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- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.165
-
-
-
- %%% For more info, contact Jim %%%
-
- ===
- 17) I'm trying to use a SyQuest drive under A/UX but it refuses to work.
- I keep on getting a "more data than device expected" error message.
- What's wrong?
-
- The "problem" is with the generic SCSI disk driver under A/UX. For SCSI drives,
- there are certain parameters that may be adjusted by the user; these parameters
- are grouped in "pages." One such page concerns how the disk responds to and
- recovers from errors: the Error Recovery Page. A/UX expects the parameters in
- this page to have certain values. Now the vast majority of SCSI disks have
- the values set as expected, but this isn't the case with SyQuest drives. There
- is one parameter (PER) which is opposite than expected by A/UX. When A/UX trys
- to set this value to what it wants, however, the SyQuest drive reads this
- "request" wrong (the request is 16 bytes but the SyQuest only reads 4) so
- the SCSI Manager reports the error.
-
- Tony Cooper (tony@marc.cri.nz) has written a Mac application
- which sets the Error Page values correctly: Fix Error Page. This application
- must be used under the MacOS. It can be found on rascal.ics.utexas.edu as well
- as on aux.support.apple.com (aux.patches/unsupported/2.0). You can also use the
- FWB Hard Disk Toolkit - World Control Application to enable the PER bit in
- the recovery page (Page #1).
-
- By the by, here is the /etc/disktab entry for SyQuest:
-
- # SyQuest disk
- #
- Syquest|syquest|S45:\
- :ty=winchester:ns#34:nt#2:nc#1275:
-
- ===
- 18) I'm unable to start a getty process on a built-in serial port. When
- I use 'setport' to enable the port, I get a "no such device" error.
- Configuring /etc/inittab to respawn getty on the port has no effect.
-
- AppleTalk is probably enabled for the port. The getty process can be started
- temporarily by turning off AppleTalk via A/UX's Finder Chooser and THEN
- using the 'setport' command.
-
- You can permanently disable AppleTalk by reconfiguring the kernel with
- "newconfig noappletalk". If you wish to keep the drivers installed in the
- kernel but still want to "permanently" disable AppleTalk, you can edit
- /etc/startup to prevent AppleTalk from initializing and /etc/inittab can be
- editted to start getty. (NOTE: /etc/startup is regenerated by newconfig so
- you'll have to redo this if you reconfigure the kernel).
-
- If you don't have an EtherTalk card installed, then you can also modify
- /etc/appletalkrc to point to "ethertalk0" instead of "localtalk0". Doing this
- stops AppleTalk from bothering the serial port because it tries to use
- the non-existant card.
-
- ===
- 19) I am using and depending on /etc/hosts to do all my hostname resolving
- (i.e. not using named or /etc/resolv.conf). How come I can't mail
- to other hosts, but I can ping|ftp|etc... them?
-
- Well, the problem is actually with sendmail (in /usr/lib). sendmail (under
- A/UX 2.0 and later) assumes the use of a nameserver. Pre-2.0 versions were
- "adjusted" to look in /etc/hosts if any nameserver call failed (which it would
- if it wasn't running, of course :). Jim Jagielski (jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov)
- has hacked sendmail 5.65 for A/UX to allow it to also check /etc/hosts. The
- source code is available via anon-ftp on jagubox.
-
- %%% For more info, contact Jim %%%
-
- ////////////////////// END OF PART 1 OF 2 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
- --
- Jim Jagielski | "It is not I who am crazy...
- jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov | it is I who am MAD!"
