myxm@beta.UUCP (Mike Mitchell) (09/15/87)
I received the System 5 software from Microport yesterday, and decided to install it in the evenining. So far this has been the biggest headache I have ever had to deal with. I have installed Unix on much larger machines, so I am not totaly unfamiliar with the concepts of what needs to happen and in what order, but the Microport installation seemed to me easy to crash. Right out of the package, I decided from the beginning to reformat my drive and make DOS go away forever. I booted System 5 and proceeded through the steps outlined in their installation process. I tried to use eassyinstall. This shell script or whatever it is would ask me all of these great questions about what extra stuff I wanted to install, then it would die. Scratch the easyinstall. Next I decided to do it all by hand (which is the way I should have started). This was after a couple of hours of farting with easyinstall. Ok, I thought I'll format my disk. It tells me that my drive type is screwed. I get it, I run with DOS for a couple of years, and now the dirve is fried??? I use setup to tell me what type it is, type 8, so why is it fried?? Got me. Oh well, on to fdisk, fdisk says that the drive has 5 cyls and 733 heads (!). Now I know why the drive is "fried". Where did it get these numbers from or HOW did it manage to reverse them? Well, enter the right information, go back and format, then install the System 5 partition. OK, now I'm cranking. Install the runtime floppy #1 and type installit. Ok, wow, look at those files... Insert runtime #2 and type installit. ERROR 5: CANNOT READ INPUT. Wak? Whats this? Ok, take the disk out, spin it in its sleeve, put it back in and try again. ERROR 5. Take the disk out, spit on it,, draw a pentegram in the air with it, chant in a low murmer, put it back in and try again. Ok, use dd to see what is on it. dd:command not found. Ok, boot dos, use norton to look at it. 1.2M of '\0'. Great. Call Microport for a floppy. "Your name?" "Your age?" "Your eye collor?" "Ok, step over there and the next available technician will help you..." So I waited for a returned phone call. "Hello" "Whas at?" "No Read?" "Whas at?" "Oh" "Type grep yourmamma /etc/passwd" "Not There?" "Hmmm -- Blank Floppy. Next!" So what about replacing my floppy? "Twelve dollar" For defective media? "No, to ship to you." Singing telegram? "No, first fedral united over the counter under the door freight." So I wait. Does anyone else have problems like this with Microport, or am I the only one with one leg 6" longer from their technicians pulling it. Mike Mitchell myxm@lanl.gov ...!cmcl2!lanl!myxm
sl@van-bc.UUCP (09/16/87)
In article <10077@beta.UUCP> myxm@beta.UUCP (Mike Mitchell) writes: >I received the System 5 software from Microport yesterday, and decided to >install it in the evenining. So far this has been the biggest headache I ... >try again. Ok, use dd to see what is on it. dd:command not found. Ok, boot >dos, use norton to look at it. 1.2M of '\0'. Great. Call Microport for ... >So what about replacing my floppy? "Twelve dollar" For defective media? >"No, to ship to you." Singing telegram? "No, first fedral united over the >counter under the door freight." ... >Does anyone else have problems like this with Microport, or am I the >only one with one leg 6" longer from their technicians pulling it. Bell Technologies must be shipping the same set of disks (was it disk four?). However once we had figured out what the problem was they shipped a new diskette out the next day, Federal Express at their expense! They would have shipped the same day except that they had missed the Fed Ex pickup deadline by the time they returned my call. -- {ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!Stuart.Lynne Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
lee@minnow.UUCP (09/16/87)
In article <10077@beta.UUCP> myxm@beta.UUCP (Mike Mitchell) writes: >I received the System 5 software from Microport yesterday, and decided to >install it in the evenining. So far this has been the biggest headache I >have ever had to deal with. ...... First, I must agree that this is the most un-user-freindly software I have ever installed. This first time I installed it I had the same problem u did. The install software had the wrong number of heads and tracks. Not having a data sheet handy on my hard disk I didn't question what it said. (My drive has 5 heads and 925 cyl and it thought it had 5 heads and 1000 cyl). After spending a couple of hours fighting with the infamous WN errors (those of you that have gotten them know what I am talking about) I finally got the system loaded. Going on the information it had about the number of cyls it said I had, I had left 5 meg for dos. All seemed fine until I booted up dos and found the format would hang trying to format the cyls that where not really there. As it turned out there was only about 900k left for my dos partition. I have more than that on a floppy. At this point I had already spent days getting the microport side tuned the way I wanted it. Now the only choice I had was to erase everything and start all over again if wanted more than 900k in my dos partition. That is just a sample of the FUN I've had with this product. Gene W. Lee -- Gene Lee UUCP: ...ihnp4!{meccts,dayton,rosevax}!ems!minnow!lee UNISYS Corporation ATT: (612) 635-6334 If not for the courage of the fearless manager, the paycheck would be lost.
dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) (09/17/87)
It's amazing how bad Microport customer support has gotten, in such a short
period of time. When I originally purchased my system, back in December,
they were pretty good. They had an 800 number to call, the people answering
the phone were fairly intelligent, and they would ship disks free.
If they're going to try to compete they'd better get their act together.
