Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
From: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MKS and PC-NFS:the final chapter (for now, anyway)
Summary: it's easier to start with COMMAND.COM
Keywords: MKS Shell MKS Toolkit PC-NFS networking ethernet
Message-ID: <6875@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 9 Oct 88 19:01:30 GMT
References: <4036@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Distribution: na
Organization: Independent Users Guild
Lines: 44

I'm sorry Keith Erickson had to go through so much hassle getting his
NFS system up and running under MKS.  I didn't respond to the original
inquiry because I assumed his problems had to do with some arcane
interaction between the networked environment and MKS.  Now it looks as
though it was just the usual mixup about where you put your TSR's and
how you get the parameters passed in one piece.

As Keith has already discovered, and as the manual makes clear, you
don't launch TSRs from the Korn shell, it just messes up MKS's memory
management.  You need to launch them from something else first, then
invoke KSH.  There are two choices: INIT.EXE and COMMAND.COM.  The MKS
guide lists four basic "configurations," with the fourth and most
powerful one setting SHELL=\etc\init.exe in CONFIG.SYS, then using
/etc/inittab to launch TSRs and so forth before invoking /etc/login.
I used to do it this way but two problems arose: (a) some TSRs balk
at being spawned by something other than COMMAND.COM (usually these
are "enhancers" that don't draw fine distinctions between COMMAND.COM and
the other DOS modules), and some need parameters set up for them that
/etc/inittab made difficult.

I came up with a very simple workaround.  I set SHELL=COMMAND.COM in
CONFIG.SYS, and create an AUTOEXEC.BAT which loads my TSRs (all of them,
for simplicity's sake, rather than just the balky ones), then finishes
up by launching \ETC\INIT.EXE which takes over and does the other
stuff.  My /etc/inittab just has the minimum needed to respawn /etc/login.

The net cost to this approach is a few K for the permanent resident
copy of COMMAND.COM (although as I say, some TSRs really seem to want
it there, so it's a very bearable cost).  Actually the way I do it
right now, I am probably wasting a handle keeping that AUTOEXEC.BAT open
forever, but I could save the handle by using STACKEY "\etc\init" CR
as the last line if I cared deeply.

The net benefit is that all of the nitty gritty details of setting up
things like NFS can now be done just as it says in the product installation
guide, rather than having to be translated into MKS-ese by a wizard
first.  I'm not knocking MKS at all here, that's just a fact of life.

Here's hoping Gerry and the gang knock one out for OS/2, so I can stop
clenching my teeth at 80k+ for every copy of ksh!! :-)
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)