HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: SUMMARY: 1 GB 3.5" SCSI disks
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:43:47 GMT
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup)
Distribution: world
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

edguer@ces.cwru.edu (Aydin Edguer) writes:
>There are at least seven models that are available now or will be available
>shortly.  There are also a few 1.2/1.3 GB (formatted) disk drives
>(IBM 0663 E15, DEC DSP3160) available.

>Maxtor      
>MXT1240S    
>Fast SCSI-2 
>6300RPM     
^^^^^^^^
6600 RPM, I believe.

>300,000MTBF 
>1.05GB      
>20ms max.seek
>1.5ms t-t.seek
>88bit ECC  
>256KB cache
>30dBA@1ft  

>Maxtor is supposed to be fast and looks like the fastest in term of maximum
>sustained transfer rate [6300 RPM].  Not yet available so compatibility and
>pricing are not yet known.

	This is the drive I've been referring to as "Maxtor Magic".  I see
4.2MB/s sustained at the driver level talking to a slow WD33c93a controller.
(Outer tracks, using 5MB/s Sync burst, since you need the 'b' WD part for
SCSI-fast).

-- 
To be or not to be = 0xff
-
Randell Jesup, Jack-of-quite-a-few-trades, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: ceb4@ucs.cam.ac.uk (Caroline Blackmun)
Subject: Problems adding memory to Sun4/330
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:57:09 GMT

Original configuration:
Sun4/330, ROM revision 3.0, running SunOS 4.1.1. 8M memory on the CPU
board, plus 16M on a Sun Stingray board.

I want to add another 32M memory.

Sun told me that with a 3.0 ROM I could not do an upgrade by changing
the 1M SIMMs on the CPU board to 4M SIMMs, a 3.0.3 ROM being needed
for that. They said that there was no restriction on changing from 1M
to 4M SIMMs on a Stingray board, or on adding extra memory boards.

Even with academic discounts, Sun's memory prices are out of our
range, so I bought a 32M (Clearpoint SNME-330/32) board from a
supplier who now claims that they told me that the 4/330 would not
recognise more than 48M memory unless it had a 3.0.3 ROM. The
SNME-330/32 will physically only fit in the first memory slot, so I
moved the Stingray to slot 2.  Unfortunately the system will only see
40M of the memory, whatever configuration I try, and I've tried:

 CPU memory  Slot 1        Slot 2        Expected total   Available
   8M        SNME-330/32   Stingray 16M      56M             40M
   8M        SNME-330/32   empty             40M             40M
   8M        Stingray 16M  empty             24M             24M
   8M        empty         Stingray 16M      24M             24M
   8M        SNME-330/32   Stingray 8M       48M             40M

How do I get it to see at least 48M or even 56M? Anyone know whether
a 3.0.3 ROM would solve the problem (assuming I can get Sun to sell me
one at a reasonable price)? The suppliers don't understand why it only
sees 40M, and a Sun Engineer said that it must be the SNME-330 board
since the maximum memory for that system should be 64M. (I've changed
the EEPROM to expect 56M memory.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Caroline Blackmun, Senior Systems Programmer,   | Email: CEB4@ucs.cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, UK | 

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: Sun clone motherboard in a PC case? 
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 16:28:29 GMT

I have heard rumors that someone is producing (or trying to produce) a
SPARC motherboard that will fit in a PC case.  Does anyone know anything
about this?

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: pcp2g@karma.astro.Virginia.EDU (Gilligan)
Subject:  SOLARIS question
Keywords: Sparc LX
Reply-To: pcp2g@karma.astro.Virginia.EDU (Gilligan)
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 15:30:01 GMT

I have a Sparc IPC right now, and I'm considering upgrading to the
LX. Does anyone out there have experience on this? My department has
all OS 4.1 machines, and I would like to run our old software. Our 
department only *supports* the old OS, so I would rather use
the old OS. The sparc announcement doesn't say if the new LX will
even run the old OS; it only talks about Solaris 2.1. I know the new
OS should work with the old binaries, but again, the new OS isn't
fully supported here yet.

So: can I install the old (OS 4.1) operating system on the new 
Sparc LX?


