From: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent
Subject: Coherent on Notebook-PCs
Date: 16 Oct 92 15:52:28 GMT
Reply-To: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Organization: MIKROS Systemware, Darmstadt/W-Germany

Hello all, who are using Coherent on a portable PC like a Notebook
or Laptop, I would appreciate some feedback from you.  Please write in
Email, I'll summarize and post in about 3 weeks what I receive.

To make putting your experience in words a bit easier, I have prepared
a list of questions which I also answer below for my particular case:

** Which version of Coherent do you (consider to) use on which type of
   hardware? (NOTE AGAIN: for this survey I'm ONLY interrested in
   Notebook/Laptop-PCs).

	I have used Coherent 3.2 for some time on a Arima-Notebook 
	equipped with a 386SX, 20MB harddisk, 4MB of main memory.
	(For a short time I considered to buy a less expensive 286,
	which would have been sufficient for 3.2, but because of
	its limitations wrt a 386, I soon dropped that option.)

	Currently I use Coherent 4.0 on the hardware describe above.

** Is Coherent the only operating system you (plan to) use on the
   Notebook-PC?

	I've also installed DOS, but only to have access to a few
	setup routines for the Notebook's hardware which cannot be
	executed otherwise.  Some time ago I did a test installation
	of XENIX/386, which also seemed to work in a very bare bones
	down-stripped version.

** Why did you (consider to) chose Coherent for your Notebook-PC?

	I had three reasons:
	1) Price (for ~$100 you simply can't go wrong)
	2) Low resource requirements of Coherent (IMHO only
	   XENIX/386 can be trimmed down so much to have it
	   install on a 20 MB harddisk)
	3) Curiosity (I wanted to see how Coherent compares
	   to the stationary UNIX systems I use for my 'real'
	   work).

** For which kind of work do you (consider to) use Coherent on your
   Notebook-PC?

	I thought I could use the system for remote login to my
	stationary UNIX systems and fetch my mail when I'm on tour
	for some days, which happens quite often.  Further I write
	quite a lot of technical texts which I tend to proof-read
	when I sit in / wait for trains or airplanes.  I wanted to
	have a possibility to enter the corrections directly into the
	text file, so that I have less work when I'm back home again.
	(The latter could have well been done with MS-DOS, but being
	devoted to UNIX since a longer time than DOS merely exists, I
	use MS-DOS only when I'm absolutely forced to do so :-/.)

== From here the questions only apply if you actually use Coherent ==
== on your Notebook-PC.                                            ==

** Did you have any problems with the installation?

	3.2 installed smoothly when I tried the first time (It was
	before I bought the Notebook; the dealer let me try the
	installation in his shop before I actually bought the thing.
	Everything was complete in less than an hour.)

	When I switched to 4.0, I had two times bad luck with floppy
	sets for installation that missed a disk (the number of disks
	was OK, but due to bad labeling there were duplicates, so that
	effectively a disk was missing.  The support staff at MWC was
	really helpful and sent me replacement immediately.)

** Did you have any unexpected problems later and how did you fix them?

	Yes, there were problems - some were the fault of my dealer,
	(who was not able to supply me with an internal modem for
	several months during late 1991), others were my own (like
	forgetting that serial ports must be enabled from within the
	BIOS-Setup before you can use them - at least on the Arima-
	Notebook this is the case).

	The problems I list here are still unsolved, there are only
	"work arounds".  The problems may originate from the Notebook-PC's
	hardware, from Coherent or from the combination of both.

	- Using the "German Keyboard" option on installation, there is
	  one key that doesn't work as labeled, the "#"-key.  I also
	  don't know how to access the scan code of this key so that I
	  may fix the mapping tables.  (Note that it's hard to write
	  C-programs without a '#' - you always have to copy the character
	  from somewhere else, if you cannot enter it via the keyboard.)
	  With 3.2 I ended up in mapping some other key to generate the
	  '#'; with 4.0 I did not do much work except that I installed
	  it a short time ago, so I am not sure if it can be fixed in
	  the same way.

	- There seems to be some bad interaction between Coherent and
	  the power-saving modes of the Notebook-PC's hardware.
	  
	  a) If I enable to the harddisk to spin down after 60 seconds of
	     inactivity, sometimes it spins up correctly with the next
	     acces, but occasionally it seems to flag some blocks (or a
	     track) bad and this error condition is persistent until I
	     boot again.  It's not quite clear to me what exactly happens,
	     but I think that the blocks (or track) do NOT go bad on the
	     disk as there are no more problems after the reboot, but
	     Coherent somehow remembers that there was a bad access, even
	     after the disk spun up again, and refuses to access the
	     block again.

	  b) I also remember to have had other problems when I used 3.2
	     with some other inactivity timer enabled (called "doze mode"
	     in the BIOS setup - no idea what it is *exactly* good for,
	     it's rumored that it slows down the CPU to conserve power).
	     I've not used Coherent 4.0 long enough to be sure these
	     problems never mroe exist, but at least I've not seen them
	     recently.

** Did Coherent let you use your Notebook-PC in the way you planned it or
   would you end up with an other choice, if you had to reconsider your
   decision today?

	Yes and no.  Of course I would appreciate if Coherent could be
	used for what I planned to use it for and the mentioned problems
	were fixed (and any new problem which may I experience when I get
	further, e.g. use the internal modem to login into my stationary
	UNIX box from remote).  I still think Coherent is much more worth
	as it costs and I can make use of it somewhere else, if not on my
	Notebook-PC.

	On the other hand there is a bit of disappointment in my judgment
	of Coherent on a Notebook-PC:  As I mentioned earlier there once
	was a test installation of XENIX/386 on this Notebook-PC too; this
	lived only for a short time, maybe too short for a fair comparison,
	but I do not remember having seen any of the mentioned problems
	with this combination.  (To be more exact: It was not me who did
	the test but someone else, so I can not tell from own experience,
	but I'm sure it would have been reported to me if there had been
	serious problems.)

	If I had to make a recommendation for some user who really needs
	a working, portable non-MS-DOS-box, not just a system to play with
	in his spare time and to evaluate Coherent, I would say that he or
	she should look closer to more expensive, but integrated solutions
	like Apples PowerBook.  If the system is mostly used for a specific
	purpose, say remote-login maybe MS-DOS with a terminal emulation
	program is sufficient (and even better considering the above
	described problems that force to disable the power-saving option
	for the harddisk).
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin@mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83