HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: doug@med.ge.com (Doug Curtis 5-4240)
Subject: Old SunOS 3.5 Nameserver kit
Reply-To: doug@med.ge.com (Doug Curtis 5-4240)
Organization: GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee,  WI
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 04:34:00 GMT


Does anyone by chance still have a copy of the SUN nameserver kit
for SunOS 3.5.  Is it at an ftp site and in a "tar.Z" file?

Doug Curtis
Systems Administrator
Computer Systems Engineering
GE Medical Systems
INET: curtisds@med.ge.com
--
Doug Curtis - curtisds@med.ge.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: brad@boole.uucp (Brad Schoening)
Subject: Re: swap size and memory size
Organization: Boole & Babbage, Inc.
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 08:16:40 GMT

In <93609@rphroy.ph.gmr.com> 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?

>Any guidelines on swap size vs memory?  I know more is better, but I can
>increase memory faster than swapsize.

If you're using OpenWindows 3.0 then the recommended swap size is 2.5
times physical memory.  We get buy with 2 times and performance seems to be
just fine.

One thing you might consider when having to add aditional swap space is to 
try swapping on more than one device.  This will avoid having to reformat
your hard disk when adding memory and improve swap i/o throughput.  See
the man page on "swapon" for details on how to implement this.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: sgw@athena.mit.edu (stephen g. wadlow)
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	<shawni.721682218@tis.llnl.gov>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 23:39:33 GMT

In article <shawni.721682218@tis.llnl.gov> shawni@tis.llnl.gov (Shawn Instenes) writes:

   shj@ultra.com (Steve Jay {Ultra Unix SW Mgr}) writes:

   >Most installations have to stay reasonably current in hardware and
   >software technology.  For current Sun customers, the choice is between
   >going with Sun's strategy (Solaris 2), or moving to another vendor who
   >provides a product which better suits the site's needs.  Sun is betting
   >that the pain of moving to Solaris 2 from SunOS 4 is much less than
   >moving to another vendor.  If they're wrong, in a few years Sun will
   >be where DEC is now...in trouble.

  As a system administrator who is sometimes called to voice his opinion
  on the question "Which system should we buy for our application?", I
  am finding it more difficult to recommend Sun nowadays.

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.  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?) 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.

   The bottom line is, with that much current investment in software to lose,
   why not shop around?  I can make a real good case for two other workstation
   manufacturers right now, based on desktop performance (by far the most
   valuable workstation criteria around here).  I like what Sun has done with
   their ISDN/audio interfaces in their new products, but between Solaris and
   lagging benchmark performance, it's hard not to look elsewhere.

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...


				steve
From: mazumdar@mary.cs.fredonia.edu (Jin Mazumdar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:28:14 GMT
Organization: Math / CS, State Univ. of N. Y. College at Fredonia
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3


	
	I was shocked to hear my Sun sales  rep  tell me that  the new
Sun  machines  will not even  run  Sun  OS.  I  wasn't planning  to re
install all the software on my server that  I  just installed did last
Summer.   However, I  like  the prices and  performance claims  of the
Sun's new line.

	Which makes me think that this would be the ideal time for FSF
(Gnu project) to complete and release their operating system  and have
support for  the new line of Suns.  Anyone know of the status of their
OP  SYS  project?   Going  by their  past record of creating excellent
software, I  would consider runnning FSF's  OP SYS and giving up Sun's
software altogether - at least I'll have access to source.


--
			Jin Mazumdar        

(internet:) mazumdar@mary.cs.fredonia.edu

  >>> Dept. Of Math and C. S.                          <<<
  >>> State University of New York College at Fredonia <<<    
  >>> Fredonia, N.Y. 14063         (716) 673 3459      <<<
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: jimh@pacdata.com (Jim Harkins)
Subject: Sun software support needed?
Organization: Pacific Data Products
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:13:17 GMT

Our software support for the Suns expires next month and I'm thinking of
dropping it.  My thinking is that the new stuff coming out is Solaris, and
I have no intention of installing Solaris on any of my boxes.  I haven't yet
been helped much by the call-in service.  Not a reflection on Sun, but I
seem to screw up like no one has screwed up before and they've never run
across my problems before. 

So, any pros/cons about cutting my tether?

jim

-- 
So many women, so little charisma.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Harkins                         [ucsd|uunet]!pacdata!jim
Pacific Data Products               jim@pacdata.com
--------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.apps,comp.sys.sun.misc,alt.sys.sun
From: roland@quadsys.com (Roland Besserer)
Subject: Re: Need HELP recovering edit session from OpenWindows crash
Keywords: Sun, OpenWindows, Text Editor, Journal
Organization: QUAD Systems
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 05:06:59 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.212504.23728@colorado.edu> joel@hrssun.gsfc.nasa.gov  (JOEL PARKER) writes:
>I have encountered a bug using OpenWindows v.2

Enough said. Get rid of it and upgrade to OW 3.0. 
-- 

Roland Besserer
QUAD Systems
roland@quadsys.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: mesm@netcom.com (Mary E. S. Morris)
Subject: Re: Solaris 2.x: resistance to it?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:18:31 GMT

jimh@pacdata.uucp (Jim Harkins) writes:
: 
: Sure.  Sun's big advantage is it's OS and homogeneous environment.  Now they've
: taken that away and forced me to learn/maintain a new OS.  Considering HP and
: others have faster hardware for less money, why should I buy the new Suns?
You say that you need to learn/maintain a new OS. It doesn't say you 
need to develop on it. If you are using a GUI the conversion is transparent.
The bigest headache you will find on Solaris is the fact that printing is
entirely new. However, they do have a printtool which does all of the work
for you. You need to remember little things like what to type after
the ps. It really isn't different. Honest.

I have worked on about 15 differnet Unixes as a System Admin. Now I have
Solaris 2.1 on my personal system. It was the easiest change I made.
: 
: I have nothing against learning a new interface.  I've already gone from using
: a vt100, to SunView, to OpenWindows.  I have a lot against being forced
: to maintain 2 versions of stuff like perl, cvs, trn, etc.  Not to mention
: AutoCAD and Viewlogics software.

They do have a Binary Compatibility option. Not all software need change.

: 
: Bottom line is I'll probably never run Solaris on my Suns.  When my boss says
: "we need another machine" I'll either buy a used Sun, or a clone that runs
: 4.1.x, or bite the bullet and go with a different manufacturer.
As I said before I have worked on other Unixes. The changes are small
in comparision with going to Ultrix or AIX. 
: 
: Then again, I may get 3 months free sometime and convert everything over to
: Solaris.  My users would scream and shout, but I'm used to that anyway :-)
: 
: jim
: 
: 

--
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: gln@harvey.in-berlin.de (Gerhard Lehmann)
Subject: how to copy boot-tapes
Keywords: Sun 3/60 Boot-tapes
Organization: Sgt. Fathom Soc.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 07:06:43 GMT

Hello,

the subject tells all. I have bought a sun 3/60
and got the boot-tapes from a friend. Now I will
double them for me. How to do?

Thank you very much

--
Gerhard Lehmann		gln@harvey.in-berlin.de
Berlin, Germany
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
From: lindstrom@acs.harding.edu
Date: 19 Nov 92 09:31:36 -0500
Reply-To: lindstrom@acs.harding.edu
Organization: Harding University

In article <1992Nov18.014711.1654@pacdata.uucp>, jimh@pacdata.uucp (Jim Harkins) writes:
>In article <15474@auspex-gw.auspex.com> guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris) writes:
>>I also suspect fewer "engineers, scientists, and assorted techies" than
>>some folks think actually care that much about BSD vs. SV;


  It's not that I give a flip one way or the other.  We are a small
(how small?? One worstation!!) group.. so we can't afford to hire a
"system administrator," *I* had to learn what was needed to get our
Sun up and running. I'm not complaining so much about that, as I've
learned much about computers (I'm a mathematician) and met some
wonderful folks, but in the last eighteen months I have had three
OS upgrades and now here comes a NEW operating system.  And contrary
to the propoganda, it's not a matter of inserting a cd and running
a script (sure it loads the stuff, but hasn't come close to running
yet). It's insert a cd, run the script and hope that no one needs the
machine for the next few days while I take a tour through the file
system.

  Solaris 2.0 scares me to death.  When I read about how you big fish
are having all sorts of trouble with it, I start thinking it's time to
get out the pencils and do things the old way (bet I can do a FFT on a
1024x1024 array faster than I can get Solaris going).

  So- I will wait until I am convinced it'll run (Solaris 2.3+) and
then make the jump.

Greg Lindstrom
glind@sun1.hu.edu  ("sun1" makes you think we have another, eh??)

Yeah, sure these are the opinions of my employer. 
Now let's talk about this swampland I'd like to sell....

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: osystems@world.std.com (Cary T Conrad)
Subject: Out of the Net Pan and into the Fire???
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: comp.sys.sun.admin
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 21:54:14 GMT

A customer of ours at a turn key network site is not satisfied with
the Sparc2 being used as a net/nfs server for his PC's(using FTP's pctcp)
and is making noise about putting in a Network Operating system such as 
Novel. His reasoning is ease of use/ admin simplicity/ etc. 

My question is that we have been installing TCP/IP with workstations for 
a long time but have never really had any experience with Novel (I know it
may be hard to believe) and we were caught a bit flat footed. Though the 
system performs very well sometimes the onsite admin is gone and everyone
else at the site has no idea what to do with the sparc2.

How much easier would their lifes be with a Novel server handling the PC's?

Any opinions on the Novel TCP/IP product?

Does Novel handle any WAN issues? ppp, uucp (I know, but I had to ask)

Has anyone made this type of transition before?

Has anyone gone the other way (Novel to PCtcp)?

Many thanks in advance!!!

conrad@osystems.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: dwong@chopsuey.pico (David G. Wong - VIP user)
Subject: sys and network admin head counts
Reply-To: dwong@chopsuey.pico
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 01:05:02 GMT

anyone knows any good articles regarding to ratio in # of sys admin/engineer?

thanks in advance.

Please email to me since I don't get netnews all the time.
dwong@chopsuey.sps.mot.com



Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: jwa@yog-sothoth.dcrt.nih.gov (James W. Adams)
Subject: Re: avoiding Solaris
Organization: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:01:47 GMT

nIn article <1992Nov19.083114.14306@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
weingart@inf.ethz.ch writes:
> 
>Yo Sun, how about providing that outdated 4.1.{2,3} source for free on the
>net?  Common, what have you got to loose?

A lot of money, when AT&T sues them for violating their UNIX source license.

--
        James W. Adams   --   NIH Scientific Computing Resource Center
        Building 12A, Room 1050              phone: (301) 402-3488
        National Institutes of Health        uucp: uunet!nih-csl!jwa
        Bethesda, MD 20892                   Internet: jwa@alw.nih.gov
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: ltran@netcom.com (Linh C Tran)
Subject: SAMSUNG memory chip causes system to crash with parity error
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 17:47:29 GMT

Howdy,

Is it true that Samsung memory chip causes an IPC to crash wantonly ?

Thanx in advance...

Linh Tran	ltran@netcom.com


Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: davecb@nexus.yorku.ca (David Collier-Brown)
Subject: Re: Solaris 2.x: resistance to it?
Organization: York University
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 22:19:44 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.141013.22833@arbi.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> Thomas.Weihrich@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Thomas Weihrich) writes:
|>Yes, at Augsburg University folks are not moving to Solaris 2.x.
|...
|>So I guess we'll be using the Sun machines until they
|>break apart and then move to a different vendor (probably DEC).

barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
|If you think converting from a Sun running Solaris 1.x to a Sun running
|Solaris 2.x is too painful to contemplate, what makes you think that
|converting to a DEC system running OSF/x or Windows NT will be any easier?
|At least Solaris 2.x claims it will run well-behaved Solaris 1.x
|executables.

  Possibly because they have some DECs, HPs, IBMs, etc, etc, already.

  We have both.  We make decisions based on total cost to move, not
emotional attachment (although I cried when Old-Nexus-the-Sun3 rolled
out the door, and laughed when the vendor rolled it back in and
donated it back to us because it wasn't worth anything)

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@CCS.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | York Postmaster and
CANADA. 416-223-8968  | occasional email consultant.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire)
Subject: Re: Sun clone won't drop DTR?
Organization: Intellection, Inc.
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 17:35:55 GMT

In article <1992Nov22.210550.5941@netcom.com> mesm@netcom.com (Mary E. S. Morris) writes:

   On Sun systems only devices whose minor number is 128 or below
   have the capability to drop dtr.

On the contrary, closing a properly configured 12/128+x device does
drop DTR.  DTR will drop just catting /dev/null to it.
-- 
Ed McGuire                   1603 LBJ Freeway, Suite 780
Systems Administrator/       Dallas, Texas 75234
 Member of Technical Staff   214/620-2100, FAX 214/484-8110
Intellection, Inc.           <ed@intellection.com>
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:8623 comp.unix.admin:6353 comp.unix.programmer:5410 comp.unix.wizards:4874
From: usmyrtle@mcs.drexel.edu (Steven Myrtle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.programmer,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: revisited, determining if anyone else is logged on
Date: 23 Nov 92 23:42:45 GMT
Organization: Drexel University

Not so long ago I wrote...

>What's the best way under SunOS 4.1.x to determine if anyone besides
>the owner of the console is logged onto the machine?  Searching the
>utmp file?  Searching the process table?  (My program will be setuid
>root, so that is an option, although I would prefer a simpler
>solution.)  Other suggestions are greatly welcomed?

Since then, I have gotten way too much mail telling me about w, who,
finger, etc., and how to do things from within a script.  I know all
about doing it from within a script.  But I'm not talking about a
script.  I thought me mentioning "My program will be setuid root"
would make that clear.  Apparently not.  I suppose people didn't notice
that tidbit of information, or else almost everyone uses the words
"program" and "script" without distinction.  Some people have gotten
closer to what I'm asking for.  They suggested I use system(), fork(),
execl(), etc., to execute a w, who, finger, etc.  But I don't at all
consider doing that from within a setuid program to be a good practice,
and I won't do it.

I'm looking for 100% C code that doesn't need to do execl()'s in any way,
shape, or form.  I know all about reading the utmp file, but I'm looking
for a better method since the utmp file isn't 100% reliable.

As before, please email me if you have some ideas, but please, no more w's,
who's, finger's, etc.!  Do NOT mail me after 12/1.

Thanks,
Steven (usmyrtle@mcs.drexel.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: mills@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gary Mills)
Subject: Re: DISK LIMIT REACHED
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 23:20:38 GMT

In <1992Nov20.234709.21592@megatek.com> randy@megatek.com (Randy Davis) writes:

>  Has anyone seen this message on a fileserver's console?:

>DISK LIMIT REACHED (/filesystem) - WRITE FAILED

>  If you have, have you succeeded in eradicating it?

This will do it.  I run it from rc.local.

#!/bin/sh
#kpatch: apply local patches to the running kernel
#	disable console printfs

N=/vmunix
D=/dev/mem

adb -w -k $N $D <<\EOF
noprintf/W 1
$q
EOF

#!/end

The kernel quota routines attempt to write these messages to the user's
tty, but when the user is on an NFS client, this fail, so they write
them directly to the console instead.  Silly idea!
-- 
-Gary Mills-         -Networking Group-          -U of M Computer Services-
From: tim@crash.canon.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: problems with amd
Date: 18 Nov 92 14:37:28 GMT
Organization: me myself and i

malte@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Malte Uhl) writes:
:
||> What is happening is amd is getting "swapped" out. You should 
||> patch amd to lock the text pages of amd into memory. This should eliminate 
||> most of these messages. You will need to add the plock system call.
:
|If a machine swaps out amd it needs more RAM anyway. One of our machines, a
|sun 4/330 showed this symptom. It went away after upgrading from 8MB to 32MB.
|One should take a close look at the output of vmstat -s. Look at the rows
|titled "swap ins" and "swap outs". If the "swap outs" value is higher than
|"swap ins" / 10000, I suggest adding memory.

I have 48M on board so I doubt that this is really the root of my problem:

60-tim@crash:amd/amd>vmstat -s|grep swap
    48913 swap ins
        0 swap outs
    39080 pages swapped in
    39268 pages swapped out
     1548 swap text pages found in free list

I have patched amd anyway to see whether it helps any. BTW, to all
amd-ers out there: do any of you nice the process up or down? How does
this affect things?

|Btw, are you running tmpfs ?

Yup.

Tx. [sorry for the delay in following up, I have been out of the office]
-- 
Tim F O'Donoghue <tim@crash.canon.co.uk> <uunet!canon!tim>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: wee@darkside.osrhe.uoknor.edu (Huy Nguyen)
Subject: FTP site for patches?
Organization: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:35:56 GMT

Is there an "official" ftp site that has patches for SunOS?


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Huy Nguyen                        | "It's not nearly enough to survive,
wee@darkside.uoknor.edu           |  But to live." - M.M.
-
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: steve@neopath.wa.com (Steve Faull)
Subject: X11R5 problem on 2GS
Organization: NeoPath
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 00:37:15 GMT


Hi,

I have just acquired X11R5 and have successfully built it for
my Sun4 machines.  Everything works great on my monochrome ELCs
and color 670MP GX, but I'm having problems with Xsun on my
Sparc2 GS (24 bit color).  When I envoke xinit like I do on
my other Suns I get the following error message:

Fatal server error:
no screens found
giving up.
xinit:  Connection refused (errno 61):  unable to connect to X server
xinit:  No such process (errno 3):  Server error.

I then envoked Xsun by itself and got:

Fatal server error:
no screens found
giving up.

I then tried Xsun with the "-dev /dev/cgtwelve0" option.  That also
produced the same error message.  The readme file in the
servers/ddx/sun directory says that Xsun supports Sun4/x monochrome
and color GX, but doesn't say anything about GS machines.

Currently, we are running X11R4 on all machines and don't have any
problems.  When R4 was built there were no special modifications
made for the GS machines.  Does anyone have an idea what might 
be the problem here?  Does R5 support the GS?  Any ideas would
be greatly appreciated.

-Steve

Steve Faull
NeoPath Inc.
steve@neopath.wa.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: mad@att.com (Mad Srinivasan)
Subject: Re: Help: cannot start "openwin -nosunview"
Reply-To: mad@att.com
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 19:59:49 GMT

In article 4959@cbnewsl.cb.att.com, mgh1@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (matthew.g.hetman) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.233325.28200@mdd.comm.mot.com>, pchan@mdd.comm.mot.com (Pat Chan) writes:
>> I want to start openwin without sunview stuff.
>> According to my OW3 manauls, what I need is to
>> invoke
>>        openwin -nosunview
>> 
>> But when I do it, it complains, 
>> 
>>        /usr/sys/sun4c/OBJ/evqmod-sun4c.o file does not exist
>>        Xnews: Error: Unable to load evq module.
>
>We just went through the same thing here...You will have to add the
>missing file in /usr/sys/sun4c/OBJ/evqmod-sun4c.o. In addition we had to
>add a openwin directory in /etc that contained a modules directory with
>two files in it. The files were evqload and winlockload. I don't know if
>you need both files but you do need evqload.
>

Run $OPENWINHOME/bin/install_openwin.  It takes care of all this stuff.

- Mad Srinivasan (mad@jolt.att.com)