From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: How to build a System-Disk ??
Date: 27 Aug 92 07:46:17 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Aug27.035353.26664@bacchus.esa.oz.au> hunter@bacchus.esa.oz.au (James Gardiner [Hunter]) writes:
| >Unlikely, since it is so rare a requirement, and such a pain to
| rare but it does happen.

True, and in those rare cases, you call support, or dig through
your hardcopy manuals (if you have them, and don't have some other
SGI system up and running).

| >be very many false starts.  Putting it into the installation
| But. how do I do an apropos when my Indigo is still in bits....???

Gee, doesn't everybody prepare for every possible disaster in
advance ;)  Get yourself a spare Indigo (even more ;) !)

| >guide isn't likely to be viewed with favor, as it is already
| >too long and complicated (as many of you have posted).  It is
| >hard to be both simple and thorough.

| Well I understand how it could be long and complicated to write about
| but my main beef is that I had to search the manual cover to cover
| defore I stumbled over it.   A small little entry in the index would
| have been great.  A one liner to the area of the manual in question.
| Is that too much to ask.

I thought there was an index entry for this, or at least an entry
in the table of contents.  All else failing, and remembering that
this is an exceptional case anyway, I'd call the support center.


| I'm sorry if I expected to be as easy as my old sun...   ;)

Hah!  Calling setting up a Sun disk simple is a sick joke!  *The*
most single, common question on the sun newsgroups relates to how
to set up this, that, and the other about disks.

| >It is tough to go half way, as you find out.  You either know a
| >little and use the defaults, or know (or learn) a lot.

| Sorry but defaults just dont cut it.  For every situation 
| development/cad/dtp/vid work different swap etc are required.

Yes, but swap size is simple.  That has nothing to do with deciding
that you want 4 seperate filesystems (which is likely to produce
worse performance, by the way), *and* that you wanted to use different
partition numbers than the standard partition numbers for the root
and user filesystems.

| Falling back on defaults does not sound very professional to me.
| For example, I pumped up the swap 20-30 meg over default.  Today I wish
| I pushed it up another 20-30 over that.

Again, so what?  Changing swap size is easy under 4.0.1, and has
nothing to do with your complaints about partitions.  (You may have
problems changing your swap partition size, but you certainly
never mentioned it.)

| >I'm not being sarcastic above, but honest.  There are only so many
| >people in the company to write code, scripts, and documentation, and
| >none of us want to spend a lot of effort on something that benefits
| >relatively few people, when there are so many other things to be done
| >that benefit quite a few people.  It is all a matter of resources and
| >priorities.
| I understand your problem especially as your range is advancing and
| changing so fast.  Its just that I thought small things like this would
| have been worked out years ago in the early OS.

Again, I still don't understand what you are complaining about.
What problems?  The ones that you made such a big deal about were
cases where you apparently didn't bother to read the manuals before
changing things, or even the online help in inst.  Frankly, I don't
view the things you were complaining about as problems.  Very minor
annoyances, at best.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi