway 4DX2-66E
The Gateway (gatewayaaol.com) system cost $3135 with no monitor and was
shipped a month after the order was received. It booted up Windows 3.1 prop-
erly with no fuss, but its documentation mentioned the frequent necessity of
reseating cards after shipping, so they have the same problems as AMG in that
respect. The 4DX2-66E is listed in Sun documentation as self-certified by
Gateway to be compatible with Solaris, and that was good enough for me; Gate-
way is noticeably less expensive than any of the other first-tier mail order
PC vendors.
And indeed, once I replaced the SCSI card, video card, mouse, and SIMMS,
I could easily install and run Solaris. When I called Sun's Solaris installa-
tion support line, they called back the same day to tell me that neither the
Ultrastor 24F EISA SCSI card nor the Diamond Speedstar Pro ISA VLB graphics
card are supported.
The two-button Microsoft serial mouse is fine for Windows 3.1 but seems
strange to SPARCstation users that expect three buttons.
The 4DX2-66E comes in exactly one memory configuration, four 4 MB 72 pin
SIMMS, that fill up all four available SIMM sockets. I would have ordered 32
MB but the Gateway sales person I spoke to said that memory upgrades were not
being sold at this time. I presumed this was due to the worldwide RAM shor-
tage, so I asked if I would be able to upgrade the system with SIMMS purchased
locally; he said yes. All this is true.
What I didn't think to ask - and I should have since several SPARCstation
models have been sold this way - is whether I would have to throw away SIMMS
in order to increase memory capacity. Since all four slots were full, the
only way to upgrade was to replace a 4MB with a 16MB. I did this twice to
get to 28 and then 40MB.
Then the system wouldn't recognize the extra memory on boot. I fiddled
for a couple of hours removing and re-installing SIMMS, trying various confi-
gurations of 4 MB and 16 MB and adjusting the motherboard DIP switches accord-
ingly, but I could never find any bad SIMMS, yet neither could I get the sys-
tem to recognize more than 16 MB. Finally I called Gateway technical sup-
port. They got back to me the same day and pointed out that I needed to dis-
able shadowing in the BIOS in order to recognize more than 16 MB. That part
wasn't in the hardware manual.
Gateway does provide a nicely integrated hardware manual that describes
things pretty clearly if incompletely. In contrast AMG, like most system
integrators, provides the original manual from the motherboard manufacturer
and for each of the peripheral cards.
In the course of reconfiguring the Gateway with its new cards, I
discovered an irksome flaw in its EISA configuration procedure. Run from a
floppy disk it is unusably slow. One really needs to install the configura-
tor on an MSDOS partition first and run it from the hard disk. In contrast
the AMG configuration works fine booted from a floppy. But the experience
brings forcefully to mind an important lesson about EISA systems: reconfigure
them in software FIRST before you change any hardware!
To upgrade the Gateway I got a three-button Logitech serial mouse from
Frys ($70) and I got the other parts I needed from AMG - Adaptec 1742 ($375),
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro EISA 2MB ($450), two 70ns 72pin 16MB SIMMS ($800 each).
I have available little-used Ultrastor and Diamond cards and 4MB SIMMS;
make a reasonable offer.
The Gateway came with a fine Seagate ST3600N 500 MB disk, but to keep
things on an even basis with the AMG, I replaced it with an ST11200N. At this
point I appreciated the advantages of a large tower (Gateway) over a mini-
tower (AMG); getting the disk in and out was easy.
Gateway charged my credit card when the system was shipped.
PC Sources
In my survey of potential PC sources I started with Sun's list of known
compatible Solaris systems. That included Acer, Apricot, AST, Compaq, Com-
puAdd, Dell, Gateway, Grid, IBM, ICL, NEC, NCR, Tatung, Toshiba, Wyse, and
Zenith. I then contacted those with a mail-order sales operation for quota-
tions. I also used the fax-a-quote forms from PC Week and Computer Currents
to see what else was available. Generally speaking I was looking for quotes
for the following system:
Item
EISA bus motherboard with BIOS
66DX2 CPU
adequate secondary cache (at least 128K)
keyboard
3.5" 1.44MB floppy
5.25" 1.2MB floppy
32MB RAM
SCSI disk controller card
400 MB SCSI disk
16" or 17" color monitor
1024x768x256 graphics controller video card
MSDOS
Each of the following quotations gives a price followed by a list of
ADDITIONS +
of things I didn't ask for that were included in the quote, e.g. +525MB
means a 525MB disk was quoted instead of 400MB.
