How about a <flame> on UHC R4 Unix?

[Jim Lick]

I was patiently watching the (lack of) discussion on UHC, since I was in the
process of aquiring the package myself.  Now that I have it, and have
installed it, I can throw in my own two cents.  Be forewarned that I have
not yet used the system much, and may be running into problems that have
easy solutions or are my own fault or something.  However, as of now, I am
very unimpressed with the package.  I come from a background of Ultrix and
SunOS systems, so the System V philosophy may be another factor that I am
tripping up on.

jennings at anchor.colorado.edu (Jeff Jennings) writes:
>UHC.  Packages have dependencies on other pacakages being installed, but 
>nowhere is there a list of the order to install things in.  When a package
>fails to install, it doesn't just give up and fail to install, it generally
>trashes the kernel config files, requiring the entire base distribution to
>be reinstalled.  Get the distribution on tape, we had no problems with
>installing that.  We must have installed the system from floppies over a
>dozen times.

I got the version two system.  In it, Appendix A of the installation guide
lists the dependencies, and a suggested order of installation.  The version
one installation guide I had didn't say much of anything on this, or many
other important details.

cpcahil at virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
>We installed UHC SVR4 from floppies twice (although I have decided 
>we will never do it again - we'll use tape next time) with no problems
>either time. 

I had to install from floppies twice also.  Because they neglected to
explain how much disk space was needed for a full system.  All they say is
that a minimum of 45 megabytes was needed for the /usr partition.  This must
be for a basic system, as I put it up to 60 and it crapped a couple of disks
into installing the X/Motif package.  And yes, I was only installing one of
the GUIs.  So I basically had to start all over at the beginning to resize
the /usr partition...

One minor flame is the procedure used in pkgadd when switching disks.  Why
must I have to type 'go<return>' for every %@#^@%# disk switch?!!?  Why not
just have the user hit <return> by itself each time, or q<return> to quit?
It asks you to verify the package again anyways, once it figures out what is
on the disk.

Once that was done, I got down to creating an account for myself, and then
logging in.  The first thing I noticed is that the default shell is the
Bourne shell.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I find the Bourne
shell hideous.  I can only tolerate using csh or bash.  So the first thing I
did was to change my shell to /bin/csh.  

Then I tried to use X/Motif.  First thing was to run that script which sets
up the Motif files in my main directory and so forth.  Only problem is that
this only works for sh users.  It puts a line in .profile which calls
another sh script to set up some environment variables.  So I took the
simple route and switched back to the bourne shell to get things going.
Once this was done, X/Motif came up fine... in 640x480 mode.

Thing is, I have a TSENG4000 VGA card which does up to 1024x768.  So I go
poking through the manuals to see what is up.  The advertisement I got from
UHC said that they'd drive a TSENG card at 1024x768 with 16 colors.
Eventually I found some stuff in the printed manuals that said it could do
800x600 with this card, and referred me to the evgainit command.  I quickly
typed 'man evgainit' and discovered another problem.  They didn't format the
online manuals right.  Specifically, they didn't run it through 'tbl' and
the page looked like crap.  I managed to decode the syntax for initializing
a TSENG card, and ran it.  The other thing I noticed is that several on line
man pages are missing.  I don't know how many, but 3 base system commands
and all of the X/Motif commands were missing from what I looked for.

This time X/Motif came up in 800x600 mode.  Better, but the UHC ads claimed
that they could do 1024x768.  I did find some references to 1024x768 modes
in the <sys/kd.h> file, but the program I tried to write to set this mode
wouldn't even compile.  I won't comment on this since I really haven't spent
any significant time on it.  However, this is yet another major annoyance to
me.  I'm used to hi-res screens of either 1024x768 or 1152x900.  640x480 is
really small to me, and 800x600 is not quite there yet.

Next I set about the task of getting my csh back.  I painstakingly converted
the .profile and the Motif files by hand to proper csh codes.  Finally I
switched my shell back to csh, and logged in.  Started up X/Motif.  In my
xterm window, before giving me the prompt it gave the message of something
like "Warning, no controlling terminal, job control will not work".  Yet
another big annoyance!  Job control is one of my favorite things.  I just
can't live without it.  And all the other systems I've worked on could do
csh in a window with job control with no problems.  Any guesses as to why it
can't figure out what the controlling terminal is?

There is one more bug I found, and it is a big one!  I haven't figured out
exactly what is causing it, but it has something to do with the length of
the path to your current directory.  The bug is only in csh.  The same
command sequence will work fine in sh.  The bug occurs in a 3rd or 4th
level directory.  For instance, /usr/share/man or /home/jim/temp.  Go to
such a directory and type 'ls'.  If you are just logged in at a terminal,
you will be logged out.  If you are in an X/Motif window, your window will
die, and so will all of it's children.  I believe it has somthing to do with
the total lenghth of the path, as I was able to 'ls' in /usr/Xr4/bin just
fine.  This is one bug I find completely unacceptible!

