9fans archive / 2000 / 05 / 45 /    prev next

From: Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org
Subject: [9fans] (the potential) new release of Plan9, i386 only?
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 13:55:43 GMT

> >I could live with a distribution that perhaps only came with Intel
> >binaries, but at least had the sources and cross compilers to allow
> >building of systems for other architectures. I have two Sparc2's
> >which are not fast, but they are nicer to work on and have lasted
> >much better than Intel machines of similar vintage.
> 
> I have been interested reacently In buying a non-*86 machine, But I
> have found it next to imposible to find a comparison between the sun
> machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
> pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?
> 
I would have to dig around for some benchmarks, but I think
the conventional wisdom is that my Sparc 2's are comparable
to 66Mhz 486 machines in processing power. But they 'feel' much
better because of the better disk subsystem and architecture, and
I don't feel I need a vary fast CPU for compiling code.

I havn't looked recently, but if you need speed, you will probably
have to pay more for a Sun than an equivalent Intel PC, purely
because of the relative market sizes.

If I wanted somthing with a bit more processing power but still
a usable architecture, I would probably go PowerPC.

It looked like being in with a chance at being an
alternate 'standard' architecture up until OS-2 ceased
to be effective competition for Microsoft, which resulted in
Microsoft deciding it could afford to please its Intel ally by
discontinuing the PowerPC version of NT. 

One of the things I like about Plan9 is that it makes it so
easy to manage a heterogenous environment, so at least you
don't have to be tied in to one architecture.

I would really like to hear any impressions that the Plan9
developers formed as a result of porting the system to numerous
architectures. The task must have provided an ideal opportunity
to compare the merits of the varous platforms.

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk