AU/X as a mail/news machine?

[Steve Lemke]

In article <10555 at claris.com> peirce at claris.com (Michael Peirce) writes:
}I've been contemplating selling my old home Mail/News machine (an ATT Unix-PC)
}and running AU/X on my Mac IIcx instead.

}Are people successfully running usenet (UUCP & News) on AU/X?

Hmm.  Well, last year (my senior year at U.C. Santa Barbara), I ran A/UX
part time on my Mac II, while my roommate ran UNIX on his Unix PC (obviously
full-time).  His machine was (and still is) on the net, and he rarely had
problems bringing up "standard" software (Bnews/elm/rn/nn/Cnews/etc).
Because A/UX is based on the same SVR2 as the Unix-PC, I was able to
bring up much of the same software with little or no mods in A/UX.

Although the Unix PC only has a 68010, it did quite well supporting him at
the console, me at 19,200 baud direct link, and another roommate on a 9600
terminal (simultaneously).  The Mac was not originally designed to do this
sort of stuff, and I wonder if (even with the theoretically better perfor-
mance) the A/UX machine would be much faster - we never did try this, due
to the different locations of the machines and the cabling complexities of
our apartment.

Now that we are no longer roommates, we are both running unix and are both
"on the net" (though I haven't registered as a uucp or .com site (yet)).

}I figure I can get enough from selling the Unix-PC to buy an extra 80MEG disk
}for the Mac where AU/X can live.  I have a few questions -
}
}Is there enough disk for this?  (I've only got a 40 Meg disk on the Unix-PC
}and this isn't even full all the time).  I wouldn't mind removing parts
}of the distribution (like GNU Emacs, etc).

Ugg.  Does that mean you're only going to have 80mb?  I'm the only one using
my machine (currently), but I find 80 to be a bit snug.  I receive only a
partial news feed, due to the fact that it takes so long to transfer news,
even at 2400 baud (9600 baud is coming soon!), as well as the unpacking time
and the space required to store it all.  I also run expire as soon as I've
read everything on my system.  I'm currently running with about 7mb free.
>From what I understand, a full feed is five to seven megabytes per day, so
if you run a one-week expire, that's 35-50mb of news always in your spool
directory.

You don't really get 80mb of storage with A/UX on the Apple 80mb drive.
You really get more like 54mb (there is a 2mb Mac boot partition, two 3mb
autorecovery partitions, and 14mb of swap space).  It really is snug.

I am thinking of setting up my A/UX at work as a news/mail system for people
accesible from the Macs at our desks over Ethernet, but I question two
things:  performance when more than one person is using it, and disk space.
We'll probably have dual 80mb drives, hopefully with a really fast one
mounted as /usr/spool (for news/mail).  (Comments from people presently
running a system in such a situation would be greatly appreciated!)

}Are there any other gotcha's when running AU/X as a part-time usenet machine
}(I do plan on using the Mac/OS during the day...)?

You mean other than the pain of switching back and forth?  Yes, some programs
run under A/UX, but the only way I find A/UX tolerable (and actually somewhat
useful even) is with TERM running (allowing multiple windows to be open,
rather than a single console window).  Yes, you COULD run X, but that takes
up even more of your precious disk space.  Thus, if term is running, then
that is the "one" toolbox program allowed, and to run a Mac OS program, you
must LEAVE term, and launch the Mac OS program, then return to term.  It's
a pain.  Besides, I don't want to move everything over to A/UX from Mac OS.
So, I switch back and forth.  In fact, currently, I run mostly Mac OS, and I
boot A/UX in the evening simply to get mail/news, read and reply, and then
shut the thing off.  That's why I want to set it up full-time at work.
A/UX works part time, but prefers full-time!
-- 
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