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FCW compares Unix workstations
EngrBohn writes "Federal Computer Weekly evaluated Unix workstations by Compaq, HP, IBM, and Sun -- they specified minimum hardware requirements and a maximum price; beyond that, all was fair. They did not include *BSD, Linux, or WinNT due to space limitations. Here's a chart (in PDF) comparing the workstations. IBM's RS6000 43P Model 260 won on technical merit, but it exceeded the $15K price cap. "
We had to upgrade an (forgot HP model name) from 10.10 to 10.20. We used the "Easy, Really", "Painless", Ignite/UX tool to perform the upgrade. The upgrade failed, and totally hosed all the filesystems. Then we discovered that nobody had ever done a backup on the system because "it wasn't in production yet."
That's my most painful HP/UX memory, although I can't say that my experiences have been as bad as yours!
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
That was the least detailed, least comparitive comparison I have ever seen. Where are the tables on system preformance? Where is the list of features and details about what each system has for that price? Where is the valid reason why some systems didn't win?
Oh, they said IBM, I better go get one... (sarcasm). Not that there is anything wrong with IBM systems, but they didn't even specify which one and which configuration was thier winner, and what makes it better. IBM's RS/6000 43P Model 260 according to what they are saying is just under $15,000 and bearly nudges out the competition. What about this makes it hard for me to believe.
If I send them a 1G drive, will they fill it with a detailed comparison and get it on the web, since "space" was the problem in reporting the comparison?
Only 4 systems on thier one table, and it's a pdf table... I am a little dissapointed. I suppose buying $15,000 systems isn't the easiest thing to do for a comparison, but I would have thought an SGI would have made the cut of choices. Notice, HP, IBM and Sun only have 9-5 support, wheras Compaq is 24-7, and Compaq had the only money back guarentee if you didn't felt the system lived up to it's claims after it arrived. But that only gave it 20 points more out of the total of 1000 points. "None of the boxes in this comparison uses Linux tools, so the System Management Interface Tool used by the IBM model is the big administration winner." So, why not be fair and add a VAResearch box to the list? I'm sure they could have provided a $15,000 box for testing.
Also, note that the IBM was $17,587 and the Compaq was only $12,514, but that just factored into the score, and they didn't really cap the price at $15,000...
While it obviously becomes a bit meaningless on the Web, the space that we ran out of was indeed paper and ink.
Unix is a broad topic. You can't cover it completely in 2500 words. I think that a comparison between Sun/HP/IBM/Compaq/SGI Unix hardware, Intel based Unix, and NT would be a very good, but very different article.
By the way, a Linux comparison (Red Hat/Caldera/SuSE/TurboLinux) runs next week.
For a comparison on Unix workstations, they sure managed to keep bringing up how some of these systems can run NT. What is more useless than NT on Alpha anyway?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them