rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) (02/14/91)
A few months ago I asked the group for comments regarding migration of our NCR 32/450 from NCR Unix 2.01.01 to 3.00.01. I only got 2 responses - Both negative. One person had had difficulty because the data base he was using would not work on the new release. The other person was dissappointed with the compiler speed and really saw no advantages to the 3.00.01 for his system. Just a lot of work to migrate the system. Thanks to those who responded. Their cautions were heeded. I needed to install a larger disk; and really wanted the latest and greatest, so I proceeded in spite of the cautions of others. I got a unify upgrade 4.0 from Unify Corp. I ordered a new Uniplex (It never arrived). Century Software said TERM should migrate OK. Uniplex is office automation - spreadsheets and wordprocessing. Term is communications - calling mci and compuserve. Unify is database. The plan was to do it over a weekend. NCR field eng installed the new 380MB Wren IV (I got from SeaChange ) at 16:00 Fri. On Sat AM I started installation. First event of note was that the drive came up sdb1 not sda1. Second internal SCSI disk, not first. /dev/rdsk/42s0 not /dev/rdsk/38s0. I guess SeaChange jumpered the drive as a second disc and the FE did not know to change it. I decided this would not hurt anything, and I could link 42s? to 38s? if I needed to. A big concern was lpr to lp conversion. I did this in Jan on release 2, so it would not be a migration issue. Good decision! Try finding every print command on your system sometime. Another concern was the 5 yrs of menu.o shell scripts we had written, (The rel 3 uses VSAD menu system) would all have to be rewritten. I had no way of knowing until I got rel 3 up. I was never able to formulate the question in a way CODAR could understand. All I could get out of CODAR was that "all applications must be reinstalled". They did put me on to the VSAD tutorial (ST-2114-35) which said it would be on the system 3.00.00. It was not there. We have set up a menustart script in /etc/passwd that calls /menu/obj/menu.o. We migrated menustart.o from rel 2; it did not work. All the $HOME/appl stuff had migrated from my cpio from the old system. The rel 2 menu should be addressed in the migration info. It is not. The manuals say that if you tic the supplied .ti files in /usr/lib/terminfo the va (sysadm) system is guaranteed not to work. I set up my .ti files in /usr/lib/terminfo/local prior to migration, and set TERMINFO=/usr/lib/terminfo/local in profile. Somehow I managed to tic the files in local without TERMINFO being set. So I wrote over the supplied files. I was able to find a file from some of the non-local emulations that were not in terminfo/local and thus had not been overwritten. I need to restore this from the release tape sometime. I think this va stuff is really bad if tic is guaranteed to destroy your system. libcurses and .ti files that work should be supplied. Unify 4.0 worked fine; but all c progs had to be reloaded. I recompiled all unify c, just for good measure. Uniplex I am not sure about yet; whatever I am running is unsupported, since I never got an update. Term (Century) does not want to coexist with uucp. This worked fine on rel 2. Term works OK; but after it is thru with a tty; it cannot be opened (stty -a </dev/tty?? "/dev/tty??: cannot open."). Term can open it. I get it open by powereing off or some other way and Uutry showes a bad response to AT. I want to work more on modems. I had to use my old Dialers file, as the supplied AT strings did not work. I use hayes 2400 and 1200 modems. Users report better response. Is it due to a difference in the disk - a Fujitsu 170MB from NCR came out - or the OS? Controller is HPMSC. We have 24 ports - all used with ttys or printers or modems. We have plugged up the old disk a couple of times to recover a file on floppy. When migrating a floppy you must /etc/fsck it on rel 3. fsck sets file system to OK - whatever that is. I am overall pleased; but I do not reccomend doing this on a weekend. My brother bailed me out Sun noon; by doing the menu stuff while I worked on database stuff. (This is a family business.) 