I have only been using the system for somewhere around 2-3 hours now.  It
could be that I've just had extremely bad luck in the beginning, but I don't
think so.  The problems are just too numerous and annoying to dismiss them.
I am now wondering why I didn't just spend the little bit extra to get a Sun
system.  I am also wondering where all the big changes that Sun was
responsible for in SVR4?  And are Suns going to be this lame once they
convert to SVR4 next year?

The other problem I had was the way I bought the system.  I bought it from
an ad posted recently on the net.  This person had an unlimited user system
with all docs.  It was the version one system, but the seller had received
a Mouse bug fix, and had also been sent a letter from UHC that the version
two system would be sent as soon as it was ready.  Since the system sells
new for $2395, we settled on a price of $1500.  When I received the package,
I called UHC to inquire about the version two system, after reading in the
announcenment letter about several important things it fixed.  One thing I
just noticed is that one fix is that 'csh operates reliably'.  Not quite
yet.

I started my inquiry on a Monday.  The person I needed to talk to was then
out to lunch, but the secretary took down the information and promised to
have him call back.  Nothing happened, so I called back on Tuesday.  First
time the person was out, but ther _promised_ he would call back.  Somebody
did call back a while later, asked a few more questions and said that I
needed to talk to someone else about it, since it was a strange situation.
On Wednesday, nobody called back, and I was busy at work, and didn't get the
chance to check in with them.  On Thursday I called back and got the the
secretary, who passed on my note.  Later in the day, I finally got the call
back from the person I needed to talk to.

He explained that they would not upgrade to the new version for free.  This
despite the fact that the set was unopened, and unused by the person I
bought it from, and that that person had been promised by UHC to get the
upgrade.  After arguing this, he confided that the package I wound up with
was a donation to a Unix expo and was given away as a door prize.  This took
me aback, so I grudgingly agreed to pay for the upgrade.  The upgrade turned
out to be $395 plus shipping.  (Minor nit: they said it would be $9 shipping
on the phone, which I verified twice during the conversation, but they ended
up charging $10 for the shipping.  I had already purchased a money order for
$404.  Fortunately UPS took the m.o. with a dollar cash on the side.  If
they didn't this would have been a much bigger problem.)

However, since I had the complete package with documents, I thought I would
be getting an upgrade with more documentation.  I made this clear to the
first person I talke to, but apparently not to the second person.  So now I
am stuck with an incomplete manual set.  Most notably, NO manuals at all for
X11/NeWS and X11R4/Motif.  And it appears that there aren't even online
manuals for X/Motif.

At first, I was pretty annoyed at the person who sold me the package.
However, I believe that the seller truly believed that the system was
complete, and that UHC would support me.  I'm still undecided about this,
and would appreciate any comments from all of you on this.  At first I was
thinking about asking the seller for some of my money back.  However, I am
feeling more and more like UHC is trying to screw me over.  Please send any
ideas you have on the subject.

I'd also like to hear more from other UHC owners!  Hopefully this is an
isolated incident, and there are fixes for my problems, or maybe this is
just an elaborate April Fools joke.  However, the lack of input from UHC
owners here seems rather odd.  I'd also like to hear from Dell, Intel and
Microport SVR4 owners.  I had previously seen problems with these other
systems, and that was one reason I had been leaning towards UHC.  Now it
seems like I could have been better off with one of them.

This is about all I have for now.  I would like to say that xtetris does
work fine.  However, I have more important things to get working now, like
installing my multiport board.  This reminds me of how outstanding the
support for it has been.  It is an Equinox 24 CS board.  I bought it unused
from someone on the net.  When I was originally looking for a multiport
board, I sent in several requests for information, many via fax.  Equinox
sent me back a seven page fax the next day, chock full of info.  They also
followed up with a mailed envelope with the info they faxed me, and some
additional.  By far the most technically comprehensive information I got.
The other multiport manufacturers all sent mail replies, many of them not
until a month later, even though I said in my fax that I was probably going
to buy sooner than that.  Once I got the board, I sent in the reply card and
then noticed that there had been a major update to the drivers.  About the
same time, I noticed a posting by them here and sent an email message to the
address asking about the new drivers, and some other random chit-chat.  I
sent the message on a Friday night, and had a reply by Saturday afternoon
saying that they would send me the new drivers on Monday.  Mind you, I
didn't ask for them to be sent, but they did it anyways.  On Tuesday I got
an even bigger surprise.  They had shipped them to me Federal Express!  I
didn't have any use for them until now, but the level of support absolutely
stunned me.  They even included the latest manual which has pin assignments
for the ports, wiring diagrams, and suggested ways of building your own
cables instead of buying them for megabucks from them or some other company.
I'm not saying that I expect the same from UHC, but I do expect more than
what I've seen so far.

                            Jim Lick		       
Work: University of California	| Home: 6657 El Colegio #24
      Santa Barbara		|       Isla Vista, CA 93117-4280
      Dept. of Mechanical Engr. |	(805) 968-0189 voice/msg
      2311 Engr II Building     |	(805) 968-1239 data 
      (805) 893-4113            |	(805) 968-2734 fax
      jim at ferkel.ucsb.edu	|	Soon: jim at cave.sba.ca.us  
					^^^^^ Whenever I can get this UHC
					      Unix to work.