[SunRescue] Q on "optimal" OS for Sun4c machines, now that Solaris 8 won't run

[P.A.OsborneP.A.Osborne at ukc.ac.uk]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 09:11:47PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
>   Wow.  Is it possible that we are the last generation of people that
> will know how computers actually *work*?  No computer *science* will
> be learnt on Windows boxes, in my opinion.

hehehe - sorry.

The Comp Sci people here have always given the students Unix access, 
until about three years ago there was a taught course on Unix as it
was essential for other courses. Since then the Uni has decided that
we are a MS campus (dont say a word) and the Comp Sci's get access 
to Unix but most work is done on NT (core services such as email/news/
www etc have never left unix - as a number of us offered to leave if 
the mail system got switched to exchange).  

However the Comp Sci techy staff have been keeping the Unix stuff up
to date so the students can use Unix - if they choose to.  The killer
bit is that Sun have decided that they want to be friendly to the 
Comp Sci dept (someone high up at Sun did a degree here) and have
been throughing money at them.  This has lead to the reinstatement
of the Unix course for Comp Sci students and reasonable equipment 
for them to use (a fully stuffed E450 is being commissioned to replace
three (not quite) teaching machines).

In the meantime the students on the study bedroom network are using
unix more and more and thats not just the comp scis - its because
some of them are tired on windows and just want to experiment. 

So at UKC at least Unix is becoming more popular amongst the students
and is going to be taught again.

--Paul