2 hrs for a system backup. About 40 man hours total. Doable with 2 people. All users were up Monday AM; but did not get e-mail capability on their menus until Tues. Open problems: In 2.01.01 I was never able to get a bi-directional modem to work. I have hopes that it will be possible on 3.00.01. Anyone doing this? Works great in SCO Unix V3.2. I sure could use 2 more serial ports. bnews-2.11.19 will not compile with the same localize.sh. I sure would like to get a localize.sh from someone. I think it has to do with different library names or contents. The rel 2 binarys work. Linked /usr/lbin/more to /usr/ucb/more for readnews. CODAR still owes me an answer whether VSAD is available on 3.00.01. If so, it should have been included; if not, NCR should have stayed with the "sa" style menus. I do not know how to retension tapes. /menu/obj/retension.o is gone. I got O S Halt - Trap Not Expected this AM 04:17; Probably running database stuff. I hope this is a one time occurance. Machine was dead when we got to work. First time I have seen that on a tower. Are there any bad effects to running dsk/42s0 rather than dsk/38s0? -- Reynolds McClatchey (Southern Aluminum Finishing Co, Atlanta, GA, USA) Architectural Aluminum. Custom Fabrication. Paint, Powder Coating, Anodizing. uunet!safn2!rey MCImail 414-2935
rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) (02/14/91)
In article <959@safn2.UUCP>, rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) writes: > rel 2. Term works OK; but after it is thru with a tty; it cannot be > opened (stty -a </dev/tty?? "/dev/tty??: cannot open."). Term can open it. > [deleted] > > In 2.01.01 I was never able to get a bi-directional modem to work. I have > hopes that it will be possible on 3.00.01. Anyone doing this? Works great > in SCO Unix V3.2. I sure could use 2 more serial ports. Got bi directional going. Scared to run Term on it, for now. Goes in or out at 2400 baud. Goes out at either baud. However after going out at 1200, uugetty does not reset it to 2400 baud. I thought getty did this? A 2400 call comes in and connect is made at 1200. No way to change baud then. Its too late. -- Reynolds McClatchey (Southern Aluminum Finishing Co, Atlanta, GA, USA) Architectural Aluminum. Custom Fabrication. Paint, Powder Coating, Anodizing. uunet!safn2!rey MCImail 414-2935
dougw@fdls.odag.or.gov (Doug Walker) (02/15/91)
In <959@safn2.UUCP> rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) writes: >I needed to install a larger disk; and really wanted the latest and greatest, >so I proceeded in spite of the cautions of others. >The plan was to do it over a weekend. NCR field eng installed the new >380MB Wren IV (I got from SeaChange ) at 16:00 Fri. . . . I assume you knew that the Sea Change Drive packages are supported on both 02.xx.xx and 03.xx.xx. What we chose to do was go ahead and install a Sea Change Drive (610 mb formatted on a 32/650 in our case) and keep using 02.01.01. I also found it extremely interesting that NCR did the hardware install. Will they cover your Tower under maintenance? In our case, we sub contracted with Sea Change for the install. NCR will work on our Tower on a time and materials basis but will not cover it under maintenance because they consider it to be "non standard". As an aside, Sea Change Drives can normally be installed by the user. Detailed installation instructions are provided. In our case, we did a bunch of other stuff at the same time (gutted out a 32/600 and moved a bunch of the innards to a stripped down 32/650), so we let the professionals do it. >Another concern was the 5 yrs of menu.o shell scripts we had written, >(The rel 3 uses VSAD menu system) would all have to be rewritten. I had >no way of knowing until I got rel 3 up. Have you considered using the Unify menu system instead of the NCR menu system? I've used the Unify menu system on a continuing basis on several different computers since 1983 and have found it to satisfy our application menu needs quite nicely. All users (other than a few hackers like myself who drop right into shell) are taken directly into our Unify application menu system. It even allows you to give each user their own menu structure. I appreciated hearing about your actual experiences. They were very close to the scenario that I had pictured for us. How much RAM do you have? I understand that 03.xx.xx gobbles up more RAM than 02.xx.xx. We currently have 12 mb of RAM and 32 ports. We hope to be able to afford to upgrade to 16 mb of RAM during August of 1991 and plan to reevaluate the move to 03.xx.xx after we have 16 mb of RAM. >Reynolds McClatchey (Southern Aluminum Finishing Co, Atlanta, GA, USA) >Architectural Aluminum. Custom Fabrication. Paint, Powder Coating, Anodizing. >uunet!safn2!rey MCImail 414-2935 -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug Walker uunet!fdls!dougw -or- dougw@fdls.odag.or.gov Oregon Department of Agriculture, Salem, Oregon (503) 378-3790
wescott@Columbia.NCR.COM (Mike Wescott) (02/16/91)
