Software reviews--MachTen 2.1: UNIX for Macintosh

Abstract

Machovec reviews Tenon Intersystems' MachTen 2.1, a UNIX for Macintosh software program.

Tenon Intersystems, 1123 Chapala St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; [phone]; fax [phone]; Internet info(at)tenon.com. System requirements: Macintosh Classic or better. The reviewer recommends a 68030 processor or accelerator board. At the time of writing, MachTen would not run on a 68040 processor, but Tenon Intersystems stated that an 040-compatible version would be available by the end of 1993. System software: System 6.0.7 or later. RAM: At least 4 MB and at least 5 MB for System 7. Eight megabytes is recommended for using the software-development tools. Disk storage: 29.5 MB to install. After installation MachTen Personal Edition occupies about 26.3 MB of disk space. Price: Personal MachTen $495; Professional MachTen $695; optional documentation $300; X-Window package $350; academic discounts up to 50 percent available.

Tenon Intersystems has been porting UNIX to Macintosh since 1989. Its most recent releases, the Professional and Personal editions release 2.1, improve on its earlier versions and continue to give owners of relatively low-cost Macintoshes the option of acquiring UNIX capabilities. Not merely a set of UNIX-like tools, MachTen offers Mac users Berkeley Software Distribution version 4.3 of UNIX complete with multitasking and networking capabilities as well as the rich set of utilities and C programming tools that come with Berkeley UNIX. Libraries can use MachTen to set up a UNIX server on Macs as humble as a Classic, at a very reasonable price.

TWO VERSIONS

The basic UNIX package comes in two editions, the Personal and the Professional. The Personal edition is a complete port of 4.3 BSD UNIX to the Macintosh with the utilities that UNIX users would expect on a workstation and some that they might not expect, such as a style checker and GNU utilities like gzip.(1) Both the C and the Bourne command shells are available, as is the vi text editor. In addition, a good set of C development tools is also included: the GNU C compiler, make, lex, yacc, lint, the GNU debugger gdb, and more. Perhaps the major value to libraries of a C development environment is the ability to build and compile downloaded freeware and shareware for UNIX. Tenon Intersystems maintains an ftp server with instructions on building some of the more popular free UNIX tools on a MachTen system.

The Professional edition has everything in the Personal edition and also a set of software-development tools, including the GNU C++ compiler, which runs only in virtual memory. These tools do not use Macintosh virtual memory available on machines with 030 processors or better, but paged virtual memory, which requires a PMMU chip. Unless a library has a particular need for the C++ language compiler, the Personal edition should be sufficient. The reviewer did not have access to a Mac with a PMMU, so the edition reviewed here is Personal MachTen, tested on a Macintosh LC with a 030 33 Mhz accelerator card and floating point processor, 10 MB of RAM, and an 80 MB hard disk.

INSTALLATION

Installation is quite painless. The six high-density diskettes with compressed files we copied onto the reviewer's hard disk within fifteen minutes. Unpacking the files and installing them took around thirty-five minutes, but the machine did not need to be attended during this period. MachTen must surely rate as one of the most hassle-free UNIX implementations to install. Configuring the installed system will take more or less time depending on the network connections to be established at the site and the number of users to be added.

UNIX FOR MOST MACS

Tenon states that MachTen will run on a Classic or higher Macintosh. At least 5 MB of RAM are required for running MachTen under System 7; at least 4 MB to run system 6.0.7 or a later version of System 6. To use the software-development tools, at least 8 MB of RAM are recommended. The entire MachTen package will occupy around 26 MB of hard-disk storage. While this may seem like a large bite out of storage, compare it with the 80 MB of storage required for Apple's own version of UNIX, A/UX. The latter also requires a disk partition, while MachTen does not. Once one is familiar with MachTen, it is possible to decrease the disk-storage requirements by deleting features unnecessary to a site's implementation.

SPEED

Though it is technically possible to run MachTen on a Classic, expect the program to run slowly on a 68000 processor. The system was none too nimble on the reviewer's equipment, though speed was certainly acceptable. Tenon makes some good recommendations for system tuning, suggestions that are applicable whether or not one is running MachTen:

Because of the size of the system, obviously not all of MachTen can be loaded into memory, so it must have frequent recourse to the hard disk. To increase hard-disk speed, consider installing a faster disk driver than the one Apple provides. Examples would be those available in the software packages FWB Hard Disk Tool Kit or Silverlining.

Experiment with RAM caching until a setting is found that provides optimal speed. Usually there is a setting beyond which one gains very little in speed and only needlessly takes valuable RAM away from applications. The reviewer found that on his equipment a setting of 128K produced a significant increase in performance over the minimum setting of 32K, but caches larger than 128K had little additional effect.

INTEGRATION OF THE MAC OS AND UNIX

Since MachTen is an application running on top of the Macintosh operating system, a certain degree of integration between the two systems is possible. One can run Macintosh applications simultaneously with UNIX applications. It is possible to copy and paste among open Macintosh applications and UNIX terminal windows. MachTen can use the native Macintosh Finder as well as the UNIX commands for file management. Text files may be exchanged between Macintosh and UNIX using Tenon's utilities unixtext and mactext.

MachTen's terminal windows have a Macintosh menu bar. Copy and paste as well as variable fonts are all supported. The windows menu item provides window management capabilities. Figure 1 shows two open terminal windows with documents open under the vi text editor. (Figure 1 omitted) Anyone who has tried to move text among open files on a UNIX terminal that shows only one window at a time will appreciate the ability to display multiple windows and exchange data among them.

NETWORKING

The term "Personal" in Personal MachTen might lead one to think that this edition is for single-user workstations only. Personal MachTen, however, supports the same networking options as does the Professional edition: Ethernet, Token Ring, and LocalTalk. File sharing is supported through NSF, the file-sharing standard developed by Sun Microsystems. The program has full facilities for TCP/IP and telnet A suite of UUCP communications tools is also available, as is software for establishing SLIP connections to the Internet over a serial line. In networking and communications as in hardware requirements, MachTen allows the user to go with less expensive options such as SLIP connections and LocalTalk. Libraries with tight budgets should appreciate this flexibility.

DOCUMENTATION

The basic package comes with a stapled installation and configuration guide as well as two spiral-bound manuals: MachTen User's Guide and the important manual entitled MachTen System & Network Administration. The manuals contain classic articles on their subjects by some of the famous names in UNIX history. Tenon has edited some of these texts to take account of MachTen's specific implementation of UNIX.

Additional optional documentation is available for $300. This set of manuals includes:

* A two-volume reference on the GNU C Compiler

* MachTen UNIX Basics

* MachTen Text Processing

* MachTen Reference Manuals: Two large looseleaf manuals, with entries on all the UNIX commands and a guide to the C libraries. These manuals' contents are also online in the "man" pages, which can be called up by typing "man" followed by the command name on the command line. These same man pages may also be explored using a HyperCard stack called ManTen.

* MachTen Programmer's Reference: These two volumes contain chapters on the various C programming tools available, such as lex, yacc, lint, and so forth. Most libraries will not need the optional documentation. Much of the information contained in these guides is available in other publications, many of which a probably already owned by libraries with computer science collections. The books published by Reilly and Associates are especially recommended for guidance on a variety of UNIX topics.

X-WINDOWS

X-Windows, the graphic interface for UNIX, is not included in either the basic Personal or Professional editions. An X package with server and client software and Motif development tools is available separately from Tenon for $350.

CONCLUSION

Personal MachTen can be highly recommended to libraries that want to acquire UNIX capabilities but do not have the funds to spend on expensive UNIX workstations. Libraries that already own and use Macintosh equipment will find the price and power of MachTen especially attractive.--Brian Sealy, University of Michigan.

NOTE

1. GNU stands for "GNU is not UNIX." GNU is a project of the Free Software Foundation of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The goal of the project is to write a freely distributable operating system and set of utilities and tools compatible with UNIX but using no copyrighted code.