kirkenda@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Steve Kirkendall) (10/07/90)
I installed VP/ix for a friend yesterday. Today we tried to use it. Yikes! I sure hope I goofed during the installation, because if its SUPPOSED to work this way then he just wasted $400 and made some promises he won't be able to keep. If the symptoms that I'm about to describe sound familiar, *PLEASE* reply. I would really like to know whats going on here. We're running SCO UNIX on a Wyse 3016sx with 3 megabytes of RAM, a VGA card, and very little else. No unusual hardware. If we avoid VP/ix, UNIX seems to work okay. When we use VP/ix, the floppy drives become instruments of death. A simple "copy a:*.*" has caused VP/ix to seize up several times, and it has caused the whole UNIX system to crash twice now. When it doesn't seize up or crash UNIX, it will frequently give "not ready" errors, or other I/O errors. Sometimes it'll work if you hit <r> for "Retry". The DOS version of Word Perfect 5.0 can't read a directory on the H: "drive". He'd like to install his applications in subdirectories hanging off his home directory, but WP kept telling us about "error 258". So we installed it on the C: drive and it works there. We tried playing a golf game, and it froze on the title screen -- which appears after several setup screens, including one that selects the proper graphics mode. <Control><Alt><Delete> doesn't work there (probably not VP/ix's fault) so we switched over to a UNIX screen and killed the vpix process. On the other hand, XTPRO works like a champ. It can even display a directory tree for the U: drive -- the entire UNIX filesystem. My friend is selling an application that will run under UNIX, and he'd like to tell potential customers that they will still be able to run their DOS applications. He's told that to a few of them already. Some specific questions: Is VP/ix more reliable under SCO Xenix? Or Interactive UNIX? Is anybody out there happy with VP/ix? This has been a very frightening day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Kirkendall kirkenda@cs.pdx.edu Grad student at Portland State U.
jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) (10/08/90)
kirkenda@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Steve Kirkendall) writes: >Some specific questions: Is VP/ix more reliable under SCO Xenix? Or Interactive >UNIX? Is anybody out there happy with VP/ix? My understanding is that SCO has started to use DOSMerge as opposed to VP/ix with SCO Unix. VP/ix does work fine under SCO Xenix and Interactive 386/ix (remember, VP/ix is an Interactive product). See if you can send the VP/ix back for DOSMerge. Also, go into vpixadm and comment out the EXTENDED parameter for the users' VP/ix environment. For some reason, VP/ix seems to flake out when you tell it you have an extended keyboard. This MAY solve your problem. But if that doesn't do it, I'd suggest going out and trying to get DOSMerge for SCO Unix. Note that you still can use an extended keyboard if you lie to VP/ix about it. That's the only problem I've encountered with VP/ix. One more thing, if your DOS application is not well behaved or does low level operations such as talk to the hard drive controller directly, etc. don't expect it to work under VP/ix. Copy protected programs are a toss up if they'll install and run under VP/ix. A virtual DOS machine will never be exactly functionally identical to machine running only MS-DOS. // JCA /* **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* ** Flames : /dev/null | Small memory model only for ** ARPANET : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil | Unix? Get the (*bleep*) out ** INTERNET: jca@pnet01.cts.com | of here! ** UUCP : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hd-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* */
mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Michael Squires) (10/08/90)
In article <4865@crash.cts.com> jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes: >kirkenda@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Steve Kirkendall) writes: >>Some specific questions: Is VP/ix more reliable under SCO Xenix? Or Interactive >>UNIX? Is anybody out there happy with VP/ix? I ran VP/ix 1.1 under SCO XENIX GT 2.3.2 for a year or so; it worked quite well. The only application that regularly crashed it was F-19 ( :-) ). DOS Merge under ODT does provide a more efficient service (can have more than one DOS session open without dragging the system down) but it does not run hardware diagnostic programs as easily. VP/ix will run the PC Magazine benchmark without crashing, while DOS Merge will not. On the other hand, for what I do with DOS DOS Merge is a much better choice as it's more important to me to run mutliple sessions of well-behaved products than hardware benchmarks. I did have a DOS boot partition, and almost all DOS files were on that partition which was read/writable by the DOS session (under VP/ix; that's automatic with DOS Merge if you create a DOS partition first). -- Mike Squires (mikes@iuax.cs.indiana.edu) Phn: 812 855 3974 (w) 812 333 6564 (h) mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu 546 N Park Ridge Rd., Bloomington, IN 47408
spiesman@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (SPIESMAN, BILL) (10/11/90)
When I had trouble getting some aplications to work under VP/ix, I bothered SCO until they finally said that, in general, anything that depends on its own device driver will fail under VP/ix. VP/ix will not allow direct I/O to the video adapter. When you run such a program, the video display will freeze as long as you are trying to do the direct I/O. Bill Spiesman spiesman@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov
david@infopro.UUCP (David Fiedler) (10/11/90)
In article <4865@crash.cts.com>, jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes: > kirkenda@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Steve Kirkendall) writes: > >Some specific questions: Is VP/ix more reliable under SCO Xenix? Or Interactive > >UNIX? Is anybody out there happy with VP/ix? > > My understanding is that SCO has started to use DOSMerge as opposed to VP/ix > with SCO Unix. VP/ix does work fine under SCO Xenix and Interactive 386/ix > (remember, VP/ix is an Interactive product). See if you can send the VP/ix > back for DOSMerge. I'm not so sure about this. My understanding is that DOS/Merge is for the Open Desktop product *only*, even though Open Desktop (ODT) is based on SCO UNIX (as an aside, the current version of SCO UNIX is 3.2.2 but ODT is based on 3.2.1; they will be syncronized in the future). > Also, go into vpixadm and comment out the EXTENDED parameter for the users' > VP/ix environment. For some reason, VP/ix seems to flake out when you tell it > you have an extended keyboard. This MAY solve your problem. But if that > doesn't do it, I'd suggest going out and trying to get DOSMerge for SCO Unix. This is true. However, I suspect that Steve's problems have more to do with not enough memory (I would say 4 MB is the absolute minimum; that's what I have) and partly due to having a brain-damaged 386sx processor. Another factor may be the release version. I just got my updates from SCO last week, and got SCO UNIX 3.2.2s and VP/IX 1.2.0n. My previous version of VP/ix was 1.2f, and there is a *substantial* improvement, even though the release number has not changed, just the letter at the end. Even with all the caveats I've mentioned, I've had VP/ix running for years (literally) with major applications such as Ventura Publisher (yes, even with a bus mouse), and a database with 45,000 names. Before I ran it under SCO UNIX, I used Xenix. I run *everything* from the UNIX prompt, but it works just as well to type "dos" (the obvious alias for "vpix") and then the commands, as if you're sitting at a regular PC. I have all the DOS applications installed to the UNIX partition, where they can be backed up with the regular UNIX files. Most software runs faster than under native DOS. I think Steve needs another 2 MB of RAM and maybe an experienced look at his software installation. -- David Fiedler {ames,mrspoc,pyramid,hoptoad}!infopro!david USMail:InfoPro Systems, PO Box 220 Rescue CA 95672 Phone:916/677-5870 FAX:-5873 ---> UNIX Video Quarterly: We put the UNIX industry in focus for you. <---