schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) (11/08/90)
Hello! We just received Ultrix 4.1 for RISC today. Has anyone else received
it? My main question is how (or should) I upgrade 4.0 systems to 4.1?
Do I just install the 4.1 mandatory upgrade? Or do I have to start from scratch?
4.1 came with Support Volume 1 & 2, unsupported Volume 1, and a mandatory
upgrade tape, so it looks like I need it all. I have skimmed through the
release notes and don't see anything on upgrading from 4.0
Roland
--
Roland J. Schemers III Systems Programmer
schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ultrix) Oakland University
schemers@argo.acs.oakland.edu (VMS) Rochester, MI 48309-4401
~Disclaimer::Disclaimer() { reboot(RB_HALT); } (313)-370-4323schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) (11/08/90)
In article <3738@vela.acs.oakland.edu> schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) writes: >Hello! We just received Ultrix 4.1 for RISC today. Has anyone else received >it? My main question is how (or should) I upgrade 4.0 systems to 4.1? >Do I just install the 4.1 mandatory upgrade? Or do I have to start from scratch? > Never mind. It appears that I have to install all of 4.1. I tried just the 4.1 upgrade tape to a virgin 4.0 DECstation 5000/200, and the 4.1 upgrade wanted 4.1 installed. So I'll go a head and upgrade the whole thing. Roland -- Roland J. Schemers III Systems Programmer schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ultrix) Oakland University schemers@argo.acs.oakland.edu (VMS) Rochester, MI 48309-4401 ~Disclaimer::Disclaimer() { reboot(RB_HALT); } (313)-370-4323
alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) (11/08/90)
In article <3739@vela.acs.oakland.edu>, schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) writes: > Hello! We just received Ultrix 4.1 for RISC today. Has anyone else received > it? My main question is how (or should) I upgrade 4.0 systems to 4.1? > Do I just install the 4.1 mandatory upgrade? Or do I have to start from scratch? I guess it's real now. The initial release of V4.1 is a full re-installation (yuck). I have been lead to believe that an upgrade for taking an existing V4.0 to V4.1 will be available someday, maybe six weeks at most. So, if you have an existing V3.x or earlier system that you want to take to V4 this is probably the best the best way to do it. If you have an existing V4.0 system then you'll probably want to wait for the update (assuming there really is one). I won't make any editorial comments about not making an upgrade avialable alongside the full installation version but if you would like make those comment, I STRONGLY suggest submitting an SPR to let us (DEC) know how you feel about it. Don't expect more than a "Thank you for your suggestion." as response, but I think your comments will be heard by the people that need to hear them. Putting together upgrades is a lot of extra work for the people doing the release engineering. If you don't think that upgrades are important (I do) then we need to know it, so save the extra time and money in the future. If on the other hand upgrades are important then we need to know that also. > > -- > Roland J. Schemers III Systems Programmer -- Alan Rollow alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com
de5@ornl.gov (Dave Sill) (11/08/90)
In article <1939@shodha.enet.dec.com>, alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) writes: > > I won't make any editorial comments about not making an > upgrade avialable alongside the full installation version > but if you would like make those comment, I STRONGLY > suggest submitting an SPR to let us (DEC) know how you > feel about it. Don't expect more than a "Thank you for > your suggestion." as response, but I think your comments > will be heard by the people that need to hear them. What's an SPR? To what e-mail address can I send one? I don't have the time to fool with paper... -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) Martin Marietta Energy Systems Workstation Support
frank@croton.enet.dec.com (Frank Wortner) (11/08/90)
In article <1939@shodha.enet.dec.com>, alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) writes: > I won't make any editorial comments about not making an > upgrade avialable alongside the full installation version > but if you would like make those comment, I STRONGLY > suggest submitting an SPR to let us (DEC) know how you > feel about it. Don't expect more than a "Thank you for > your suggestion." as response, but I think your comments > will be heard by the people that need to hear them. Along with the distribution of 4.1, you should have gotten a letter from our product management folks saying that a 4.0 to 4.1 upgrade tape will be sent out in about 45 days. Don't bother with the SPRs --- it's being done. Frank
mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum) (11/08/90)
In article <1990Nov8.131849.21229@cs.utk.edu> Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov> writes: >What's an SPR? To what e-mail address can I send one? I don't >have the time to fool with paper... An SPR is a bug report, basically. To my knowledge you can't send one in electronically - there are forms available - paper forms. I won't editorialize either, but having people press for an electronic way of submitting SPRs *might* help. The Digital employees who you'll run into in comp.unix.ultrix are already used to using the net - I hate paper myself. Of course, I know of other vendors who have had electronic SPRs, and it seems to be a lot easier to "lose" an SPR that comes in electronically. mjr.
