Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!system
From: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: New 9000 series 400t nodes
Message-ID: <1990Sep23.151659.21305@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Date: 23 Sep 90 15:16:59 GMT
References: <9009222009.AA24527@pan.ssec.honeywell.com>
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Lines: 26

In article <9009222009.AA24527@pan.ssec.honeywell.com> thompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) writes:
>
>Well, we got our Mentor upgrades to the HP9000 series 400t.
>
>Some initial comments on them --
>       [  ... many comments deleted ...  ]
>    The O/S is a little flakey in the 10.3 pre-release that we have.  This
>is supposedly post-beta, but pre release (lists as 10.03.a.  The tcpd "can
>intermittently disappear under heavy loads, specifically when X windows are
>running...."  This _will_ be fixed before the actual release.  I don't play
>around in Unix much any more (I _really_ prefer Aegis), but for the most part,
>everything looks ok in it.

I certainly hope the perennial TCP problems will be fixed before the
actual release, but I won't hold my breath on it - we have been having
TCP "disappearing" problems for 2 years (since SR10.0), and they still
have not stopped (our DN10000 still hangs once a week (MTBF), even with a
special OS patch to kickstart the VME Ethernet controller - in fact that patch
which is supposed to go into SR10.3.p makes our system behave worse in
terms of some really long delays - up to 5 minutes between characters).
Our M68K systems can now last about a month between hangs - we run X on all our
systems as the default window manager and login environment.
-- 
Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry
E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Tel: (416) 978-7094                  Fax: (416) 978-8775