[comp.sys.isis] ISIS Support for old suntools package

ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman) (02/23/90)

I am having problems getting ISIS to run using "bypass" mode under
the old suntools interface.  There seems to be a bug whereby the
suntools code leaves SIGALRM inhibited and hence ISIS doesn't
get any timer interrupts and, under some situations, this causes
the system to hang.  This bug appears to be in the SUN software,
not in ISIS, in their implementation of notify_set_itimer_func().

Since SUN is discontinuing its own support for suntools, I am not
very motivated to fix this sort of problem, although I will give it
one more try.  I think we will instead focus on the X11 interface,
and of course on the SUN version of the X11 interface (Open look?)
However, I am willing to listen to counterarguments, and if many people
complain I will do what I can to get this problem corrected.

As things stand, suntools code will run correctly if BYPASS mode
is disabled at compile time but is likely to hang (in ISIS V2.0)
if BYPASS is enabled.  Thus one can run suntools software but it
won't benefit from the bypass performance improvements.

Ken