Guys,
I am toying with the idea of aquiring a HP workstation (B2000). I want
to have HP-UX 11i. Like Sun, does HP give away the software? How can I
aquire them?

On eBay, I got to see CDs being sold. Do I have to purchase a license
from HP in addition?

THanks in advance...

thick_guy_9@yahoo.com schrieb:

> I am toying with the idea of aquiring a HP workstation (B2000). 

Good idea, but you should be aware that the B2000 has some limitation 
compared to the B1000/C3xx0 machines. And c3600 systems are really 
_dirt_ cheap today.

> I want
> to have HP-UX 11i. Like Sun, does HP give away the software? 

Yes, for money. The CD kit is still several hundred bucks if bought 
separately...

> How can I
> aquire them?

ebay? Or elsewhere? ;-)

> On eBay, I got to see CDs being sold. Do I have to purchase a license
> from HP in addition?

No. Every Series 700 machines (700s are workstations, the B2000 and all 
other B and C and J class machines fall into that category) comes with 
the license (bound to the machine, not to the user). So you can run the 
HP-UX version the machine has been sold (or later been upgraded) with. 
You are allowed to borrow you media from elsewhere to reinstall this 
HP-UX version if you need to do a reinstall.

In case of the B2000 it's very likely that the HP-UX release that came 
with it was 11.0 (or even 10.20). The c3600s probably already came with 
11i but also were orderable with 11.0 and 10.20.

Honestly, as long as you don't use it commercially, the best thing would 
be to fetch an 11i media kit from ebay and install it. HP most likely 
doesn't care what you run on that old workstation for hobby purposes, 
and also is not able to verify if the machine runs 11i legally or not 
(they usually loose track of these workstations as soon as they are 
removed from support contract).

But be aware that there are different 11i versions:

- 11i v1 (aka B.11.11) is for PA-RISC machines (incl. the B2000 and all 
the other B, C and J class machines)
- 11i v1.5 (B.11.20) is for Itanium (only for HP i2000, rx4610, rx9610; 
mostly a developer release); EOL'd
- 11i v1.6 (B.11.22) is for Itanium and Itanium2: EOL'd
- 11i v2 (B.11.23) is for Itanium2 (no Itanium any more) and for PA-RISC 
_Servers_ (it can be installed on workstations but doesn't support any 
gfx except the low end VisualizeFXe; but that's probably enough if you 
want to use these machines as servers).

Benjamin