Old PCsenvironmental hazard 3245

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Yes, that's my take on it too -- that it's close enough to a "current Unix system", meaning that (as you described in another post) I can open a terminal window and run the familiar commands I've been using for decades.

(Being able to also run software that's not available for a non-Mac Unix platform is, in some situations, a real plus. It sounds like that's where you are.)

Now, the GUI's different, but then there has always been a lot of variation in GUIs -- I'm thinking twm versus GNOME versus whateveritis OS X calls theirs. It's also, or so I hear, somewhat different from the point of view of the sysadmin, but that's another area in which Unix systems traditionally (IME IMO) differ to some extent.

I thought about mentioning OS X, and Solaris, and other Unix or perhaps I should stick to stuff I felt like I knew fairly well.

The ones that aren't getting used much (as opposed to a few desktop machines in individual offices) are a cluster of headless machines intended as compute servers, mostly bought to support a new faculty member's research, but available to everyone. The local admins just recently got them all up and running, and they live in a machine room away from public view, so my guess is that right now they're in the "well-kept secret" category. That may change; we do have a few faculty and students who need lots of cycles.

-- B. L. Mbuttingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.