From: mvdl@et.tudelft.nl
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Problems with NEWSdir
Date: 13 Sep 92 12:28:34 +0200
Organization: TU-Delft, dpt of Electrical Engineering

In article <TwqyqB1w165w@ncc1701e.uucp>, the_sage@ncc1701e.uucp (Jerome Grimmer) writes:
> dawson@willard.UUCP writes:
> 
>> mvdl@et.tudelft.nl writes:
>> 
>> > We're having a little trouble with subdirectories created by UUXQT for the
>> > NEWS-directory... somehow this is not very stable in DOS, and as a result w
>> > often have many lost- en crosslinked clusters...
>> 
>> I'd say you've got some problems.. but I wouldn't blame Waffle for them.
>> I've never had a lost cluster nor any crosslinked clusters in any file or
>> directory associated with Waffle.  But, I don't use Stacker.

Aye, I missed this reply ! To clear things out: I do NOT use stacker for
reasons of instability and speed. The problem is on our physical Harddisk(s).
I do NOT blame waffle, it's DOS I blame.. (although it would be a good cause
to think about what's allowed in DOS and  what's not. Many entries (usually
more than 256) makes DOS often confused. Perhaps a News-box (similar to the
waffle 1.65 mailbox) would not take so many from DOS and could speed up things.
I'm very surprised not all of you are awawre of this or have had similar
problems with this.. All of us at the BBS hav expierenced this annoying limit
of DOS.
 
>> 
>> > I wonder: could this problem be solved by using a fake-volume for this news
>> > directory... Just a file that pretents to be a drive ? (somewhat like a 
>> > stacker-volume, but UNcompressed and very good at subdirectories etc.)..
>> 
>> Actually, the problem could be solved quite easily, by treating the cause.
>> You've not shown the cause (Waffle is NOT the cause).  Unless, that is, the
>> real answer is "Stacker."  (This is not a flame of stacker.  It is a weak
>> defense of MS-DOS and Waffle.  Caveat emptor.)
>> 

The cause is (too) many entries in a directory. Unix can handle this fine, DOS
can't. Certainly not with our mailflow. As I said, stacker is not the cause.
I use it at home, works fien and I'm very satisfied, but even I did not have
the guts to install this on our waffle-system. I posted it here because I had 
expected more people to have this problem (with DOS). You can argue whether
this is a DOS or a WAFFLE problem, but the combination is deadly.. :)
Well, let's not argue who's fault it is, I looking for a solution..

> 
>         I have seen similar things happen on rhps.uucp, who feeds my 
> site.  However Waffle was not what corrupted his file system when he ran 
> Norton Disk Doctor to fix it, I believe all but one of the corrupted 
> files were corrupted WWIV stuff. Yeah yeah yeah, you probably think WWIV 
> sucks but in this town you either run WWIV or you don't get users.  
> That's why WWIV answers my front door, and besides, I don't want to waste 
> my $50 registration fee for WWIV, and I even got source. :)
> 

I've heard about WWIV, I've never seen it here in the Netherlands... Anyway,
we're drifting of... I beleive you mean that no othger program than waffle
could be the cause of the cluster-problem ?

Michel.

(PS: This is not an attack on what program whatsoever.. I realize very well
that waffle is ver unix-orientated, although I can't help noticing that the
amount of dos-users is larger ? ??? Anyway, what goes for unix does not
go for DOS. As a piece of contructive crititism, I do think that a news-box
would solve many-problems, it would eliminate the DOS-instability problem, it
would increase speed and it would make it possible to run our disk-compressors
again without having to delete the news-directory first. Our compressors (both
norton and pctools) have trouble with the number of subdirectories....))


> 
> --
> Jerome Grimmer <the_sage@ncc1701e.uucp>
> 11-Sep-92