jaym@nuchat.UUCP (11/20/87)
(I'm posting this from nuchat, because my Microport 2.2.1L system, splut,
has crashed again and taken the root filesystem down in flames with it.
Instead of what I'd planned on doing tonight, I get to enjoy rebuilding
it yet again.)
I've commented here previously about problems with installing DOSMerge 286
on my Everex 1800A under 2.2.1L. Until then, I counted myself fortunate that
my system hadn't experienced the major problems others had. I shoulda kept
my mouth shut.
4 weeks ago, I started experiencing the dreaded wn io errors. I reformatted
the affected drive, and got going again. I called Microport to get the
upgrade to 2.3, since I'd read numerous comments on the net about how good
it was and how many bugs it fixes.
Since then, I've been fortunate to have the system run for 24 hours in a
row. I've experienced the serial port double panic more times than I can
count. The first time, I hadn't changed the default in the rc script from
fsck -y to something reasonable. Guess what? I got bitten by the fsck "let's
clobber the file system while rebuilding the free list" bug. That cost me a
solid week of fsdb'ing before I was told that that was a known bug, my file
system was thoroughly trashed, and it'd be best to format it and start over.
Since that was my /usr file system, that cost me quite a few files that I
had tucked away.
(A note for the guy looking for Un*x user interface botches: Part of the
loss came while I was salvaging what I could. I had built a list of files to
cpio to floppy, and was going to save them and then remove the bad
directories. Instead of doing the cpio, though, I went straight to 'rm -r *'.
My cats were shocked at my language.)
I rebuilt /usr, and changed the -y flag in the rc csript. I also started
leaving the bootable floppy in the drive, so I could reboot off it, do a
two-pass fsck manually, and reboot without hunting the disk. The same pattern
of running for a while and then crashing continued.
During this time, I was wondering where my 2.3 upgrade was. I called
Microport after two weeks had passed (right after I recovered from the fsck
bug), and was told that they weren't shipping the 2.3 upgrades yet, because
they were too busy building new product to take care of the customers that
had already given them their money. I toasted the nice salesperson (Jennifer,
you have my apologies) before I realized that she couldn't do much about it.
I called back today to discover that they _still_ hadn't shipped the upgrade.
>fwoosh!<...*FLAME ON*
Why can't Microport support their current customer base? I've seen some folks
from there on the net, and know that they know they're being toasted...yet
they still continue in their asinine approach to "supporting" their
customers. They at least got the tech support types back on the 800-number,
but then I have to deal with at least one ignoramus who apparently knows
little about actually finding a problem instead of just parroting "Well, try
getting the current version of your BIOS" - even after I reproduce the
problem with a BIOS that they claim works!! Then, after I pay an outrageous
upgrade fee (I don't mind nominal fees, but $60 for a single upgrade and $99
for however many upgrades they produce in a year isn't nominal!), they take
nearly forever to ship the upgraded software - and meanwhile they've already
charged my credit card! I have told them, and told them, and told them some
more that my system is crashing around my ears on a daily basis, yet they
still take their own sweet time about shipping a release known to fix most,
if not all, of the bugs.
I am involved in a high-technology startup company. The proposed standard
workstation was a PC/AT running Microport and DOSMerge. I'm not so sure I
can hold to my recommendation of this standard after all my recent problems
holding my system together...I'd be laughed out of the office.
*FLAME OFF*...>sssthpp!<
If you choose to follow up to this tirade, PLEASE edit the newsgroups line.
Heavy flamage probably doesn't belong in comp.unix.xenix, and serious Un*x
discussions don't belong in alt.flame...
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC (@WB5BBW)...>splut!< | temporarily at uunet!nuchat!jaym
Never ascribe to malice that which can | while splut is down (@#*(&$% ST4051!!)
adequately be explained by stupidity. | GEnie: JAYMAYNARD CI$: 71036,1603
The opinions herein are shared by neither of my cats, much less anyone else.