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

[Robert J. Granvin]

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.

>                                              There have been some
>reports of weird lock files getting scrambled and locking out boot-up
>on 3.51m.

Has anyone ever clarified this?

>The fixdisk is still worthwile because the support programs with
>fixes all seem to be backwards compatible with 3.51.

The fixdisk is also worthwhile because it contains all the contents
of Fixdisk 1.0, and some of the errors corrected in 1.0, but especially
in 2.0, are fairly critical.  Some real serious work went into it by
some really good people at AT&T (one in particular (Hi John! :-)),
and the results are impressive.  It's good to read the fixlist of what
it corrects, since that may convince you to upgrade, or at least
understand what's going on if you see problems...

-- 
Robert J. Granvin \\\\\\\\                         rjg at sialis.mn.org : INTERNET
University of Minnesota \\\              ...uunet!rosevax!sialis!rjg : UUCP
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              "Make sure your dreams last longer than the night."