SEO

The company I work for will be switching to another OS (HPUX) in
another year. We don't currently use Unix although I am very familiar
with the Solaris side since I spent 7 years administering it. Are there
any major differences I should be aware of? I'm going to be the main
guy to answer any questions since I'm the only one with a Unix back
ground. Everyone else is windows. Are the commands the same or at least
very similar? What shell should we use? I have a fondness for the Korn
shell but that's just me. I want to do what's best for the company and
new users of Unix. Any suggestions on where I can go to get myself up
to speed on HP-UX?

Thanks :-)

ka_stevens@hotmail.com wrote:
> The company I work for will be switching to another OS (HPUX) in
> another year. We don't currently use Unix although I am very familiar
> with the Solaris side since I spent 7 years administering it. Are there
> any major differences I should be aware of? I'm going to be the main
> guy to answer any questions since I'm the only one with a Unix back
> ground. Everyone else is windows. Are the commands the same or at least
> very similar? What shell should we use? I have a fondness for the Korn
> shell but that's just me. I want to do what's best for the company and
> new users of Unix. Any suggestions on where I can go to get myself up
> to speed on HP-UX?
>
> Thanks :-)
>
HA HA HA HA

I had to do it before you guys did... ka, do you know the expression
"UP SHIT CREEK!"

On 12 Aug 2005 16:05:33 -0700, ka_stevens@hotmail.com wrote:

>The company I work for will be switching to another OS (HPUX) in
>another year. We don't currently use Unix although I am very familiar
>with the Solaris side since I spent 7 years administering it. Are there
>any major differences I should be aware of? I'm going to be the main
>guy to answer any questions since I'm the only one with a Unix back
>ground. Everyone else is windows. Are the commands the same or at least
>very similar? What shell should we use? I have a fondness for the Korn
>shell but that's just me. I want to do what's best for the company and
>new users of Unix. Any suggestions on where I can go to get myself up
>to speed on HP-UX?
>
>Thanks :-)

A quick reference to the differences can be found at a rosetta stone,
just google for 'unix rosetta'.


HP also has published several books on HP-UX administration:
http://www.hp.com/hpbooks/index.html

HP also offers training classes on the subject:
http://www.hp.com/education/sections/hpux.html

Also the documentation is online:
http://docs.hp.com/


Open Source binaries can be found at:
http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/

HP binaries can be downloaded from (some for free)
http://software.hp.com/

Developer support can be found at: http://www.hp.com/go/dspp

The latest Java VMs are here: http://www.hp.com/go/java


(Binaries are kept in depots (fancy tar files) that you install using
swinstall)

There are difference between Solaris and HP-UX, not the least is one is
BSD derived and the other is OSF.

It's been a while since I used Solaris, so some assumptions may be
outdated. Adding a device in HP-UX, like plugging in a new hot-plug
disk doesn't require a reboot, just an ioscan and insf. SAM is your
friend as a newbie admin. HP's commands and compilers tend to be very
strict about adhering to the standard/documentation.

HP-UX 11i v1 and previous versions run on PA only
HP-UX 11i v2 prior to B.11.23 runs on IA only
HP-UX 11i v2 (B.11.23 also referred to as Sept04) and later runs on both
current PA and current IA.

On 12 Aug 2005 16:05:33 -0700
ka_stevens@hotmail.com wrote:

> The company I work for will be switching to another OS (HPUX) in
> another year.

HP-UX is an odd choice. It's a capable if plain Unix variant, but
suffers from HPQ's lack of commitment to both the server market and
non-Windows OSes. In addition, it's no longer a real workstation OS;
HP stopped selling Itanium workstations, so you will have to do all
your development work (if any) on the server(s), and in addition
switching all users from Windows to HP-UX is not an option.

Replacing Windows servers with HP-UX is not without issues. You'll have
to use Samba, and even though the Samba team tries to support as many
Unixen as possible, HP-UX on Itanium is not very common, and hence it
does suffer from more compatibility issues than mainstream Unix
variants such as Solaris and Linux. You will want to have at least one
Linux (or Solaris, or *BSD) box to avoid having to manage your HP-UX
server(s) through Windows. There are X clients for Windows, and you can
install Cygwin, but using a real Unix box is far easier; all users
should remain on Windows, for sure.

> We don't currently use Unix although I am very familiar
> with the Solaris side since I spent 7 years administering it. Are there
> any major differences I should be aware of? I'm going to be the main
> guy to answer any questions since I'm the only one with a Unix back
> ground.

How long ago did you work with Solaris?

HP-UX always uses a volume manager, unlike Solaris which can still be
installed directly onto disk slices. It's not a major issue, and the
HP-UX approach is far better. HP-UX comes with SAM, which is HP's
attempt at copying AIX's SMIT. Unfortunately, where SMIT is indeed
sufficient to manage AIX, SAM often needs to be supplemented by
commmand line work. Solaris never had any usable GUI-based
administration tool, so you won't feel too far from home :-)

The Unix Rosetta Stone (http://bhami.com/rosetta.html) is an excellent
reference for differences between HP-UX and Solaris.

> Everyone else is windows. Are the commands the same or at least
> very similar? What shell should we use? I have a fondness for the Korn
> shell but that's just me. I want to do what's best for the company and
> new users of Unix. Any suggestions on where I can go to get myself up
> to speed on HP-UX?

You seem to indicate that your company wants to switch users to HP-UX,
and that is a Very Dumb Idea (TM). HP-UX makes an excellent server OS,
but on the desktop, it's dead. You need GNOME or KDE to avoid having
your Windows XP users run away screaming (CDE is Windows 3.x vintage
technology). OpenOffice.org support on HP-UX is minimal (again, Itanium
HP-UX boxes are not easy to get), and HP itself isn't really interested
in promoting HP-UX as a desktop OS. You will have to do much of the
compiling of the standard applications your users will need (such as
OpenOffice, Firefox and an email client) yourself.

If your company wants to abandon Windows because of the security
issues, they should be looking at an OS that has good desktop support.
That means either Linux (when you're more of the do-it-yourself
variety), Apple or Solaris.

There are quite a few very nice Linux distributions, but the rather
frenetic update cycles make it difficult to stabilise your platform.
The enterprise-class distributions are less volatile, but aren't cheap.
The advantage of Linux is that you should be able to keep using your
existing PCs. Support for OpenOffice.org is excellent on Linux, and the
desktops look enough like XP to ease the transition for Joe Average
User.

Apple makes very nice hardware, and the Mac mini makes a very
serviceable desktop machine. OS X isn't the best server OS, though. The
advantage is that users can continue to use Word (even though the
compatibility between Word/Mac and Word/Windows isn't 100%). Using Mac
desktops with HP-UX servers would be a nice compromise if your company
is bent on getting HP-UX and Itanium.

You can get Solaris 10 on PC-class hardware, quite possibly your
current Windows PCs. You can get humongeous SPARC servers running the
same OS, and SPARC based workstations (such as the Blade 1500) to
compile for them. Or you could decide to get rid of PCs and equip all
your users with SunRays. Sun has a subscription model for their desktop
software (based around JDS and StarOffice), which might be the right
cross between price, stability and MS-Office compatibility.

But *switching* all users to HP-UX seems rather ill-conceived (if not
downright foolish).

Take care,

--
Stefaan
--
As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning,
and meaningful statements lose precision. -- Lotfi Zadeh

Personally, I like Solaris, at lease it supports Java much better ...

John S.
----------------------------------------------------

http://2020ok.com
The Largest Collection Of Free Online Books On Earth!

From an SA's perspective, Solaris always seemed half-baked to me. Maybe
10 is better. I come from an HP-UX background, and working with Solaris
8, I can't believe you still deal with disk slices, that there is no
reasonable equivalent to HP-UX's ioscan, etc. Everything seems to take a
lot more effort than in HP-UX.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 23:23:49 GMT
Anon <anon@none.co.us> wrote:

> From an SA's perspective, Solaris always seemed half-baked to me. Maybe
> 10 is better. I come from an HP-UX background, and working with Solaris
> 8, I can't believe you still deal with disk slices, that there is no
> reasonable equivalent to HP-UX's ioscan, etc. Everything seems to take a
> lot more effort than in HP-UX.

Solaris Volume Manager has been included since Solaris 9, and was
available (for free) with Solaris 8. It's just that one isn't forced to
use it like with AIX or HP-UX. But then, HP-UX got kernel modules much
later than Solaris, so what you gain in the swings you lose in the
roundabouts. It's basically what you're used to that defines how you
perceive the approach of another variant.

The real nice thing about Solaris is that it's available for SPARC and
x86, so you can (if you wish), run the whole show on one OS. If you set
up a Jumpstart environment, installing a new machine is essentially
done the moment you plug it into the network. Combine that with SunRays
for people who only causally use their machines, and your sysadmin work
becomes very easy indeed. Single OS, single skills set.

HP-UX is a nice server OS, but only that - not so much because it
can't be used on the desktop, but because HP has embraced MS Windows as
their desktop OS, and prefers killing of its own (superior) OSes to
please Redmond. It's a pity.

Take care,

--
Stefaan
--
As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning,
and meaningful statements lose precision. -- Lotfi Zadeh

On the Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:32:02 +0200, Stefaan A Eeckels uttered forth
the following...

<snip>
>
> But *switching* all users to HP-UX seems rather ill-conceived (if not
> downright foolish).
>
>
Firstly where did the OP mention anything about moving everyone (ie
desktop users) to HP/UX? I imagine they are running Oracle or Ingres in
a Windows Server environment and have decided to switch to HP/UX purely
for this environment. The Oracle front-end would intergrate seemlessly
under Windows without the need for Sambe. This is speculation of course
on my part but I'd imagine this is likely to be the case or similar.

The rest of your post just seems to go on about using other choices of
hardware & OS's. Are you a reseller on commission?

In response to the OP though, I'd say it won't take very long to pick up
HP/UX & the web references given already are more then enough to get you
going. Look closely at HP/UX LVM & also at Veritas VM as you may end up
using the latter. IMHO HP/UX is a great OS, is very stable & lends
itself very nicely to disaster recovery.

BTW I use Solaris & HP/UX and if given the choice I'd personally opt for
HP/UX as Solaris can become a bit of a patch jungle, as you are probably
already aware.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 12:37:32 +0100
Sean <snm_uk@coldmail.com> wrote:

> On the Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:32:02 +0200, Stefaan A Eeckels uttered forth
> the following...
>
> <snip>
> >
> > But *switching* all users to HP-UX seems rather ill-conceived (if not
> > downright foolish).
> >
> >
> Firstly where did the OP mention anything about moving everyone (ie
> desktop users) to HP/UX?

| ka_stevens@hotmail.com wrote:
| > The company I work for will be switching to another OS (HPUX) in
| > another year. We don't currently use Unix...
| ... I want to do what's best for the company and new users of Unix.

That's what the OP said. His company will be *switching* to another OS.

> I imagine they are running Oracle or Ingres in
> a Windows Server environment and have decided to switch to HP/UX purely
> for this environment. The Oracle front-end would intergrate seemlessly
> under Windows without the need for Sambe. This is speculation of course
> on my part but I'd imagine this is likely to be the case or similar.

You berate me for reacting to what the OP said (and notice that I did
give a reference to the Rosetta Stone, which is what he needs to compare
Solaris and HP-UX) while you embark on a flight of fancy? If the OP
wanted to know what would be involved in migrating from Oracle on
Windows to Oracle on HP-UX, he would in all likelihood have asked just
that question, don't you think so?

> The rest of your post just seems to go on about using other choices of
> hardware & OS's. Are you a reseller on commission?

