Is this old version of Unix any good?

[bolisticus]

Hello,

I have an old version of SCO Unix that I bought off Ebay a couple years ago, and I'm wondering if it's practical to actually put it into a production environment anymore. I don't remember the exact version number (I'm at work right now), but the date it was made was 1992. I believe it was versio 2. something. Will this old version of Unix be compatible with modern hardware like an older p3 system, and does anyone know if it might be upgradeable for less then going out and buying a brand new full version of Unixware? Thanks

B

[bs_texas]

Dunno. But this might be an interesting read for ya:

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=100966&highlight=sco

[Icarus]

Hey, at least that version he has will be clean of any copyright infringments :D


I doubt it will work on any x86 hardware, you'll have to check the specs for it. Most older Unix's were made for Alpha or RISC processors...and if you can find a good deal on one of those, let me know! :)

[scott_R]

Assuming it is a PC version, it might work, but probably not the way you'll want it to. PC's had too many limitations back then, imposed by both the hardware and the software installed. For instance, if you can get it to start up and run, you might only be able to use a small part of your hard drive (400 was a huge drive back then.) You'll be lucky to be able to use VGA (not super VGA) at amazingly low resolution and no gui, which was about what you would have had on your desk back then. It might use all 8 or 16 megs of ram, too. Forget about sound cards, cdrom support, modem speeds over 14k, and so on. Granted, SCO might have supported more expensive hardware than I'm mentioning here, because it was tailored more toward corporate computers.

Oh, and as far production, even if the processor you have is willing to choke on that ancient OS, and may run it a thousand times faster than it originally ran, what are you going to do with it? The network protocals/hardware have changed, there isn't much if any software you can run on it, and if you do find some software, are you really going to want to go back to using the equivalent of vim for everyday work?

On the other hand, just to see if it works (or to test your own skills and knowledge), go ahead. If you do manage to get the software up and running, and somehow onto the internet, it would be interesting to see how long it lasted, security wise. Eleven years of viruses and exploits have passed since it was considered relatively secure.

Personally, I'd give it a try for those reasons, but for production use, I'd rather use Linux or freebsd.

[bolisticus]

Alright Scott, I think I see your point :) I just happened to have this boxed version of Unix (V3.2.4 386) and thought it might work for our needs, I'm not that *****ious though. I'm very short for spare time, so I need an OS that is secure, cheap, and relavitly easy to use for an e-mail server at my work. I have an old Dell Optiplex PIII desktop that I plan to use untill I learn how it works. Then I'll buy something that might be better described as a server. I know this isn't an easy question as people are so partial towards certain flavors, but can anyone recommend a good Linux or Unix OS for running strictly as an e-mail server (at least for now) that meets the criteria above? Thanks again.

B

[iDxMan]

Been using Matt's toaster recipe for over a year now and I'll never use anything else.

http://matt.simerson.net/computing/mail/


-r