lumpkin@nas.nasa.gov (Forrest E. Lumpkin) (03/16/91)
Last week I wrote: >1) Will A/UX 2.0.1 resolve the problem( undocumented feature:-) ) > of only one Mac partition per physical device (hard drive)? To which Kent Sandvik replied: >Well, the trick with patching _HFSDispatch in order to fake multiple >HFS volumes on one single volume has always been a hack, and thus >is not suppored by neither A/UX or MacOS. To which Alexis Rosen replied: >Please. It works. Thousands of people use it, and you should support it. >No debate is permissible on this subject. :-) I also wrote: >2) Will the bugs in the installation software be resolved. With the present > software intelligent use of dp is required unless one is setting up > a one A/UX partition (/) hard disk arrangement? To which Kent Sandvik replied: >This is a scary area, where the installation program can't guess >all the possible arrangements that the administrator would wish >to have. I've tested both CMS and Silverlining for A/UX disk >partitioning, and even if their interfaces are bizarre, they do >their job quite well. ---stuff deleted----- >Otherwise HD Setup with Apple harddisks asks for a rich set of >possible A/UX setups before the installation. The installation >software is quite different compared with the old A/UX 1.1 >installation program. To which Alexis Rosen replied: >This is the real problem. It is disgraceful that HD Setup won't partition >3rd party drives. I wouldn't mind if it could put drivers on them too, but >that's not so critical. But Apple refuses to sell reasonably large disks, >and sticks us with the archaic and arcane dp. I was under the strong >impression that this was going to change in 2.0.1, but if I did hear such >a commitment, it wasn't kept. What happened to "easy to use" and "great user >interface"? I really agree with Alexis here. I was unaware that Apple does not support multiple HFS partitions on a physical device for the Mac OS. We use so many 3rd party drives around here that, we just assumed that everyone could get as many HFS partitions/physical device as they wanted. Have pity on the poor souls who use Apple as their only source. This really is a deplorable situation. The desktop file really bogs down when the number of files on an HFS partition gets above a few thousand. I even ran into a situation once when I was unable to create any new files when I reached about 3500 files on the partition. The machine just froze with its little watch icon spinning and I had to reboot. So what is a user to do if he/she has a large hard disk and several thousand small files. Well StuffIt would help by combining the files into archives, but this may not be an ideal solution for all users. One could use SilverLining or similiar partitioning software. Or one could buy lots of small hard disks from Apple at twice (or more) the going market price. Come on folks at Apple. ONE OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM'S MAIN FUNCTIONS IS TO EFFICIENTLY MANAGE FILES AND FILE STRUCTURES. UNIX is very popular because over twenty years ago the people at Bell Labs realized this and wrote an operating system with this in mind. Because of this foresight UNIX is a very expandable OS. We run it here at NASA on supercomputers and mass storage systems (with the ability to handle over a terabyte of data!) I read in MacWeek all the great things System 7.0 will provide the MacOS community (hot links, etc.), but I haven't read anything on improvements to the MacOS file system. Even modifying HS Setup to allow multiple HFS Partitions per physical device would be a help. But no - it seems Apple is intent on putting on several layers of frosting before they have finished baking the cake. Dr. Forrest Lumpkin Aerothermodynamics Branch NASA Ames Research Center Mountain View, CA My opinions are not necessarily the opinion of my employer.
kaufman@neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) (03/16/91)
Some comments on multiple HFS partitions: In article <1991Mar15.224133.7433@nas.nasa.gov> lumpkin@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Forrest E. Lumpkin) writes: >Last week I wrote: ->1) Will A/UX 2.0.1 resolve the problem( undocumented feature:-) ) -> of only one Mac partition per physical device (hard drive)? >To which Kent Sandvik replied: ->Well, the trick with patching _HFSDispatch in order to fake multiple ->HFS volumes on one single volume has always been a hack, and thus ->is not suppored by neither A/UX or MacOS. I was not aware that patching _HFSDispatch was required if the partitions were "TRUE" (IM-V) apple partitions. All that is required is a driver that is aware enough to read the partition map and create multiple volume entries. >To which Alexis Rosen replied: ->Please. It works. Thousands of people use it, and you should support it. ->No debate is permissible on this subject. :-) And part of the reason No Debate is permissible, is that with multiple partitions you get less dead space on the drive (because the allocation unit is smaller) and potentially more files (split among the partitions) per drive. >I also wrote: ->2) Will the bugs in the installation software be resolved. With the present -> software intelligent use of dp is required unless one is setting up -> a one A/UX partition (/) hard disk arrangement? >To which Kent Sandvik replied: ->This is a scary area, where the installation program can't guess ->all the possible arrangements that the administrator would wish ->to have. I've tested both CMS and Silverlining for A/UX disk ->partitioning, and even if their interfaces are bizarre, they do ->their job quite well. >---stuff deleted----- ->Otherwise HD Setup with Apple harddisks asks for a rich set of ->possible A/UX setups before the installation. The installation ->software is quite different compared with the old A/UX 1.1 ->installation program. >To which Alexis Rosen replied: ->This is the real problem. It is disgraceful that HD Setup won't partition ->3rd party drives. I wouldn't mind if it could put drivers on them too, but ->that's not so critical. But Apple refuses to sell reasonably large disks, ->and sticks us with the archaic and arcane dp. I was under the strong ->impression that this was going to change in 2.0.1, but if I did hear such ->a commitment, it wasn't kept. What happened to "easy to use" and "great user ->interface"? You don't have to know the magic SCSI commands to set up partitions on a disk. You only have to know GetCapacity, Read, and Write. There is no reason HD Setup could not set up partitions on a disk formatted (and driven) by other software. >Come on folks at Apple. ONE OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM'S MAIN FUNCTIONS IS TO >EFFICIENTLY MANAGE FILES AND FILE STRUCTURES. UNIX is very popular because >over twenty years ago the people at Bell Labs realized this and wrote >an operating system with this in mind. Because of this foresight UNIX >is a very expandable OS. We run it here at NASA on supercomputers and >mass storage systems (with the ability to handle over a terabyte of data!) >I read in MacWeek all the great things System 7.0 will provide the MacOS >community (hot links, etc.), but I haven't read anything on improvements >to the MacOS file system. Even modifying HS Setup to allow multiple HFS >Partitions per physical device would be a help. But no - it seems Apple is >intent on putting on several layers of frosting before they have finished baking >the cake. Moved and seconded. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)
ksand@Apple.COM (Kent Sandvik) (03/17/91)
In article <1991Mar16.014644.14808@neon.Stanford.EDU> kaufman@neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) writes: >Some comments on multiple HFS partitions: >->Well, the trick with patching _HFSDispatch in order to fake multiple >->HFS volumes on one single volume has always been a hack, and thus >->is not suppored by neither A/UX or MacOS. >I was not aware that patching _HFSDispatch was required if the partitions >were "TRUE" (IM-V) apple partitions. All that is required is a driver that >is aware enough to read the partition map and create multiple volume entries. Sorry about that comment, I had a vague memory about talking about this with other DTS engineers, and I was wrong. It's true that you only need to register the information about a new partition during startup. Errare humanum est - especially with the current work load. >You don't have to know the magic SCSI commands to set up partitions on a >disk. You only have to know GetCapacity, Read, and Write. There is no >reason HD Setup could not set up partitions on a disk formatted (and driven) >by other software. This is true for setting up partitions on the disk. But note, this is not true if the hard disk drive has some SCSI command features that the A/UX kernel won't accept, and thus you can't even mount that partition. This was the point I tried to make with HD Setup, it's really hard to figure out what SCSI functionality the other end has, and *disable* it, or make it to work with A/UX; for instance because the kernel does sanity checks on odd calls, and don't accept them at all. >>Come on folks at Apple. ONE OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM'S MAIN FUNCTIONS IS TO >>EFFICIENTLY MANAGE FILES AND FILE STRUCTURES. UNIX is very popular because >>over twenty years ago the people at Bell Labs realized this and wrote >>an operating system with this in mind. Because of this foresight UNIX >>is a very expandable OS. We run it here at NASA on supercomputers and >>mass storage systems (with the ability to handle over a terabyte of data!) >>I read in MacWeek all the great things System 7.0 will provide the MacOS >>community (hot links, etc.), but I haven't read anything on improvements >>to the MacOS file system. Even modifying HS Setup to allow multiple HFS >>Partitions per physical device would be a help. But no - it seems Apple is >>intent on putting on several layers of frosting before they have finished baking >>the cake. > >Moved and seconded. Same here! Not that I don't dislike HFS, it's a clever scheme as well, and sometime I hope that the UNIX people would realize the idea behind multiple resource forks built into the file system :-). Or even better, forget the whole idea of a physical files and treat the whole structure as one database unit, that contains various data structures, TEXT one of them. Regards, Kent Sandvik -- Disclaimer: Private activity on the Net, in no way connected to any company. Zippy++ says: END, END; or END. is sure clearer than "}".
alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) (03/17/91)
kaufman@neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) writes: >Some comments on multiple HFS partitions: >In article <1991Mar15.224133.7433@nas.nasa.gov> lumpkin@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Forrest E. Lumpkin) writes: >>I also wrote: >->2) Will the bugs in the installation software be resolved. With the present >-> software intelligent use of dp is required unless one is setting up >-> a one A/UX partition (/) hard disk arrangement? > >>To which Kent Sandvik replied: > >->This is a scary area, where the installation program can't guess >->all the possible arrangements that the administrator would wish >->to have. I've tested both CMS and Silverlining for A/UX disk >->partitioning, and even if their interfaces are bizarre, they do >->their job quite well. >>---stuff deleted----- >->Otherwise HD Setup with Apple harddisks asks for a rich set of >->possible A/UX setups before the installation. The installation >->software is quite different compared with the old A/UX 1.1 >->installation program. > >>To which Alexis Rosen replied: > >->This is the real problem. It is disgraceful that HD Setup won't partition >->3rd party drives. I wouldn't mind if it could put drivers on them too, but >->that's not so critical. But Apple refuses to sell reasonably large disks, >->and sticks us with the archaic and arcane dp. I was under the strong >->impression that this was going to change in 2.0.1, but if I did hear such >->a commitment, it wasn't kept. What happened to "easy to use" and "great user >->interface"? > >You don't have to know the magic SCSI commands to set up partitions on a >disk. You only have to know GetCapacity, Read, and Write. There is no >reason HD Setup could not set up partitions on a disk formatted (and driven) >by other software. > >>Come on folks at Apple. ONE OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM'S MAIN FUNCTIONS IS TO >>EFFICIENTLY MANAGE FILES AND FILE STRUCTURES. UNIX is very popular because >>[...] Even modifying HS Setup to allow multiple HFS >>Partitions per physical device would be a help. But no - it seems Apple is >>intent on putting on several layers of frosting before they have finished >>baking the cake. > >Moved and seconded. > >Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) Marc's point is exactly the one I was making. I should have been more explicit. So let me put it even another way. IF DP CAN DO IT WHY CAN'T HD SC SETUP??? (I feel much better now... :-) Please, you guys, you've done a terrific job on A/UX. As of last week, when I got 2.0.1, it got a lot better. Why defend one of the few indefensible points? If some marketing geeks are laying down the law here, just say so and forget it. But if this decision was made on the technical issues, it badly needs rethinking. Today. --- Alexis Rosen Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY {cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis
ron@afsg.apple.com (Ron Flax) (03/21/91)
In article <1991Mar17.090227.2482@panix.uucp> alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes: > >Marc's point is exactly the one I was making. I should have been more explicit. > >So let me put it even another way. > >IF DP CAN DO IT WHY CAN'T HD SC SETUP??? > >(I feel much better now... :-) > >Please, you guys, you've done a terrific job on A/UX. As of last week, when I >got 2.0.1, it got a lot better. Why defend one of the few indefensible points? >If some marketing geeks are laying down the law here, just say so and forget >it. But if this decision was made on the technical issues, it badly needs >rethinking. Today. I've been hesitant to get involved on this issue.. but here goes. Please understand that we, Apple, are very concerned about the install procedure in A/UX, as well as the rest of the "out-of-box" experience a user has when first using A/UX or any other Apple product. With that said, I assure you that serious consideration is being given to 1) making the install process as simple as pressing one button (for the default or general case), and 2) providing a version of HD SC Setup that is usable on most 3rd party drives so that at a minimum, you can do what dp(1) does, namely partition the drive. This is NOT part of 2.0.1. We are hopefull that it will become part of a future release of A/UX, just as soon as we can make that happen. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT! Just a statement of the fact that we are concerned and we are doing something about it. Please be patient. Thank you. -- Ron Flax ron@afsg.apple.com Apple Federal Systems Group
jk@Apple.COM (John Kullmann) (03/22/91)
In article <1991Mar17.090227.2482@panix.uucp> alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes: >If some marketing geeks are laying down the law here, just say so and forget >it. Hey, hey, HEY!!! Now THAT hurts!!! We're working on it. JK -- John Kullmann Manager, A/UX Product Development jk@apple.com
ksand@Apple.COM (Kent Sandvik) (03/22/91)
In article <1991Mar17.090227.2482@panix.uucp> alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes: >Marc's point is exactly the one I was making. I should have been more explicit. >So let me put it even another way. >IF DP CAN DO IT WHY CAN'T HD SC SETUP??? >(I feel much better now... :-) >Please, you guys, you've done a terrific job on A/UX. As of last week, when I >got 2.0.1, it got a lot better. Why defend one of the few indefensible points? >If some marketing geeks are laying down the law here, just say so and forget >it. But if this decision was made on the technical issues, it badly needs >rethinking. Today. Once again, sorry if I caused a lot of confusion with my private philosophical views about HD Setup and third party vendor firmware sending back SCSI information that the A/UX dev driver don't understand. I'm not connected to A/UX engineering, and have not been in touch with the HD Setup development, so I can't comment on things that may or may not happen. Anyway, the issue with third party vendor hard disks are important. And I'm sure people from A/UX engineering are listenining to this debate and taking notes. Kent Sandvik (kind of tired of the dangers with posting stuff on Usenet, maybe time for a 2 month vacation from the Net :-) ) -- Disclaimer: Private activity on the Net, in no way connected to any company. Recommended SF books: Cormier FADE, Flynn IN THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND, Geary STRANGE TOYS, Kessell GOOD NEWS FROM OUTER SPACE, Sawyer GOLDEN FLEECE.
alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) (03/22/91)
In article <12665@goofy.Apple.COM> ksand@Apple.COM (Kent Sandvik) writes: > [stuff...] >Anyway, the issue with third party vendor hard disks are important. And >I'm sure people from A/UX engineering are listenining to this debate and taking >notes. > >Kent Sandvik (kind of tired of the dangers with posting stuff on Usenet, maybe >time for a 2 month vacation from the Net :-) ) Please don't. While we've gotten a little geared up about this, I (and I'm sure, all the others involved) were never attacking you personally. If you felt individually abused, I'm sorry... With that said, be advised: Clear the Decks. I just spent 4 days with about 15 hours of sleep, 5 meals, and one shower, trying to install A/UX 2.0.1. Today I'm recovering, and tomorrow, perhaps with some emotional detachment, I'll try to post a description of what went wrong so that others don't get burned too. But if I'm not so detached I'm sure you'll all understand. :-) BTW, A/UX 2.0.1 itself is excellent (modulo a few bugs which were supposed to be fixed...). It's just the installer I hate. I may be imagining things but it seems to me that the speed of drawing operations on the console is drastically enhanced. Now that it's finally up I'm quite happy with it. Just one word of advice for floppy-upgrade users (I don't know about the FTP version). READ THE INSTALLATION DOCS ***VERY CAREFULLY***. They're written in the usual simplistic way and you'll be inclined to skip through them. You do this at your own risk! Glad to be back on the net, --- Alexis Rosen Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY {cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis
coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge) (03/23/91)
alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes: >With that said, be advised: Clear the Decks. I just spent 4 days with about >15 hours of sleep, 5 meals, and one shower, trying to install A/UX 2.0.1. >Today I'm recovering, and tomorrow, perhaps with some emotional detachment, >I'll try to post a description of what went wrong so that others don't get >burned too. But if I'm not so detached I'm sure you'll all understand. :-) The ftp-able distribution upgrade went over without a hitch. It may just be the floppy based version that's evil. Of course, we do have some advantages since I didn't have to worry about passwd (NIS handles that for us). But in any case the installation was by the numbers. >BTW, A/UX 2.0.1 itself is excellent (modulo a few bugs which were supposed >to be fixed...). It's just the installer I hate. I may be imagining things >but it seems to me that the speed of drawing operations on the console is >drastically enhanced. Now that it's finally up I'm quite happy with it. Everyone here has been very pleased with the console speedups. I'm still annoyed that my machine gripes about 'Swap space running out' when swap -l claims there's 10M left available, but that's a fairly minor annoyance. I'm more annoyed that the header files still require both _SYSV_SOURCE and _BSD_SOURCE defined; the combination should (IMHO) be nonsense and get you yelled at. But things are certainly much faster and lots of things work much better. I'm quite happy :-) --John -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John L. Coolidge Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself) Copyright 1991 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed. You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.
urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) (03/27/91)
In comp.unix.aux, article <1991Mar22.064217.16497@panix.uucp>,
alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes:
<
< With that said, be advised: Clear the Decks. I just spent 4 days with about
< 15 hours of sleep, 5 meals, and one shower, trying to install A/UX 2.0.1.
< Today I'm recovering, and tomorrow, perhaps with some emotional detachment,
< I'll try to post a description of what went wrong so that others don't get
< burned too. But if I'm not so detached I'm sure you'll all understand. :-)
<
Heh -- I had a day-long fight with the floppy upgrade last week.
It seems that the CommCard I'm using installs some directories in /etc/*.d,
and for some of these *.d's the install scripts assume that they contain
regular files only.
The effect of this was that the newly generated kernel ended up without any
modules like, for instance, file systems. Fun.
The installer insisted on not having any file systems mounted, being in
single-user mode, overestimating the required free space, and replacing
/bin/ksh before starting the actual installation.
The above may be a good idea for your average A/UX, but I can do without
these restrictions if I know what's going on on my system.
(NB: Customarily you test for single-user mode by saying "set `who -r`" and
examining $3, not by counting how many processes are active.
NB2: Why does "who -a" hang? Terminally. Not even kill -9 removes it.)
This is in contrast to the installation from CD-ROM, which (at least under
2.0) seriously underestimated how much space it was going to need.
I also wonder why the installation stuff insisted on "updating" things like
log files or /etc/passwd. Couldn't they just ignore these?
< BTW, A/UX 2.0.1 itself is excellent (modulo a few bugs which were supposed
< to be fixed...). It's just the installer I hate. I may be imagining things
< but it seems to me that the speed of drawing operations on the console is
< drastically enhanced. Now that it's finally up I'm quite happy with it.
<
They seem to have discovered that offscreen drawing and multiline scrolling
can and do make one helluva difference. THANKS.
Now for the bugs that are still there:
- Kernel memory management once triggered a panic.
- About once a week, the pty stuff barfs and starts losing characters in a
pseudo-random manner. Under the CommandShell, life start to get interesting
that way... A reboot is necessary to recover from this.
- It's not compatible with System 7.0. ;-)
--
Matthias Urlichs -- urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de /(o\
Humboldtstrasse 7 - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 - FRG -- +49-721-621127(0700-2330) \o)/jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) (03/27/91)
In article <u91bi2.rs7@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: }In comp.unix.aux, article <1991Mar22.064217.16497@panix.uucp>, } alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes: }< }< With that said, be advised: Clear the Decks. I just spent 4 days with about }< 15 hours of sleep, 5 meals, and one shower, trying to install A/UX 2.0.1. }< Today I'm recovering, and tomorrow, perhaps with some emotional detachment, }< I'll try to post a description of what went wrong so that others don't get }< burned too. But if I'm not so detached I'm sure you'll all understand. :-) }< }Heh -- I had a day-long fight with the floppy upgrade last week. } } }The installer insisted on not having any file systems mounted, being in }single-user mode, overestimating the required free space, and replacing }/bin/ksh before starting the actual installation. } Does the tape upgrade also insist on no file systems being mounted? My /usr directory is a seperate FS so I need it there when I upgrade (course, I could just mount /usr on /mnt and then copy the needed files from /usr on root to /usr on /mnt, but this is very ugly) -- ======================================================================= #include <std/disclaimer.h> =:^) Jim Jagielski NASA/GSFC, Code 711.1 jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov Greenbelt, MD 20771 "Exploding is a perfectly normal medical phenomenon. In many fields of medicine nowadays, a dose of dynamite can do a world of good."
marcelo@deadzone.uucp (Marcelo Gallardo) (03/28/91)
In article <u91bi2.rs7@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: >- About once a week, the pty stuff barfs and starts losing characters in a > pseudo-random manner. Under the CommandShell, life start to get interesting > that way... A reboot is necessary to recover from this. And I thought I was the only one having problems! Ever since 2.0.1 went up I can pretty much be assured of CommandShell crashing soemthing aweful eventually. Don't know why, or what exactly decides to die, but I have been cutoff while using the modem (tty1) three times (twice in one night!). Hitting the reset switch is starting to become a habit once again 8-(! Causing horrible things to my filesystems as well. Is this a FEATURE? Why wasn't it documented? :-) -- Marcelo Gallardo marcelo%deadzone@princeton.edu Test and Evaluation Specialist ...!princeton!deadzone!marcelo Princeton University marcelo@sparcwood.princeton.edu Advanced Technologies and Applications (609) 258-5661
jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) (03/29/91)
In article <1991Mar28.045814.1522@deadzone.uucp> marcelo@deadzone.uucp (Marcelo Gallardo) writes: }In article <u91bi2.rs7@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: }>- About once a week, the pty stuff barfs and starts losing characters in a }> pseudo-random manner. Under the CommandShell, life start to get interesting }> that way... A reboot is necessary to recover from this. } } And I thought I was the only one having problems! Ever since } 2.0.1 went up I can pretty much be assured of CommandShell } crashing soemthing aweful eventually. Don't know why, or what } exactly decides to die, but I have been cutoff while using the } modem (tty1) three times (twice in one night!). I wonder if this is due to 6.0.7 :):) -- ======================================================================= #include <std/disclaimer.h> =:^) Jim Jagielski NASA/GSFC, Code 711.1 jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov Greenbelt, MD 20771 "Exploding is a perfectly normal medical phenomenon. In many fields of medicine nowadays, a dose of dynamite can do a world of good."