From: grog@lemis.uucp (Greg Lehey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: What is lacking in UNIX? (Re: UNIVEL MUST BE KIDDING!!!!!)
Date: 20 Dec 92 16:17:41 GMT
Followup-To: comp.unix.sys5.r4
Organization: LEMIS, W-6324 Feldatal, Germany

In article <BzHCE5.8FG@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.014048.26507@Celestial.COM> bill@Celestial.COM (Bill Campbell) writes:
>
>>:The ability to stick a floppy in a brand new computer, turn it on, and
>>:have it come up running UNIX.
>
>>SCO ODT 2.0 is almost that simple.  Stick in a floppy, stick in
>>a tape, answer a few questions about system name, set root
>>passsword, wait for tape to finish loading.
>
>Let's suppose that you manage to misconfigure the system such that
>it won't boot from the hard disk.  How long does it take to fix
>it?

That depends on the system and what's wrong with it. I just did this
today with UnixWare. I'm still waiting for the tapes to finish.

My mistake: I set up the X config for an ET4000 instead of an ET3000.
Sure, my mistake (I had forgotten what board I had put in there). The
result: no picture. With every other UNIX system I have used, I could
have booted from the boot floppy, mounted the root file system and
maybe /usr under that, re-run the config utiltity to plain vanilla and
then booted from hard disk again. With an unfamiliar system, maybe 15
minutes.

Here's what I've done with UnixWare so far:

1. Boot from 3 floppies (30 minutes!)
2. Select "non-destructive install". It goes off and tries to rebuild
   the kernel (God knows why) and gets multiple definitions of some
   label which doesn't ring a bell to me. At least it tells me this
   one (not like the "An error occurred reading the tape - please
   check that it is correct" when I ran out of memory). Then it tells
   me that the installation was a success, reboots, can't find the
   mouse, dies doing some other stuff.
3. Boot from 3 floppies (30 minutes!)
4. Select "destructive install". Spend one hour installing the base
   system ("Personal Edition"). Fire up, spend 10 minutes working out
   that it has given me a Spanish keyboard mapping and that it is too
   stupid to change it (if anybody runs into this, there's a line in
   ~/.profile which contains the information about the keyboard), then
   change it with good old vi (yes, they do supply that, but there's
   no more and no man), tripping over the Spanish keys as I go.
5. Start to re-install TCP/IP. 30 minutes so far.
6. When I get that done, re-install the development system.

>With windows/dos, you just boot from a floppy and twiddle the
>config.sys and autoexec.bat files till it works again.  With unix,
>you might be able to do this if you have prepared an emegerency
>boot disk ahead of time or know how to bail out from the install
>disks and know which of several dozen files to modify.

This assumes that you know how to prepare the emergency floppy.
UnixWare doesn't tell you how.

My impression so far (I'm testing this for a review in a German UNIX
magazine) is that they have tried to make it easy for a novice to
install. By removing the traditional methods and not documenting their
new ones properly, they have also ensured that you need to be a novice
to install it. So far, I would say it is probably the worst
UNIX installation process I have ever seen.

Does anybody else out there have any comments? Am I being too
unfriendly? Do people really want to have pretty pictures and Alt-F4
to exit and no clear error messages and this horrible sub-English
dialect they use? I suppose the market will tell, but at the moment I
can't work out what advantage the thing has over Windoze.
-- 
Greg Lehey                       | Tel: +49-6637-1488              
LEMIS                            | Fax: +49-6637-1489
Schellnhausen 2, W-6324 Feldatal, Germany
-- 
Greg Lehey                       | Tel: +49-6637-1488              
LEMIS                            | Fax: +49-6637-1489
Schellnhausen 2, W-6324 Feldatal, Germany
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r4