Subject: RE: Mbone Apps on Pentiums running Solaris ?

From: Dwight Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 01:08:19 -0400

I received an ultra 1 170e last week, and was able to run mrouted on it
"out of the box" with solaris 2.6,  with no kernel or tcp device modifications

copying my tools (sdr/vat/vic,etc) that I had on my 2.5.1 box all
worked just fine on it as well.

dwight s.
_________________________________________________________________
dwight spencer                			phone:  506 444 5389
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-----Original Message-----
From:	[email-masked] [SMTP:[email-masked]]
Sent:	Thursday, October 30, 1997 9:11 PM
To:	[email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject:	RE: Mbone Apps on Pentiums running Solaris ?

Hi,
I'd say: ...

Solaris 2.6 is probably a good choice but because this OS is so new, I'd
hesitate to commit to it for MBone apps and besides, binaries for
Solaris 2.5.X may not work on 2.6 because of the (in) famous snprintf
problem.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 10:53:23 -0800 (PST)

As noted, linux vs. FreeBSD vs. (NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSDI, other BSD) 
seems to be contentious for some reason.  It see no reason why
it should be.  All have their uses, and their kinship to each other,
particularly in the 99% of software above the kernel.  All are very
similar to each other when compared to, for example: 
VMS, MVS, NT, Windows95, MacOS, DOS, ...

I see people using linux and FreeBSD.  In both cases, you may expect 
some extra work getting good sound.  On the video side, you may also 
have a little extra work if you want to *transmit*.  (Start with a Bt848-
based card such as Hauppauge).  Receiving video, wb, sdr, etc., is 
out-of-the-box.

Also, I don't think other Unix systems are particularly contentious.
At this moment, I see people watching USENIX LISA using linux,
SunOS-4.1.3_U1, Solaris 2.5, Solaris 2.5.1, Solaris 2.6 (all SPARC),
unknown Solaris/architecture, Irix 6.2 (5.3 also works), and,
somewhat more rare, HP-UX-A.09.05-9000/735, and OSF1-V4.0-alpha.

I have never had any problems installing tools on Solaris.  The
only problems I have had on Irix have been DPS/Postscript-related
(with wb).  I don't have any experience with HP-UX and OSF1/alpha.

Getting back to the original question, I don't see any Solaris 
on x86 machines used for Mbone, and, I seem to recall that 
x86 multicast was lagging behind Solaris on SPARC.  Perhaps 
someone out there could give us the current information on 
multicast/Solaris[2.4-2.6]-x86.  Is anyone out there using 
Solaris x86 as an Mbone platform?

From: [email-masked]

> Hi,
> I'd say: none of the above (below since my mail proggie puts the
> original message at the end of the reply).
> 
> I'd recommend you use FreeBSD on a Pentium machine. It is a perfectly
> stable Unix, relatively secure (_I_ wouldn't put a Linux machine on my
> networks) 

However, linux may be appropriate for some users/uses/sites.  
I don't think there is enough information about the situation
to make a decision.  I admit I favor using one of the ___BSD's
myself, largely because of networking and security, but, linux 
has a large and devoted user community with a lot of multimedia 
app development, etc.

> ...       and you can find MBone apps already compiled for this OS.
> Compiling the popular MBone apps is a bitch (get the source code, find
> the matching and right combination of tcl/tk, compile tcl, compile tk,
> compile the MBone app, etc...) and you want to avoid it.

The big obstacle on FreeBSD is sound.  You need to get the right
sound card and the right sound drivers.  Or, vice-versa - pick
the drivers, get a matching sound card.  Unfortunately, this means
it is no longer a trivial solution, which is too bad, because, 
otherwise, FreeBSD is almost the easiest OS I know of to install 
reasonably.

> If money isn't an obstacle, you can still go for Win95/NT and get IP/TV
> from precept software (www.Precept.com) which makes a very Mbone app for
> Windoze machines and it provides you with advanced functionality such as
> monitoring the quality of reception of your audience. 

Precept makes perfect sense for a Microsoft-based shop which 
wants to bring audio/video reception to "Enterprise" desktops.

> Solaris 2.5.X may not work on 2.6 because of the (in) famous snprintf

I see a number of people using it, so there must be a solution for
whatever problems there are, but, I'm still using 2.5.1 (SPARC).

-Hugh LaMaster