Sun-Spots Digest, v6n269
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at Rice.edu
Mon Oct 24 02:16:24 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Friday, 21 October 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 269
Today's Topics:
Re: How many clients on a 3/60 (also configuration advice)
Re: Popping up an independent window in SunView
Re: text: table full messages
Re: Some Benchmark Results
Re: nd question
Re: .cshrc and $?prompt (2)
moving /dev/zero for ftpd to work
C preprocessor Bugs
Suns and projection systems
NFS server vegetable not responding
LaTeX and TeX environment on Suns?
communication with IBM?
Nominating board of directors?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 17 Oct 88 20:35 GMT+0100
From: Michael Stumpf <stumpf at cogsys.psychologie.uni-freiburg.dbp.de>
Subject: Re: How many clients on a 3/60 (also configuration advice)
We are running a very small initial configuration consisting of a 3/60
(327MB) and two diskless 3/50 (SunOS 3.5). Our experience is that the
"server" has a quite heavy load, even if the clients are running programs
which do not use the disk directly. But most of our applications (e.g.
QuintusProlog, FrameMaker, ...) force the clients to page all the time and
the server becomes very slow. In fact, if the clients are running such
programs, it is very uncomfortable to work at the server's console screen
(the mouse is responding to the third click only). Maybe the situation is
better if you do not make use of the graphics, maybe just number crunching
does not force paging in this way. In our configuration, clearly the disk
drive is the point (at the moment, the 3/60 has got only 4MB memory, which
is to be expanded to 12MB in the next weeks), but I recommend also at
least 12 to 16 MB memory. The disk drive itself is as loud as the cpu - I
won't like to have them in my room without some special arrangements. We
decided to put most of the cpus and disks (we will have two additional
3/60s with 327 disks in some days) into a special room. In the two rooms
beside of this rooms the screens, keyboards and mouses are placed. At the
moment, our df looks like this:
/dev/sd0a 7608 3461 3386 51% /
/dev/sd0f 4897 4240 167 96% /pub.MC68020
/dev/sd0h 139342 119214 6193 95% /usr.MC68020
/dev/sd0d 52836 18273 29279 38% /usr.MC68020/psisun1,
that is, there are only 30MB left - and there are only 53MB max. for the
ordinary users (clients have 16.5MB swap - I recommend at least 20MB, the
server has 50.4MB, which seems to be sufficient also for LISP.
Michael.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 16:10:48 PDT
From: weiser.pa at xerox.com
Subject: Re: Popping up an independent window in SunView
See the source code for my game sdi (available for anonymous ftp from host
arisia in pub/sdi.shar, or in the Sun User Group tape, volume 2) for code
which pops up windows. The file 'helpers.c', and the routines
`popup_warning', 'popup_msg', `easy_pop', and `easy_warn' are good places
to start.
Or, if your sun has the sdi game installed, do this: run the game, go to
the "things to read" pie menu and select "source", then use textedit
search for one of the names above.
-mark
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 20:38:54 PDT
From: walker%skat.usc.edu at oberon.usc.edu (Michael D. Walker)
Subject: Re: text: table full messages
Reference: v6n253
With regard to text: table full messages:
This is common (under SunOS 3.n). X isn't more 'demanding' per se, but X
will use up more text table entries under normal usage (i.e., several
different programs). Each different program image (X or otherwise) uses
up a text table entry.
Suntools doesn't have this problem because most SunView programs are built
into suntools (using the toolmerge program). Do an ls -l /usr/bin and you
will see that programs like shelltool are linked to suntools. Thus,
suntools uses only one text table entry except for programs running in
windows and tools not merged into suntools. Why do this? Because without
shared libraries this allows one copy of the SunView libraries to be
shared by several "programs".