Saving $500 is nice, but it doesn't really matter if the product doesn't work.
--
David L. Smith
{sdcsvax!sdamos,ihnp4!jack!man, hp-sdd!crash, pyramid}!sdeggo!dave
sdeggo!dave@sdamos.ucsd.edu
"How can you tell when our network president is lying? His lips move."eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (09/18/87)
In article <92@sdeggo.UUCP>, dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) writes: >It's amazing how bad Microport customer support has gotten, in such a short >period of time. When I originally purchased my system, back in December, >they were pretty good. They had an 800 number to call, the people answering >the phone were fairly intelligent, and they would ship disks free. > >If they're going to try to compete they'd better get their act together. >Saving $500 is nice, but it doesn't really matter if the product doesn't work. I agree with this, it reflects my own experience exactly. Microport started off on the right foot, but they have stumbled *badly* and have a lot of amends to make for recent screwups. The good news is that they *are* trying hard to do so. I have some leverage with them because I'm the technical lead on a project that needs cheap UNIXes in volume. Their marketing guys want my business, badly. So I called for Chuck Hickey, head honcho there. He called me back, and we had a long and very candid conversation during which I told him what's going on on the Net and elsewhere as a result of the bad bugs we've been seeing and the changes in service policy and availability. Now, item 1 of the good news is that Chuck Hickey, founder and president of Microport, is a hacker-type himself. He talked with me about his motivation for founding Microport. The man really believes in the idea of cheap UNIX for everybody. This guy is *not* your typical waffling, political-minded execudroid, people; I think he's willing to listen. He knows his technical stuff *well*, he was honest and open with me about all the problems (even to the extent of reading me pieces of a couple of internal memos harshly critical of the 'new' Microport service policy), and unless he was a damn good actor, I'd say he taking my criticisms and suggestions straight to the heart, and intending to act on them. Here are some of the major points we covered: 1) I think I convinced him that canning the tech 800 number was a major blunder, an act that sent precisely the worst possible signal about Microport's intentions. The problem, it seems, was that their support costs were rising faster than their new-customer income. They didn't realize how the outside world would interpret the cost-cutting measure of having the *customer* pay for the chat time. 2) The TSS double-panic bug, the worst one of them all, is believed dead. The 2.3 kernel version, about to ship, fixes it. 3) I suggested that he designate an official 'speaker-to-USENET' to field questions and help solve problems. He agreed this was an excellent idea. Look for John Sulley or someone else from uPort to be much more active here from now on. 4) The 386 version is believed to be much less buggy. Chuck admitted that this is because it was a straight 32-bit to 32-bit port, rather than because his development group had become dramatically more virtuous since the 286 version. The upshot of our technical conversation was that initially porting UNIX to the 286 isn't really hard, but catching all the bizarre bugs you get from segmentation and the sudden 16-bitness of everything is a real, revolving, industrial-strength *bitch* on wheels. *Very* hard. Harder than I thought. Harder than *they* thought! 5) Better documentation, especially for the installation procedure, is on its way. Future shipped systems will also include comprehensive service plan information. 6) In response to my question, he said that Microport will also, starting now, be explicit about its policy of handling charges only for bug-fix upgrades. Chuck was beginning to realize Microport's changes in service policy and pricing have righteously pissed off people hooked by the original "low cost + 24-hour service" pitch. His own people have been saying as much, and from his reactions I think hearing it articulated by a potential major customer (me!) really got home to him. The man sounded shook. A good part of their problem, from what he told me, is that they're expanding so fast that it's hard to for him and others there to step back and get a good perspective on what's going on and how uPort is coming off to the outside world. An active USENET liaison will help. Subsequently I got a call from the chief engineer for the 286 software. We went over several current "official" and unofficial bug lists. He claims that about 3/4 of these are now fixed, including all the nastiest, data-losing ones I mentioned. He also took the time to explain problems in detail, admitted where they'd screwed up, and owned up when he was puzzled. So don't give up on Microport yet, guys and gals. Despite recent appearances, I think they have the right attitude. They're trying hard to dig themselves out. Whether economics and the limits of their own abilities will prevent this is another question. But there are, from my experience, a whole bunch of really bright, motivated, open-minded people there. I think they can make real-UNIX-for-cheap work if anybody can. Naturally, I have no connection with Microport other than as a customer. -- Eric S. Raymond UUCP: {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric Post: 22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718
john@bby-bc.UUCP (john) (09/19/87)
