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From: myxm@beta.UUCP (Mike Mitchell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: MicroPort Customer Support
Message-ID: <10077@beta.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Sep-87 10:19:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: beta.10077
Posted: Tue Sep 15 10:19:54 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Sep-87 02:05:40 EDT
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 47
Keywords: Does it exist?

I received the System 5 software from Microport yesterday, and decided to
install it in the evenining. So far this has been the biggest headache I
have ever had to deal with. I have installed Unix on much larger machines,
so I am not totaly unfamiliar with the concepts of what needs to happen
and in what order, but the Microport installation seemed to me easy to
crash.

Right out of the package, I decided from the beginning to reformat my drive
and make DOS go away forever. I booted System 5 and proceeded through the
steps outlined in their installation process. I tried to use eassyinstall.
This shell script or whatever it is would ask me all of these great questions
about what extra stuff I wanted to install, then it would die. Scratch the
easyinstall.

Next I decided to do it all by hand (which is the way I should have started).
This was after a couple of hours of farting with easyinstall. Ok, I thought
I'll format my disk. It tells me that my drive type is screwed. I get it,
I run with DOS for a couple of years, and now the dirve is fried??? I use
setup to tell me what type it is, type 8, so why is it fried?? Got me. Oh
well, on to fdisk, fdisk says that the drive has 5 cyls and 733 heads (!).
Now I know why the drive is "fried". Where did it get these numbers from
or HOW did it manage to reverse them? Well, enter the right information,
go back and format, then install the System 5 partition. OK, now I'm cranking.

Install the runtime floppy #1 and type installit. Ok, wow, look at those
files... Insert runtime #2 and type installit. ERROR 5: CANNOT READ INPUT.
Wak? Whats this? Ok, take the disk out, spin it in its sleeve, put it
back in and try again. ERROR 5. Take the disk out, spit on it,, draw a 
pentegram in the air with it, chant in a low murmer, put it back in and
try again. Ok, use dd to see what is on it. dd:command not found. Ok, boot
dos, use norton to look at it. 1.2M of '\0'. Great. Call Microport for
a floppy. "Your name?" "Your age?" "Your eye collor?" "Ok, step over there
and the next available technician will help you..." So I waited for a 
returned phone call. "Hello" "Whas at?" "No Read?" "Whas at?" "Oh" "Type
grep yourmamma /etc/passwd" "Not There?" "Hmmm -- Blank Floppy. Next!"
So what about replacing my floppy? "Twelve dollar" For defective media?
"No, to ship to you." Singing telegram? "No, first fedral united over the
counter under the door freight."

So I wait.

Does anyone else have problems like this with Microport, or am I the 
only one with one leg 6" longer from their technicians pulling it.

Mike Mitchell
myxm@lanl.gov
...!cmcl2!lanl!myxm