Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!cps3xx!usenet
From: usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: Why I feel AIX is not usefull (Does this belong here?)
Message-ID: <2016@cps3xx.UUCP>
Date: 28 Feb 89 14:46:06 GMT
References: <2036@nmtsun.nmt.edu$
Organization: Engineering, Michigan State U., E. Lansing MI
Lines: 142

in article <2036@nmtsun.nmt.edu$, peter@hydrovax.nmt.edu says:
 
$ Someone mentioned a painless upgrade to 2.2.1

I upgraded our Model 135 from AIX 2.2 to 2.2.1 with no problems at
all.
 
$ Our upgrade to 2.2.1 failed miserably due to several bad disks. It was
$ nice of IBM to come out and rectify the situation, but we still had 
$ down time due to it. The version that they DID install would not execute
$ shell scripts or binaries properly because for some reason it sets the
$ current working directory to '/' (yes root). Make fails because my files
$ are not in '/'.  I have very recently installed a new version (more disks 
$ borrowed from IBM). It seems to be ok now. When Make *could* find the files
$ that I was compiling, it didn't work on any imbedded commands. It would
$ either fail without explanation or give an error number that wasn't in the 
$ manual. 

I've seen none of these problems occur on our system. Our 2.2.1 upgrade
did come with one update diskette for the system. Perhaps you got the
release from before this update diskette and the update fixed the
problems you mentioned. 

$ The asynch driver is still broken. Terminals have to be run at 19200 or
$ AIX throws away output characters. I have tried numerous flow control
$ and bit/parity combinations, to no avail. I would really like to hang
$ a 2400 baud modem on the system so I can call in from school, but the
$ system (getty) won't send nl at 2400. It also locks up after I reply to the
$ login prompt. IBM sent out a tech. He couldn't figure it out either,
$ but verified that the systems at IBM (Albuquerque) have the same problem.
$ Of course this may be a hardware bug and BSD might behave the same.

I have two differnet modems hanging off of the builtin RS232C I can log
onto both of them just fine and run UUCP out of them fine. The asynch
driver does go off to outer space after the machine has been running for
about a week and a half. The fix: reboot.
 
$ The system doesn't provide job control or sockets, which is more a drawback
$ of sysV than AIX specifically. The console mimics job control using the
$ utilities found in the Useability Services, but it is a poor substitute
$ and only good for the person using console. 

No job control is a pain. No sockets? Then why on page 2-646 of the AIX
Tech Ref manual is there "sockets library"? AIX 2.2.1 has added
HoneyDanber UUCP, dbx, sendmail, and symbolic links. All of which 2.1.1
didn't have. I suspect we'll be seeing job control soon.

$ Curses is broken under AIX. I will try and bring an example to post when
$ I return from work this weekend.

Is this just one feature of curses which is broken? Our main application
that we use in house is curses intensive and runs on 160 RT's with no
problems.
 
$ VS/FORTRAN has bugs. Again I do not want to cite an example until I can
$ bring verified source code to post. I haven't looked under 2.2.1, but the 
$ fortran compiler has a poorly written shell script for a front end. It's the 
$ three pass variety and ALWAYS linked (even if there were warnings and/or 
$ errors) when it was finished. We re-wrote it, but it is a pain none the less. 
$ Our earlier version of the OS came with F77. This one doesn't. IBM says
$ we have to purchase it now.  The VS/FORTRAN does have its saving graces. 
$ VAX mode (although buggy) has drastically reduced the time it took to port 
$ some applications from the VAX.

No comment as we don't use Fortran.
 
$ The archive/library program is buggy and won't behave the same way two times
$ in a row. This is a particularly nasty problem because Make can't handle
$ an excessive (again I'm not prepared to cite numbers) number of file names
$ to link. It just crashes.

I've never seen this occur. Perhaps an example?
 
$ There are no man pages, and I have yet to get the 'help' command to yeild
$ anything resembleing an informative answer. Mostly all I get is a '... not
$ found' message. 

Looking through the Commands Reference manual I saw a page on 'man'. At
the bottom of the page there was a note that man was available
optionally. I checked with our IBM rep and:

IBM AIX Online Publications   RPQP91026   $50

They cover the contents of the Commands Reference and Tech. Ref.
 
$ UUCP is broken. Anything I try to run says that it wants some earlier 
$ version of the VRM. A lot of files referenced in the manual aren't even
$ there. I *know* it's installed properly because I went back and did it again.

Strange, I've never had any problem with UUCP on the RT. I've always
thought that it ran quite solid.
 
$ Nroff flags that are in the manual do nothing. (Again I'll bring examples
$ next week). 
$ 
$ DUMP is described wrong in the manual. We had to use some unusual magic
$ cookies on the command line to restore our file systems after 2.2.1 
$ scrambled it. We now avoid the problem by giving dump different flags. I
$ think part of our problem may have been our ignorance.
$ 
$ There are several functions in the BSD compatability libraries that do 
$ not perform in the manner described in the manual pages. There are other
$ routines that I suspect are just stubs.
$ 
$ In the same room with the RT is a VAX 11/730 running MORE/BSD 4.3. The RT
$ runs circles (many many circles) around that machine speed wise, but our
$ programmers claim they get better productivity from the 730 even though it's 
$ slow. BSD came with C, PASCAL, Fortran, Ingres, and a host of tools that make 
$ life easy. AIX requires that we purchase each of these, yet is more expensive
$ for the basic system than my entire BSD distibution. The BSD versions of
$ the compilers all work and work well. The IBM compilers are buggy and hard
$ to use.

You can't expect IBM to do business the same way a University does. Plus
programmers at IBM make far more than graduate students do.
 
$ I say that the AIX system is unproductive because there is a learning curve,
$ even for people who know sysV. We have two other sysV machines that we
$ do administrative/development work on. We should have been able to come
$ up to speed much quicker than we were able to. I don't beleive that people
$ should have to program/work around pitfalls in a machines architecture and 
$ operating system. Especially since it costs money every time we make a 
$ port to a new platform. 

I came to the RT from a SUN and Ultrix world and it only took about two
days to get used to some of the AIX/SysV differences. It took me the
longest to break myself of the 'more' habit and type 'pg'.
 
$ There is a list of problems sitting on my desk. I will document them better
$ and email them to anyone who's interested.
$ 
$ Bye,
$ 
$ Peter Blemel

Sounds like you've had some problems. But I'd say don't give up as it
looks like you're more the exception than the rule.

John H. Lawitzke      UUCP: Work: ...rutgers!mailrus!frith!fciiho!jhl
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