The fix? Under SunOS 3.n, reconfigure your system with maxusers increased
from 4 to 10 (I don't know about licensing problems over this). Under
SunOS 4.0, this problem goes away. I guess it just allocates space as
needed. [[ That and the fact that 4.0 has shared libraries. --wnl ]]
Mike Walker :-] arpanet: walker at oberon.usc.edu
USC University Computing Services uucp: sdcrdcf!oberon!walker
Phone: (213) 743-2957 bitnet: walker at kylara
------------------------------
Date: 18 Oct 88 03:17:07 GMT
From: werme at alliant.com (Ric Werme)
Subject: Re: Some Benchmark Results
Reference: v6n257
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich at blitz.cs.psu.edu> notes:
> What is interesting to note is that a Sun 4/260 running 3.2 is
> significantly faster that the same hardware running 4.0. Anyone have any
> thoughts...
This generally means that the clock interrupt routine in 4.0 is taking
more time. (And I hope doing more....) Back in my PDP-10 days, I could
see the PI 7 light on the front panel glow faintly, taking time away from
everyone. I bet the light on your virtual front panel is glowing a little
brighter these days.
Eric J Werme
uucp: decvax!linus!alliant
Phone: 603-673-3993
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 88 11:09:23 EDT
From: Bennett Todd <bet at bent.mc.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: nd question
On re-reading I noticed a couple of things I left out. First, while I
mentioned that I initially installed 4 hosts, I gave as an example our
current /etc/nd.local, which shows more. Sorry about the inconsistancy.
Second, I forgot to mention that before you boot the critter you are going
to have to play around with /mnt/dev/MAKEDEV (assuming you are frobbing
the new /dev/ndl0 root on /mnt) to build the device files on the new root.
For a diskless 3/60 the following should cover most of them:
# cd /mnt/etc
# ./MAKEDEV std
# ./MAKEDEV nd
# ./MAKEDEV pty0
# ./MAKEDEV pty1
# ./MAKEDEV pty2
# ./MAKEDEV bwtwo0
# ./MAKEDEV win0
# ./MAKEDEV win1
# ./MAKEDEV win2
# ./MAKEDEV win3
I probably missed a few, and might have something wrong in there, but I
think that is what we are using right now, and it seems to work....
-Bennett
bet at orion.mc.duke.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 10:10:44 EDT
From: Bennett Todd <bet at orion.mc.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: .cshrc and $?prompt (1)
Darin McGrew <McGrew at Sun.COM> writes:
>Bennett Todd <bent!bet at mcnc.org> writes:
>>..., it is considered wise to start off .cshrc with the following
>>incantation:
>>
>> if ($?prompt == 0) then
>> exit
>> endif
>>
>>This will cause non-interactive shells to exit .cshrc immediately...
>
>The exit can cause scripts to exit prematurely. A better solution...
>
> if ( $?prompt ) then
> # the following applies only to interactive shells...
> endif
Sounds like a reasonable argument... but I don't see quite how the exit
makes scripts exit prematurely. I just tried a little one and it in fact
didn't exit prematurely. I thought exit was interpreted relative to the
script and not the surrounding csh invocation. That's how it seems to
behave when I test it. Of course, I really had no idea until I tested
since csh isn't viewed as a programming language. Give me a /bin/sh with
ecsh-style history editing and job control and I'll rm /bin/csh in a
flash....
I expect I'll keep mine the way it is; it works right (even if it
shouldn't) and is much quicker (as well as, in my opinion, cleaner) than
having the whole body under an if().
-Bennett
bet at orion.mc.duke.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 88 13:47:47 PDT
From: Darin McGrew <mcgrew at sun.com>
Subject: Re: .cshrc and $?prompt (2)
In a recent posting, I recommended using
if ( $?prompt ) then
...
else
in one's .cshrc, rather than using
if ( ! $?prompt ) exit
to avoid premature termination of scripts. Several of you have corrected
me. Both of the above methods work on SunOS Release 4.0, although I'm
sure I've seen the second method fail elsewhere. The second method is
faster because the rest of the .cshrc is not parsed.