hrt@utne.cdad.dec.com (Henry R. Tumblin) (11/08/90)
Well here's one vote for some sort of rolling upgrade. I have about a dozen systems that I need to upgrade and am not looking forward to rebuilding each one again. -- Henry R. Tumblin CDAD Digital Equipment Corporation HLO2-3/J03 225-4845(dtn), 508-568-4845(external) Internet: hrt@utne.dec.com uucp: ...!decwrl!utne!hrt enet: utne::hrt
grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) (11/09/90)
In article <1784@riscy.enet.dec.com> frank@croton.enet.dec.com (Frank Wortner) writes: > > In article <1939@shodha.enet.dec.com>, alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's > Home for Wayward Notes File.) writes: > > > I won't make any editorial comments about not making an > > upgrade avialable alongside the full installation version > > but if you would like make those comment, I STRONGLY > > suggest submitting an SPR to let us (DEC) know how you > > feel about it. Don't expect more than a "Thank you for > > your suggestion." as response, but I think your comments > > will be heard by the people that need to hear them. > > > Along with the distribution of 4.1, you should have gotten a > letter from our product management folks saying that a 4.0 > to 4.1 upgrade tape will be sent out in about 45 days. Don't > bother with the SPRs --- it's being done. What a waste of time. If the option was available at the same time it would make sense, but after 45 days either I'll have done the update the hard way or will have put it off for the future or wait for 4.2 to come along... It's a nice gesture, but seems like DEC is more worried about polishing the distribution of buggy releases than shortening the time to get corrected software out to the field. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing: domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com Commodore, Engineering Department phone: 215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)
steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) (11/09/90)
|> It's a nice gesture, but seems like DEC is more worried about |> polishing the distribution of buggy releases than shortening |> the time to get corrected software out to the field. I talked with an ultrix support person who said that the major reason they are releasing 4.1 is to handle the new 5000's (not CX, PX+?), which makes a little sense. He didn't seem to think there would be lots of other changes. This is, of course, not verified. He also made some comments about 4.1 shipping with an X11R4-based server -- but only for the enhanced machines (PX+?) and specifically not the server used by the vanilla CX's. If anybody gets the release notes, let us know. Also, if the person who got the tapes could tell us if motif is bundled with the base system ... steven parkes --------------------------------------- University of Illinois Coordinated Science Laboratory steven@pacific.csl.uiuc.edu -------------------------
schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) (11/09/90)
>If anybody gets the release notes, let us know. Also, if the person who got >the tapes could tell us if motif is bundled with the base system ... > No motif. It does come with X11R4 Xlib, but the server seems to be X11R3. I tried to run a program that needs the shape extension and it said the server didn't support it. There seems to be a few pages of bug fixes, mostly LAT patches. There is also a fix to NFSD that was causing a deadlock in the kernel. This was hanging our VAX 6310. It also comes with scamp (System Configuration and Management Program), which is a menu (text) utility for doing system management. It appears to be for someone with little or no system management experiance. It also comes with presto, which is a file system accelerator. Roland -- Roland J. Schemers III Systems Programmer schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ultrix) Oakland University schemers@argo.acs.oakland.edu (VMS) Rochester, MI 48309-4401 ~Disclaimer::Disclaimer() { reboot(RB_HALT); } (313)-370-4323
jg@crl.dec.com (Jim Gettys) (11/09/90)
Besides the 3D DS5000 machines, 4.1 also supports the 5100 and 5500, recently announced servers. But sorry, Ultrix 4.1 is a bug fix/machine support release, and does not have R4 based servers. :-( In general, R4 is less of a win on our machines than most people's, as much of the performance gain we (I should say Joel McCormack) did in the first place, and gave back much to MIT (all of the device independent code improvements in windowing, etc.). R4 is still nice stuff, in particular due to the memory savings and resulting paging reduction, and it will get out soon, but it has been less urgent for us than most manufacturers, since much of the benefit we already have. Too bad R4 didn't release a month or two later, or we might have made the first round of DS5000 servers based on R4; from our point of view, R4's release occurred at the pessimal time relative to our hardware schedules. - Jim
