Grass for Dos or Grass under unix on a PC

[Gerald I. Evenden]

>From: martin at ulysses.sis.ualberta.ca (Tim Martin)
>Subject: Re: Grass for Dos or Grass under unix on a PC
>To: grassu-list at max.cecer.army.mil
>Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:16:37 +22305823 (MDT)
>> 
>> Does any one know if there is version of unix for a PC that will run Grass?
>> 
>
>Yes, there are several, but the one I am most interested in is Linux.
>It is free, with source code, and available via ftp from tsx-11.mit.edu.
>It is discussed in the newsgroup comp.os.linux.  It is a hacker's dream
>and a beginner's nightmare, because it is still officially "beta" and is
>continually being updated and patched. But it is quite stable and quite
>a complete UNIX implementation.  A number of people have managed to
>get grass running on it.  
>
>Tim 
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>  Tim Martin                     *
>  Spatial Information Systems    * These opinions are my own:
>  University of Alberta          *    My employer has none!
>  martin at ulysses.sis.ualberta.ca *
> -------------------------------------------------------------

Lot'sa flavors of Unix for PC's but you better have a beefy PC if
you want to have X11.  Suggest 16Mb ram for starters, significantly
better performance with 32Mb, 300Mb min hard-disk (Unix usually ruins
about 200Mb) but a more reasonable size is 600Mb.  33MHz 486 is starting
cpu but, if you can, look at DX2's 50Mhz or 66MHz.  NO SX's.  Also
be sure that the motherboard has a GOOD reputation, Unix is not
tolerant of some of the cheaper clones.  Obviously, 1024x780x8 video
required and the bigger the screen, the better, but I get by on
a 15 incher.

My son put linux on my old Compaq, 16MHz 386 with 287, 4Mb ram and 70Mb
disk.  No room for X11 and networking goodies.  Except for some
problems with float (I suspect due to only having the 287) it---ran but
sloowwwly.  In contrast, my DELL 466DE with DELL's SVR4-2.2 runs about
twice as fast as a Sparc 2 and nearly as fast as a DEC 5000.

If you have a PC, make a realistic appraisal of what it is and if you
are going to buy one, figure on starting with at least $5,000.

Gerald (Jerry) I. Evenden   Internet: gie at charon.er.usgs.gov
voice: (508)563-6766          Postal: P.O. Box 1027
  fax: (508)457-2310                  N.Falmouth, MA 02556-1027