Problems with 1.1 AMIX
David Miller - CATS
davidm at cbmvax.commodore.com
Sat Apr 27 08:10:28 AEST 1991
In article <1991Apr25.055026.4278 at digibd.com> rhealey at digibd.com (Rob Healey) writes:
:
: After two days of "fun" filled spelunking of AMIX 1.1 I have my
: first whine list. Anybody who knows how to deal with these problems
: PLEASE speak up, either in private e-mail or posting to the group.
: First the whining, then the praise.
:
:Enter whine mode:
:
: 1) Disk partitioning.
: The 386 R4 install procedure lets you create many UNIX partitions,
: aka slices, in any slice # and size you want. The 1.1 install
: scripts seems to limit you to 3 stock UNIX and 1 AmigaDOS
: slice. I whined earlier about this before the system arrived.
: It looks like I'll have to create a custom boot set that will
: allow me to run rdb from floppys to set up all 7 of the slices
: the way I want them. Now, I'm the type who used iv and a
: custom boot set on a UNIX PC to satisfy my perverse need to
: create a disk setup just the way I wanted it. I take it more
: as a challenge than a bug... To the Amiga folks, you might
: want to consider that SOME of the AMIX users know EXACTLY
: what their doing and would like the rope to hang themselves
: with... A more flexible install partitioning script would
: be appreciated in future releases. Maybe you can even pull
: an AT&T "magic mode" a la 3b2 UNIX!
Well, there is a sort of magic mode. Type control-C during the
install script and you'll get an interactive shell. From there
you can do just about anything.
A word of caution:
There is not enough swap space on the floppy disk to
support the swap device. You must go far enough
through the installation to create a RDB and a swap
partition. Then, once in an interactive shell, you
must say:
swap -a /dev/rdsk/c6d0s<n> 0 <m>
where <n> is the partition to use for swapping, and
<m> is the length of the partition in 512-byte blocks.
Then say:
swap -d /dev/fakeswap 0 <m>
where <m> is the size of the fakeswap partition. (The
current size may be determined by typing:
swap -l
: 2) MotherBoard serial driver. Enter face filled with disgust mode:
: Come on guys, this is an AMIGA for crying out loud. There is
: zero, zilcho, zippo, nadda excuse for a serial port that drops
: characters at 9600 baud like it's going out of style. What's
: worse, the serial driver PANIC'D MY SYSTEM from a USER mode
: kermit, ckermit 5a(169) alpha to be exact, and I wasn't
: even running as root! I'll admit I'm spoiled when it comes to
: serial performance due to where I work but come on people. A
: thousand lashings with a wet noodle on this one. I hope 2.0
: has a better serial driver for the motherboard port.
:
: In the mean time, is there any way I can increase the buffering
: or something so that I'm not wasting a telebit T2500? I'd
: really like to be able to do 19200. My UNIX PC can do 9600
: full bore with no drop outs on a mid 80's serial driver; I'm
: disappointed with AMIX's performance... B^(.
:
: The MOST frustrating thing is that the system panic didn't
: do a panic dump on the paging area even though there was
: enough blocks to do so. How am I supposed to psychoanalyse
: a panic dump with crash when the kernel doesn't have the common
: decency to make one? I use crash at work quite a bit so I
: know what to do once I get the dump. Can I set any magic
: variables to tell AMIX to dump to swap?
This is fixed in version 2.0.
: 3) X needs pty 0 free in order to startup??? HUH? I'd
: REALLY like to know why this is. I've worked with quite a
: few X servers and most recently X386. NONE of them require
: a pty, let alone the FIRST pty, to be free in order to work.
: I can't wait to hear the reason for this one...
This will also be fixed in 2.0.
: 4) The berkeley emulation from hell:
:
: Sigh. I have a bitch of a time with the 386 S5R4's pathetic
: emulation of berkeley routines and I see it infected the 68k
: code as well. I get the feeling the AT&T people who did the
: Berkeley stuff never went within 2000 miles of a functioning
: Berkeley system. B^(. I'll keep this short though.
:
: 1) If /usr/ucb is in your path before /usr/ccs/bin you are SOL.
: gcc won't work and cc produces executables that loath executing.
: The fix is easy, as the man says, if it hurts when you do
: that, then DON'T do that...
: 2) The directory functions in the berkely libs, i.e opendir and
: co., don't know squat about symlinks or non-S5 file systems.
: The people doing the ufs patchwork should make sure that the
: regular lib's dir functions grok S5, ufs, NFS, RFS, etc. and
: such and maybe fix the berkeley stuff if they have time. This
: botch is common to all R4's I've seen so it's not C='s fault
: per say.
: 3) The whole Berkeley emulation package on all R4's really needs
: to be taken out into a field and shot. Rewriting it from scratch
: would probably take less time than trying to fix the current
: mess. B^(. Again, this is not unique to AMIX, all R4's seem
: to have braindead Berkeley emulation. B^(. Probably AT&T's
: little way to get you to kick the Berzerkeley habit. B^(.
I beleive that most, if not all of these will be fixed
in version 2.0.
: 5) gcc gripes.
:
: Being a UNIX PC owner myself I was tickled pink that AMIX gcc
: is basically 3b1 gcc with dwarf tacked on. Will 2.0 have
: descriptions that aren't based on 3b1 but totally optimized for
: AMIX? Seems a shame to retain 3b1 quirks that we don't have to...
: I am glad to see active support for gcc though, I HATE the AT&T
: R4 compiler on both AMIX and 386 R4. Thanks to a gentleman from
: Dell I have a gcc for 386 R4 but it doesn't generate DWARF output
: so I can't debug with gcc. Which leads me to gdb...
:
: 6) Will there be a gdb in 2.0? I know Dell ships gcc and gdb with
: their R4 so a R4 gdb is possible. The conversion to /proc has
: GOT to be a pain in the butt... I HATE sdb with an intense
: passion, gdb would be moocho appreciated. Maybe some of the
: C= guys can milk the Dell boys for info, a couple a kegs ought
: to do it... B^).
In version 2.0, it is intended that gcc will be the
defacto C compiler for Amiga UNIX. It is my understanding
that significant work has been done on gcc and related
tools.
:End whine mode
:Enter back pat mode.
:
: 15 minutes from box to fully functioning networked box on my company's
: network! YOWSA! I'm impressed! I've NEVER seen a UNIX system come
: up so fast and "just work"(tm)! GREAT JOB C=!!!! After 20 minutes
: I was using rrn and sendmail e-mail over the net. A very pleasant
: experience. Now, if only I could figure out the $%^$%^ mailer system,
: I thought sendmail was terse; YIKES!
Send me some email of what you're trying to do with the mail
and I'll see what I can do to help.
: If anyone has comments on any of the above, please send me some email
: or better yet POST. Let's get some REAL AMIX conversations going, not
: like these boring application postings I've been seeing of late.
:
: I managed to get ckermit 5A(169) Alpha to work. ELM 2.3PL11 is
: bucking it, can't seem to find all the libs due to the /usr/ccs BS.
: I might try merging in the DWARF stuff to gcc 1.39 but I assume the C=
: crew has already done that and might skip straight to getting the R4
: clients and libs compiled. I HATE Open Look, I want my TWM, tvtwm and
: R4 athena widgets dammit!
Version 2.0 will include X11 Release 4.0. (YEAH!)
(BTW, OL under X11R4 is not nearly as painful as OL under R3.
It is actually, <GASP>, useable! Shh, don't tell AT&T, or
they'll hurry out and change it!)
: So, who all's ported what and what should we port next to our
: favorite 68k box? Let's get something going here!
:
: By the way, where the heck are all the Virginia U people at? They
: MUST have interesting war stories to tell us greenhorns. B^).
:
: Happily hacking on my 3000UXD,
:
: -Rob
Thanks for the good word's Rob, they are appreciated, as are the
criticisms.
DavidM CATS - Commodore Applications & Tech. Support
davidm at cbmvax.commodore.com Amigados +1 215 431 9300 UNIX +1 215 431 9425
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