--
* Phil Plait                 pcp2g@virginia.edu 
*
* "To escape from our own island, we must each metaphorically
*  kill our own Gilligan..."
From: pavlov@niktow.canisius.edu (Greg Pavlov)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Is Sparc out of Gas?
Date: 16 Nov 92 21:35:40 GMT
Organization: Canisius College, Buffalo NY. 14208

In article <5245@calmasd.Prime.COM>, gdh@calmasd.Prime.COM (Gerald Hall) writes:
> 
> It is my impression that Sun deliberately chose to hold down
> clock speeds and to push for multi-processor designs instead.
> By doing this they avoid problems with the chips actually melting
> (which seems to be a problem for some other vendors) ....

  Which vendors have this problem ??????


  greg pavlov
  pavlov@fstrf.org
From: mbl900@anusf (Mathew BM LIM)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: SPARCcenter 2000
Date: 20 Nov 1992 00:25:31 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.5.2

The SPARCcenter 2000 .... pay for it now, delivery will be in the year 2000.
:-)

Sorry .. couldn't resist it.
-- 
Mathew Lim, Unix Systems Programmer, ANU Supercomputer Facility,	
Australian National University,	GPO Box 4, Canberra City, ACT, Australia 2601.
Telephone : +61 6 249 2750 	| 
Fax       : +61 6 247 3425	| E-Mail  : M.Lim@anu.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Sparc 10's are 10BASE-T
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:08:26 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Nov22.175244.7915@udel.edu> scoggin@opus.ee.udel.edu (John K Scoggin) writes:
>>I haven't seen the Sparc 10 hardware, but most any modern system designer
>>will try hard to get the guts of the system onto a single board, and this
>>makes board-edge space very precious.  That AUI connector plus slide lock
>>is big...
>
>One other advantage.  If you mount your SPARCs under a console or in a rack,
>how many times have you had a ":"(*E^ AUI connector SLIP OFF? ...

A friend points out another issue, something I missed in my original comment:
the AUI connector is required to supply transceiver power, and an awkwardly
large amount of it too.  If you were feeling sleazy, you might make the
AUI interface (i.e. the notorious cable) an extra-cost option, put in a
little footnote saying "may not work on the largest configurations", and
not bother beefing up the power supply...

A further thought is that if you provide two interfaces, you have to have
a way of switching between them, and the extra-cable-for-AUI approach means
that the 10BaseT-only customers don't have to pay for it.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: donham@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Christopher Donham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Will LX/LC machines lower price of Sparc 2s?
Date: 21 Nov 92 06:12:54 GMT
Reply-To: donham@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Christopher Donham)
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

With all of the talk of the pricing of the new Suns that has gone by
in this group, and the comparisons to 486s, I was surprised that no
one has mentioned/discussed what the impact of the new machines might
be on the prices of existing machines -- like the Sparc 2.  I don't
have the money to purchase one of the new machines even with their low
prices (graduate student stipends are not a lot of money).  I was
holding out hope that the new computers would push the price of the
Sparc 2 down.  Why buy a Sparc 2 at this point since it is cheaper to
purchase an LC or LX? (one possible answer to this is because the
Sparc 2 will run SunOS 4.x) Any comments on what the price of a Sparc
2 will be in 6 months after the new machines have started to influence
the market?  Should the price of a Sparc 2 drop below the LX or even
the LC?

Chris
+--------------------+-----------------------------+--------------------------+
| Christopher Donham | University of Pennsylvania  | donham@axon.ee.upenn.edu |
|  Department of EE  |   Philadelphia, PA 19104    |                          |
+--------------------+-----------------------------+--------------------------+
From: craig@ec.uwa.oz.au (Craig Richmond - division)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: writing down root password
Date: 20 Nov 1992 01:44:11 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: decel.ecel.uwa.edu.au

kapela@prism.poly.edu (Theodore S. Kapela) writes:

>I may have misinterpretted this, but:
>If /etc/passwd was indeed trashed, and the "root" entry was either missing
>or wrong, what good would it do to have the root password at all?  If
>you can't become root in multi-user, and the console is marked as not
>being secure in /etc/ttytab, you can't become root via booting
>single-user either, unless you boot from some other device (another bootable
>partition, CD, tape, net, etc. . .)

Are you sure about this?  I was under the impression that when you boot
into single user mode, the userid is 0 and it is irrelevant what is in
/etc/passwd.  The reason I say this is that single user mode ignores many
other useful features of unix.  Being short of terminals we put a mega dumb
terminal as the console of a VAX 11/750.  UPPER CASE ONLY!  This was fine
and you could just manage to use it.  Then we wanted to take the machine
back to single user mode and did so, but all of a suddent unix forgot that
the terminal was uppercase only and refused to run any of the upper case
commands we were typing.  The console on our VAX was easily accessible, but
was secure under the pretence that nobody in their right mind was going to
go screwing with the buttons and dials on the front of the VAX in case they
broke something.  Bit stupid really.  How could you possibly break a VAX?

>Passwords should be something "not easily guessed" (Given enough time, 
>any brute-force method would *eventually* discover a password.  The
>question is would it be in our lifetime?

A friend is working on a Macintosh network program and has started delving
into the 2 way encryption that it uses.  If you are snooping the network
and you see the random number for the encryption go one way and then see
the encrypted password (based on the random number) go back the other way,
you can build yourself a highly pipelined hardware password cracker for
about $10000.  I think the actual figure was less.  This password cracker
would take about 3 years to crack any given password.  Given the small cost
of this, any respectable institution could crack arbitrary passwords in
months or even weeks for perfectly acceptable amounts of money.

Computers continue to get faster and DES probably won't be enough soon.

Craig
--
Craig Richmond.  Computer Officer -  Dept of Economics (morning) 380 3860
  University of Western Australia    Dept of Education (afternoon)
craig@ecel.uwa.edu.au Dvorak Keyboards RULE!  "Messes are only acceptable
if users make them.  Applications aren't allowed this freedom" I.M.VI 2-4
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:8381 comp.arch.storage:784
From: skatz@bbn.com (Susan Katz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.arch.storage
Subject: Anyone successfully using EXB-120 software?
Date: 18 Nov 92 17:37:04 GMT
Organization: BBN, Cambridge MA
NNTP-Posting-Host: kariba.bbn.com

Is anyone successfully using automated backup or file migration
software packages for the EXB-120's (Exabyte's 116 tape jukebox)?  I
have started to research automated backup and file migration packages
that support the EXB-120.  Some packages sound great.  However, I am
getting _very_ concerned when _sales_ people are using words like
"disaster", "buggy", and "it never worked right" when describing their
own EXB-120 implementations.

I would like to hear success stories (I'm interested in unsuccess
stories also!) about getting a package in place and running reliably
for the EXB-120.  I'm especially interested in file migration
packages, but I'd also like to hear about automated backup.

Thanks in advance!

Susan Katz
skatz@bbn.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: tom@dtint.uucp (Thomas R. Kimpton)
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
Organization: Digital Technology, International
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 18:34:31 GMT


I don't know how many people have checked with their SVs, but
the reason we are not going to be buying the sexy new hardware,
or upgrading to Solaris 2.x is because none of the commercial
software we are using will have releases until 2Q93-4Q93.  We
will upgrade one(1) machine and start porting our other stuff,
but won't start buying new hardware or upgrading current machines
until the commercial apps are there.

Tom.

-- 
---
Tom Kimpton                            tom@dtint.dtint.com
Digital Technology Int.                (801)226-2984	
500 W. 1200 South, Orem UT, 84057      FAX (801) 226-8438
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.misc
From: ruck@zeta.ee.ufl.edu (John R Ruckstuhl Jr)
Subject: Re: Type 5 Keyboard & SunOS411
Organization: EE Dept at UF
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 20:47:04 GMT

In comp.sys.sun.admin zonker+@CMU.EDU (Jeremy G. Mereness) writes:
>I have a pair of new Sparc IPX's that are required to run SunOS 4.1.1. They
>came with Type 5 keyboards. 
>This seems to prevent me from running X11. I tried an older keyboard
>on the IPX and X11, as configured,  ran fine. 

>Is there a patch for SunOS 4.1.1 available that would allow me to run X11
>with the Type 5 keyboard? 

I called Sun recently and learned that I could order Part T5KBD-21 for
about $12 from SunExpress.
One of my colleagues learned that the Type 5 kbd is dip-switch settable
to emulate the Type 4 kbd.

We use the latter solution.
Sorry, I don't know what the switch settings are, and don't have access
to the machine now.

Regards,
ruck
-- 
John R. Ruckstuhl, Jr.                  ruck@alpha.ee.ufl.edu
Dept of Electrical Engineering          ruck@cis.ufl.edu, uflorida!ruck
University of Florida                   ruck%sphere@cis.ufl.edu, sphere!ruck
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
Date: 18 Nov 92 19:44:25 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>People like the present environment and don't want to change.  Worse,
>many regard this as the start of a trend leading to loss of much of the
>useful UNIX applications environment.