Yeah, of all of the alternatives I discussed. Solaris, Linux and Apple.
I *did* notice that the original article wasn't exactly clear on what
the OP's company was going to do, which is exactly why I posted what I
posted - to get him/her to react and say something like - "We never
thought of abandoning Windows for the user PCs, but we are moving our
back-office from Windows (or VMS) to HP-UX". Then I can give better
targetted advice.

> In response to the OP though, I'd say it won't take very long to pick up
> HP/UX & the web references given already are more then enough to get you
> going. Look closely at HP/UX LVM & also at Veritas VM as you may end up
> using the latter. IMHO HP/UX is a great OS, is very stable & lends
> itself very nicely to disaster recovery.

Which is what I said - it's an excellent server OS, but at this moment
of its (and HP's) existence, it's a non-starter on the desktop, and
it's not really well served by the OS community because HP abandoned
the Itanium workstation market. Samba (which the OP *will* need if he
wants to connect Windows machines to a HP-UX server) gets far less
testing on HP-UX/Itanium than on more common Unix variants, and that has
an impact on the effort the OP will have to put into getting it to run.

> BTW I use Solaris & HP/UX and if given the choice I'd personally opt for
> HP/UX as Solaris can become a bit of a patch jungle, as you are probably
> already aware.

I also use Solaris and HP-UX, and I'm perfectly comfortable with either
as a server solution (even with the current hiccoughs in the Solaris 10
patch process), but hugely prefer Solaris as a desktop OS. SunRays
aren't perfect (what is?) but with JDS they are a very usable solution
for casual users, that minimises system administration work. There is no
similar solution for HP-UX (and no version of HP-UX for x86 either).

Let's hear from the OP what his company's up to.

Take care,

--
Stefaan
--
As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning,
and meaningful statements lose precision. -- Lotfi Zadeh

On the Mon, 15 Aug 2005 15:34:00 +0200, Stefaan A Eeckels uttered forth
the following...
> > under Windows without the need for Sambe. This is speculation of course
> > on my part but I'd imagine this is likely to be the case or similar.
>
> You berate me for reacting to what the OP said (and notice that I did
> give a reference to the Rosetta Stone, which is what he needs to compare
> Solaris and HP-UX) while you embark on a flight of fancy? If the OP
> wanted to know what would be involved in migrating from Oracle on
> Windows to Oracle on HP-UX, he would in all likelihood have asked just
> that question, don't you think so?

Berate? I did nothing of the sort.. believe me if I had done you'd know
about it. As for flight of fancy I merely offered my thoughts on what
the OP probably meant, as you did yourself.

> > The rest of your post just seems to go on about using other choices of
> > hardware & OS's. Are you a reseller on commission?
>
> Yeah, of all of the alternatives I discussed. Solaris, Linux and Apple.
> I *did* notice that the original article wasn't exactly clear on what
> the OP's company was going to do, which is exactly why I posted what I
> posted - to get him/her to react and say something like - "We never
> thought of abandoning Windows for the user PCs, but we are moving our
> back-office from Windows (or VMS) to HP-UX". Then I can give better
> targetted advice.

TBH I didn't really see the point in you doing this as the company have
already made a decision so it seems to move to HP. I did forget the
smiley after the reseller bit though.

I also noted yours and others contributions as to where to look.
>
> I also use Solaris and HP-UX, and I'm perfectly comfortable with either
> as a server solution (even with the current hiccoughs in the Solaris 10
> patch process), but hugely prefer Solaris as a desktop OS. SunRays
> aren't perfect (what is?) but with JDS they are a very usable solution
> for casual users, that minimises system administration work. There is no
> similar solution for HP-UX (and no version of HP-UX for x86 either).
>
>
Again I guess it's all supposition as to what the OP's needs really are
but I am yet to find an organisation that runs UNIX on all it's desktops
apart from some who have gone to Linux, which of course isn't a UNIX OS.


Any offence taken wasn't intended.