Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nih-csl!lhc!ncifcrf!haven!uflorida!reef.cis.ufl.edu!bb
From: bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: VUE and OpenLook Apps
Message-ID: <25123@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 26 Oct 90 06:17:59 GMT
References: <38@gauss.mmlai.UUCP> <101950152@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Organization: UF CIS Dept.
Lines: 64


Tony Burzio at Martin Marietta Labs writes:

>> ... First, I am concerned about reliability
>> of the software (never thought I would say that :-).  We
>> have one HP that has the pre-loaded HP-UX with a few X
>> programs included.  Normally, the HP-UX you get on tape is
>> the most stable UNIX I have used.  The pre-loaded variety,
>> however, is the most unstable crash-prone fill-up-your-disk
>> system I have seen.  During our sea trials, the system had
>> to be rebooted several times a day to cure serious problems.


In article <101950152@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com> will@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com
(David A. Williams) writes:

>As the product manager for HP VUE, I am concerned you are
>having this experience.  Since I have not heard of buggy
>behavior from any other source (it's wonderful having a 
>product where all the phone calls are complements) I wonder
>if you have an earlier pre-release copy of the software or if
>you have a very unusual system configuration.  Can you 
>give more information about what you are doing and the kinds
>of bugs?  (You may wish to correspond with me directly or for
>even faster response, get you HP support organization involved.)
>While I am confident HP VUE is not the problem, I will
>not excuse HP VUE until we are certain it is innocent.

>Indeed it would be and we went to great lengths to avoid
>doing so.  Again, this seems to be a singularity so lets find
>the problem.


David, you just got your second confirmation.  I will stand by all the
claims in Tony's paragraph, and add a few of my own, like "seriously
broken kernal on OS release tape". (Check out the kernal parameters for
semaphore resources, used by networking daemons, using SAM - they look
like bit-shift errors, with negitive numbers, numbers in the millions,
etc.  Then try to change them to match the suggestions in the SAM help
screens, and find out you can't, because SAM interlocks on values to
enforce consistancy, and it is believing the garbage values.  Quit SAM
in disgust, dig up the kernal configuration files, waste more time...)

Based on what I have seen with the v7.0 release, I would say that there
are a large number of drastic problems.  Since you seem so confidant in
your product, how about getting Tony to send you copies of his release
tapes, and have your lab try an install from them?  If he can't provide
copies, I certainly can.

Tony, how about keeping us on the net informed, say, every week or two,
on the status of these problems?  It should provide priceless
information for those of us fighting with v7.0, and it might keep the
problem report from going 'stale', or even being quietly closed.


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Bartholomew	UUCP:       ...gatech!uflorida!matrix.math.ufl.edu!bb
University of Florida	Internet:   bb@matrix.math.ufl.edu
--
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Bartholomew	UUCP:       ...gatech!uflorida!matrix.math.ufl.edu!bb
University of Florida	Internet:   bb@matrix.math.ufl.edu