SUBTRACTIONS -
of things I asked for that aren't included in the quote, e.g. -8MB means
only 8MB was quoted.
QUESTIONS ?
listing quoted peripheral items that I'm not certain are compatible with
Solaris.
PRICE VENDOR/MODEL +ADDITIONS ?QUESTIONS
PHONE -SUBTRACTIONS
2500 Swan/W10021 + ?vlb video card
800-554-6746 -8MB;340MB;14";SCSI
3400 CommandLine/Nice EISA + ?SCSI
408-735-7940 -345MB;15"
3500 Gateway/4DX2-66E +500MB ?Ultrastor 24F SCSI;DiamondSpeedstarProVLB
800-846-2000 -16MB;14"
3600 ASA/EISA +525MB ?SVGA+1MB video
408-988-1280 -SCSI
3700 HKG + ?CirrusVLB video;CSC SCSI
408-733-5454 -345MB
3800 PARS/EISA + ?TridentSVGA1MB;SCSI
510-733-0103 -5.25"
4100 Laitron/Nice-3 EISA/2 +525MB ?Adaptec2742;DiamondStealthVLB
408-945-1411
4600 DEC/FRPCT35W8 +525MB ?video
800-722-9332 -8MB;5.25";SCSI
4800 ACR/AMI Enterprise III + ?Ultrastor 24F SCSI;Diamond Viper
408-734-9797 -345MB
4900 Micron/466VLDesignSta +540MB ?SCSI;DiamondViperVLB
208-465-3434
5000 NOW/Micronics EISA + ?Adaptec2742;DiamondStealthVLB
408-894-7060 -
5400 Compaq/Deskpro 486/66M/510 +510MB ?
800-888-5886 -5.25";14";SCSI
5700 Dell/466/ME + ?
800-727-3355 -330MB
5700 AMG/Solaristation +525MB ?
201-944-3293 -MSDOS
6000 Zeos/EU-466-3 + ?SCSI
800-272-8993 -
6500 NEC/ExpressII 466ST +540MB ?SCSI;video
800-374-8000 -
8000 DEC/FRPCT50B6 +60MHzPentium ?SCSI;video
800-722-9332 -8MB;5.25"
Most of the foregoing include Windows 3.1 and some kind of mouse. None
include Solaris, SCSI CD drive, Ethernet card, Sound Blaster, or speak-
ers. Plausible prices for these components were listed earlier. Time has
passed since these quotations were issued, many component prices have de-
creased, and a few have increased, so they are only quoted to the nearest
$100; and some components are no longer in production.
Beware that measurements of display sizes and disk sizes are in marketing
science units. For instance Sun recently reclassified its 19" monitors as 20"
in order to conform to industry marketing science standards. Similarly the
same Seagate ST3600N's seem to be listed as anything from 500MB to 540MB by
various vendors.
Beware of integration! Many larger system vendors have integrated
video, disk, and even ethernet controllers onto their motherboards to reduce
cost and increase reliability. The new systems work great with Windows 3.1!
But if they have not been tested with Solaris, they probably do not work.
System vendors like Dell and Compaq that design their own video and disk con-
trollers may introduce changes at any time that are compatible with Windows
3.1 but not Solaris. Independent card manufacturers may do the same thing, of
course.
If you plan on extended support from the vendor, Beware the weak balance
sheet! Cutthroat price competition left a number of second-tier PC system
vendors in weak financial condition. The press has placed at least CompuAdd,
Everex, Northgate, and Zeos in that category at various times in the last
year. Many third-tier system assemblers may be questionable too, but most are
private so you can't tell.