- NASA/GSFC, Code 734.4 |
- Greenbelt, MD 20771 | - Ren
- Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu comp.unix.aux:10161 news.answers:4737
- Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux,news.answers
- Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!ira.uka.de!gmd.de!jvnc.net!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ukma!nsisrv!jagubox!jim
- From: jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski)
- Subject: Apple A/UX FAQ List (2/2)
- Message-ID: <1336@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov>
- Followup-To: comp.unix.aux
- Summary: Latest posting of FAQ for A/UX
- Keywords: FAQ A/UX
- Lines: 829
- Sender: usenet@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov (Usenet)
- Supersedes: <1311@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov>
- Nntp-Posting-Host: jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov
- Reply-To: jim@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski)
- Organization: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
- References: <1335@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov>
- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:31:28 GMT
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Expires: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:00:00 GMT
-
- Archive-name: aux-faq/part2
- Last-modified: Mon Dec 21 11:29:16 EST 1992
-
- This is the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) list for A/UX 3.0
-
- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ START OF PART 2 OF 2 //////////////////////
-
- ===
- 20) My MacOS partition mounts fine under MacOS but it doesn't show up
- under A/UX... Why?
-
- Whether or not a Mac partition mounts under A/UX depends on a number of
- factors (possibly even including the phases of the moon and the color socks
- you happen to be wearing)... Necessary conditions for a partition to mount are:
-
- 1. The disk MUST be partitioned using the "new" partitioning scheme
- detailed in Inside Macintosh V. There is still plenty of disk
- software out there that uses the "old" scheme and this drives will
- not mount under A/UX. Generic disk formatters that use the "new"
- scheme include SilverLining and FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. Most major
- disk vendors supply A/UX compatible formatting s/w.
-
- 2. The partition must mount under MacOS BEFORE A/UX is booted. A/UX
- only tries to mount partitions that were already when it was booted.
- So, if you use an application to boot A/UX and this application runs
- before a partition is mounted, A/UX won't mount it for you. If you
- have a removable drive (such as SyQuest), you must insert the disk
- before you boot A/UX... this means you can't swap cartridges under
- A/UX.
-
- It's possible that playing with 'pname' before starting the MacOS environment
- may make more MacOS partitions readable...
-
- ===
- 21) I've ported Elm (or other mail reader) and it doesn't seem to work.
- Why?
-
- It seems most likely that the reason is because they attempt to use a different
- file locking scheme that /bin/mail does. Pre-3.0 versions of mail used 'flock'
- style file locking. 3.0 now uses the '.lock' scheme for mail file locking.
- Elm 2.4.X requires that both flock and .lock be enabled. Elm 2.3.X requires
- _only_ .lock locking.
- ===
- 22) What 3-button mice work under A/UX (and X)?
-
- The Gravis SuperMouse is a 3-button mechanical mouse that is completely
- configurable and compatible with A/UX. Mouse System's A-3 mouse is compatible
- but is "hard-wired" configured for A/UX as: Left Button = Actual Mouse Button;
- Middle Button = Left Arrow; Right Button = Right Arrow. There is also the
- Logitech MouseMan. The general agreement is that the SuperMouse is your
- best bet... At present, the Gravis SuperMouse, however, is not shipping
- due to some technical problem.
-
- Please note that A/UX 2 & 3 only support a subset of the ADB Manager. Thus
- there are a few ADB devices that may not work under A/UX.
-
- ===
- 23) How come when I do a 'df' as a regular user, it shows me a different
- number of free blocks compared to when I run it as 'root'?
-
- One of the details about the BSD Fast File System is that it sets aside 10% of
- the available disk space (by default... this value can be changed by using
- the 'tunefs' command) and makes it unavailable to regular users. This
- prevents 2 things: filling up a file system and destroying performance by
- having a "too full" file system. 'root', however, does have access to this
- "extra" disk space, hence the difference in the numbers reported by df between
- 'root' and "regular joe".
-
- Please note that if you used HD Setup to create the partitions (or your
- A/UX came preinstalled), then the "set aside" value for these file systems
- is 5%, not the default of 10%... This was simply to give users more space.
- Reducing this value beyond 5% is Not A Good Idea.
-
- ===
- 24) Does A/UX LocalTalk support IP?
-
- Nope... not at all. Maybe 3.0.1...
-
- ===
- 25) How do I get MPW 3.1 to work? It hangs my system...
-
- MPW 3.1 doesn't work under A|UX 2.0 although 3.2 does. In the meantime,
- you can make 3.1 work by breaking into MacsBug when it's hung and entering:
-
- pc=pc+2;g
-
- See Q#31 for info about entering MacsBug...
-
- ===
- 26) Can I refer to a file on my Mac system from within A/UX?
-
- A/UX's 'Finder' mode is the only way (currently) to access both file systems.
- You could write a hybrid application that could attach to the Finder world (a
- la, CommandShell and cmdo which can "see" both file systems), but you can't
- access HFS volumes from the A/UX kernel directly. In a similar vein, you can't
- 'mount' an HFS volume on an A/UX inode.
-
- ===
- 27) How can I adjust the amount of virtual memory available Finder uses?
-
- The default behavior under 3.0 is to set the amount of MacOS memory equal
- to the total memory you have if possible (see below about 24-bit mode).
- If you are low on swap, this can cause some strange behavior (although
- you most probably won't get a panic message). To "fix" this, you may want
- to decrease the memory size.
-
- The easiest way is to use the 'TBMEMORY' environment variable. You can set
- it's "value" equal to the amount of memory you wish to use. For example:
-
- set TBMEMORY=10m (in .profile for ksh or sh or /etc/profile)
- -or-
- setenv TBMEMORY 10m (in .login for csh)
-
- configures Finder for 10M.
-
- You can also edit /mac/bin/mac32|mac24 (or .mac32|.mac24 if you are using this
- method) to call 'startmac' with the memory size you want using the "-m" option.
- For example:
-
- /mac/bin/startmac -m 8m > $SMLOGFILE 2>&1 &
- -------
-
- in (.)mac32|(.)mac24 will configure an 8M environment.
-
- Please note that under the 24-bit mode (mac24), you can only access a maximum
- of 8MB of RAM. It won't complain if you try to setup more, it just won't
- do it. Furthermore, if you actually have more than 8MB (say 12), the "About
- This Macintosh" window will show "Built-in Memory: 12,288 L; Total Memory:
- 8,192 K".
-
- ===
- 28) Is it worth getting a cache card for the IIci?
-
- Absolutely! The card makes an amazing difference in performance. However, this
- performance increase is reduced when an external monitor is used. For more
- information about extensive benchmarking with the IIci and cache cards, you
- can snag the benchmarking results (which were generated by William Roberts)
- via anon-ftp on redstar.dcs.qmw.ac.uk in archive/papers.
-
- ===
- 29) How do I keep command lines that I edit with "backspace" from erasing
- the prompt?
-
- This behavior is due to the tty driver under A/UX. The BSD tty driver (which
- A/UX doesn't use) handles this, whereas the SysV driver doesn't. If you are
- running 'ksh' then you can "set -o viraw" to prevent this from happening.
- As far as I know, there are no work-arounds for 'sh' or 'csh'. ('tcsh' and
- 'bash' do not suffer from this problem... )
-
- ===
- 30) When I try to mail something, I get the following error message:
- "Cannot read frozen config file: not a typewriter". What's wrong?
-
- This message is produced by sendmail (/usr/lib/sendmail) when it's frozen
- configuration file (/usr/lib/sendmail.fc) is unusable (as it is in the A/UX
- distribution which has it as a 0-byte file). To create a "new" frozen file
- of your present sendmail.cf file (assuming that it's good), type:
-
- $ /usr/lib/sendmail -bz
-
- (the sendmail daemon, if it exists, must be killed 1st).
-
- ===
- 31a) I have MacsBug installed. How can I trigger it?
- -- or --
- 31b) Sometimes my MultiFinder environment (and/or CommandShell) freezes
- up; how can I unfreeze it? Should I hit the Interrupt switch?
-
- The "Command-Control-e" keypress will kill the current MultiFinder environment
- and "unfreeze" (and kill) your MultiFinder|CommandShell. Depending on
- whether your session-type is Console Mode or 32|24-Bit, you will either get
- returned to the console or get returned to the Login screen. You should _NOT_
- press the Interrupt switch since this puts you into A/UX's kernel debugger.
- If you have MacsBug installed (which is recommended) then you can press
- "Command-Control-i" to enter it. This may enable you to clean some things up
- before the MultiFinder environment is blasted (even just using 'rs' under
- MacsBug helps...). If MacsBug is _not_ installed, the "C-C-i" behaves almost
- like a "C-C-e" except that it appears that A/UX doesn't need to "rebuild" your
- icon/Desktop "environment" the next time Mac-mode is entered.
