Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpcc05!hpcc01!okamoto
From: okamoto@hpcc01.HP.COM (Jeff Okamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: HP-UX features
Message-ID: <1670018@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Date: 31 May 91 18:04:22 GMT
References: <1991May24.152621.9993@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Organization: HP Corp Computing & Services
Lines: 67

petersor@egr.msu.edu (Rick Peterson) writes:

> But, without giving it a lot of thought, here is a small list of problems.

>	1) disk partitions are needed
>	13) can't put a printer off of a cnode.
>	16) can't change/look at ARP entries.

Added/fixed in 8.0.

>	3) it would be nice to have long file names be the default

Yes, but newfs will use whatever type your root file system is.  Change
that, and all new file systems added will be default long.  Of course,
SAM will ask you what kind of file system.

>	7) shutdown often doesn't complete correctly.  It often just
>	   hangs at some point, generally forcing us into a hard crash
>	   of the system.

Sometimes the shutdown script will have problems in the call to cwall to
notify all cluster clients of the shutdown.  You should be able to interrupt
the script (with your interrupt character) and simply call "shutdown 0".

>	10) it is almost always a battle to install software.  There are
>	    several reasons for this.  First, all HP software comes in
>	    update format which forces the system to be shut down to 
>	    single user mode in all cases.

"In all cases" is a bit of an exaggeration(sp?).  Any software that must
add drivers to the kernel or alters kernel parameters will force a reboot
and should be run in single user mode.  But most software does not need to
be installed in single user mode.

>	Second, since HP software comes in update format it is impossible
>	to do anything at all different from the standard install.

Your point is valid, but what did you have in mind, doing something different?

>	12) our HP's tend to crash more frequently/easily than our other
>	    UNIX systems.  Also, when they do crash, they need to be 
>	    rebooted manually (rather than doing an auto-reboot).

With what kind of error do your servers panic?

>	14) no support in HP-UX for the parallel interface.

This is untrue.  We have several printers running off parallel interfaces.

>	15) can't change the broadcast address.

This might be fixed in 8.0.

>	17) there seems to be arbitrary (and small) limits throughout.  For
>	    example, in archive files, the names of the included files are
>	    truncated at 14 (or is it 15) characters.

In the case of ar(1), this is necessary to maintain SVID compliance.

Why would HP want me as a spokesman?
-- 
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  \____|\mm	Jeff Okamoto
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