Darin McGrew mcgrew at Sun.COM
I speak for myself, not for my employer.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 17:45:25 CDT
From: dave at wubios.wustl.edu (Dave Camp)
Subject: moving /dev/zero for ftpd to work
Thank you for all your responses on getting anonymous ftp to work under
SunOS 4.0. I have written a dumb replacement for 'ls' so that I get a
minimal functionality, but I would like to use the real one. One of the
requirements was that I copy the device driver /dev/zero onto a
subdirectory of ~ftp/ . Would someone please tell me how this is done?
If I simply use 'cp' I get an unending file full of zeroes :-( Thank you,
-David-
[[ Yes, because /dev/zero is a device. You can only create it with
"mknod". Find the major and minor device ID with "ls -l /dev/zero".
Instead of a size, you will see "3, 12". You will also see a "c" in
column 1, which indicates "character special". "cd" to the directory you
wish to create zero in (probably "~ftp/dev") and, as root, type the
command "/etc/mknod zero c 3 12". That'll do it. Read mknod(8) for more
details. --wnl ]]
(314) 362-3635 Mr. David J. Camp
Room 1108D ^ Box 8067, Biostatistics
706 South Euclid < * > Washington University Medical School
v 660 South Euclid
Bitnet: david at wubios.wustl Saint Louis, MO 63110
Internet: david%wubios at wucs1.wustl.edu uucp: uunet!wucs1!wubios!david
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 15:24:04 cdt
From: wsmith at m.cs.uiuc.edu (Bill Smith)
Subject: C preprocessor Bugs
The C preprocessor on the sun does not accept expressions as an arguments
to #ifdef or #ifndef.
In specific, the Andrew code uses expressions such as
#ifdef 0
#endif
or
#ifdef (DEBUG)
#endif
Neither of these may be compiled successfully under 4.0 SunOs with out
editing to be #if 0 or #ifdef DEBUG.
[[ Sorry, but K&R, page 208 is pretty clear about the syntax of a #ifdef:
it takes an identifier and not an expression as an argument. Neither "0"
nor "(DEBUG)" are proper identifier names. A little bit of playing
indicates that the C compiler under 3.x doesn't complain about them, but
always assumes that the condition is "false". --wnl ]]
Bill Smith
uiucdcs!wsmith
wsmith at cs.uiuc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 10:57:07 MST
From: mc%miranda.uucp at moc.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Caplinger)
Subject: Suns and projection systems
I've had some experience with projecting Sun color displays using the
Electrohome CAD/CAM projector. The Electrohome can adjust to a wide range
of scanning rates and resolutions, and it can handle a Sun's output. But
you won't find the results very satisfying. The image never gets better
than blurry, even with an on-site consultant constantly adjusting and
tuning the thing. The projector is pretty unstable as far as its fine
settings goes, and requires retuning practically every time you turn it
on. Normal sized text is nearly unreadable; for the demos I was doing, I
found I had to use about a 20-point bold font for anyone to even make a
stab at reading the display. And as with most curved-screen projection
systems, anybody more than a few feet off the optic axis can't see much of
anything. All in all, I found the experience frustrating and
unsatisfactory.
Another alternative for small audiences is to slave multiple monitors to
the same machine and spread them around the room. Sun provided us with
some kind of specially-built video amplifier for the purpose; I've no idea
if such things are commercially available. We were doing these demos in
the Bay Area so you might check with the San Francisco sales office for
more info. I did all this while I was with Bellcore, so maybe you have to
be as big as the phone company to get such consideration.
Mike Caplinger, mc at moc.jpl.nasa.gov
------------------------------
Date: 17 Oct 88 17:05:21 GMT
From: ksr!benson at uunet.uu.net (Benson Margulies)
Subject: NFS server vegetable not responding
I am using a Sun 3/60 running SunOS 3.5, diskless, with quite a lot of
memory. I talk to two NFS servers, a Sun 4/260 and a Sun 3/160.
Every very small interval (a minute to five minutes), I get
NFS server foo not responding still trying
NFS server foo ok
there is no pause between them. I get these for both servers.
I have my packet size in fstab turned down to 1024.
If I set timeo to a large value, my machine hangs for the amount of time I
specify, but I get less messages. If I set timeo to a small value
(currently its 5), I get plenty of messages but I can otherwise
more-or-less get work done.
Can anyone elucidate and provide some palliative?
--benson
Benson I. Margulies Kendall Square Research Corp.
harvard!ksr!benson benson at ksr.com
------------------------------
Date: 17 Oct 88 21:28:27 GMT
From: bonham at ucalgary.ca (Michael Bonham)
Subject: LaTeX and TeX environment on Suns?
I have recently been asked to update our TeX and LaTeX environment under
SunOS 4.0. I'm sure the subjects have come up before, but for the last
couple of months I haven't seen any discussions in the TeXhax or Sunspots
digests regarding the following questions:
1) Is there an undump for SunOS 4.0? Where is it or how do I build one?
We have both Sun 3's and 4's and wish to support LaTeX on both. Right
now tex and latex are shell scripts which invoke virtex but it would
be nice to have a binary, undumped core image version.
[[ The sun-spots archives has a version of undump for 4.0. It is in the
"sun-source" area and is called "undump4.shar" (11574 bytes). It can be
retrieved via anonymous FTP from the host "titan.rice.edu" or via the
archive server. For more information about the archive server, send a
mail message containing the word "help" to the address
"archive-server at rice.edu". Because of a bug in the 4.0 include files, you
may need to compile undump with "-DFPU". --wnl ]]
2) Is there a dvi previewer which doesn't use voluminous, obsolete .pxl
fonts? We have dvisun, dvitool, dvipage, texsun (and probably a few
others) kicking around, but these are always bombing out when one or
another font family, size or style is not installed. If .pxl fonts are
obsolete, why do the tools require it? We currently don't run X windows,
but do have NeWS. Does anybody use dvi2ps to produce something NeWS
can display interactively?
[[ The newer version of dvitool (from the VorTeX package) uses PK files
and handles missing font files gracefully. The version we have is 2.0.
--wnl ]]
Please reply by electronic mail to bonham at ucalgary.ca Thank you!
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 88 14:09:16 SET
From: J-P Lauque <C4 at ESOC.BITNET>
Subject: communication with IBM?
Here at ESOC (European Space Operation Center) would like to connect SUN
to the IBM channel in order to do program to program communication. Has
some body done this?
Reply to : JP LAUQUE / ECD /
5 robert bosch strasse
D6100 darmstadt
tel germany (39) 6151 886 537
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 88 22:21:48 EDT
From: dpz at hardees.rutgers.edu (David P. Zimmerman)
Subject: Nominating board of directors?
G'day all - I've been over and over this notice of Sun's 27 Oct 1988
annual stockholder meeting, and although it details quite clearly how to
cast a vote for a nominee for the board of directors, and even how to
withhold a vote, it isn't entirely obvious to me how these people get
nominated in the first place. Anyone with any insight? From what I _can_
see:
- the term of a director is essentially unlimited
- for a willful vacancy, the board can keep its ranks closed
by taking proxy votes and applying them to their replacement
nominee
and in fact,
"In the event that additional persons are nominated for
election as directors, the proxy holders intend to vote all
proxies received by them in such a manner in accordance with
cumulative voting as will assure the election of as many of
the [current director] nominees listed below as possible and,
in such event, the specific nominees to be voted for will be
determined by the proxy holders."
Hmm. Sounds a little paranoid to me. Either that, or overly protective?
Might be interesting to get a student type (nudge nudge wink wink :-)
in that crowd....
David
------------------------------
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