-
- ===
- 32) Is there an archive of comp.unix.aux out there somewhere?
-
- Yes, it's located on aux.support.apple.com under archives/comp.unix.aux.
-
- ===
- 33) My site is not upgraded to EtherTalk Phase 2 yet... can I use Phase 1
- under A/UX?
-
- A/UX only supports EtherTalk Phase 2. Upgrading to Phase 2 is recommended for
- a variety of reasons, but most importantly to ensure compatibility with
- new products from Apple and developers (of course, the added features over
- Phase 1 are nice too :).
-
- ===
- 34) What languages are available for A/UX?
-
- A/UX comes with a C compiler ('cc'), a FORTRAN-77 compiler ('f77') as
- well as an assembler ('as'), SNOBOL ('sno') and a kinda-basic interpreter
- ('bs'). 'cc' is a nice, stable, if not-too-quick compiler. 'f77' is a
- true FORTRAN-77 compiler and appears quite workable. I've not used 'sno'
- (I couldn't recall how to program in SNOBOL if my life depended on it :)
- or 'bs'.
-
- If you are doing any work in C, then it would be well worth it to get a
- copy of the GNU C compiler ('gcc') (see Q&A #9). gcc is K&R and ANSI
- compatible so if you are doing ANSI work you'll need it. Apple also has an
- ANSI C compiler ('c89') that you can buy. It's available on the "A/UX
- Developer's Toolkit CD" from APDA. There is also at least one other
- 3rd-party C compiler out there, but I can't recall it's name right
- now. gcc is free; c89 runs about $800. Both include C++ capabilities.
-
- There are also 2 very good 3rd-party FORTRAN compilers: NKR FORTRAN
- and Absoft MacFORTRAN II. In my opinion, MacFORTRAN II is the better
- product... it has finer compiler control, a wide number of compatibility
- options (such as VAX FORTRAN) and excellent speed. If you do order
- MFII, be _sure_ to get the A/UX version. They also sell an MPW version
- that will work under A/UX but it's run under, you guessed it, MPW.
- The A/UX version is a true "Unix" compiler and it's optimized for A/UX.
- Both MFII and NKR FORTRAN run about $500-$600.
-
- Oasys sells 3 compiler packages: C, C++ and FORTRAN. All the compilers
- are based on the GreenHills compilers which are known to be robust and
- fast. However, the Oasys packages are expensive, running about $2000
- per language (although you do get assemblers and linker/loaders with
- the package). Unisoft used to distribute their "Optimizing Compilers"
- (FORTRAN and C) for A/UX, but they are no longer available... Pity,
- because they also were based on GreenHills and were quite nice.
-
- At present, I know of no true Pascal compilers for A/UX.
-
- Finally, if you are doing program development, then you'll need a
- good debugger. As described above in "List of ports...", Thomas Eberhardt
- (thomas@mathematik.uni-Bremen.de) has ported gdb for A/UX, if you would
- prefer using something other than sdb or dbx, which are included with
- A/UX. If you are using FORTRAN, then Absoft also makes an excellent
- debugger which has been fine-tuned to work with MFII (it also does quite
- well with C); it's called FX. It has two interfaces, character and Motif,
- and is quite powerful.
-
- ===
- 35) How can I figure out the /etc/disktab entry for my hard disk?
-
- Many hard disk applications will reveal the disk drive geometry for you:
- FWB Hard Disk ToolKit and SCSI Evaluator are very good (SilverLining is a bit
- wrong on the number of tracks... it includes spares). What you are really
- looking for are the total number of cylinders ('nc'), the number of sectors
- per track ('ns') and the number of tracks ('nt'). Also, I'm maintaining
- a list of /etc/disktab entries. If you have any, send it to me and I'll
- add them.
-
- The file will be available via anon-ftp on jagubox.
- <<ED: I need _LOTS_ of entries>>
-
- Just a note: the number of tracks ('nt') is equal to the number of heads.
