paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) (12/18/87)
First, ISC would not sell to me since I only had one client who wanted it
and I would not commit to $50K in sales the first year. They sent me to
CTG/Telemedia in Chicago, who have been pleasant and quick so far, although
it's worth noting that Chicago is a few timezones ahead of me, and Telemedia
has an answering service as of mid-afternoon my time. Not good.
Installation was easy and required no second-guessing or tweaking. All the
command scripts and whatnot were easy to use, even intuitive. As a sort-of
experienced System V sysadmin, I had no trouble with the 'sysadm' menus, so
installing all the optional packages was simple as well.
The documentation that comes with the system is lousy. Three binders were
included (I got the "applications platform," since I needed most of the
things it included and it was the cheapest way to get them). These binders
are: "Using 386/ix Products", "Managing 386/ix Products", and "Supplement".
Although they include man pages for SENDMAIL and SMAIL, the man pages for
the device-files are almost the ONLY useful things in the whole set. As
an example, they mention a "HOT Key" that switches virtual terminals on the
console, and they mention it EVERYWHERE in the documentation. To find out
what key sequence actually *IS* the "HOT Key", you have to look in Appendix
"B" of "386/ix Maintainance Procedures" in the "Managing 386/ix Products"
binder.
More documentation woes: there are no docs for the DWB or the Development
system -- although at a combined price of $1995 retail for this system, I
feel like they could certainly have thrown these in. They make frequent
mention of the "UNIX System V System Adminitrator's {Guide,Reference Man.}",
and even go to great lengths to suggest that Prentice Hall or a local
technical bookstore may have it. However, PH will not actually be printing
this part of its UNIX System V documentation set until sometime in January,
1988. I called 1-800-ATT-UNIX, waited 15 (yes, FIFTEEN!) minutes on "hold"
before someone told me that since I was not a source-code licensee, I was
calling the wrong number. They suggested 1-800-432-6600, and after letting
this number ring for 4 minutes 30 seconds, I was asked for a "Select Code".
I said I didn't know the select code, but I knew the title of the manual I
wanted. Sorry, you have to have the select code. How can I find out what
it is? Sorry, sir, I don't know.
CTG/Telemedia in Chicago knew the select code, and the prices: $110 for the
SysAdm Guide, and $55 for the SysAdm RefMan. They suggested waiting until
January when the P-H paperbacks were available, since the prices for those
would be $35 and $25, respectively. I told them that the system was not
usable without these manuals, and if I told my client that they would have
to wait until January, they'd be very upset. What I'm actually going to do
is borrow a set of 3B2 manuals from one of my other clients -- this is
probably what AT&T would sell me for $110+$55, now that I think of it.
Okay, so now let's talk about the software. There's the usual problem of
DWB 2.0 having support for the APS-5 (bigger than my car) but not for the
HP LaserJet. I already knew of this, though, and I'd planned on using
'otroff' with the HP LaserJet filter posted to USENET a while back. Guess
what? 'Otroff' is not included with DWB as shipped from ISC. I'm not sure
what I'll do about this, but NROFF ought to work for now, except...
The LP driver prints about 1 CPS. I've heard of this problem, but I thought
it was something in the version as shipped to Intel/ATT/BellTech/Microport;
it never occurred to me that ISC's version would still have the bug. I
guess I'll use a serial port for the printer, if the serial port works (I
havn't tried, since I don't have a 9-pin connector for the AT-compatible
serial port on this machine).
There's this program called UUGETTY that seems to have something to do with
bidirectional modem usage (i.e., dial in and dial out on the same line).
Since I don't have the SysAdm manual, I can't quite figure out what the
options to UUGETTY are or what they should be, but I know that (1) the
'sysadm' menu package added the UUGETTY line to my /etc/inittab file when
I told it I wanted a bidirectional modem line, and (2) it doesn't work --
if I have UUGETTY running, 'cu' and 'uucico' refuse to use the line. I
don't know whether the modem device file should be configured for modem
control or not, or whether the modem itself should show true DCD. I don't
know anything about how to do all that, since I don't have (and cannot
easily get) the SysAdm RefMan.
The manual page says that only two 'asy' asychronous serial ports are
supported. That's funny, DOS supports four! Oh well, I'll disable one
of the serial ports on the motherboard and move the internal modem down
to COM2 (tty01, I hope). Seems to work; I'm using it to type this message
into my BERKELEY UNIX machine at home, as I sit in the client's office.
VP/ix is ISC's way to run MSDOS applications on a UNIX/386 system. This
part of the system seems reasonably well done, except that the "pop-up menu"
is supposed to come up when you hit "SYS REQ", but I found two things out
from long experimentation: (1) ALT+SHIFT+SYSREQ is the only thing that
works, only if pressed in that order (i.e., SHIFT+ALT+SYSREQ won't work),
and (2) if you hit CONTROL+ALT+SYSREQ, an odd message appears which tells
me that a debugger has been called without support having been loaded for
it, and that virtual terminal (maybe all of them, I didn't try others) is
DEAD DEAD DEAD until you reboot the machine.
There is an /etc/termcap file that has most or all or even more termcap
entries than I've ever seen in my whole life. However, it does not seem
to match the contents of /usr/lib/terminfo/*/*, and I am ignorant of
Terminfo (Mark! How could you write this piece of crap?), and I have no
manual for it... Anyway, I don't know what value to use for the TERM
environment variable. I use 'ansi', which works for the most part except
that the screen has 25 lines and 'ansi' specifies 24. This means that
whenever I scroll in 'vi' or 'jove', the screen needs to be refreshed.
I would think that ISC must have supplied a TermInfo entry for the system
console, but none of the manuals I received seems to indicate what the NAME
of this Terminfo entry is. I'm still looking, though.
Is there something special I need to do to make the "~user" expansion work
in the C-Shell? If I just log in and say "echo ~root" (or any existing
or non-existing user), csh just says: "No such user: root" (or whatever).
I plan to read the csh man page (supplied by ISC) verrrrry carefully and
maybe there's another RTFM here.
Crippled. I need 'macasgn', which I suppose should be in /usr/vpix/dosbin,
but is not. Without this command, I cannot make arbitrary UNIX directories
appear to be MSDOS drive letters; without this, I cannot use any DOS
software that insists on being installed at the root of a drive letter
(this is MOST MSDOS software). I'm also missing 'xdir' from the same
directory, but this is obviously less critical.
So, to sum up my first impressions: this thing SUCKS. I went with UNIX
instead of Xenix because I didn't want something whose roots were in sysIII
and PCDOS (no flames, please, I've seen the arguments about this), and I
went with ISC over Microport or BellTech because I figured it would be the
fastest and most solid of the three (I also needed ESDI support).
* * * I AM NOT IMPRESSED * * *
I'm sure that the programmers at ISC are competent and concientious. This
is an early model of this product, and I expected a few bugs. If I could
speak directly to the ISC team, I could probably get my problems solved
quickly, but since ISC won't sell through me unless I commit to $50K/year
in sales (who would do this without seeing the product first? Come on!!),
I have to talk to the people at CTG/Telemedia in Chicago. I'm sure that
the people at Telemedia are going to do the best that they can, but I don't
need my hand held -- I need software fixed and/or supplied.
Still, when Chicago reopens tomorrow morning (afternoon, their time), I'll
give them a call and see what they know about my problems. We shall see.
--
Paul Vixie
{uunet,{pyramid,sun,hplabs}!ptsfa}!vixie!paul
415/647-7023poetry@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (David Goodman) (12/18/87)
In view of this article, complaints about Microport, not-real-Unix-ness of Xenix, I ask the folx out there: "Are we ever gonna see reliable System V on 286/386 machine?" "Is it gonna be Microsoft who'll give us this thing in the year 2525?" i.e.
davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) (12/22/87)
In article <751@vixie.UUCP> paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) writes: | The documentation that comes with the system is lousy. Three binders were | included (I got the "applications platform," since I needed most of the | things it included and it was the cheapest way to get them). These binders | are: "Using 386/ix Products", "Managing 386/ix Products", and "Supplement". I don't think they're that bad, but certainly not world class documentation. | | The LP driver prints about 1 CPS. I've heard of this problem, but I thought | ... I didn't have that problem. | | VP/ix is ISC's way to run MSDOS applications on a UNIX/386 system. This | part of the system seems reasonably well done, except that the "pop-up menu" | is supposed to come up when you hit "SYS REQ", but I found two things out | from long experimentation: (1) ALT+SHIFT+SYSREQ is the only thing that | works, only if pressed in that order (i.e., SHIFT+ALT+SYSREQ won't work), | and (2) if you hit CONTROL+ALT+SYSREQ, an odd message appears which tells My documentation says that you press ALT-SYSREQ, followed by 'm' to get the menu, 'n' for the next virtual screen, and 'p' for the previous virtual screen. Worked flawlessly for me. | So, to sum up my first impressions: this thing SUCKS. I went with UNIX | instead of Xenix because I didn't want something whose roots were in sysIII | and PCDOS (no flames, please, I've seen the arguments about this), and I | went with ISC over Microport or BellTech because I figured it would be the | fastest and most solid of the three (I also needed ESDI support). | | * * * I AM NOT IMPRESSED * * * | I was not impressed that the C compiler kept blowing up trying to compile things like dhampstone. I was not impressed that the performance of compiled programs was about 20-30% slower than Xenix/386. But I thought overall that the product deserves a better rap that you have given it. | I'm sure that the programmers at ISC are competent and concientious. This | is an early model of this product, and I expected a few bugs. If I could | speak directly to the ISC team, I could probably get my problems solved | quickly, but since ISC won't sell through me unless I commit to $50K/year | in sales (who would do this without seeing the product first? Come on!!), You are *definitely* doing something wrong! My wife's company talked to them and got a free evaluation copy (she would probably sell $50k if she used it) and the company seemed to be totally helpful about letting her try it. The vp/ix worked very well, although it did hand in one operation, for general DOS usage it was fine, and the ability to run DOS programs is certainly a highly useful feature. I was able to run a number of really ill-behaved programs, such as games, with diddle the EGA directly. When I changed terminals it worked. I think I would rather have DOSmerge than vp/ix, since it can be run from remote terminals, but DM isn't available for Xenix/386 and vp/ix (they tell me) is. I think your criticism is out of proportion to the problems with the software. BTW: does your vp/ix use 100% of the CPU when nothing else is running? It looks like the idle loop runs at low priority all the time. How about DOS as an idle daemon??? -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
phillip@cbmvax.UUCP (Phillip Lindsay GUEST) (12/23/87)
in article <751@vixie.UUCP>, paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) says: > > experienced System V sysadmin, I had no trouble with the 'sysadm' menus, so > installing all the optional packages was simple as well. Installation for me was also simple. > The documentation that comes with the system is lousy. Three binders were > included (I got the "applications platform," since I needed most of the > The documentation does need work. I can wait for the PH distribution of V.3 manuals. > > VP/ix is ISC's way to run MSDOS applications on a UNIX/386 system. This > part of the system seems reasonably well done, except that the "pop-up menu" > is supposed to come up when you hit "SYS REQ", but I found two things out > from long experimentation: (1) ALT+SHIFT+SYSREQ is the only thing that > works, only if pressed in that order (i.e., SHIFT+ALT+SYSREQ won't work), > and (2) if you hit CONTROL+ALT+SYSREQ, an odd message appears which tells I like VP/ix. The integrated enviroment is really nice. I found ALT+SCROLLOCK +ALT+SYSREQ to pop the menu up. I'll your way. I did have the debugger pop in once. BTW, I reconfigured (compiled) the Kernal for a 4meg eniviroment with no problems. > I would think that ISC must have supplied a TermInfo entry for the system > console, but none of the manuals I received seems to indicate what the NAME > of this Terminfo entry is. I'm still looking, though. TERM = at386. I have MicroEmacs3.9e running, but no cursor keys yet. > > Is there something special I need to do to make the "~user" expansion work > in the C-Shell? If I just log in and say "echo ~root" (or any existing > or non-existing user), csh just says: "No such user: root" (or whatever). > I