From: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal)
Newsgroups: austin.general
Subject: April 1992 CACTUS Newsletter
Date: 10 Apr 92 07:56:18 GMT
Reply-To: attend@cactus.org
Organization: Institute for Recalcitrant troff Hackers


                     CACTUS Newsletter

Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society (CACTUS) Newsletter

             Volume 8, Number 4  -  April 1992

   --------------------------------------------------------
   |   Meeting Time:   Thursday, April 16 at 6:30p.m.     |
   |  Meeting Place:   Dell Computer Building - Arboretum |
   | Meeting Agenda:   To Be Announced                    |
   --------------------------------------------------------

If you plan on attending, please be sure to RSVP by Wednesday, April 15th
   either via email to attend@cactus.org or peyote!attend
          or via phone to Tom Painter at 835-5457.

The CACTUS Newsletter is published monthly by CACTUS.  Your comments
and submissions are welcome.  Our email address is newsletter@cactus.org.
UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX Systems Laboratories.


*** This Month's Program ***

Our next meeting will be Thursday, April 16th, in the Dell
Computer Building at the Arboretum.  The meeting will begin
at 6:30pm, and the presentations will start at 7:00pm.  The
meeting topic was not available at the time of newsletter
publication.  If you plan on attending, please be sure to
RSVP by Wednesday, April 15th either via email to
attend@cactus.org or peyote!attend, or via phone to Tom
Painter at 835-5457.


*** Last Month's Program ***

The March CACTUS meeting was held on Thursday, March 19,
1992 in the Dell Computer Building.  The meeting started
with a few announcements and questions followed by Ray
Schafer giving the second part of a C News tutorial.  The
main presentation was on IBM'S AIX Version 3 by Dan Bandera.

Two months ago, Ray Schafer presented the first of two
tutorials on installing the C News system.  Last month, he
concluded the series with an overview of C New
configuration.  He discussed the active and sys file
formats, and how C News used these files to control how news
articles are received, ``localized,'' and transmitted onto
another site.  The explist file format, that specifies how
long to retain messages and when to purge them to make room
for new articles, was discussed.  Various other C News
administrative issues were raised.

Dan Bandera of IBM presented an overview of IBM's AIX
Version 3.  The latest release for the IBM RS/6000
workstation is Version 3.2.  AIX Version 3 is a combination

of BSD 4.3 X Windows, AT&T SV Interface Definition 2, SVR4
Streams, Posix, X/Open, TCP/IP, NFS, NCS, Ethernet, OSF,
AES, and File Tree technology, that are all considered to be
standard parts of the UNIX world.  IBM has also added in
Real-Time Extensions, Virtual Memory, System Management,
Network Management, Token Ring, SNA LU [0,1,2,3,6.2],
Logical Volume Manager, Graphical User Interface (from IXI),
DOS Affinity, Security, National Language, and High
Availability.  All of these were added without impacting any
of the standards.

IBM has focused on maintaining standards while providing
reliability, availability, servicability and support.  Dan
went on to explain the features that AIX has over
``standard'' UNIX systems.  These included an advanced
kernel, Logical Volume Manager-Journaled File System,
systems management, Info Explorer, PC simulator and other
AIX packages.

The meeting opened with some announcements.  Some good
questions were posed by CACTUS members during open
discussion.  Some people wondered about the difficulty
accessing peyote - the CACTUS computer system.  This is
because the number of users has greatly increased recently.
Recently added modems (see last month's newsletter) should
help, but congestion will likely remain during the prime
evening hours.  Another question was raised on getting a
USENET news feed.  Unfortunately, CACTUS does not have the
resources to offer these.  If you can, come by the next
meeting and introduce yourself.  You're bound to make some
friends quickly.

The new CACTUS board is just now getting their feet on the
ground.  We acknowledge that there have been some delays and
handling problems getting memberships and newsletters going.
Hopefully things are now starting to smooth out.

There was some discussion of the recent 386BSD release.
This package starts with the Berkeley Networking 2 tape, and
adds the missing pieces to make it run on an 80386.
Interest is high, because the package provides freely
available sources to a UNIX-like system.  However, the
package is very much an ``alpha'' release.  It has very
limited peripheral support and is easy to panic, and when it
panics it can scribble all over your hard disk.  Read the
USENET comp.unix.bsd newsgroup for more information.

John Fusselman announced that Clarity Learning out of Boston
is offering UNIX courses/seminars in the Texas area.

CACTUS wishes to thank Dan for filling in on a last minute
notice and providing a great presentation on the latest
release of AIX.  Thanks to Ray for the C News tutorial
series.  Once again, we thank Dell for providing us with a
meeting place.


*** CACTUS Notes ***

CACTUS will be sponsoring a logo contest.  Watch this space
for information on rules and (fabulous) prizes.  In the
meantime, we hope our more creative members and friends will
be thinking about logo design ideas.


*** CACTUS Membership Information ***

CACTUS membership is open to all people interested in Open
Systems such as UNIX.  We currently offer all members access
to the cactus.org computer system, which includes electronic
news and mail capability.  CACTUS Membership/Account forms
may be obtained at the meetings or by request.  Please send
your request by USPS to the post office box address, or via
electronic mail to membership@cactus.org or
peyote!membership.  Please be sure to include your USPS mail
address in your request.  Annual dues are $20 for regular
memberships, $96 for sponsor memberships.

Note:  Please examine the upper-right corner of your mailing
label.  It shows your membership status and will note when
your membership expires.


*** CACTUS Contacts ***

Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.  Electronic mail
may be directed to the following addresses.

    attend@cactus.org      RSVP for meeting attendance.
    officers@cactus.org    Comments to CACTUS officers.
    newsletter@cactus.org  Newsletter submissions and comments.
    membership@cactus.org  Membership questions and suggestions.
    staff@cactus.org       cactus.org questions and suggestions.


*** CACTUS Officers ***

President   Tom Painter       painter@cactus.org        835-5457
Publicity   Jim Baty          baty@cactus.org           837-7539
Scribe      Robert Felps      felps@cactus.org          873-9060
Finance     Mike Cato         mikec@amd.com             837-2916
Programs    Ray Schafer       schafer@cactus.org        823-8405
Membership  Michael Cheselka  cheselka@cactus.org       452-9412
Newsletter  Chip Rosenthal    chip@chinacat.unicom.com  482-8260
Members     Michael Cerda     cerda@bongo.cc.utexas.edu 471-3241
  at Large  Jim Knutson       knutson@cactus.org        338-3858


*** CACTUS Sponsors ***

Applied Formal      Susan L. Gerhart                  794-9732
  Methods, Inc.       <gerhart@cactus.org>
Austin Code Works   Scott Guthery <acw!info>          258-0785
CRS, Inc.           Andy Galewsky <galew_a@cactus.org>258-1977
Computation Center  Mike Cerda <ut-emx!cerda>         471-3241
Control Data        John Herczeg                      345-8509
Data General        Jana Stein                        835-9771
Dell Computer Corp. Charlie Sauer                     338-4400
Hewlett Packard     Steve Alexander                   338-7223
Interactive Systems Jim Kelsey <jimke@itx.isc.com>    343-0376
Majec Systems, Inc. Maryanne Moore452-1138
O'Keefe & Assoc.    John O'Keefe                      343-1134
Pencom Systems Inc. Tom Morgan <pencom!psitx!tom>     343-1111
Power Assist        Leigh R. Power <power@mcc.com>    258-2367
SUN Microsystems    Roger Waak                        343-0293
                      <roger.waak@central.sun.com>
Schlumberger        James Johnson                     331-3781
Silicon Graphics    Don Williams                      459-0994
Tandem Computers    Steve Senator                     244-8000
Texas Internet      Smoot Carl-Mitchell               320-9031
  Consulting          <smoot@tic.com>
Unicom Systems      Chip Rosenthal                    482-8260
  Development         <chip@chinacat.unicom.com>

-- 
Chip Rosenthal  512-482-8260 | Let the wayward children play.  Let the wicked
Unicom Systems Development   | have their day.  Let the chips fall where they
<chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM>   | may.  I'm going to Disneyland.  -Timbuk 3
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