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| Author |
Message |
remmers
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Sun-4 Update Item
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Sep 5 11:37 UTC 1995 |
The Sun-4 on which Grex is soon to reside, replacing our current
Sun-3, is up and running. Grex won't actually be moved to it
until all the software has been installed and configured, and
everything's been tested.
The system staff is currently at work installing software.
This is a big job because
(1) Grex runs a lot of software that's not part of the standard
Sun distribution--things like Picospan, party, pine, elm, gate,
emacs, mh, lynx, ntalk, httpd, shadow password system, etc. etc.
etc.
(2) Since the Sun-3 and Sun-4 architectures are incompatible,
we can't simply copy the executable files over from one machine
to the other. Every piece of software that we want to install
has to be compiled from source. That means someone has to find
the source code on an archive site somewhere, ftp it to the
Sun-4, read the instructions for building it (which tend to vary
widely from one package to another), do any special configuration
for the Sun-4 that may be necessary, build it, install the
resulting files in the right places, and test it out.
This item is for updates from staff on how things are going with
the Sun-4, and to give users an opportunity to ask questions.
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| 130 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 130:
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Sep 5 11:49 UTC 1995 |
An example: Yesterday I built GNU emacs 19.29 on the Sun-4, from
the 9 megabyte tarred gzipped source file from MIT. It went
smoothly. Despite its size, emacs is one of the easier packages
to install--it comes with a sophisticated configuration script
that is very smart about figuring out what kind of system its
running on and configuring things properly, which means that
there isn't much that a person needs to do "by hand".
I was impressed by the speed at which the whole thing
compiled--much faster than I'd expect on the Sun-3, even when
nobody else is logged in. This gives me some reason to think
that the Sun-4 will be a much better performer than the Sun-3,
once the hordes of Grex users are on it.
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popcorn
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response 2 of 130:
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Sep 5 11:59 UTC 1995 |
I've brought over party, write/mesg/amin, gate, elm (and its associated
utilities such as newmail), and pine (and its friendly companion text
editor, pico) to the Sun 4. They're all in various states of installation
and testing right now.
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popcorn
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response 3 of 130:
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Sep 5 12:00 UTC 1995 |
Oh -- and I agree with John: I've been impressed by how quickly things
seem to run so far. I think the highest load average I've spotted so
far was about 0.05. Of course, that was with 2 users on, one of whom
wasn't doing anything at the time, but still, it's low.
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steve
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response 4 of 130:
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Sep 5 13:00 UTC 1995 |
When everything has been built, and we've tested it for a week
or two, the main job of installing it as Grex will begin.
This will take at least one solid day, and perhaps more. People
should be ready for a period of time when the system will be
unavailable for a weekend, so as to make enough time to to this
*right*.
Why such a long time? Well, it really isn't that long, but
there are several things that will need working on to get the
system up and running. Among these will be
- making sure that the ALM-II serial card is probperly
functioning with the Sun-4 kernel. Since Grex owns only one
of these serial cards, we'll have to borrow one of Greg's to
do any testing at all, and even then it won't be like the
current configuration.
- memory boards have to be installed.
- The 2G disk that has /home and /usr/local needs to be
reparitioned.
- We need to get the Sun-4 over into the Dungeon.
...And other things that I'm not thinking of at the moment.
So its a good idea to plan on Grex being down for most of a
weekend. When will this happen? We aren't sure yet. One of
the big things that needs to happen is testing for all the
security holes that we've plugged up for SunOD 4.1.1. That
will take time, and is probably the single hardest thing to
do in getting the Sun-4 ready for prime time
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davel
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response 5 of 130:
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Sep 5 13:12 UTC 1995 |
SunOD=Sun on overdrive? Sun overdose?
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tsty
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response 6 of 130:
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Sep 5 13:21 UTC 1995 |
Sun Osculates Dungeon, of course ..................
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steve
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response 7 of 130:
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Sep 5 19:27 UTC 1995 |
SunOD is an obscure operating system for the true believers of
Sun Microsystems. In order to get this operating system you must
assign Sun Microsystems Inc as the sole inherator of your estate.
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lilmo
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response 8 of 130:
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Sep 5 21:47 UTC 1995 |
Re #3: heh, heh, heh, heh.... I'm just imagining someone saying that
very earnestly, and with a straight face, and I laugh... :-)
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gregc
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response 9 of 130:
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Sep 5 22:26 UTC 1995 |
It's a varient of SunLD-50.
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srw
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response 10 of 130:
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Sep 6 05:22 UTC 1995 |
I have ported Kermit, Lynx, httpd, and the unix end of MacLayers.
These are in various stages of testing. Kermit and Lynx are done,
(or so I thought) but later I ran into a problem with lynx, so
I may still have more to do there.
Some of these are tricky in one way or another. Each has its own quirks.
We haven't started yet on some of the trickier bits.
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tsty
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response 11 of 130:
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Sep 7 08:29 UTC 1995 |
This item is the absolutely best item in Coop - and on Grex for
that matter. May I suggest a link be made to Agora? Or is it too
early for that?
Y E H ! Staff!
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rcurl
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response 12 of 130:
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Sep 8 06:17 UTC 1995 |
How about instead just making an announcement to that effect in agora, in
the spirit of encouraging users to read other cfs?
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janc
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response 13 of 130:
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Sep 9 17:57 UTC 1995 |
Let me know if I can be of help on getting this move done. The Sun 3 is
broken. Getting the move done should be considered an emergency priority.
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raven
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response 14 of 130:
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Sep 9 18:04 UTC 1995 |
The Sun 3 is broken, really, details please!!!???
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steve
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response 15 of 130:
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Sep 9 18:33 UTC 1995 |
Well, in terms of our disk problem, it's gotten worse I think. My
belief is that as the /home partition gets more full, the errors
associated with the disk problems are getting worse.
That, coupled with the fact that Grex's use is growing again,
makes for a perfect receipe for disaster.
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srw
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response 16 of 130:
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Sep 10 07:02 UTC 1995 |
Only Marcus can build Picospan for it. That has not been done yet,
although he may have been working on it on his own sun-4.
I haven't heard.
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popcorn
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response 17 of 130:
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Sep 10 17:56 UTC 1995 |
Today I finished installing write/mesg/amin and elm (and its associated
utilities). I ftp'd joe to the Sun 4, built it, and installed it.
Pine/pico are compiling as I type this.
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popcorn
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response 18 of 130:
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Sep 10 18:47 UTC 1995 |
Pine/pico are now installed.
I built and installed figlet, too. Haven't put in its fonts yet
(except for the default font); will do that some morning when ftp
traffic moves faster.
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mcpoz
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response 19 of 130:
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Sep 10 20:45 UTC 1995 |
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davel
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response 20 of 130:
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Sep 11 13:08 UTC 1995 |
Eh?
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zook
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response 21 of 130:
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Sep 11 13:19 UTC 1995 |
Re: 13-15 So, roughly how much of the system remains to be ported over? Any
guesstimation of when the new system will be up and ready for a shakedown?
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popcorn
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response 22 of 130:
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Sep 11 13:29 UTC 1995 |
There's a staff meeting scheduled for Wednesday. Hopefully we'll be able to
figure out a better guesstimate then. My guess right now is 1 to 2 months.
One month for porting software; one month for checking for known holes and
patches and suchlike.
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gregc
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response 23 of 130:
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Sep 11 16:12 UTC 1995 |
I would guess 2 months too. But it's more like, 2 months of porting software
in our spare time, 4 days of crazed activity when the Sun-3 dies big time,
and then fix the bugs as they come up after the system is in place.
Not the ideal plan, but more than likely, that's the way it will play out. :-)
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davel
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response 24 of 130:
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Sep 11 16:33 UTC 1995 |
<crosses fingers, spits over shoulder, ...>
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