LGX (Fall) CDROM review.

#641

Author: Rick
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 23:20

152 lines
8549 bytes

I've been working with the LGX CDROM for a for a fortnight now, and I'd
thought I'd share my experiences.

Pros:		Almost complete source.  Cheap.
Cons:		Poorly integrated/compiled.
Overall:	Disappointing.

My bona fides: I've been following Linux since Linus announced the
kernel in c.o.m.  I've offered a number of kernel patches, ported a few
applications, written a device driver.  My business is programming, with
8 years experience in DOS/Un*x programming and maintainance.

My first complete Linux installation was SLS 1.0.  Despite the recent
flaming of SLS, I found it easy to install, requiring only minor
tweaking to create a functioning Linux/X environment complete with news
and mail feeds via UUCP.  My system is an 8Mb 386DX25, 105Mb/650Mb SCSI
disks with TMC885 controller and ET4000 video card.

I was looking to make the jump from pl9 to pl13.  In the process, I
wanted to repartition my disks, and wanted a large source repository.
After comparing LGX, Nascent and Ameritech CDROMS, I went with LGX
because
    1.	Price.  Just Computing were preselling for a most
	reasonable price.
    2.	Postgres.  I wanted to have a look at DBMSs.
    3.	This is Yggdrasil's second release.  I assumed that any
	problems/bugs in the distribution would have been ironed out.

The install script allows you a choice of installations - cd_dependant
(1Mb), runtime (27Mb), complete (235Mb) and everything (700Mb).  I
installed the runtime system, with a view to customizing my system with
the control panel, an application that allows you to selectively install
packages.  Some of the problems I encountered may have been due to this
partial install - it's possible that users doing the complete install
would have less trouble.

As a resource, the CD is good.  It would have been great if it was a
little more up to date (see below).  As a turnkey Linux system, it's
poor.  Yggdrasil are promoting this as a `plug-and-play operating
system'.  This is true only in the most juvenile sense of the word
`play'.  Mail, UUCP, and news don't work.  The compiler package is
installed missing a key program.  Most X libraries are not installed.
I find it hard to believe that any QC was done at all.

The nitty gritty.  This is not presented in any particular order.

    1.	The install script does not handle the case of no swap.
	While this doesn't affect installation, newbies are going
	to be quite disconcerted to see error messages during
	installation.
    2.	fdisk does not handle SCSI drives/controllers that return
	invalid drive geometries.  While not an Yggdrasil problem,
	it might have been detected (and easily corrected) by QC.
	This fault makes it impossible to repartition drives on
	certain systems.
    3.	The demo will not run on an 8Mb machine with no swap.
	Not a real problem, but no mention is made in the manual
	of the >8Mb requirement.
    4.	asteroids will not work without a patch.  Again, not an
	Yggdrasil problem, but seeing as this program is the first
	one listed on the games menu for the demo, it should have
	been detected and is easily corrected.
    5.	reboot is located in /bin, not in /usr/bin where init expects
	to find it, so init doesn't handle the three finger salute.
    6.	An older, incompatible version of init in /bin.
    7.	A number of directories are installed with the wrong permissions.
	For example, /usr, /usr/bin, /usr/local and /usr/local/bin
	are world writeable, as are others.
    8.	/usr/bin/ranlib is not installed when you choose to install
	the compiler component.
    9.	/usr/bin/Mail cannot update a users mailbox.  While it's an
	improvement over the mail that came with SLS, it requires
	/usr/spool/mail to be world writeable in order to create a lock
	file.  There are two choices: make /usr/spool/mail rwxrwxrwt, or
	recompile mail to create its lock file in /tmp.  I chose the
	latter.
    10.	Most of the X libraries in /usr/X386/lib do not get installed.
	Soft links are created for them in /usr/lib, but only the
	shared libs are installed.
    11.	The UUCP programs are installed with the wrong ownership,
	which means they can't spool to /usr/spool/uucp, which has the
	right owner.  I needed to recompile anyway to install a bug
	fix, so this wasn't a problem for me.
    12. INN (InterNetNews) is stuffed.  Not only is the config suspect
	(try posting to a moderated newsgroup), the installation is
	missing a key program, innd.  An incompatible version of inews
	is in /bin.  Also installed with the wrong ownership.
    13.	Kernel rebuilds require configuring IN2000 support.  IN2000
	support appears to have been added by Yggdrasil, since it
	doesn't appear in my copy of linux-99.13k.  All well and good
	for Yggdrasil customers with IN2000 cards, but I don't see the
	point of making everybody else compile with IN2000 support, when
	a 5 line patch removes this requirement.
    14. No NET-2.  I may be mistaken here, because networking is one
	area in which I have no experience.  However, one of the
	packages I've ported (FlexFAX) requires a minimal TCP setup, so I
	thought I'd have a go setting it up.  Following the instructions
	in /usr/doc/FAQs/NET-2-FAQ, I got to the point of running
		/bin/hostname -S razorback
	Guess what?  My hostname became `-S'.  While no mention is made
	anywhere of NET-2 support, I assumed (hoped) it would be included.
	Because of the NET-2 faq, and /usr/doc/network-guide/netguide-0.4,
	I thought it was.