In article <961@safn2.UUCP> rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) writes: > Got bi directional going. Scared to run Term on it, for now. Goes in or out > at 2400 baud. Goes out at either baud. However after going out at 1200, > uugetty does not reset it to 2400 baud. I thought getty did this? > A 2400 call comes in and connect is made at 1200. No way to change baud then. uugetty will not change the modem's idea of what speed to use. Only direct commands, or perhaps the dropping of DTR can do that. If uugetty does not die after the callout terminates and cu (or equivalent) doesn't explicitly drop DTR, the modem may misbehave in this way. -- -Mike Wescott mike.wescott@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM
rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) (02/19/91)
In article <349@fdls.odag.or.gov>, dougw@fdls.odag.or.gov (Doug Walker) writes: > > 02.01.01. I also found it extremely interesting that NCR did the hardware > install. Will they cover your Tower under maintenance? In our case, we sub > contracted with Sea Change for the install. NCR will work on our Tower on a > time and materials basis but will not cover it under maintenance because they > consider it to be "non standard". As an aside, Sea Change Drives can normally We had to do some other stuff also - added a parrallel port to the bulkhead. I also wanted to watch in case I had to swap disks to recover a file I missed with cpio. I did do this a couple of times as it turned out. I did not mean to imply that installation was "free". We paid for time by the hour. I put the maintenance question to NCR: "SeaChange will cover this drive on a Fed Xpress swap out basis. Do you want to include it, or drop the disk from the maint agreement? I think the money is about the same; but I would rather deal with one maint service - NCR." Local NCR hardware called back Monday to see how the installation went. I told them "Everything went OK. Are you going to cover the drive?" They said "I think so, I am checking with my boss." > > Have you considered using the Unify menu system instead of the NCR menu > system? I've used the Unify menu system on a continuing basis on several > different computers since 1983 and have found it to satisfy our application > menu needs quite nicely. All users (other than a few hackers like myself who We have several databases with different ENTERs. Perhaps I should consider combining them; but it does make reconfiguring easier. We do not have to shut down all users when we add a field. I also thought ENTER was kind of big to have up all the time. The menus we wrote are for calling Dun&Bradstreet for credit reports, word processing and spread sheets on Uniplex, news, vi to edit rosters, and that kind of stuff. Of course, picking the right unify application also. > > How much RAM do you have? I understand that 03.xx.xx gobbles up more RAM than > 02.xx.xx. We currently have 12 mb of RAM and 32 ports. We hope to be able to We have 8MB which is max for the 32/450. I raised MAXUMEM in the kernel to 2MB to improve the results we were getting from a sheet cutting optimization application we wrote. We will see if that impacts performance. So far we still feel that our tower is running faster now than before. This is confirmed by time stamps on cron jobs that run at night. Jobs that ran 8 min now run 6. (real time) Mostly Unify SQL. Most comments I have gotten attribute this to the new disk. -- Reynolds McClatchey (Southern Aluminum Finishing Co, Atlanta, GA, USA) Architectural Aluminum. Custom Fabrication. Paint, Powder Coating, Anodizing. uunet!safn2!rey MCImail 414-2935
darrell@eeocdt.UUCP (Darrell Tschakert) (02/24/91)
In article <131@eeocdt.UUCP> uunet!eeocdt!darrell (Darrell Tschakert) writes: >In article <961@safn2.UUCP> rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) writes: >>In article <959@safn2.UUCP>, rey@safn2.UUCP (rey) writes: >> >>Got bi directional going. Scared to run Term on it, for now. Goes in or out >>at 2400 baud. Goes out at either baud. However after going out at 1200, >>uugetty does not reset it to 2400 baud. I thought getty did this? >>A 2400 call comes in and connect is made at 1200. No way to change baud then. >>Its too late. >>-- Have you any knowledge of a program called uutty? It is contained in the comp.souces.unix archives. I haven't had time to check it out completely. I did, however, use it briefly as a getty replacement for a terminal and it worked fine. I didn't get a chance to use it on a modem for dial in/out. I intend to check it out when I get time. That is, if no one tells me that I am wasting my time. Advice from anybody?? ...LATER... >> Darrell Tschakert >> Phone: >> >> Equal Employment Opportunity Commision >> (202) 663-4436 >> >> 1801 L Street N.W. >> Email to >> >> Washington D.C. 20507 >> uunet!eeocdt!darrell >>