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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!ptsfa!ihnp4!chinet!karld
From: karld@chinet.UUCP (Karl Denninger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.unix.xenix,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Microport vs AT&T 6300+ UNIX
Message-ID: <1067@chinet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-May-87 11:19:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: chinet.1067
Posted: Wed May 27 11:19:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 30-May-87 01:43:05 EDT
References: <63@sdeggo.UUCP>
Reply-To: karld@chinet.UUCP (Karl Denninger)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 68
Keywords: Microport 6300+ UNIX
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.ibm.pc:4374 comp.unix.xenix:351 comp.unix.questions:2559

In article <63@sdeggo.UUCP> dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) writes:
>I've been running Microport for close to five months now and have turned
>up a fair number of bugs.  
>
>Microport bugs:
>
>(the official list as of release 2.2)
(Excerpted list of bugs follows)
>
>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
>
>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)
>
>Data terminals using 8 bit protocols are not supported through gettydefs
>

We have Microport here, and have been running it since November of last
year (started on 1.3.6, now have 2.2). Some observations on the "official"
bug list, and some bugs which are "unofficial" but not unreported, let
me assure you! ;-)

1) Terminals: It is "getty" which does not support 8 bit protocols properly.
The real problem is the "sane" flag, which sets CS7. A pd version of getty, 
or a *REAL* long gettydefs line, solves that problem.  (Note: the "original" 
getty sometimes will skip past the 8 bit entries, although I have been able 
to get them to work. The "new" getty I run here, on all except the console 
(which, as of 2.2, *must* run the normal one), works fine for 8 bit - we 
have several users using it regularly.)

2) There are some wierd problems with the serial driver. I have been able
to panic the system due to SIO driver failures (Ie: DTR disappears -- you
do anything which touches the port and the system panics). This is under
evaluation. (note that this is new to V2.2)

3) There is a problem with floating-point emulation -- under certain
conditions you can panic after an "exec". This has been fixed and a new kernel 
is on the way to me. (Believe it or not, this first showed up here in
"Phantasia"!) No idea what the exact sequence of things to do to kill it
is, from the phantasia example it would seem to be floating point math
after an execl(), but there is more to it than that as an quick example 
program proved (it did not panic).

4) DOSCP does *not* work if you copy TO a hard disk. If you attempt to do
this, it will seem to work, but trash the allocation on the HD, leaving
myriad cross-linked and orphaned clusters. It works fine going to floppys 
or FROM any media.

5) Mail messages > 32K cause mail to complain, but the mail is sent
anyways. (We use a different mailer here, so this is not a problem).

6) Fdisk will hang/panic the system if a non-initialized secondary hard
disk is installed and you run it on the primary (actually, what blows it
seems to be some kind of internal parameter read, you can crash in
*multiple* utilities, including format, with this. Fix is to disable the
secondary drive (set type not installed) while formatting/partitioning
the primary, then enable the secondary and all is ok.


-- 

Karl Denninger				UUCP : ...ihnp4!ddsw1!karl
Macro Computer Solutions		Dial : +1 (312) 566-8912 (300-2400)
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