The following are more nit-pickery than Yggdrasil problems.

    15.	There is no source or documentation for minicom.
    16. /usr/src/sbin/getty_ps is version 2.0.2, not 2.0.7b.  Since
	2.0.7b was released in April, it would have been nice to have it
	updated.
    17.	A choice of init would have been nice.  The poeigl supplied is a
	little dated (1.11), and I prefer the SysV init from Miquel van
	Smoorenburg.  Not a Yggdrasil problem, a personal preference.
    18.	etc is located in /var.  If var is meant to be a mountable
	filesystem, putting etc on it is going to make it difficult.
	Wait for the FSSTND call on this.
    19. The demo of the Andrew System (ez) requires the environment
	variable ANDREWDIR be defined.  Since it isn't, some of the
	demos fail.
    20.	The fonts installed for ghostscript-2.6.1 are from the
	ghostscript-2.5.2 package, so a number of those listed in Fontmap
	(Nimbus, URWAntiquaT, URWGroteskT) are not available.
    21.	While the manual cover lists JPEG/GIF/TIFF viewers, you're
	not actually told what they're called.  Expecting xv/xli/xloadimage,
	I had to poke around before discovering display.
    22.	Man pages exist for xmahjongg, xjewel and jetpack, but not the
	programs themselves.

There are a number of other things I've had to do, but they fall more into
the area of normal configuration/setup.

The upshot is that two weeks after getting the disk, and thinking it
would be an evenings work to install, I'm still tweaking (eg, I only
discovered the missing X libs last night).  If I'd known what this disk
was like beforehand, I would have waited another couple of weeks for the
new SLS CD - the difference in the amount of downtime would have more
than compensated the price difference.

Yggdrasil had the oppurtunity of making a great introduction for Linux
with this.  The addition of mpeg/sound applications shows off the
potential that Linux holds.  Howver, the ball has been fumbled badly,
and I would not recommend this CD for users without significant *ix
experience.

LATE FLASH:  As I was posting this, I received a message from Yggdrasil
in response to an earlier posting of mine.  While the time between
posting and response was fairly long, it shows that Yggdrasil listen to
their customers.  Hopefully they can use this post to better their
product.

Rick.

Re: LGX (Fall) CDROM review.

#642

Author: Grant Edwards
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1993 16:53

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Rick (pclink@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au) wrote:

: I've been working with the LGX CDROM for a for a fortnight now, and I'd
: thought I'd share my experiences.

[...]

: The install script allows you a choice of installations - cd_dependant
: (1Mb), runtime (27Mb), complete (235Mb) and everything (700Mb).  I
: installed the runtime system, with a view to customizing my system with
: the control panel, an application that allows you to selectively install
: packages.  Some of the problems I encountered may have been due to this
: partial install - it's possible that users doing the complete install
: would have less trouble.

I think you're right.  Comparing my experience with ta complete
install with another's experience with a runtime-then-selectively-install
setup, I had fewer problems.  Of course you've got to have 235MB to spare
if you're going to do a complete install then delete what you don't use.

The main problems I had were in trying to rebuild the kernel.  I finally
grabbed the real pl13 soruces from sunsite.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Isn't this my STOP?!
Rosemount Inc.                                |
                                              |
grante@rosemount.com                          |

Re: LGX (Fall) CDROM review.

#644

Author: Phillip Hardy
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1993 23:41

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Rick (pclink@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au) wrote:


:     11. The UUCP programs are installed with the wrong ownership,
:  which means they can't spool to /usr/spool/uucp, which has the
:  right owner.  I needed to recompile anyway to install a bug
:  fix, so this wasn't a problem for me.

and not to mention :) the wrong config files setup... 
i copyed the src from the CD and recompiled UUCP after that it was
fine i also make ...conf/uucp/sys files etc and used those much nicer :)


:     12. INN (InterNetNews) is stuffed.  Not only is the config suspect
:  (try posting to a moderated newsgroup), the installation is
:  missing a key program, innd.  An incompatible version of inews
:  is in /bin.  Also installed with the wrong ownership.


this is one of the key gripes. :) 
i recompiled it and still have not got news running :(

what do you other linux users recoment 
cnews / inn or what ever?

all in all i was impressed with the install system very nice.
not so hot about how it came up :( i spent around 4 days
just seting up uucp smail getty etc.
now just need to get the news running :)

Phillip. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
sometimes i can be found on status.gen.nz (202.14.100.1)
my box is 202.14.100.200 (slip connection late at night only)
------------------ cut here -----------------------------------------

Re: LGX (Fall) CDROM review.

#643

Author: Urban Koistinen
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 09:28

60 lines
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In <1993Nov1.165317.22836@rosevax.rosemount.com> grante@hydro.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) writes:

:Rick (pclink@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au) wrote:

:: I've been working with the LGX CDROM for a for a fortnight now, and I'd
:: thought I'd share my experiences.

:[...]

