OSF/1, Digital UNIX and Tru64 UNIX
DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX and Tru64 UNIX are three names for the same
thing: the Alpha platforms native UNIX implementation.
DEC OSF/1 was the original name, with Digital UNIX being adopted
starting at version 3.2. When Compaq acquired the company, they renamed
the product to Tru64 UNIX starting with version 4.0F. Here the Digital
UNIX name is mostly used unless a specific version is being referred to.
When deciding which version of Digital UNIX to install on a given Alpha,
you'll want to review the SPD documents for each version of interest to
check if that version supports the machine and hardware options you've
got. If you don't have a particular version in mind, then:
- 5.1B is the latest release and should support all Alphas except for
those listed in the next point.
- 5.0A is the last release to support the first generation Alphas
(most of which had odd busses such as TURBOchannel, XMI and
Futurebus+ instead of PCI). This includes the
DEC 2000/3000/4000/7000/10000 which were
dropped in Tru64 v5.1.
- 4.0F was the first release called Tru64 UNIX.
- 4.0E was the first release with Compaq branding (called
"Compaq's DIGITAL UNIX" in many places).
- 4.0E was the last release to include Display PostScript support. It
was
removed in Tru64 4.0F.
-
4.0D introduces y2k compatibility.
Earlier releases (
going back to v2.0) are not fully y2k compatible but there
is an updated date command for them to allow setting dates
past 1999 which should be in the latest aggregate patch kit
- 4.0C was
only released for the Personal Workstation au-Series. Installing
it on anything else will just give you 4.0B.
- 3.2 was the first version called Digital UNIX
Useful Links
Check the links on the left for patches, software and other useful
things. Some of the pages below may also be of interest: