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From: ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: UNIX - the "don't worry about it" operating system?
Message-ID: <13060@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 17:32:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.13060
Posted: Tue Jun 30 17:32:47 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jul-87 06:38:11 EDT
References: <17108@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 40
Keywords: locking safety integrity security

Give me a break.  Just because some users are complacent about
programming, doesn't mean to characterize all UNIX programmers
that way.  I work right next to VMS programmers and MVS programmers
and you'll find good ones and bad ones in the same group.

     File system integrity: "Sometimes the dump tapes will be bad, and
	sometimes restore will crash, but a guru can fix up the damaged
	file system."

Nearly every system from MS-DOS to UNIX to DEC-20 has some program
for assuring file systems.  Careful use of DUMP and RESTORE without
trying to use them in ways they weren't intended (like level 0's on
active machines) will not cause you any problem.  I don't think at
BRL I was ever not able to get files back from systems that were actually
dumped.  When we lost 26 CDC 300MB disk drives due to manufacturing problems
dump/restore was real important to us, and we never had any problems.
I can't tell you the number of unusable TOPS-20 archives we've had.

     Spoolers: "Well, sometimes the spoolers hang up, but just become
	the super-user, kill all the spool processes, and start the spoolers
	again".

Using MDQS, it is rare that the spoolers themselves ever get hung up.
Usually, the peripherals themselves crap out.

     System administration: "Of course it's complicated.  What did you
	expect?"

You ever been an administrator?  Surely UNIX is more complicated than
running MS-DOS, but not any worse than TOPS-20, VMS, MVS, VM, or any
other REAL operating system.

    UNIX addresses all of these problems inadequately.

UNIX has solutions for these problems for people who aren't too lazy
to do things right.  None of your comments are UNIX specific problems,
but the fault of hack system administrators and programmers, which UNIX
does not have a monopoly on.

-Ron