:: The install script allows you a choice of installations - cd_dependant
:: (1Mb), runtime (27Mb), complete (235Mb) and everything (700Mb). I
:: installed the runtime system, with a view to customizing my system with
:: the control panel, an application that allows you to selectively install
:: packages. Some of the problems I encountered may have been due to this
:: partial install - it's possible that users doing the complete install
:: would have less trouble.

:I think you're right. Comparing my experience with ta complete
:install with another's experience with a runtime-then-selectively-install
:setup, I had fewer problems. Of course you've got to have 235MB to spare
:if you're going to do a complete install then delete what you don't use.

:The main problems I had were in trying to rebuild the kernel. I finally
:grabbed the real pl13 soruces from sunsite.

I had a lot of trouble with the runtime-then-selectively-install.
Then I switched to the CD-rom-dependent installation, remade the tree
so that utilities I know I use often are on the hard disk.
Also, when a program complain it can't write to the cd-rom I move
the offending directory to the hard disk. (I had to do this for metafont.)

This work a lot better.

The keymaps do not work well, Slackware is better for this.
Emacs do not accept movement by arrows.

Storing the sources expanded on the CD-rom is stupid me thinks,
especially since I could not compile emacs with the sources on the
CD-rom.
I measured how much space the sources would need when tarred and
gzipped. 98 Mbyte compared to 422 expanded. (the latter with du
but the manual seem to confirm this)

I would be much happier with compressed source.
Also, if the sources were compressed, maybe essential games like
fortune, atc and nethack would fit too. And utilities like unzip.

I have not been able to connect to yggdrasil.com to get help so the
comment about making the /usr/spool/mail directory world writable
helped me. (Thanks!)

Things that did work well with cd-dependent are:
lpr
X (mostly)
TeX

Conclusion: Stay clear of the run-time installation if you can.
--
Urban Koistinen - md85-epi@nada.kth.se
Stop software patents, interface copyrights: contact lpf@uunet.uu.net

INN (Was: LGX (Fall) CDROM review.)

#645

Author: Rick
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 23:53

30 lines
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phillip@status.gen.nz (Phillip Hardy) writes:

>this is one of the key gripes. :) 
>i recompiled it and still have not got news running :(

>what do you other linux users recoment 
>cnews / inn or what ever?

I'd only previously used CNews before getting the LGX disk.  After I
discovered that it uses INN, I subscribed to the NNTP group.  The
general consensus seems to be that INN is superior to CNews, and if I
ever get a real IP connection, then it's just a matter of tweaking the
newsfeeds file to take full advantage of NNTP.  I've uncovered only
one problem, so far.  My newsfeed is currently via UUCP, which makes
a call at 6:00am to pick up the latest batch.  If rnews starts
feeding the batches to innd during the call, UUCP starts dropping
packets like crazy and the call terminates with an error.  I never
had this problem with rnews feeding CNews during a call.  My theory
is that innd ups it priority during news unbatching, and uucico
gets so little CPU time it can't keep up with the serial line.  I
haven't had the time to look at this closely, so I might be wrong.

If anybody out there is having problems getting INN up, I can
forward the configuration file and changes I had to make.  Part
of it is based on /pub/Linux/system/Mail/inn-1.4-linux-0.1.tar.gz
from sunsite; if you want to hack it yourself, get this file
as bash apparently needs a few patches (I didn't bother confirming
this, I just patched bash).

Rick.

Re: INN (Was: LGX (Fall) CDROM review.)

#646

Author: Arjan de Vet
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 17:47

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In article <CFw2DL.L37@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au>,
Rick <pclink@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au> wrote:

>phillip@status.gen.nz (Phillip Hardy) writes:
>>what do you other linux users recoment 
>>cnews / inn or what ever?
>
>a call at 6:00am to pick up the latest batch.  If rnews starts
>feeding the batches to innd during the call, UUCP starts dropping
>packets like crazy and the call terminates with an error.  I never
>had this problem with rnews feeding CNews during a call.  My theory
>is that innd ups it priority during news unbatching, and uucico
>gets so little CPU time it can't keep up with the serial line.  I
>haven't had the time to look at this closely, so I might be wrong.

Do you have a 16550 UART? I use a serial speed of 38400 bits/sec with a
ZyXEL modem running at 19k2 and INN's rnews and innd do not give problems
when run concurrently with uucico. Not using a 16550 UART can give problems
when using CPU/IO intensive programs.

>If anybody out there is having problems getting INN up, I can
>forward the configuration file and changes I had to make.  Part
>of it is based on /pub/Linux/system/Mail/inn-1.4-linux-0.1.tar.gz
>from sunsite; if you want to hack it yourself, get this file
>as bash apparently needs a few patches (I didn't bother confirming
>this, I just patched bash).

Get bash 1.13.cwru. Bash 1.12 has too many problems for running INN 1.4
reliably. You can get bash 1.13 and my configuration hints for INN from:

	ftp.win.tue.nl:/pub/linux/ports

Arjan

--
Arjan de Vet                             <Arjan.de.Vet@adv.win.tue.nl> (home)
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands <devet@win.tue.nl> (work)

🚀 go-pugleaf

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LGX (Fall) CDROM review.

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Re: INN (Was: LGX (Fall) CDROM review.)

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