Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!cbmvax!davidm From: davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com (David Miller - CATS) Newsgroups: comp.unix.amiga Subject: Re: Problems with 1.1 AMIX Message-ID: <20983@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 26 Apr 91 22:10:28 GMT References: <1991Apr25.055026.4278@digibd.com> Reply-To: davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com (David Miller - The UNIX Guy) Distribution: na Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 181 In article <1991Apr25.055026.4278@digibd.com> rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey) writes: : : After two days of "fun" filled spelunking of AMIX 1.1 I have my : first whine list. Anybody who knows how to deal with these problems : PLEASE speak up, either in private e-mail or posting to the group. : First the whining, then the praise. : :Enter whine mode: : : 1) Disk partitioning. : The 386 R4 install procedure lets you create many UNIX partitions, : aka slices, in any slice # and size you want. The 1.1 install : scripts seems to limit you to 3 stock UNIX and 1 AmigaDOS : slice. I whined earlier about this before the system arrived. : It looks like I'll have to create a custom boot set that will : allow me to run rdb from floppys to set up all 7 of the slices : the way I want them. Now, I'm the type who used iv and a : custom boot set on a UNIX PC to satisfy my perverse need to : create a disk setup just the way I wanted it. I take it more : as a challenge than a bug... To the Amiga folks, you might : want to consider that SOME of the AMIX users know EXACTLY : what their doing and would like the rope to hang themselves : with... A more flexible install partitioning script would : be appreciated in future releases. Maybe you can even pull : an AT&T "magic mode" a la 3b2 UNIX! Well, there is a sort of magic mode. Type control-C during the install script and you'll get an interactive shell. From there you can do just about anything. A word of caution: There is not enough swap space on the floppy disk to support the swap device. You must go far enough through the installation to create a RDB and a swap partition. Then, once in an interactive shell, you must say: swap -a /dev/rdsk/c6d0s 0 where is the partition to use for swapping, and is the length of the partition in 512-byte blocks. Then say: swap -d /dev/fakeswap 0 where is the size of the fakeswap partition. (The current size may be determined by typing: swap -l : 2) MotherBoard serial driver. Enter face filled with disgust mode: : Come on guys, this is an AMIGA for crying out loud. There is : zero, zilcho, zippo, nadda excuse for a serial port that drops : characters at 9600 baud like it's going out of style. What's : worse, the serial driver PANIC'D MY SYSTEM from a USER mode : kermit, ckermit 5a(169) alpha to be exact, and I wasn't : even running as root! I'll admit I'm spoiled when it comes to : serial performance due to where I work but come on people. A : thousand lashings with a wet noodle on this one. I hope 2.0 : has a better serial driver for the motherboard port. : : In the mean time, is there any way I can increase the buffering : or something so that I'm not wasting a telebit T2500? I'd : really like to be able to do 19200. My UNIX PC can do 9600 : full bore with no drop outs on a mid 80's serial driver; I'm : disappointed with AMIX's performance... B^(. : : The MOST frustrating thing is that the system panic didn't : do a panic dump on the paging area even though there was : enough blocks to do so. How am I supposed to psychoanalyse : a panic dump with crash when the kernel doesn't have the common : decency to make one? I use crash at work quite a bit so I : know what to do once I get the dump. Can I set any magic : variables to tell AMIX to dump to swap? This is fixed in version 2.0. : 3) X needs pty 0 free in order to startup??? HUH? I'd : REALLY like to know why this is. I've worked with quite a : few X servers and most recently X386. NONE of them require : a pty, let alone the FIRST pty, to be free in order to work. : I can't wait to hear the reason for this one... This will also be fixed in 2.0. : 4) The berkeley emulation from hell: : : Sigh. I have