Performance Results [in preparation]
I decided to do some simple performance comparisons of the two Solaris
PC's I bought, between each other and some alternative solutions:
2500 Apple Quadra 800 8MB+500MB
1100 Apple [Sony] 16" Color Monitor
85 Apple Keyboard
70 Upgrade to 1 MB VRAM
1400 Upgrade to 40 MB RAM
800 AUX 3.0.1
8145 Sun SPARClassic 4/15FC-32-P43
32MB+424MB+16" [Sony] Color Monitor
includes Solaris, 10BT ethernet
150 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy user installed
5560 RAVE Refurbished SPARCstation 2 RFB4/75FC-32-P43
32MB+424MB+16" [Sony] Color Monitor
includes Solaris, thick ethernet, and 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy
18245 Sun SPARCstation 10 S10FGX-40-32-P44
32MB+525+16" [Sony] Color Monitor
includes Solaris, 10BT ethernet, 3.5" 1.44MB floppy
None of these prices include the SCSI CD drive required to install the operat-
ing system software.
Apple prices are from the latest Apple direct sales catalog, or from my
experience this year.
RAVE (313-939-8230) is an authorized reseller of refurbished SPARCsta-
tions. Weitek clock-doubler chips for SS2 are also available from RAVE for
$1500.
The foregoing SPARCstation configurations are chosen to compare as
closely as possible to the PC's discussed earlier. The SPARCstations that I
actually ran the performance tests were slightly different: SS2 has
64MB+2100MB, SS10 is a 10/41 instead of 10/40, has 128MB+2100MB, SPARCclassic
has 48MB+1050MB. And the Quadra was upgraded to the 1050MB ST11200N that all
the other systems had.
[In preparation: -g compile times for SPEC and Perfect. -O execution
times for SPEC and Perfect. AMG, Gateway, Quadra 800, SS2, SS10, SPARCclas-
sic.]
Linux
Linux is an ongoing development of a free Unix implementation that is
making remarkable progress. I tried installing SLS 1.02, a commercial dis-
tribution of Linux, on a Gateway, but couldn't get it to work satisfactorily
in my environment: it could NFS mount partitions from a SPARCstation 2 but
not a SPARCstation 10, and the latter is my main NFS server that exports my
test harness. Also rsh/rlogin didn't work, but telnet did, which would have
been adequate for my purposes. I will eventually try SLS 1.04 to see if
there's any improvement.
There is an outfit selling PC's with Linux preinstalled (linux-
salesafintronic.com). It looks like a 66MHz DX2 VLB ISA 16MB system starts at
$1779 and would also need an Adaptec 1542 ($248), 3Com 509 ($140), ET4000 VLB
plus Nanao F550i ($1099), Maxtor 540MB ($719). They only sell complete sys-
tems, and are located in California.
As a general point, you can find people who will sell you collections of
components, and you can find people who will sell you integrated tested sys-
tems, and you do have to pay for the integration and test. It is worth it to
have an expert spend a little time instead of you spending a lot of time,
unless you want to become an expert. If you don't want to become an expert,
I'd recommend buying from a source that integrates and tests the hardware and
software that you plan to use.
Information Sources
Persons starting out on a similar quest may find it helpful to start with
the "tips on how and where to buy hardware for your UNIX" FAQ that Eric Ray-
mond posts to news.answers from time to time.
Then if you decide not to buy a system with Solaris pre-installed and
tested, you'd better get the Solaris x86 Engineers' Installation Handbook
before you buy any hardware. It was published by Sun in July and contains
information on known working systems and peripheral cards. It's quite thick,
but even it has bugs - the Ultrastor 24F is listed as supported. I'm not sure
how to get a copy - it's not part of the Solaris for x86 documentation.
Start with whoever sells your copy of Solaris for x86.
Sun has announced that additional PC device drivers will be available
Real Soon Now before the next general release of Solaris 2.4 for x86 in 1994.
My business card
Your system too can be the subject of this kind of study. Interested
parties may send for my detailed business announcement.
David G. Hough - validgh
system correctness evaluation
system performance evaluation
SPARC and Solaris compatibility evaluation
IEEE 754 floating-point
dghavalidgh.com
PO Box 20370 voice (408) 997-7763
San Jose, CA 95160 fax (408) 997-7764
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