Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!mips!cmic!garvey From: garvey@cmic.UUCP (Joe Garvey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: Long filenames on HPUX 6.2 Summary: Don't convert to long filenames until you know all the facts!!! Message-ID: <211@cmic.UUCP> Date: 12 Oct 89 01:43:38 GMT References: <4243@yunexus.UUCP> Organization: Califonia Microwave Inc., Sunnyvale, CA. Lines: 73 In article <4243@yunexus.UUCP>, mathieu@yunexus.UUCP (Pierre Mathieu) writes: > I have been experiencing difficulties with programs that > expect long filenames (greater than 14 characters). I am > therefore considering converting our system to long > filenames. Before I do this however, I would like to > hear from people who have done it on their systems I've had quite a bit of discussion with various employees of HP's about long filenames. Here's what I know (right or wrong). I run 9000/370/360's. Long filenames were introduced for people that REALLY needed it to work with some other systems/widgets. Many HP tools HAVE NOT been ported/tested to work with long filenames. On the HPUX list sccs and rcs are NOT SUPPOSED TO WORK ON A LFN SYSTEM. I don't know if there are others. My bet is yes. ME10 (unless you have 3.XX) will not work with LFNs. 64000UX tools may work with LFNs, but the folks at HP "don't know the consequences of various 64000 applications when they encounter a file name longer than 14 characters." (Quote is from correspondence I've had with HP about the subject). It turns out this is the basic attitude of most of HP right now. Given time, I'm sure things will smooth out, but right now the basic attitude is "YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN IF YOU CONVERT TO LONG FILENAMES!". I'm not a full time sysop. I can't afford time to fool with the system fixing problems. They're bound to come up, a large body of software hasn't been written for LFNs, much less recompiled. None of the divisions (to the best of my knowledge) do anything before new features are released to the public... even though they have inside knowledge and prior access to releases. Thus no software had any chance of being ported to a LFN system until 6.2 was released at the beginning of the year. It probably won't be until the end of next year that all products have been recompiled for LFN's, and that assumes it makes the schedule of changes planned. The best you'll get offered is the fact that if you keep your filenames to 14 characters things should work... then what's the point of converting? Aaargh. I sincerely hope this system gets revamped, considering the merging with Apollo and OSF. The folks that do the operating system put in changes faster than the rest of the company seems capable of adapting. I guess I'd rather have it than not, but don't tell the world... just tell those who need it, and explain, very carefully, what the limitations are. I needed LFNs to load framemaker. My solution was to go with a mixed disk system. Fortunately, I had to buy my way slowly into HP and unix. I started out with some small disks... that I still have. Finally found a use for one. I converted it to LFNs and put framemaker on it. It seems to be working ok, so far. Not much happens to it, except it gets read. I was particularly worried about the install, since it gets copied to the /system directory first... must'a been a tar or cpio archive so it didn't matter. Glad HP thought of that. :-) Don't be suprised if the Response Center (do you use it?) gives you "NOT A SUPPORTED CONFIGURATION" if you call'm... though I must admit... they usually will tackle a problem of this nature even if it isn't supported. Thanks guys. > (since the process is not reversible, except by restoring > the system from a archival backup) BTW... I really doubt you could restore from an archive backup after converting. My bet is you'd need your recovery system. Then reformat the drive to short file names, and then use your archive backup. (Is mkfs on the recovery system, is newfs and /etc/disktab?) Hope this helps. -- Joe Garvey UUCP: {uunet,backbone}!amdahl!pyramid!mips!cmic!garvey California Microwave Internet: {ames}!mips!cmic!garvey 990 Almanor Ave Sunnyvale, Ca, 94086 408-720-6439 (let it ring) We finally made it the maps! However, I'll bet your sysop hasn't had a chance to rebuild the map database yet.