-
- ===
- 36) How come I can't use color under X?
-
- Apple's X (R4), and Thomas Eberhardt's X11R5 all support color. However,
- you must start the server with the "-screen 0 -depth 8" option (similar
- command with other screens if you have them). You can add these options to
- the command line or to your server's defaults file. You can also create a
- ".X11" file in your home directory which includes the line:
-
- X -screen 0 -depth 8
-
- to get the same effect. Make sure that ".X11" is executable for this to
- work ("chmod 755 .X11").
-
- ===
- 37) What are Right-To-Copy and Right-To-Upgrade licenses?
-
- If you have bought at least one copy of A/UX 3.0 and you have other Mac CPUs
- that you would like to install A/UX on, you don't need to reorder the entire
- product. You can order a Right-To-Copy license for each Mac you want to
- install A/UX on and then copy your A/UX to that Mac. This is cheaper than
- buying a whole new CD-ROM package. It's not right to copy unless you have a
- Right-To-Copy.
-
- If those other Macs are already running A/UX, but an older version, then you
- need to order a Right-To-Upgrade license for each one you want to upgrade.
- As above, you then copy your 3.0 over to that Mac.
-
- Note that in both cases, you must have purchased at least 1 copy of A/UX 3.0.
- The Right-To-* licenses just "authorize" you to then copy that over to other
- Macs.
-
- The A/UX Essential Manual Set (that comes with A/UX 3.0) is not provided with
- either license. If you need more, you'll need to order them
-
- ===
- 38) How do I set up my Mac and A/UX to enable remote logins via a modem
- on tty0?
-
- First of all, you must edit /etc/inittab to start getty on tty0 using mo_2400:
-
- 00:2:respawn:/etc/getty -u -t 60 tty0 mo_2400
-
- Make sure that your modem is set to be quiet, to not return result codes and
- to not echo back. It must also reset on DTR being dropped ("atq1e0&d3" will
- achieve this for most Hayes-compatible modems except certain (all) USR modems).
- Your modem must also raise DCD on connection ("at&c1") in order to have
- Dialup security (i.e. when the line is closed, HangUp the process. This means
- that MODEM flow control must be specified in gettydefs). You then save these
- changes using the "at&w" sequence. Finally, to make it autoanswer, be sure to
- add "ats0=1&w".
-
- Make sure that the modem cable is correctly configured (NOTE: This is
- for Dialup Security!):
-
- Mac Modem
- --------------------
- 1 (HskO) 20 (DTR)
- 4 (RTS) <- yep... it gets sent to Pin 20 & 4
- 2 (HskI) 8 (DCD)
- 3 (TxD-) 2 (TxD)
- 4 (GDN) 7 (Sgnd)
- 5 (RxD-) 3 (RxD)
- 6 NO CONNECT
- 7 NO CONNECT
- 8 (RxD+) 7 (Sgnd) <- this is right, it gets tied to Mac pin 4 too.
-
- If you mess up pin 8 things can get so flaky that you'll never figure out
- what's going on. You see, by grounding pin 8, you make the modem port
- truly RS-232 compatible. If not grounded, the port will use the RS-422
- standard, which can cause lots of problems.
-
- Please note that getty is the bidirectional version of getty, which is
- sometimes known as uugetty. Thus, you can have dial in and dial out
- at the same time on the same port. You should be using at least version
- 1.16 of HDB (see above: "stuff that's broken" and Q&A 15)
-
- %%% For more info concerning modem|serial problems for A/UX, you really
- should contact Alexis Rosen (alexis@panix.com)... He's really worked
- this area... %%%
-
- ===
- 39) How come I can't used 'talk' with some of the other Unix boxes out
- there, and they can't talk to me?
-
- The reason why is because there are two versions of talk (and it's daemon
- talkd) out there. A/UX uses the BSD 4.2 version. Others use the 4.3 version.
- The two aren't compatible and don't even talk on the same port. If you try
- to talk to someone and all you get is a "Checking for invitation..." message
- then it's because the machine you're trying to access is using 4.3.
-
- Steve Green (xrsbg@dirac.gsfc.nasa.gov) has ported the 4.3 versions of talk
- and talkd (now renamed ntalk and ntalkd for A/UX) to overcome this snag. You
- can have both versions available and running with no problems. The port is
- available via anon-ftp on jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov.
-
- ===
- 40) I'm having trouble transfering files between A/UX and my MacOS disk...
- Also, sometimes things get transfered fine, othertimes not. What's
- going on?
-
- If a file on the A/UX system has Type "TEXT", then when it is copied over to
- a MacOS disk, all 'newline' characters will be replaced by 'carriage
- returns'. Sometimes this is what you want (that is when the file is, in fact,
- a TEXT file). Othertimes it's not. Say for example you download a GIF file
- onto your A/UX disk. A/UX _might_ think it's a TEXT file. If you then copy
- it over to your MacOS disk and try to use Giffer on it, it won't work. That's
- because the 'nl's where changed, which is _not_ what you want. The way to
- stop this is to convince A/UX that the file is of non-TEXT type. There are
- many applications out there (including the A/UX included 'setfile' program)
- that lets you modify this. Do this before you copy the file over to your Mac OS
- disk and all will be Okay. If you aren't sure what the Type and Creator
- should be, you can just specify "BIN " and "A/UX" (note space in BIN) and
- the file won't be massaged during the copy|transfer. You'll still need
- to eventually change them to the correct ones for their particular
- application, but this way they'll be on your MacOS disk "uncorrupted."
-
- Of course, you could also use 'setfile' to set the Type|Creator fields _before_
- you copy the file to the MacOS disk and avoid an additional step.
-
- Please note that if you downloaded a BINHEX file, you _do_ want to keep
- it as a TEXT file if you transfer it over to the MacOS. Once there, you
- can de-BINHEX it and unStuffIt (if it was a binhexed stuffit archive).
-
- See "Hints and Words of Wisdom" (above) for hints in using ftp file transfers
- under A/UX.
-
- ===
- 41) Using the command shell interface, I'm trying to access some Mac files
- (that have strange names) but I can't; the program returns an error and
- I can't access the file. What's going on?
-
- The problem is that sh and csh don't understand the Mac "special" characters
- that are in the filenames. They don't expect filenames with characters that
- are represented by 8-bits. ksh is "8-bit clean" and thus would be able to
- access the file. For example, to remove Moire, just type:
-
- $ ksh #this creates a Korn shell child
- % rm M?ire #match the weird 'o'
- % exit #get back in your old shell
-
- You could also use emacs' DIRED or the Gnu File utilities to do this, but ksh
- is right here on the system so it's a bit easier. Of course, another very
- easy way is to use the MacOS interface and do the deletion|rename|whatever
- the "Mac" way. Please note that if what you are MacOS deleting is a
- symbolic link to a directory, what gets Trashed is actually the contents
- of the directory as well as the link! This is due to the fact that to
- the Finder, the link looks like a folder, and the entire thing gets deleted.
-
- ===
- 42) How can I reports bugs that I find?
-
- The official E-mail address is reports@aux.support.apple.com. If you
- subscribe to the A/UX Technical AnswerLine, you can also use that method. The
- former isn't acknowledged although the latter is.
-
- For completeness, also post the report to comp.unix.aux.
-
- There is also a HyperCard stack called "Apple Bug Reporter" that Apple
- recommends using. I have a copy and can make it available via anon-ftp if
- there is a demand.
-
- ===
- 43) Which serial cards work under A/UX?
-
- <<ED: the following is a posting by Alexis Rosen (alexis@panix.com) on c.u.a>>
-
- There are three cards that "work" with A/UX. The Apple serial card is NOT one
- of them.
-
- The first is Paul Campell's Taniwha CommCard. This card does indeed work with
- all versions of A/UX including 3.0. It has special support for UUCP. It has
- a few mysterious and not very important problems. It's an excellent buy. The
- only problem is, it's not on the market anymore. If you can get one used,
- though, it's worth getting. The one downside is that, like Apple's ports, it
- won't SIMULTANEOUSLY support modem and hardware flow control. It is immune to
- many of the nasty bugs which affect the built-in serial ports, including the
- two (at least) which can crash the kernel.