a bitch of a time with the 386 S5R4's pathetic : emulation of berkeley routines and I see it infected the 68k : code as well. I get the feeling the AT&T people who did the : Berkeley stuff never went within 2000 miles of a functioning : Berkeley system. B^(. I'll keep this short though. : : 1) If /usr/ucb is in your path before /usr/ccs/bin you are SOL. : gcc won't work and cc produces executables that loath executing. : The fix is easy, as the man says, if it hurts when you do : that, then DON'T do that... : 2) The directory functions in the berkely libs, i.e opendir and : co., don't know squat about symlinks or non-S5 file systems. : The people doing the ufs patchwork should make sure that the : regular lib's dir functions grok S5, ufs, NFS, RFS, etc. and : such and maybe fix the berkeley stuff if they have time. This : botch is common to all R4's I've seen so it's not C='s fault : per say. : 3) The whole Berkeley emulation package on all R4's really needs : to be taken out into a field and shot. Rewriting it from scratch : would probably take less time than trying to fix the current : mess. B^(. Again, this is not unique to AMIX, all R4's seem : to have braindead Berkeley emulation. B^(. Probably AT&T's : little way to get you to kick the Berzerkeley habit. B^(. I beleive that most, if not all of these will be fixed in version 2.0. : 5) gcc gripes. : : Being a UNIX PC owner myself I was tickled pink that AMIX gcc : is basically 3b1 gcc with dwarf tacked on. Will 2.0 have : descriptions that aren't based on 3b1 but totally optimized for : AMIX? Seems a shame to retain 3b1 quirks that we don't have to... : I am glad to see active support for gcc though, I HATE the AT&T : R4 compiler on both AMIX and 386 R4. Thanks to a gentleman from : Dell I have a gcc for 386 R4 but it doesn't generate DWARF output : so I can't debug with gcc. Which leads me to gdb... : : 6) Will there be a gdb in 2.0? I know Dell ships gcc and gdb with : their R4 so a R4 gdb is possible. The conversion to /proc has : GOT to be a pain in the butt... I HATE sdb with an intense : passion, gdb would be moocho appreciated. Maybe some of the : C= guys can milk the Dell boys for info, a couple a kegs ought : to do it... B^). In version 2.0, it is intended that gcc will be the defacto C compiler for Amiga UNIX. It is my understanding that significant work has been done on gcc and related tools. :End whine mode :Enter back pat mode. : : 15 minutes from box to fully functioning networked box on my company's : network! YOWSA! I'm impressed! I've NEVER seen a UNIX system come : up so fast and "just work"(tm)! GREAT JOB C=!!!! After 20 minutes : I was using rrn and sendmail e-mail over the net. A very pleasant : experience. Now, if only I could figure out the $%^$%^ mailer system, : I thought sendmail was terse; YIKES! Send me some email of what you're trying to do with the mail and I'll see what I can do to help. : If anyone has comments on any of the above, please send me some email : or better yet POST. Let's get some REAL AMIX conversations going, not : like these boring application postings I've been seeing of late. : : I managed to get ckermit 5A(169) Alpha to work. ELM 2.3PL11 is : bucking it, can't seem to find all the libs due to the /usr/ccs BS. : I might try merging in the DWARF stuff to gcc 1.39 but I assume the C= : crew has already done that and might skip straight to getting the R4 : clients and libs compiled. I HATE Open Look, I want my TWM, tvtwm and : R4 athena widgets dammit! Version 2.0 will include X11 Release 4.0. (YEAH!) (BTW, OL under X11R4 is not nearly as painful as OL under R3. It is actually, , useable! Shh, don't tell AT&T, or they'll hurry out and change it!) : So, who all's ported what and what should we port next to our : favorite 68k box? Let's get something going here! : : By the way, where the heck are all the Virginia U people at? They : MUST have interesting war stories to tell us greenhorns. B^). : : Happily hacking on my 3000UXD, : : -Rob Thanks for the good word's Rob, they are appreciated, as are the criticisms. DavidM CATS - Commodore Applications & Tech. Support davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com Amigados +1 215 431 9300 UNIX +1 215 431 9425