The loss of the compiler isn't a reason for people to whine about SV vs.
BSD; it's a reason to complain about the lack of a compiler.

Is there any other significant part of "the useful UNIX applications
environment" that you lose by going from SunOS 4.x to SunOS 5.x, and
that can properly be blamed on SVR4?  (No comments from people who've
never seen SVR4, and are just extrapolating based on earlier SV
releases, please.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: sbp5893@tamsun.tamu.edu (Suresh Peram)
Subject: mail problem - /etc/aliases
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 01:44:06 GMT


Hi,
  

   Some of the users in one of the aliases specified
   in /etc/aliases with :include notation are not
   receiving  any mail sometimes.  Is there any known problem
   with this type of aliasing groups with large
   number of users ?

   Thank you for suggestions/pointers.  (Please send
   me e-mail if possible.)

Sincerely,

Suresh Peram
-- 
Sincerely,
Suresh Peram.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: mesm@netcom.com (Mary E. S. Morris)
Subject: Re: swap size and memory size
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:27:54 GMT

rrichter@link-new.ph.gmr.com (Roy Richter PH/32) writes:
: I have a Sparc 2 with 32 Meg Ram and 65 Meg swap.  This satisfies Sun's
: recommendation that swap be twice the size of RAM.  I want to upgrade the
: machine to 64MB RAM; easy to do by adding in 4M SIMMs on the motherboard.
: Now, do I need to upgrade the swap space to 128 Meg?
: 
: More importantly, why or why not?
This is a general rule of thumb for more than just Suns. However
the reasoning behind it has never been explained. A) you should 
not have less swap than memory. If you crash the system and it doesn't
have enough space to write out what it had in memory - things get 
weird. B) Most people tend to extend their system beyond capabilities.

If you want to know what is a good figure for your swap, load up the 
system. Then open window and type pstat -T. Look at how much
swap is used and available.

Personally, if the system has worked ok with out out of mem or out
of swap messages, and you are just upgrading for performance, dont
change the swap. Otherwise, give about 20-30M of swap above what
a loaded system uses.
: 
: I'm confused over the use of memory and impact on swap space.
: Used to be, in the old SunOS's (say 3.2, a golden oldie) that increasing
: the swap partition  smoothly didn't increment swapsize smoothly; it did so
: in sudden jumps.  Now with the 4.1.x OS's, the memory is used to map files,
: and as buffers; the dumping of memory to the swap space is in a "compressed
: format" that doesn't result in an exact image of memory; and so on.
: 
: Any guidelines on swap size vs memory?  I know more is better, but I can
: increase memory faster than swapsize.
: --
: Roy Richter                  Internet: rrichter@ph.gmr.com
: Physics Dept, GM Research    UUCP:     rphroy!rrichter

--
Mary E. S. Morris    |  The future exists first in imagination, then
mesm@netcom.COM      |  in will, then in reality. -- Galivan Burwell
=====================================================================
Netcom - Online Communication Services San Jose, CA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: paulr@fulcrum.oz.au (Paul Rosham)
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
Organization: The Fulcrum Consulting Group
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 23:47:13 GMT

sgw@athena.mit.edu (stephen g. wadlow) writes:

>I agree.  I'm losing a lot of trust in Sun, and have started looking
>into other vendors.  Sun is getting into the habit of coming out with
>something new and trying to force it's users into it.  I do not like
>having my hand forced on an issue.

I recall, when working for Sun _3 years_ ago, that
	1. SunOS would migrate to a SVR4-based OS
	2. All Sun workstations would be SPARC based
	3. Sun would try to double price-performance every year or so

That has been Sun's "habit" for the last 10 years, albeit that point 3 can be
interpreted fairly fast and loose.

>Given how quickly Sun dropped the
>Sun3 line (when there weren't many choices in what workstations were
>out there) and how hard Sun is pushing Solaris (because you already
>*have* all of these sparcstations, what choice do you have as to which
>OS you run?)

Are you not listening? Are Sun lying to you?

>I really have to wonder how quickly Sun is going to drop
>support for the 32 bit machines once the 64 bit sparc processors are
>out.

Check up on SPARC version 9, it includes 32 bit application support. 64 bit
machines will not be on everyone's desk real soon now, anyway.