In article <92@sdeggo.UUCP>, dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) writes: > > It's amazing how bad Microport customer support has gotten, in such a short > period of time. When I originally purchased my system, back in December, > they were pretty good. They had an 800 number to call, the people answering > the phone were fairly intelligent, and they would ship disks free. > > If they're going to try to compete they'd better get their act together. > Saving $500 is nice, but it doesn't really matter if the product doesn't work. > Since there have been two or three articles complaining about Microport I thought I would throw my two cents in. My experience has been generally good. I started with the 1.3.6 version and it took about 2 hours from scratch to get the system installed. I really don't see how it could have taken the two days to get the system installed that some people have claimed (two days elapsed maybe if you had to get a replacement disk but two days of actual effort??). Mind you I am also domewhat paranoid and never even considered using the easy install command to do it - I wanted to know exactly what was going on so I did the manual install. My only unpleasant experience with the install was some sort of file system error (can't remember what now) which had me fixing inodes by hand with fsdb during the first couple of hours - I would like to emphasize that I had never had to do anything like this before (on a unix system anyway) and so had to rtfm and guess a bit but even so it wasn't hard to do. Installing the 2.2 upgrade was also very easy. I do think that they should perhaps improvement the docs relating to installation for the peace of mind of the faint of heart - but at worst you make a mistake and just start over again after restoring your backup - what's the big deal? While their customer support is not ideal it does seem adequate. The people I have talked to seem to know what they (and more importantly, I) am talking about. They have also returned my calls at their expense. When I asked for a copy of the tape device driver they sent it out at their expense. Their implementation seems reasonably bug free; I have found the following bugs irritating but not disastrous: 1. clock runs slow (apparently this has been fixed) 2. system gets "double faults" and hangs every once in a while - this has never happened while I have actually been on the system doing anything so I can't characterize it; it does seem to happen more often now that I have a tape unit on the system This is not to say there are no other bugs but the rest don't particularly affect me - e.g. apparently the system can't handle 9600 baud serial connections well, but then I don't have any 9600 baud devices attached so it is not a problem. I am not in any way associated with Microport except as a reasonably satisfied customer. john
enped@conexch.UUCP (Eric Pederson) (09/20/87)
> It's amazing how bad Microport customer support has gotten, in such a short > period of time. Although I think some of the ranting and raving that's been going on around here is the product of some interesting installation problems (I've installed 3 uport systems on many flavors of systems without hassle), I will have to agree that the once friendly support at Microport has gone downhill. They used to send the update releases (read "bug fixes") for a nominal charge. Now you have to have purchased a support agreement, then you can get the updates, again, for a nominal charge. Am I alone when I consider this a ripoff? V/AT is *not* that mature a product. Many major things have problems. Shouldn't I get what I paid for? That is "real Sys V" implies "bug free Sys V". --------- Eric Pederson 714 964 3339 x387 HBUHSD
bhj@bhjat.UUCP (burt janz) (09/25/87)
In article <137@conexch.UUCP>, enped@conexch.UUCP (Eric Pederson) writes: > to send the update releases (read "bug fixes") for a nominal charge. Now you > have to have purchased a support agreement, then you can get the updates, > again, for a nominal charge. Am I alone when I consider this a ripoff? V/AT And what is so strange about that? DEC has done it for years, and even when VMS wasn't a "mature" product (like in V2.1, the first version I used). And has done it for RSX, RSTS, and RT. I can't prove it, but I'd venture that IBM has the same policy for their operating systems. ATT doesn't give away updates for free. So where's the ripoff? I've heard a lot about this comment from many others. I can only answer by saying that customer support is a very expensive part of any software company. I was an employee of the now-defunct Cadmus Computer Company, and was the senior Software Support Engineer in the Customer Support group. You wouldn't BELIEVE how many questions I dealt with each day, how many tapes I shipped, and how many hours I spent on the phone (via modem) fixing systems. That type of support costs money, if only for the shipping and telephone costs! Not that customer support group should HAVE to be a revenue center, but it should at least be self-sufficient. The reason that it never could be rests in the fact that the company involved could never sell enough product to pay for support. Each time you sell one package, you gain the possibility that one more customer will call. Multiply that by thousands, and you have thousands of possible calls that must be answered. That type of support can't be handled by anything but a support group. To add in the cost of the support group would have increased the cost of Microport UNIX. I think that Microport took the right road - charging for support past the 90-day initial period. Charging for media, shipping, and answering questions after the standard 90-day period is not unusual. I've done it before, and I'll do it again, provided I feel the product is worth keeping. (I have no involvement with Microport except as a reasonably satisfied customer.) Burt Janz ..decvax!bhjat!bhj
jmsully@suprt.UUCP (John M. Sully) (09/30/87)
In article <92@sdeggo.UUCP>, dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) writes: > > It's amazing how bad Microport customer support has gotten, in such a short > period of time. When I originally purchased my system, back in December, > they were pretty good. They had an 800 number to call, the people answering > the phone were fairly intelligent, and they would ship disks free. > Although our call load has probably tripled since December, we have only been able to add 1 person to our support staff, this may be the reason that our service seems to have gone sour. When I joined Microport we were just beginning to do a cost analysis of the support department and it was decided that the 800 support number was costing the company too much. In retrospect the decision to drop the 800 number was a poor one and we are now considering reinstating the 800 number for support. By the way, we do still ship replacement disks for defective media free, unless you want it shipped Fed-X (normally we ship UPS Blue). If you call and special order a disk, we do charge a 5.00/disk shipping fee, minimum charge is 15.00. -- John M. Sully UUCP: ...!{sun | ucbvax | ihnp4}!amdcad!uport!techs Microport Systems ARPA: uport!techs@ucscc.UCSC.EDU Technical Support