Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!decvax!crltrx!jg
From: jg@crltrx.crl.dec.com (Jim Gettys)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: DECStation 3100
Message-ID: <128@crltrx.crl.dec.com>
Date: 13 Apr 89 18:32:02 GMT
References: <8107@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: jg@crltrx.crl.dec.com.UUCP (Jim Gettys)
Distribution: usa
Organization: DEC Cambridge Research Lab
Lines: 33

In article <8107@boulder.Colorado.EDU> bobk@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Bob Kinne) writes:
>We will be installing a DECstation 3100 in about 2 weeks.  We
>would like to install ULTRIX 3.0 over the network, in the same
>way we support VAXStations.  Our server is a 3500 with TK tape.
>Since the byte ordering is different between the VAX and the
>MIPS machine, are there any problems or tricks involved in setting
>up the DECstation as a Remote Installation client of the VAXserver?
>We will have the DECstation ULTRIX on a tape, we only need to 
>download it from tape to server, then from server to workstation.
>Our DEC rep has no answers, and recommends buying a TK drive with
>the DECstation (cost about $6500) to do downloads.  This doesn't
>seem necessary to me, but I'd like some information from someone
>with experience.

The MIPS processors can be run in either byte order.  Strangely enough,
we chose to run the processor in the same byte order as the VAX. :-)

Ultrix can be installed from a VAXstation onto the DECstation 3100 (PMAX)
just fine; you do have to update the software on the VAXstation to perform
the installation however.

The machine I compose this message is a DECstation 3100; and it was
installed from a VAX 8550 onto my RZ55; we just installed this week a number of
other DECstations running diskless using the 8550 as their server.  
We do not have a single TK50Z here at CRL.

In this release, there are some problems in performing RIS installations
on both VAXstations and DECstations simultaneously (you can do
one or the other but not both at the same instant); I presume these
problems will be fixed in Ultrix 3.1, but can't speak for UEG.
				Jim Gettys
				Digital Equipment Corporation
				Cambridge Research Lab