plan to read the csh man page (supplied by ISC) verrrrry carefully and > maybe there's another RTFM here. > I had the same problem. No default .cshrc or anything. I'm sticking with /bin/sh for the time being. > Crippled. I need 'macasgn', which I suppose should be in /usr/vpix/dosbin, > but is not. Without this command, I cannot make arbitrary UNIX directories > appear to be MSDOS drive letters; without this, I cannot use any DOS > software that insists on being installed at the root of a drive letter > (this is MOST MSDOS software). I'm also missing 'xdir' from the same > directory, but this is obviously less critical. > I'm missing "xdir" and probably "macasgn". I hope a update fixes these problem. > So, to sum up my first impressions: this thing SUCKS. I went with UNIX > went with ISC over Microport or BellTech because I figured it would be the > fastest and most solid of the three (I also needed ESDI support). I wouldn't say that. The distribution is green, but I feel it is pretty solid compared to the problems I had with my first V/AT distribution. BTW, I needed the ESDI support also I'm running a 150meg drive. PClimited386. > Still, when Chicago reopens tomorrow morning (afternoon, their time), I'll > give them a call and see what they know about my problems. We shall see. > Waiting to hear. -phil ( TVGUIDE, #4 Randor Corporate Center, Radnor, Pa. 19088 - 215-293-8889 ) ============================================================================== Phillip (Flip) Lindsay - Wake up and watch CNN at: Heather Ridge Apts. #G-115 UUCP: {ihnp4|seismo|caip}!cbmvax!phillip Mantua, NJ 08051 No warranty is implied or otherwise given in the form of suggestion or example. Any opinions found here are of my making.
paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) (12/24/87)
In article <8289@steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >BTW: does your vp/ix use 100% of the CPU when nothing else is running? >It looks like the idle loop runs at low priority all the time. How about >DOS as an idle daemon??? I don't know. I hope not, since this machine will be supporting six very busy income tax preparers when the ICC board &terminals come in. But I havn't checked this. I will, though, now that you mention it.. -- Paul Vixie paul%vixie.uucp@uunet.uu.net 415/647-7023
tif@cpe.UUCP (12/30/87)
In article <8289@steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >BTW: does your vp/ix use 100% of the CPU when nothing else is running? >It looks like the idle loop runs at low priority all the time. How about >DOS as an idle daemon??? The latest version is said to not do this, I don't know. I've also heard it works on terminals. Some day I'll get around to trying these things. Paul Chamberlain Computer Product Engineering, Tandy Corp. ihnp4!sys1!cpe!tif
jim@hcrvax.UUCP (Jim Sullivan) (01/12/88)
In article <759@vixie.UUCP> paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) writes: >In article <8289@steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >>BTW: does your vp/ix use 100% of the CPU when nothing else is running? >>It looks like the idle loop runs at low priority all the time. How about >>DOS as an idle daemon??? > >I don't know. I hope not, since this machine will be supporting six very >busy income tax preparers when the ICC board &terminals come in. But I >havn't checked this. I will, though, now that you mention it.. > According to a recent discussion with an Interactive representative, vp/ix does not busy wait for input or anything else when doing nothing. This means that you can have multiple UNIX and DOS tasks running at the same time (like flight simulator and 123) and then switch between them (like when your boss arrives). This is one of the enhancements that Interactive has done to DOS for hte vp/ix environment.
davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) (01/16/88)
In article <3018@hcrvax.UUCP> jim@hcrvax.UUCP (Jim Sullivan) writes: | In article <759@vixie.UUCP> paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) writes: | >In article <8289@steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: | >>BTW: does your vp/ix use 100% of the CPU when nothing else is running? | >>It looks like the idle loop runs at low priority all the time. How about | >>DOS as an idle daemon??? ... | According to a recent discussion with an Interactive representative, | vp/ix does not busy wait for input or anything else when doing nothing. I based my question on the fact that if I gave the DOS command and waited a minute on an empty system that a check on another console showed that I had used 60sec of CPU. There was no notable impack on loaded performance, but it sounded to me like a low priority wait loop of some kind. If not, where does the CPU go? Someone please try this on your system. | This means that you can have multiple UNIX and DOS tasks running at | the same time (like flight simulator and 123) and then switch between | them (like when your boss arrives). This is one of the enhancements that | Interactive has done to DOS for hte vp/ix environment. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me