Date: Sun, 19 Oct 97 22:27:30 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #36 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Sun, 19 Oct 97 Volume 10 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: Are they worth it? Are they worth it?, Help with monitors, Question about a cable, Formatting blues Help with monitors Look for an sbus card New install of SunOS 4.1 Open Step/NeXTSTEP on SPARC hdwe Question about a cable Sun386i : Problem with 2nd installation disk Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #35 (2 msgs) +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > @net-kitchen.com | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 09:19:41 -0500 (EST) From: Clarence Wilkerson Subject: Are they worth it? To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com My favorite lowend Sun machine right now is the IPX I have at home. I've also played with the 3/50, 3/60, Sparc 1+, and IPC class machines. The IPX Takes the more modern SIMM chips, tops out at 64megs. I have an internal 1 gig IBM harddrive. My experience with trying OS's on it was that in terms of subjective user response NetBSD = OpenBSD=Sunos 4.1.3_U1 are about the same and somewhat better than Solaris 2.5 ( at least with 48 megs of RAM). All of these were faster than Sparc Linux. (Apparently Sparc Linux is slow on some suns. Mine was incrediably slow loading X). Right now, I 'm tracking OpenBSD 2.2, but did NetBSD for a couple of years. The X performance is pretty snappy, better by far than my pentium Linux machine with a lowend video card and monitor. Network performance seems reasonable compared to my pentiums. I have to admit that a kernel compile from scratch takes 1 hour. (On my pentium Linux, a kernel compile is about 8 minutes). A complete recompile of all the Netbsd or Openbsd source tree takes 12 hours or more. ( A complete build of X11R6.3 on an Sparc Ultra is less than an hour). Most sources from the net will build with no problems on NetBSD or OpenBSd. The emulation mode has been useful to run stuff like Netscape. So I still regard this class of machine as fun and useful. Clarence Wilkerson - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 06:58:11 -0700 (PDT) From: aad@nwnet.net Subject: Are they worth it?, Help with monitors, Question about a cable, To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com, rcini@classic.msn.com >Some of us like OpenLook, it was quite a dramatic improvement from SunView. IMHO, SunView *was* OpenLook. >Anyway, this one has a monitor problem. It's the 19" Philips model and it >squeals when turned on Sounds like a toasted flyback transformer -- happened all the time on these beasts. The windings become delaminated. You may want to scout around for a replacement monitor -- it may be cheaper than having yours fixed. >but I need a special cable to connect the Sun's monitor card to my SVGA >PC's monitor. Anyone who knows how to make one of these cables? >From the FB FAQ (http://c3-a.snvl1.sfba.home.com/FrameBuffer.html) Ultra Spec Cables 170 Oberlin Avenue North, Lakewood, New Jersey 08701-4548 Phone: 1 800 622 2537 (1 800 6 CABLES) Fax: 1 800 222 5337 (1 800 CABLEES) Email: sales@ultraspec.com Ultra Spec manufacture a range of cables, including monitor cables and PC to 13W3 adaptors. >This is true, although if you standardise on some fairly good and >commonly available PC hardware you only have to go through the >problems once Motherboard models seem to change frequently, though. >and with dozens or hundreds of machines, you're >looking a very significant cost savings by going with a PC My predecessors here believed so. The time I've spent fighting with the things more than makes up for any cost difference, though, and these days Ultra 1's come closer to narrowing the gap, especially if one would have to pay for an OS license for the PC hardware that comes bundled with a Sun. - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 14:11:51 -0400 From: adh@an.bradford.ma.us (Sandwich Maker) Subject: Formatting blues To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 09:11:06 -0400 (EDT) From: raub@kushana.aero.ufl.edu (Mauricio Tavares) Subject: Formatting blues To: suns-at-home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I feel so stupid asking this, but anyway: Ok, I haven't added a new drive to my Sparc 1+ running SunOS 4.1.4 in ages. Now, I want to replace its 1GB drive by a 2GB one. As it was to be expected, the drive I have does not have an entry in the /etc/format.dat file 9I think that is the name). "No Sweat," I thought. "All I have to do is run format and be on my merry way." Right now the machien complains this drive does not have right magic number, something I don't even remember its function anymore. Well, things are not that simple. First of all, I found that if I create an entry in /etc/format.dat, it won't show up when I run format, and vice-versa. Is it me or that goes against the man page? Anyway, here are the specs for the drive Samsung WN-321010S 2160MB (formatted, according to the docs and web page) 3 Disks 6 heads 5588 cylinders 512 bytes/sector 5400 RPM All that is nice and peachy, but, how do I enter that in format? Well, actually I did get to enter that, but do not like that I can't find the entry in /etc/format.dat. I wonder where it hides it. Back to my problem, I then start partitioning the HD. Can anyone help me and explain what each field does? What I mean is the line that goes like this: /dev/sd2f: Start sector: AAA BBBBBBBB (CCCC/D/E) How does AAA and CCC are related? If my mind is not mistaken, CCCC is the size of the partition in the same units AAAA is. So, to get the AAAA for the next partition you would add the current AAA to CCCC. Am I right here? AAA is the starting cylinder of the partition. BBB is the size of the partition in blocks; CCC/D/E is the size in cylinders/tracks/sectors. [tracks and sectors should always be 0 and 0, for historical reasons] if you don't have it already, scsiinfo can interrogate any drive and spit out a format.dat-style entry for it. get it. use it. love it. of course, it knows nothing of partitioning so it only makes one for the entire disk. so, i wrote the following ksh autoload function: ########################################### typeset -i HEAD=0 TOTB=0 BTRK=0 function pt { typeset -i MEGS=0 BLKS=0 CYLS=0 SCYL=0 RB=0 KTRK=0 while getopts :h:b:k:t: OPTION do case $OPTION in h) HEAD=$OPTARG;; b) BTRK=$OPTARG;; k) KTRK=$OPTARG;; t) TOTB=$OPTARG;; ':') print -u2 "$0: $OPTARG requires an argument";; '?') print -u2 "$0: $OPTARG is unknown\nUSAGE: $0 -h heads [-b blocks/track | -k Kb/track] -t total_blocks partitions_in_Mb"; return 1;; esac done shift $((OPTIND - 1)) (( KTRK )) && BTRK=$((KTRK*2)) print "$HEAD heads, $((BTRK/2)) Kb/track" for MEGS in "$@" do CYLS=$((2048*MEGS/HEAD/BTRK)) BLKS=$((CYLS*HEAD*BTRK)) (( RB += BLKS )) print "partition = $SCYL, $BLKS [actual size $CYLS cyls, $((CYLS*HEAD*BTRK/2048)) meg]" (( SCYL += CYLS )) done print "partition = $SCYL, $((TOTB - RB)) [actual size $((TOTB/BTRK/HEAD - SCYL)) cyls, $(((TOTB - SCYL*HEAD*BTRK)/2048)) meg]" } ########################################### if you don't know about ksh autoload functions, here's how: save it in a file named 'pt' in a directory named 'fbin' under your home directory. the filename -must- agree with the function name. you can have more than one function in the file if you link it to every name. add 'export FPATH=~/fbin' to your .profile log out and back in pt is now available as if it was already defined or a shell command. to use it, you need to know: 1. the total blocks available on the disk after formatting 2. the number of heads 3. the number of blocks per track typical usage -- pt -h [heads] -b [blocks/track] -t [total blocks] part-1 part-2 part-3 ... because it's a function, it's able to save the option values between invocations; you only have to specify them the first time you run it. the next time, you can just skip to 'pt part-1 part-2 ...' pt -u [or any character except h, b, k, or t] will evoke a usage statement. notes: it doesn't count the number of partitions and stop you from figuring more than eight. it doesn't prevent you from sizing them larger than 2G. it rounds them -down- to the last whole cylinder -under- the size you asked for. it was written as a 'desk calculator', so you have to cut'n'paste its output into your fledgling format.dat entry. it works under ksh93 [which you can download from www.kornshell.com] and dtksh, which is really ksh93-plus. i originally ran it under ksh88i, back when i was at at&t and could recompile the ksh with 'float' defined... finally, i keep my own format.dat separate from the system one; you can make format use it with the -f option. ___________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay | never criticise someone until you've walked internet rambler | a mile in their shoes; that way you're at a adh@an.bradford.ma.us | safe distance and they can't run after you. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 00:33:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Frisch Subject: Help with monitors To: Jeff Fredrickson On Sat, 11 Oct 1997, Jeff Fredrickson wrote: > How good is the GDM-1604 16"/17" monitor? There's one for sale for $60 but > I don't know if it's worth getting. They're getting pretty old now... I believe my GDM-1604 has a manufacture date of 1988. Mine is still sharp and bright with slight screen distortion, but still very usable. $60 is a good price and will work on your machine without problem. Mike. ====================================================================== Mike Frisch Email: mfrisch@saturn.tlug.org Northstar Technologies WWW: http://saturn.tlug.org/~mfrisch Newmarket, Ontario, CANADA ====================================================================== - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:57:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Mike Goumans Subject: Look for an sbus card To: Suns-at-Home-List@tigger.net-kitchen.com I am looking for an sbus card that will run idi drives. Ive picked up a gaggle of those 1 gig seagate sabres out of an older mass storage array and i wanted to hook 4 of them up to my ipx. I guess its just something about running a disk subsystem thats multiple times larger than the machine its hooked up to that makes me want to do it. If someone has one around, id be willing to trade the spare scsi + 10base t sbus card i have in the machine not hooked up to anything. Also i am looking for a sun4/6xx cpu board. CPUs and/or memory are not required as i already have suitable modules and memory for it. Last but not least, im interested in any wacky sun vme board. Basically if its weird and you cant figure out what the heck you would want to do with the card, I more than likely want it. I do not usually buy hardware, I prefer to trade what i currently have for something im looking for. Of course if its something i really want, thats a whole different story, but i feel alot better after trading for a peice of hardware i want/need/justhavetoget and it makes this entire power draining hobby a bit more worthwhile Thanks Mike - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:17:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Kwoody Subject: New install of SunOS 4.1 To: SUNS-AT-HOME Quick pre-amble: Picked up a few sun-3's (3/60) w/ monitors, hd and tape, two of the three work. Also it came with a couple of copies of SunOS 4.1 on tape. Now after having these systems for a few weeks now and getting to know sunos a bit Ive managed to network one of them onto my little home net consisting of 1 FreeBSD and 1 Win95 machine. As the suns were used as CAD stattions to some degree, when they were taken out of service a lot of stuff was deleted off the drive. So some stuff does not work, namely vi, vipw, uname and a raft of other programs. They all give erros of not being able to find ld.so and libc.so.1 ld.so is on the drive, but the libc.so.1 is not. So basically I want to reinstall the os from the tape. How hard is it to do? Do I have to specify the disk geometry manually? Or does the install do it for you? Like picking the size of / /var and /usr. Ive got a FAQ on installing SunOS, taken from sunhelp.com but it doesnt really say. Just boot the tape and follow the prompts? Also I wonder if this machine will run any type of X? Whether its the MIT or SunView I think its called? Its only got 12 megs of ram now but will take out 8 from the box that doesnt work to make it 20. This is part of the dmesg: cgfour0 at obmem 0xff300000 pri 4 bwtwo1 at obmem 0xff400000 bwtwo1: resolution 1152 x 900 But cgfour doesnt exist in the /dev dir, only cgnine0 and cgtwo0 and there are no bwtwo files at all...if there are supposed to be any to start with. At any rate, basic question is this: how hard is it to install SunOS 4.1 on a Sun 3/60 from tape? I have looked at NetBSD but for now would rather concentrate on SunOS to get to learn it some, then maybe experiment with a different OS later. Thanks for any info.... Kwoody@citytel.net - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 14:33:33 -0500 From: jmz@mtvernon1.accessus.net Subject: Open Step/NeXTSTEP on SPARC hdwe To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com One OS not mentioned is NeXT.While it's likely not to be around much longer,NeXTSTEP runs on some Suns and has a pretty slick interface.Has anyone out there run it on a Sun and can they report on it? As of this writing,it's still available from Apple Enterprise Systems.Cost is pretty ignorant,but there is an academic deal for about $300 that gets you the whole package. I have used NeXT on Intel and it's a much better deal than the conventional Unix graphic interface (X),except that there is no Netscape and you need a third party X package to interface with the rest of the Unix world.Of course,you can always run Netscape remotely through X if you have X (CubX or CoXist) and another local Unix box. I've also seen X managers that give you NeXT look and feel (but,of course,not DPS or Digital Webster or .....),usually on Linux boxes.Anyone seen this run on SunOS? [ I've run the version of OpenStep Sun used to have available for free from ] [ their web site. It ran on top of Solaris as another choice from the CDE ] [ login box. It was pretty, supported DPS, but suffered from a lack of ] [ colors on my 8-bit video. --ddm ] - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 00:36:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Frisch Subject: Question about a cable To: Christofer Karatzinis On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Christofer Karatzinis wrote: > problem is that I don't have a monitor. I think, I can use my PC's monitor, > but I need a special cable to connect the Sun's monitor card to my SVGA > PC's monitor. Anyone who knows how to make one of these cables? You monitor will have to support 1152x900 @ 66Hz (most PC monitors smaller than 17" do not support this). Sun frame buffers output composite sync, but I am not 100% sure if this is a requirement of the monitor itself. I sell the necessary cable if you are interested (check my web site at "http://saturn.tlug.org/sunstuff/" for more details). Mike. ====================================================================== Mike Frisch Email: mfrisch@saturn.tlug.org Northstar Technologies WWW: http://saturn.tlug.org/~mfrisch Newmarket, Ontario, CANADA ====================================================================== - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 09:54:43 +0100 From: Duncan Entwisle Subject: Sun386i : Problem with 2nd installation disk To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Sun386i (only 4Mb of memory) - built in diagnostics, and diagnostics disk report no problems. First installation disk ends with zprobe error (presume this just means that its finished with that disk) and then prompts for disk 2. It then reports that its initialising the ram disk, and continues to access the disk at occasional intervals, but doesn't ever finish (I gave up after an hour). I need to get to that stage, so that I can change the boot sector of the harddrive so that its recognised as a boot disk (it contains the operating system). Does anyone have any ideas on this? Cheers, Duncan. - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 17:07:23 +0100 From: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey) Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #35 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > Date: Tue, 7 Oct 97 02:45:00 UT > From: "Richard A. Cini, Jr." > Subject: Just got 3/50 > To: "SAHList" > > Hi! > > I'm new to the list because I just adopted my first 3/50. Mostly I collect "classic" (pre-1980) computers, but I just couldn't pass this one up. > > Anyway, this one has a monitor problem. It's the 19" Philips model and it squeals when turned on. There is no picture at all, and it almost sounds > like that a transformer is trying to oscillate, but just isn't getting there. A squealing power supply is a sign that there is no load on it. This seems to happen if the circuitry detects something amiss - it then shuts everything down, so there is no load on the power supply, neither is there any way to tell which one of 101 causes to blame :-( . I bet that if you look at the tube, you will see that the heater is not glowing, even though it is not open circuit. I have got a monitor in this state. I steadily swapped boards with another good monitor, until the only thing left unswapped was the EHT transformer and associated circuitry. I haven't gotten around to changing that yet, so it is still dead :-(. Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------- Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Voice/Fax: +44 161 437 4506 Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5 - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 16:53:09 -0500 (CDT) From: Ty Sarna Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #35 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com woods@most.weird.com (Greg A. Woods) wrote: > Running NetBSD (or I suppose Linux) on more modern Sun hardware isn't > much different than running it on most other hardware. I find > NetBSD-1.2 on the sun3 to be unacceptably slower than SunOS-4.1 in the > disk I/O department, but it may be improved now (with 1.3 near the door) > from what it was. On the other hand NetBSD/1.1 on a Sparc IPC was > somewhat faster in some areas than SunOS-4.1.4 was and otherwise nearly > equiv. Actually, when DMA, reselection, etc. are enabled, NetBSD/sun3 seems to me to be slightly faster than SunOS. Trouble is, it also greatly increases the occurances of running into the mystery sun3 pmap bug, so things run faster, but die frequently (eg, named will die every few days). It won't be any better in 1.3, because the pmap problem still hasn't been found. None of this applies to NetBSD/sparc though, or even NetBSD/sun3x for that matter. And I still find NetBSD to be adventageous enough on the sun3 (much more secure, important new functionality) that I switched my 3/60 to it. - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************