Beginner's observations and some questions.

[Chet Wood]

Thank goodness for the net. I still haven't received my documentation
and I wouldn't have been able to get our system up without having
followed the discussions in this group. There was some information
posted that was not quite correct, though.

Some time ago someone posted some "hints and tips" for A/UX 2.0
beginners.  Unfortunately, some of that advice seems not to work for
me. I wonder what I'm doing wrong?

1. Suitcase was said to be useful. It's not. It bombs horribly when it
starts up. The Suitcase people state categorically that it won't work.

2. After Dark (AD) was said to be a good screensaver for the login
screen.  I just bought it (version 1.1.1c) and it doesn't work. I
installed it in "/mac/sys/System Folder" and in "/mac/sys/Login System
Folder".

[ The interweavings of the various system folders in the fake MacOS
are captivating. It will be interesting to read about them when the
documentation arrives! ]

Anyway, when I try to log in, shortly after the AD startup icon
appears on the screen, the login fails and the login screen comes on
again. This happens even if I log in as myself, and I have my own
system folder (which does _not_ have AD in it!)

Someone else on the net recently said that the way to get a
screensaver to work on the login screen is to pull down the "About"
box. Sorry, but I get one of those familiar Mac bombs as soon as I try
that!

Theory aside,has anyone really gotten a screensaver running on the
login screen?

3. I'm not complaining about this one, since all the advice posted
contained disclaimers such as "it worked on my drive, it may not on
yours." Yep. Mine was one of the ones it didn't work on. Hacking
Apple's HD Setup, that is, to format one's drive for A/UX. ( I have a
CDC Wren IV 300MB). It would work far enough to try to initialize the
drive, but after cranking for 10 minutes or so, would bomb.
Silverlining worked great, tho.

Only question: Why wouldn't Silverlining let me increase my swap space?

I think the fake MacOS running on top of Unix is real slick. It does
seem to be a bit rough around the edges, though, as one would expect
from what is apparently a rev 1 product.

The main complaint I have about it is speed. We have an FX-- it should
really scream. And it does seem to be reasonably fast either
running straight unix stuff or native MacOS. But the fake MacOS seems
to have a tendency to hang up. I have a gut feeling-- nothing to back
it up- that it might have something to do with the fact that I have 50
MB in my home directory which is NFS mounted from a Sun. Logging in is
real slow. Making my own system folder helped a lot, but it still is
too slow. Often when I'm trying to save or open a file in Framemaker,
the system will hang for 2 minutes.

Well. I think I've rattled on enough. (I started this article
yesterday, and received my documentation today!)

chet.
--
Chet Wood                       ~                         (408)727-3357 X269
   chet at Advansoft.Com    .  Advansoft Research Corporation
     arc!chet at apple.COM    .      4301 Great America Parkway, 6th floor
            apple!arc!chet   .            Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA