Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mailrus!ncar!tank!rtp1
From: rtp1@tank.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: NFS under 10.2p
Keywords: NFS,SR10.2p
Message-ID: <6922@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 29 Dec 89 22:41:30 GMT
References: <6914@tank.uchicago.edu> <47b8550c.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 41

Jeez, so SR10.2 breaks NFS!  There goes my plans for upgrading to 10.2.
I think I'll just wait and sit this one out for a while.  Sure, I could
order the new NFS, and maybe it would work, but I'd have to cut a 
purchase order, get it sent out, install the new tape, and hope it
works as well as what I've got now.  Couldn't you have built some
backward compatibility into SR10.2?  What else did you break?  Will
my compilers still work? (c and fortran?)  Will the 10.6 compiler
(fortran) work under 10.1p, or would I have to upgrade to 10.2?  This
is all really annoying, as I keep hearing that all the things that are
broken about 10.1 are fixed in 10.2.
    BTW, I'm not on the software subscription list for NFS, because 
spending $600 per year each and every year to eternity for updates to
software that only cost about $100 to begin with sounds like highway
robbery to me.  Especially since the updates in this case (unlike
SR10.2 itself, to which I am a subscriber) don't provide any additional
functionality, but only fix things that should never have gotten
broken in the first place. 
     And speaking of response, why is it so hard to pry loose software
out of Apollo?  It took me a month just to find out what the current
version of the Prism Fortran compiler is.  I ordered it from so-called
"instant Apollo" about a month ago, and so far, nothing.  I ordered
the December patch tape, to fix the awful problem with huge Fortran
executables because of the bug in the crt0/compress business, but
still nothing.  I don't have the time to keep on peoples cases and
make them do their jobs, and I'm getting royally ticked off.  I wish 
somebody out there would do some house-cleaning.  I really love
the hardware in my 10000, but the whole business of the software is
really driving me up a wall.
    I don't know that the competition is particularly better (Silicon
Graphics charges relatively little for the NFS software updates, but
you have to pay $600 up front, though in the long run it works out
cheaper.  I haven't heard anybody with any Unix box really happy
with the software support anywhere).  That's no excuse for shoddy
organization, though.
    At least I have my macs, which work and are hassle free.  I try
to view the 10000 as a kind of humongous Mac peripheral, and deal with
the beast as little as possible, except when it comes to crunching.
I had hoped to change this somewhat when SR10.2 and X came up, but
I think I'll just forget it.
.
(one royally ticked off customer here.)