Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!jack!man!sdeggo!dave From: dave@sdeggo.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.unix.xenix,comp.unix.questions Subject: Microport vs AT&T 6300+ UNIX Message-ID: <63@sdeggo.UUCP> Date: Wed, 27-May-87 00:10:14 EDT Article-I.D.: sdeggo.63 Posted: Wed May 27 00:10:14 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 28-May-87 06:18:29 EDT Organization: Lazy Programmer's Society of San Diego Lines: 120 Keywords: Microport 6300+ UNIX Xref: utgpu comp.sys.ibm.pc:3822 comp.unix.xenix:295 comp.unix.questions:2262 I've been running Microport for close to five months now and have turned up a fair number of bugs. Microport claims that their System V is virtually identical to AT&T's UNIX for the 6300+. I have a friend who had a 6300+ for a while (but no longer, unfortunately) and claims that the 6300+ does not have many of the bugs which plague Microport. Anyhow, I am asking any owners of the 6300+ running UNIX if they can help me determine if the 6300+ has the same bugs as Microport. Microport bugs: (the official list as of release 2.2) Communicating with Honey-Danber UUCP is a problem is the other system has a name longer than 6 characters fdisk may panic the system when non-standard hardware (such as network boards) is installed in the system mail messages > 32K cause mail to die The C optimizer has "several problems" which cause it not to work at times df on a mounted floppy filesystem may cause the filesystem to be closed prematurely. DOS read/write facilities access partions 1-4 of the hard disk, but cannot access /dev/rdsk/0s5 which is defined as the DOS partition. (but you could still access it by another name) labelit does not work properly for floppies A data exception such as Divide by Zero hangs the system, only when an 80287 is installed. (wow, I'm glad I don't have one!) Data terminals using 8 bit protocols are not supported through gettydefs Declaring an array of pointers to structures whose total size would be greater than 64K causes the C compiler to complain even though the array itself is not greater than 64K. Environment variables such as $PROMPT are not accessible from csh (though you can set them via setenv) The f77 char conversion does not work on integer*4 The C compile may generate the error message "wasted space" when a variable has the same name as the function within which it is contained. ar will core dump when asked to build libraries larger than 200K under unknown circumstances the as assembler returns the error "hash table overflow" commands excuted from within the C shell which return errors will core dump if enclosed in backquotes. while using vi typing << may put the user into ex mode using fprintf to a file opened in r+ mode will cause written data to be lost graphics characters will not print on the console unless preceeeded by a printable ascii character uucico will dump core when used with the -x option malloc(3x) the new version of malloc may dump core. The older version works tar does not work across multiple floppies the -m option to ld does not work ======== Problems I personally have found and verified: The clock is incredibly inaccurate (loses about 5 minutes/hour on 8Mhz AT) cron starts jobs twice randomly The floating point emulation has got major problems and will sometimes generate an exception which generates another exception which will panic the system with a "double fault" It is not readily reproducible, but it has been verified by Microport. This may not be a problem on the 6300+ if it comes with an 80287 as standard equipment. The C compiler will generate bad assembly language for the following bit of code: #include main() { double test; test=.0000001; fprintf("test is %f\n",test); } -------- I'm curious about all this because if these bugs do not exist in the AT&T version, there is something wrong with Microport's claims and I can go holler at them to get the latest release from AT&T. If not, well, at least I have the consolation of knowing the AT&T can't get it right. Does anyone know if there is something similar to the Microport "link kit" available from AT&T? This is a collection of all the object files necessary to build a new kernel. If AT&T has this and does not have the bugs it might be possible to mix and match a new kernel with the Microport drivers and AT&T kernel. Please mail to me and I will summarize to the net. Thanks in advance, David L. Smith sdcsvax!sdamos!sdeggo!dave, ihnp4!jack!man!sdeggo!dave, hp-sdd!crash!sdeggo!dave sdeggo!dave@sdamos.ucsd.edu "It took us a long time to put a fan in the Mac, so it might be a while before we put a refrigerator in it." -- Steve Sakaman of Apple on superconductors and their impact on new Apple products.