hoyt@wreck.alf.dec.com (Kurt Hoyt) (11/09/90)
In article <1990Nov8.184901.24550@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) writes: |> If anybody gets the release notes, let us know. Also, if the person who got |> the tapes could tell us if motif is bundled with the base system ... Motif is not bundled with ULTRIX 4.1. -- Kurt in Atlanta | Atlanta hoyt@decatl.alf.dec.com | Site of the 1996 Olympics hoyt@wreck.alf.dec.com |
mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum) (11/09/90)
In article <3755@vela.acs.oakland.edu> schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) writes: >It also comes with presto, which is a file system accelerator. presto relies on hardware support as well. don't expect to get any benefit from it unless you're running a machine with the presto cache hardware. it's awesome stuff, though, if you're running NFS. mjr.
khaw@parcplace.com (Mike Khaw) (11/09/90)
mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum) writes: >In article <1990Nov8.131849.21229@cs.utk.edu> Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov> writes: >>What's an SPR? To what e-mail address can I send one? I don't >>have the time to fool with paper... There used to be an 800 number you could call to file SPRs, as well as read information bulletins about various DEC products. It ran on top of All-In-One. Sorry, I don't have the number anymore; also I think you had to have a DEC support number to login. -- Mike Khaw ParcPlace Systems, Inc., 1550 Plymouth St., Mountain View, CA 94043 Domain=khaw@parcplace.com, UUCP=...!{uunet,sun,decwrl}!parcplace!khaw
steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) (11/09/90)
|> It also comes with presto, which is a file system accelerator.
Hmmm ...
What about the amd kernal patch? (did the fixed kernal file for 4.0 ever
show up?)davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown) (11/09/90)
steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) quotes:
>|> It also comes with presto, which is a file system accelerator.
I assume the correspondent is talkinga about a machine with prestoserve,
which is hardware... I'd love to have a ``don't delay writes'' bit for the
Dec NFS.
--dave
--
David Collier-Brown, | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA, ...!yunexus!davecb or
72 Abitibi Ave., | {toronto area...}lethe!dave or just
Willowdale, Ontario, | postmaster@{nexus.}yorku.ca
CANADA. 416-223-8968 | work phone (416) 736-5257 x 22075pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (11/11/90)
On 8 Nov 90 02:06:14 GMT, alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) said, on the 4.1 release of RISC Ultrix: alan> I won't make any editorial comments about not making an alan> upgrade avialable alongside the full installation version In general I think that upgrades are far more risky (difficult to get right) than full reinstallations, an take about the same time, for any Unix version. If the system manager has been careful (a big if) a reinstallation followed by localization takes very little effort. If the system manager has been sloppy about localization than upgrades will not help a lot either. -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
ellis@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Brian Ellis) (11/12/90)
In article <PCG.90Nov10180425@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk>, pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: |> In general I think that upgrades are far more risky (difficult to get |> right) than full reinstallations, and take about the same time, for any |> Unix version. If the upgrade is simply a "list" of the files that have changed, I could live with that. BUT I would want to know precisely which files have been changed, (and would be overwritten) in advance. I would for example be quite happy with a tar file that I could load into a seperate directory somewhere, and manually move the relevant files across. I would be quite happy with some upgrade software subsets - as long as I knew in advance which files were going to be overwritten. I believe that I could apply an upgrade supplied in this fashion much more quickly than installing and configuring a new release. Just my humble opinion... Brian Ellis Computing Services Centre Domain: ellis@rata.vuw.ac.nz Victoria University of Wellington Bang paths... grrrr!!!!! P.O Box 600, New Zealand. What! - no cute .sig ???
alan@shodha.enet.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) (11/12/90)
In article <1990Nov11.225919.13038@comp.vuw.ac.nz>, ellis@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Brian Ellis) writes: > In article <PCG.90Nov10180425@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk>, pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk > (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: > |> In general I think that upgrades are far more risky (difficult to get > |> right) than full reinstallations, and take about the same time, for any > |> Unix version. > > If the upgrade is simply a "list" of the files that have changed, I could > live with that. BUT I would want to know precisely which files have been > changed, (and would be overwritten) in advance. If you spend a little time figuring out the format of the distribution you can and see which files are on each subset. For tape distributions the 4th tape file is a tar archive of all the installation control files. One of these is the inventory file (.inv). The 10th field each line of this file is the filename. More recently version of the "Guide to Preparing Software for Distribution on ULTRIX Systems" may have a good description of how the format of the dist- ribution. The V3.0 that I have handy doesn't have a good description. > I would for example be quite happy with a tar file that I could load > into a seperate directory somewhere, and manually move the relevant > files across. I would be quite happy with some upgrade software subsets > - as long as I knew in advance which files were going to be overwritten. We tried this once. I think it was an upgrade from ULTRIX V1.1 to V1.2. It had two big problem, one that we could probably have solved. 1. The scripts that checked to make sure there was enough disk space to unpack the archive sometimes lied. 2. People sometimes didn't read the installation guide to verify that they REALLY had enough disk space. #1 we could probably have fixed (and I guess did with setld), but #2 is very hard to fix. > > I believe that I could apply an upgrade supplied in this fashion much more > quickly than installing and configuring a new release. Many customers don't want to even do this much work (I know I don't). The upgrades from V2.2 to V2.3 and V3.0 to V3.1 were fairly simple and worked really, really well when you followed the instructions. The 45 days before the V4.1 upgrade would be available was an "AT MOST". I'd expect to be available sooner, but I have no idea when. > > Just my humble opinion... > > Brian Ellis Computing Services Centre -- Alan Rollow alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com
frank@croton.enet.dec.com (Frank Wortner) (11/12/90)
> I would for example be quite happy with > a tar file that I could load into a seperate directory somewhere, and manually > move the relevant files across. I would be quite happy with some upgrade > software subsets - as long as I knew in advance which files were going to be > overwritten. It is possible to do this with media in "setld" format. You just have to remember that each of the subsets on a tape or CD are basically (possibly compressed) tar archives. I'm simplifying things a bit: there is quite a bit of extra information associated with each subset in the form of file permission/checksum lists, shell scripts, etc., but for our purposes, it's sufficient to say that the subsets are just tar archives. You can extract the archives, either individually or all together, by using the "-x" option to setld. This will leave you with one or more possibly compressed tar archives and associated information. You can then do what you want with them. If you want more information about setld, check out the "Guide to Preparing Software for Distribution on ULTRIX Systems." If you want still more information, you can check out the source: setld is just an elaborate shell script. Have fun! Frank
frank@croton.enet.dec.com (Frank Wortner) (11/13/90)
> I assume the correspondent is talkinga about a machine with prestoserve, > which is hardware... Actually, it's both hardware and software. The major change in 4.1 was adding software support for PrestoServe (a trademark of Legato Systems). Frank