TKIRKMAN%MOE@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU (Tom Kirkman) (05/15/91)
I tried to mail this direct, but the mail bounced to ACSVX::IN%"sgi!shinobu!odin!rains.wpd.sgi.com!bobg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu" >If you or anyone else have more comments I would greatly >appreciate hearing from you. You can either post to the net >or mail to me directly. It also doesn't matter what the subject >matter is with respect to SGI. I'll make sure your concerns are >fed to the right people. >Thanks, >Bob Green At this moment my feelings RE SGI boil down to two problems: mail & the hotline. In my posting I also complained about the absence of a readme.1st manual. I took another look at the PI owner's guide & remembered that it was a great help. If anything it was written on too low a level for me. My problems started if (1) the owner's guide "was wrong": This happened RE: my nfs problem -- the owner's guide showed a nfs button to push, but I had none (& I "knew" I had purchased nfs)...the hotline <<eventually>> solved this problem (get the nfs tape). I think the owner's guide could have helped e.g., by having a list of frequently-installed tapes (to make it clear what's not on the disk) or my noting dependencies (i.e., no nfs installation -> no nfs button; I didn't have the button & didn't know why) (2) I wanted to do things not in the owner's guide, e.g., mail. I have had three problems with the workspace tools: (1) no support for group id's in the sysmgr tool [in fact the tool uses a default group id [25?] that the manual says is reserved--I have not found how to change the default], (2) accidental renameing of files by thinking I'm typing to a screen that in fact is not the active screen [I thought I had read about this in the owner's manual, but when it happened I could not find the entry in the manual] & (3) the pointer-becomes-hand problem named in my posting. But the tools generally worked well. Mail has been a problem mostly by comparison. People down the block who bought Sun or DEC had mail work out-of-the-box. I'm faced with figuring out a very cryptic sendmail language, which I have no interest in learning. Repeated calls to the hotline--now lasting going over a month time-span--have failed to produce a sendmail that can work with an out-of-the-box Sun&DEC sendmail. I looked over recent info-iris posting RE sendmail & found the suggestion to just steal a Sun sendmail since nobody could get the SGI sendmail to work. Why can't SGI get sendmail to work (even with hotline "help") with what must be the most common default sendmails? I think the hotline has been the most frustrating part of my PI experience. The main problem is that it is SLOW at best and frequently totally without response. (I believe the first question I asked the hotline [RE: a networking tool problem] has never been addressed in any form: one month & waiting.) I have never received immediate help--at best it's on a call-back (sometime) basis. If I call back & try to determine the status of any of my ~half-dozen problems, I find the responsible person is never available. I am sometimes told that that person tried to call me, but the hotline has NEVER even tried my secondary phone number. (As a prof I'm well-trained to suspect missed call-backs: it's as common a student excuse as "the check is in the mail.") If I were more cynical I would say the purpose of the hotline is too delay until the next release. PS -- the call-back problem with the hotline could be solved by giving the hotline folks e-mail access. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Kirkman DECnet: 55860::TKIRKMAN INTERnet: tkirkman%55860@msus1.msus.edu BITnet: tkirkman@csbsju ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Since that attempted posting:) Actually things have improved 100% since I tried to mail the above. 1) the hotline came up with a sendmail.cf that works. 2) the hotline started using my secondary phone number, when my primary number no-answered. 3) I now have only one outstanding problem to the hotline [a network tool problem that does not affect how things work: only an apparently incorrect error message is printed]. 4) I'm thinking about buying my second workstation & I'm thinking SGI
silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert) (05/16/91)
In article <2B9CF1DBA0009B66@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU> TKIRKMAN%MOE@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU (Tom Kirkman) writes: >I have had three problems with the workspace tools: (1) no support >for group id's in the sysmgr tool [in fact the tool uses a default >group id [25?] that the manual says is reserved--I have not found >how to change the default]... I heartily echo this. It is an omission that severly limits the utility of an excellent tool (you can change the default group with the command line sysadmin program, but you cannot assign a different group from within the menu program). >I think the hotline has been the most frustrating part of my PI >experience. The main problem is that it is SLOW at best and >frequently totally without response. I also find it frustrating, but I am finding support lines for all computer products pretty awful. If I get an answer it is usually wrong. The only fast reliable source of product info is usually Usenet! Your final comment about using email is valid, but apparently that violates the noncommercial constraints. Pity. -- William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2. Tel. (902)426-1577 UUCP=..!{uunet|watmath}!dalcs!biome!silvert BITNET=silvert%biome%dalcs@dalac InterNet=silvert%biome@cs.dal.ca
rainer@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Rainer Malzbender) (05/16/91)
In article <1991May15.200159.19891@cs.dal.ca> silvert%biome@cs.dal.ca writes: > >Your final comment about using email is valid, but apparently that >violates the noncommercial constraints. Pity. This is a more general net question (from a networking greenhorn), but wouldn't it be possible to come up with some kind of scheme where some packets on the net are identified as "commercial" and the owner then pays Darpa (or whoever runs this thing) a fee per packet ? In this way companies could offer Internet product support and pay for it. -- Rainer Malzbender Real programmers build hardware. Dept. of Physics (303)492-6829 U. of Colorado, Boulder rainer@boulder.colorado.edu 128.138.240.246
dunlap@sgi.com (D. Christopher Dunlap) (05/16/91)
In article <1991May15.224535.17271@colorado.edu> rainer@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Rainer Malzbender) writes: >In article <1991May15.200159.19891@cs.dal.ca> silvert%biome@cs.dal.ca writes: >> >>Your final comment about using email is valid, but apparently that >>violates the noncommercial constraints. Pity. > >This is a more general net question (from a networking greenhorn), but >wouldn't it be possible to come up with some kind of scheme where some >packets on the net are identified as "commercial" and the owner then >pays Darpa (or whoever runs this thing) a fee per packet ? In this way >companies could offer Internet product support and pay for it. > >-- >Rainer Malzbender Real programmers build hardware. >Dept. of Physics (303)492-6829 >U. of Colorado, Boulder rainer@boulder.colorado.edu 128.138.240.246 Yes, we're largely constrained by the noncommercial restrictions on internet use. I suppose the net-gods may be able to fix something up to deal with this, as Mr. Malzbender suggested, but I still beleive a direct connection is better and easier. We are working on number of improvements in our support here at SGI. some of the things we've done have been enablers, such as the new phone system, which allows us to begin to develop a sophisticated integration of phone system, call tracking system, bug tracking systems, and other inter-related support tools. All of these will gradually improve our ability to support our customers and your ability to quickly contact the "right" person to solve your problem. For more immediate improvement, we've changed some processes and added a considerable number of people. The Product Support team has been the fastest growing group in the company for about the last 6-9 months. And we're still hiring (see misc.jobs.offered... :-} ) and continually reviewing and revising our processes. I hope that most of you are seeing recent improvement as a result of our efforts. And please contact me directly if you have any problems with our support or suggestions for improvement. email: dunlap@sgi.com phone: (415) 962-3559, or through (800) 800-4SGI Snail-Mail: 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. P.O. Box 7311 Mailstop 12-180 Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 regards, chris -- D. Christopher Dunlap Product Support Engineering Customer Support Division email: dunlap@sgi.com Silicon Graphics Computer Systems