rbradbur@oracle.UUCP (Robert Bradbury) (01/29/88)
I've recently installed DosMerge 386 (Beta 0.2) on my Compaq 386
running UNIX 5R3 version 2.2. My general impression is quite
favorable. The package provides an easy way to get multiple
DOS environments running under UNIX.
The following are some problems I've noted:
1) DosMerge wants to use the UNIX file system as drive C and
the DOS partition as drive E. This presents problems if you
run "real" DOS and have hardwired configuration files directed
to drive C (they need to be directed to drive E under DosMerge).
There are ways to work around this by re-assigning drives but
it would be nice if DosMerge allowed you to run a standard DOS
environment (i.e. hard disk DOS partition == DOS drive C).
2) The DOS clock/timer doesn't work correctly. This prevents programs which
use timeouts (like communication programs) or the Norton SI utility
from operating correctly. Locus support provided me with a workaround
for this problem and say that it is fixed in the 1.0 (production) release.
3) You can't load the Compaq clock driver under DosMerge. DosMerge
normally gets the date and time from UNIX when it starts a DOS
image. Loading the clock driver resets the date and time.
4) You can't use the Compaq TAPE utility under DosMerge. This is
unfortunate because it justifies the purchase of DosMerge. In
order to backup UNIX at the current time you either have to use
floppies or go out and buy a tape unit for $1000+. The Compaq
tape drive is a strange beast. It is designed to look like
floppy drive 4 on the standard floppy controller. The TAPE utility
issues "step commands" to the controller which the tape drive
interprets as read/write/seek commands. Neither Locus nor Microport
can provide a reason the tape drive fails to work.
5) Attaching multi-port async boards to DOS under DosMerge doesn't work.
DosMerge provides a file (/etc/dosdev) which allows you to specify
hardware configurations (interrupt addr, IRQ#, memory addresses, dma
channel) for boards like the Digiboard COM/8i. The support people at
Locus tell me I have it configured right but none of the support people
(at Locus, Microport or Digiboard) can tell me why the board is not
accessible.
The support situation on this product is currently pretty bad.
Locus is shipping production release 1.0 but only under UNIX
version 2.1. Microport is shipping the beta release 0.2 under
the more recent UNIX version 2.2. It doesn't seem you can
have your cake and eat it as far as getting production releases
of both UNIX and DosMerge.
If anyone has any comments or insight into any of these problems I'd
appreciate your thoughts (email is preferable as reading all the traffic
in comp.sys.ibm.pc is a full time job).
Is there anything we can do to make reading the pc news topic palatable?
What happened to comp.sys.microport? Any votes for comp.sys.dosmerge?
--
Robert Bradbury
Oracle Corporation
(206) 364-1442 hplabs!oracle!bradbury