>I agree.  4 years ago, I bought Suns because there wasn't much to
>choose from and they seemed to have the best deals.  Today, I have a
>much larger choice, and there's a lot of stuff out there worth a look...

Right, away you go then. I hope that you like the story other vendors are
telling you...
	{Well, our main thrust is to a OpenVMS,OSF/1,Ultrix and NT based
	system with POSIX extensions, object-orientation and a dash of
	paprika. Would you like fries with that?}

-PaulR
[Disclaimer: Don't take yourself or myself so _seriously_. I only really want
to offent people in alt.tasteless]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.next.sysadmin,de.comp.unix,comp.unix.admin
From: osycs@giac1.oscs.montana.edu (Craig Spannring)
Subject: Re: How to do 'tunefs' on '/'
Keywords: tunefsn
Organization: Geographic Information & Analysis Center Montana State University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 09:37:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov22.115705.26883@mtu.edu> mrmach@mtu.edu (MARK ROMAN MACH) writes:
>>How can I do 'tunefs' on '/'.
>>
>>The manpages says, that the tuned filesystems must be unmounted.
>
>    My man pages say otherwise:

I don't have a NeXT handy, but I'd be willing to bet their tunefs will
only work on unmounted file systems.  If I really wanted to tune the
root file system I'd create a file system on another partition that had
all the proper /dev entries and /etc files and a copy of unix that
would boot from that partition.  Then boot the system using that as
your root partition and you should be able to use tunefs on the
original root partition.

BTW-  If anybody would be willing to donate a NeXT to me, I'd be happy
      to see if that method works.  :-)

-- 
=========================================================================
 Six of one, 110 (base 2) of | Craig Spannring --- (406) 994-6128
 another.                    | osycs@giac1.oscs.montana.edu
 ----------------------------+ Geographic Information & Analysis Center
From: brossard@siisun.epfl.ch (Alain Brossard EPFL-SIC/SII)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Question Regarding Solaris RTU Licensing
Date: 19 Nov 92 12:37:56 GMT
Reply-To: brossard@sic.epfl.ch
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

In article <1992Nov18.222321.10382@zia.aoc.nrao.edu>, rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner) writes:
|> In article <BxvIxz.5qn@trc.amoco.com> zclc09@npbu018.hou.amoco.com writes:
|> >I have a question regarding licensing Sun Solaris RTU's for X-Terminals.
|> >I am considering purchasing a number of X-Terminals as an alternative to
|> >placing a Sun workstation on every desktop.  I am confused as to whether
|> >I need to purchase any additional RTU's for the operating system from
|> >Sun for these new systems.

  Sun machines as delivered come with a RTU of two users.  If you add
Xterminal, one may assume that each one represents one more user of
the server hence, one more RTU to buy.  The fact that this is not
enforced by the OS doesn't change the legal aspect of it.

|> X terminals don't run SunOS (or Solaris, or whatever you want to call it). 
|> Therefore they don't need a license.

   Nothing to do with it, since they don't have an OS, then it implies
that users log in to the server.

|> 
|> >I spoke to a Sun sales rep. who advised me to go ahead and purchase 
|> >additional RTU's.  
|> 
|> Sounds like this particular sales rep. should be avoided in future if
|> the advice was to buy them from Sun. For starters, Sun won't (currently)
|> sell you software, even RTUs, for hardware they didn't sell. Last time I
|> looked, X terminals weren't on the Sun price list. 

   Rather you just misunderstood the issue, the RTU are for the users
on the server, not for using the Xterminals.

-- 

Alain Brossard, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne,
	SIC/SII, EL-Ecublens, CH-1015 Lausanne, Suisse, +41 21 693-2211
brossard@sic.epfl.ch
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: mathieu@geod.emr.ca (Pierre Mathieu)
Subject: How do I reconfigure kernel on Sun3 to get more processes?
Summary: I need more processes!
Keywords: kernel configure
Organization: Dept. of Energy, Mines, and Resources, Ottawa
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:19:34 GMT

Can anybody tell what I need to change to get more processes on our
Sun 3/270 running SunOS 4.1? I expect I have to rebuild the kernel
with some parameter modification but what is the parameter? What file
do I change?

Thanks,
--
Pierre Mathieu                          "We have seen the enemy,
Geodetic Survey of Canada                  and the enemy is us."
Ottawa, Canada                                                Pogo
Internet: mathieu@geod.emr.ca
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin