From: hunter@bacchus.esa.oz.au (James Gardiner [Hunter])
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: How to build a System-Disk ??
Date: 31 Aug 92 05:43:12 GMT
Organization: none

In <p39r5do@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:

>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).
I have them.
The problem was we got the machine late friday.
We do not have a 24hour support line here in Australia (I think).
And gee. you get a new machine, you want to get it 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 ;) !)
I'll take your advice.  Will order a R4000 Indigo as soon as possible.  :)

>| >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.
Well there may have been an index entry of some type but not that
some one NEW to SGI hardware would identify with.

>| 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.
Gee strange.  I found SUN a breeze to install.  Don't forget, you get
um.. less intelegent people, putting it nicely, buying suns then SGI.
Look at it this way.  You have to be smart enough to by an SGI over a
sun in the first place.
I vote 1 for the Sun partition program over SGI however.

>| >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
Why would it produce worse disk performance please?
Anyway, I have seperate partitions because I have users which have no
consideration on disk space.  I do not quotas personally so I put them
on there own partition and if they fill it up its there problem.

>partition numbers than the standard partition numbers for the root
>and user filesystems.
Well if something told me it HAD standard partition numbers for / and /usr
then this wouldn't have been an issue anyway.

>| 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.)
We are talking 2 different issues here.
To change your swap size you have to edit the partiton table.
To do so you have to take so much of that partition and put onto this etc.
Its not like.  I want x swap where remander y will be /usr.
Otherwise its get the pen and paper out and calculate it all yourself.

>| >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.
They are annoyances yes but in my opinion, caused by lack of info in
the manuals.  Annoyances that just should not have happened or at best
be easier to solve.
Remember here.  I was comming at this from a TOTALLY ignorate possition.
I had never used an SGI for more then general playing with demos before
in my life.
First time users never react like manual writers think they should.


James
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Gardiner [Hunter]  [hunter@bacchus.esa.oz.au] Expert Solutions Australia
Systems Administrator                                        ACN [003 130 434]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi