Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!well!rchrd From: rchrd@well.UUCP (Richard Friedman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: SR10.1 Installation Procedure ! Message-ID: <12735@well.UUCP> Date: 17 Jul 89 18:23:19 GMT Distribution: comp Organization: RCHRD 2855 Telegraph #415 Berkeley CA 94705 Lines: 57 Due to a unending series of hardware problems that resulted in the hard disk on my stand alone DN3000 being replaced twice, I have had to install and re-install SR10.1 over 4 times in the past two weeks! Anyone who has had to do this installation (from cartridge tapes) only once knows of what intrepedations I speak. Now, while my DN3000 is at the Apollo shop, I have time to reflect on the deficiences of the SR10 installation procedure and give some recommendations, if anyone at Apollo is there to listen.. These comments are particularly targetted at the single, stand alone system. 1. There needs to be a load/install option for the stand alone system. In particular, there should be a clean-up procedure that deletes unneeded parts of the software from the disk. Also, the installation procedure could be smarter and not bother to load unneeded system files. I have noticed that even tho only one SAU option is selected, MINST loads all the SAU directories into the AA. Why? Information about the parts of the system the user does not want (such as /usr/games, /usr/new, domain_examples, unneeded manual pages, etc.) should be requested at the start and skipped from the load process as well as the install. 2. Documentation of the load/install is terrible! The "Installing Software" manual should have been re-issued with corrections rather than having the corrections in the release notes. In the end, the messages that come out of MINST and INSTALL++ during installation don't correspond to anything in either document. This adds great anxiety when you are 2 hours into the installation and a question comes up that you don't know how to answer. The documentation should be clearer on what happens when you answer questions on the screen. All answers should be mentioned. 3. Once the system is installed, there should be a backup procedure that will transfer the system, with a boot record, to a backup medium, like cartridge tape, so that should the disk have to be INVOL'd later on we can re-load the system without having to go thru the whole load/install procedure again! This seems simple enough to do. A system backup builder can look around to see what is installed on the disk, prepare a bootable tape in whatever structure it needs, and write the tape(s). Later, after an INVOL, a RELOAD from the monitor shell should be able to put everything back and setup for a boot back to DOMAIN_OS. Were this system backup/reload available I could have saved at least 25 hours of real agony! 4. Finally, I have noticed that the load procedure at times will retension a cartridge tape twice! Retensioning should be a y/n option from the console and be global: "Should load volumes be retensioned before being read [y/n]" If this is the second re-install today, I really don't think I have to retension and would like to skip it. Lets hope SR10.2 looks better. And don't forget about us stand alone sites, please! -- ...Richard Friedman rchrd@well.uucp (Pacific-Sierra Research/Berkeley, CA.) also: {lll-crg,pacbell,hplabs}!well!rchrd