cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (09/16/88)
In article <626@mace.cc.purdue.edu> mtr@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Miek Rowan) writes: >After cleaning up Sun's code, dealing with thier equipment et al ... >I would not recommend a Sun to my worst enemy. They have had some >good ideas, but thats about it. >mtr After checking the Sun bugs database I find that Purdue has called in seven (7) bugs, of which 4 were fixed more than two releases ago, 2 are fixed in the current release and one is fixed but it isn't in a release yet. Oh and *none* of the bugs have your name on them. Do you work for Kirk Smith? Anyway, the point is twofold : a) We have bugs and we know it. Sending them to bugs@sun.com (sun!bugs) and most times to Sun-spots will get them brought to our attention and fixed. b) Where was the content of this posting? What exactly was it that got you so irritated? Anyway, hope you feel better for having said it. Sorry we haven't been able to meet your standards. We will continue to try. And of course we need your help to point out those things that you feel are problems, as sometimes we don't see them that way and thus don't change them. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
mtr@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Miek Rowan) (09/18/88)
In article <68544@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes: > In article <626@mace.cc.purdue.edu> mtr@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Miek Rowan) writes: > >After cleaning up Sun's code, dealing with thier equipment et al ... > >I would not recommend a Sun to my worst enemy. They have had some > >good ideas, but thats about it. > >mtr > > After checking the Sun bugs database I find that Purdue has called in seven > (7) bugs, of which 4 were fixed more than two releases ago, 2 are fixed in > the current release and one is fixed but it isn't in a release yet. Oh and > *none* of the bugs have your name on them. Do you work for Kirk Smith? I do not work with Kirk Smith, and these opinions are my own, and I make no claims about or related to my employer. Take this in a personal respect as I am sure we will be contacting Sun in an official manner on these items and some others. First, I did *not* mention bugs, although I could have, so you checking a bugs database is kinda dumb. My *real* complaint is the state that you send your distribution out in. I have hit three major problems: 1) Some sources are missing completely. 2) Some binaries don't match the sources, and we can't recreate the binary without loosing functionality 3) Some of the sources even had syntax errors in them Some other points, good and bad: o The dyamic libraries are neat, although I have seen them before. (but sun never did claim they invented them). o The modifications to make can get pretty annoying. o The system is also one big security headache, although that is true of any workstation. 0 You guys were a little haphazard in moving some sources and not others. I have a color Sun 3 in my office and it is just unacceptably slow. Especially if you want to use X11R2, but it carries on to Sunview also. It can get so that scrolling is no better than 1200 baud dial up. HP's color workstation is about 100 times faster, although they have thier own problems with networking. Maybe I was a little harsh to say "my worst enemy". Everyone talks so highly of Suns equipment that I was really disappointed when i sat down and worked with one. If you are going to buy a Unix box, shop around. Maybe Sun is *your* best buy. It is all a matter of context: what are you getting it for? I hope that future releases continue to improve, and I would much rather deal with Sun than Apple (or even Dec). Again, I am stating what I think, not nessasarily how Purdue feels. mtr
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (09/18/88)
(This discussion doesn't really belong here so I've redirected followups to comp.unix.wizards) In article <657@mace.cc.purdue.edu> mtr@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Miek Rowan) writes: |I have a color Sun 3 in my office and it is just unacceptably slow. |Especially if you want to use X11R2, but it carries on to Sunview |also. It can get so that scrolling is no better than 1200 baud dial |up. HP's color workstation is about 100 times faster, although they |have thier own problems with networking. Hmm. I use a Sun 2/120 with x11r2 and it's not "unacceptably slow" for most things. If you put xterm into "jump" mode you get good speed on the scrolling. Of course you can't read it then but most people can't follow stuff running out at more than 4800 baud anyway; that's why "more" is there. On a Sun 3/50 x11r2 performance is much better, although still slow for really intensive graphics applications. This is mostly due to the lack of a good x11 server for the sun. A quote from the documentation of the Sun server: "The drivers are completely untuned and have inferior performance." If someone got on the ball and tuned the server you'd see much better performance, especially on the color systems (like yours) where the server is *really* untuned. I maintain that it's good enough to get work done on, though. If you want real performance I suggest using a Sun 3/50 (or better a Sun 4/110) as a smart graphics terminal to something like an Encore. Yanking all the non-graphics stuff off the Sun and putting it on a scream machine gives very nice performance and is fairly transparent under x11; even my Sun 2 runs nicely when I offload the application to a Silicon Graphics 4D. It's true that Sun's are sometimes plagued with hardware problems, but my experiences with their support were all favorable. In addition they understand that not all users are stupid and allow them to do board swapping and the like, something that I appreciate. I haven't any experience with their newer machines (we have 2 Roadrunners and a few Sun 4's coming, but nothing yet) so I can't comment on increasing or decreasing reliability. So far I've had one mono card blow up on me, a disk problem, and a couple of mono screens have flipped out, but Sun dealt with them quickly so I've no complaints. I have no idea just how long my Sun 2 has been around, but considering that it's a Sun 2 I'd say that it's been awhile. As for their software, it's a good and bad thing. I *like* SunOS, at least 3.5. Some of the networking stuff -- like the yp server -- is pretty hairy and not so reliable, but if you don't have a big network you don't need it and it runs very cleanly. NFS setup is simple and very easily maintained. Security is a problem but it ALWAYS is when the user has direct access to the hardware, not one manufacturer can say otherwise. It still takes a little ingenuity to really screw things up, to Sun's credit, and putting a password on single-user boots really blocks up some holes that exist in 3.5. In summary I don't think you've voiced a valid complaint. There is virtually nothing else that works as well as Sun workstations in their price range. 386 PC's don't have anywhere near the networking support that Sun's do, almost never have good support, and cost nearly as much. Higher-end workstations (eg Silicon Graphics) often address these problems but they're for a more specific audience and cost a lot more. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu