My 3B1 FIXDISK 2.0 experience (so far, LONG)

[John Macdonald]

In article <124 at sialis.mn.org> rjg at sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin) writes:
|In article <1990Oct08.105551.28522 at uhura.neoucom.EDU> wtm at uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) writes:
|>I decided I didn't like the 3.51m kernel very much.  The metermaid
|>display and nicer any-key-including-non-typing-keys unblanking the
|>screen were welcome additions to the kernel.  What I didn't like
|>was that I had much worse performance with uucp transfers than
|>before.  I could only get about 1000 char/sec with 3.51m, while
|>3.51 manages about 1400 char/sec.  I tested this pretty extensively
|>with big (~100K files) transferring to a lightly loaded HP9000 mini
|>using a TB+ modem, so I know it isn't my imagination. If you don't
|>use an external modem, 3.51m may be for you.
|
|I certainly have no intentions to dispute observation, but I've yet to
|see any degradation in system or UUCP performance with 3.51m.  I was
|one of those that worked on the field-testing of the kernel and other
|components for over a year prior to release, and I think I must have
|installed over a dozen upgrades and variants that led up to 3.51m.
|Throughout all this time I paid attention to my UUCP activity, since
|there are some annoying problems that I wanted to track down, and 
|hopefully correct.  My stats and summaries for UUCP activity, transfers
|and rates never significantly decreased more than can be attributed to
|normal fluctuations.  For TB+ only sites, I'm seeing transfer rates
|between 1200 and 1300.
|
|Of course, my mileage may vary.  But at least it's one case of where
|a 3b1 with an external TB+ did _not_ see a degradation from 3.51m.

Shortly after the fixdisk came out, I recall seeing an upgrade to
a adb patch that changed the system so that incoming characters
got processed every 1/60 th of a second, instead of the default
4/60 th.  If you (Bill) had installed the original patch on your
old system, and did not install the revised patch to your updated
system, you might have such a slow-down and it might not be common
to all people's experiences.

Me, I'm still waiting for there to be enough spare cash around here
to upgrade from 3.5.1.4 to 3.51 (and of course I will install the
fixdisk then - I may even do it before then since there have been
no problems reported from this unsupported-but-probably-not-hazardous
activity).
-- 
Cure the common code...                      | John Macdonald
...Ban Basic      - Christine Linge          |   jmm at eci386