-
- The second is the Digiboard Nu/whatever, which comes in 4 and 8 port versions.
- This card does not currently work well with A/UX, and has not since 2.0. It
- is susceptible to a variety of problems which crash the kernel, although if
- you use only one port, you can go for many days without dying. It can also
- bring down streams without crashing the kernel. A separate problem with
- throughput causes UUCP to fail at high (9600 or above) speeds. HOWEVER- the
- story is not over. The author of the drivers has been working hard to correct
- these problems, and I hope that they will be corrected sometime in the next
- two months.
-
- <<ED: Some very good news! Brian Westley, the author of the Nu/Xi drivers,
- of DigiBoard has completely rewritten the A/UX drivers, which are now
- in beta test. According to Brain, the betas seem rock solid and complete
- and are "much better than the current released version." He's also
- attempting to add CSlip support. He also now has _real_ work-time
- available to work on the drivers. If you would like the latest betas
- (or just need to contact him) he has a variety of E-mail addresses:
- merlyn@digibd.com
- ...uunet!digibd!merlyn
- AppleLink D1692
- >>
-
- The 3rd is the Applied Engineering QuadraLink serial card. I have the drivers
- but have never had the chance to test them. However, I'm not too comfortable
- with the idea of using them, for two reasons. First, the author of the drivers
- knows fairly little about A/UX or unix in general. Second, the driver code is
- based on Apple code. Apple has been (at least until 3.0 comes out) completely
- incapable of writing serial drivers for their own hardware, so I'm not too
- confident in usig their code as a base for someone else's drivers. BUT!!! -
- as I said, I haven't used them. And at least one person who has, has not
- reported trouble. So they're OK, at least for light use (which is sort of true
- for the Apple ports as well). I just wouldn't bet a commercial project on
- it.
-
- The AE QuadraLink card, like the CommCard and the Apple ports, can't do both
- hardware handshaking and modem control at the same time. No hardware patch
- kit will be developed for the AE card...
-
- The AE QuadraLink DMA isn't any better.
-
- In short, there are no good serial-port solutions for A/UX. For a serious
- project, buy a terminal server or buy a Sun. :-(
-
- <<ED: the following is a followup to Alexis's posting. It's from Paul Sander>>
-
- Actually, there are four.
-
- The fourth is the MaraThon MultiComm card from Dove. It comes with three
- serial ports and a parallel port. The first serial port is a DB-25, the
- second is a DB-9 (AT compatible), and the third is configurable DB-25 or
- RS-422. The parallel port is also AT-compatible. I haven't had trouble
- with the serial ports, though I have had only terminals connected to them.
- The parallel driver has an infuriating bug in which occasionally the end
- of a printout is lost. (The workaround is to print a short dummy file after
- anything important.) A/UX drivers come separately from the card, but they
- are free.
-
- Dove's technical support is pretty poor. When I got the card, I had them
- send the A/UX drivers. When I discovered the bug, I reported it, and got
- an "update," which contained the exact same software (proven using cmp to
- compare the cpio archives on their media). Repeated calls were either
- unanswered, or were not returned. I finally gave up after some 6 months
- of frustration. To make the story complete, they used to have an 800
- number for technical support, but it was discontinued 3 months into this
- saga.
-
- ===
- 44) I heard the the Installer for 3.0 works on "any" 3rd party hard disk.
- Well, it doesn't on mine!
-
- Well, the Installer will work with any 3rd party disk but there are a few
- wrinkles... The HD Setup application in the 3.0 Installer is unique in that
- not only does it create A/UX partitions but it also creates the actual file
- systems in those partitions (basically it runs 'newfs'). Now if you have
- used some other HD utility program (such as SilverLining or FWB HDT) to
- create the partitions and then attempt to install A/UX on that disk, the
- Installer sees that the partitions are there and then _assumes_ that they
- were created by HD Setup and therefore have the file systems already created.
- Of course, the file systems don't exist yet, just the partitions, so the
- installation fails.
-