NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31

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Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!ames!ig!indyvax.iupui.edu!JBHARLAN From: JBHARLAN@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU (John B Harlan) Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent Subject: Coherent 3.2 FAQ Message-ID: <01GSQ2E8L7KO0002LD@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU> Date: 25 Dec 92 12:00:11 GMT Sender: daemon@presto.ig.com Reply-To: "Coherent operating system" <COHERENT@indycms.bitnet> Lines: 819 The FAQ for Coherent version 3.2 (Intel 80286-based) is available for individual, auto-magic retrieval from the Coherent Filelist on ListServ@IndyCMS.IUPUI.Edu. I believe Mike's first version of the FAQ predates the existence of comp.os.coherent as a newsgroup, by several months. Since he updates it pretty regularly, I see no need for anyone to reinvent this particular wheel; just send your comments / suggestions on to Mike at mike@array.com. Here is file COHERENT 32FAQ which anyone can retrieve by sending the command GET COHERENT 32FAQ as the body of an e-mail or interactive message to ListServ@IndyCMS.IUPUI.Edu. (Please note: this command must be sent to the server, not to the Coherent list. Thanks.) X-News: ivax comp.os.coherent:1480 From: mike@array.com (Mike Willett) Subject:Coherent 3.2 release FAQ Date: 1 Sep 92 16:51:56 GMT Message-ID:<2850@monarch.array.com> My copy of 4.0 arrived this week, and I will be installing this weekend Sept. 5/6/7. The Next FAQ release should reflect this experience as well as several notes I have received in the email about changes and updates. Posted with this FAQ is the PRN386 (Press Release Notes for the 386 version of COHERENT). --Mike mike@array.com A N I N T R O D U C T I O N T O T H E C O H E R E N T F O R U M : Comp.os.coherent (Usenet) / Coherent list on ListServ@IndyCMS Rev. 1.7 C O N T E N T S : A N I N T R O D U C T I O N T O C O H E R E N T FAQ for Coherent Version 3.2 What is Coherent? Will Coherent run on my system? What incompatibilities are known? Does Coherent support SCSI drives? Can I still run DOS? What about technical support? What revision is Coherent? How many people run Coherent? Can source postings be made in this newsgroup (comp.os.coherent)? Public domain software: Where do I get the public domain software? Heated discussions of the group: T E C H N I C A L T I P S Modem devices: Remote logins: Fast modems: Simultaneous users: Usenet news software: Email packages: The 64K question: Compiler hints: Hardware configurations: Termio hints: Curses: More uucp: How to create a bootable >>>R/W<<< floppy from Coherent: Master Boot Reinstallation: Line Printer Help: Moving data from a Sun to Coherent: Multi-Volume Archive: SCSI MKFS Notes: DOS to Coherent: Uuinstall Bug Help: Xwindows: Tar Help: Setting Boot Partition: DOS or Coherent? MISC: Disclaimer: Trademarks: K E E P E R S O F T H E F A Q: Mike Willett mike@array.com, Joachim Riedel jr@connie.de.convex.com NOTICE: Please read the disclaimer near the end of this article before attempting anything in reference to this article. A N I N T R O D U C T I O N T O C O H E R E N T ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT IS COHERENT? Coherent is a multi-tasking, multi-user operating system for IBM PC's and compatibles. It will run on most systems with a 286, 386, or 486 CPU. Coherent closely represents the Unix operating system, but, it is not Unix. Coherent appears to be very similar to Version 7 Unix, or for those of you that have not had the pleasure, close to System 5 Unix. Coherent includes uucp (Coherent to Coherent Copy) :) and many more functions you would expect with Unix. Coherent is small and simple, easy to maintain, and does not require extensive CPU resources to operate well. It does not have network nor X windows support, and does not require an AT&T license for Unix. It is as advertised, a quick, elegant Unix-like multi-tasking, multi-user Operating System, with good documentation. WILL COHERENT RUN ON MY SYSTEM? Coherent runs on just about all 286-386-486 systems. To list them here would make this document far too lengthy. It is suggested that if you are in doubt, buy Coherent, and when it is almost beyond a doubt that you can not run Coherent on your machine, to return the software and documentation to the the Mark Williams Company within 60 days for a full refund as per their policy. WHAT INCOMPATIBILITIES ARE KNOWN? IBM XT compatibles will not work, since the Coherent version 3.2 operating system uses the 286 protected mode. Coherent version 4.0 only works on 386 or 486 proccessors. Coherent will not run on an AT&T 6300, IBM PS/2 model, or with the Western Digital WD1004-27X (XT) or other XT controllers. Coherent exhibits a slight problem with 386 AMI BIOS, whereas Coherent requires a cold boot (hit the reset switch, not CTL- ALT-DEL) to boot Coherent after previously running DOS. DOES COHERENT SUPPORT SCSI DRIVES: Coherent3.2 release now supports the following SCSI drive controllers: Adaptec AHA-1540 a/b controllers, Seagate ST01 and 02 controllers, Future Domain 8 bit controllers, and Smart Connex SCSI controller CAN I STILL RUN DOS? Yes, Coherent can reside on a disk partition separate from DOS, and likewise DOS on a partition separate from Coherent. You can boot either one at boot time via a "boot strap" program. They will not run concurrently however. DOS file systems are available to Coherent with the Coherent DOS command, so files can be transferred from DOS to Coherent, Coherent to DOS. WHAT ABOUT TECHNICAL SUPPORT? It is generally felt that Mark Williams Company provides excellent technical support of their software within the U.S.A.. They can be reached via phone (708) 291-6700, or email: uunet!mwc!support (General uucp address) support@mwc.com (Internet address) mwcbbs!support (from your system directly to the uucp connection they provided by the Mark Williams Company) WHAT REVISION IS COHERENT? Coherent is offered in two revisions. Revision 3.2 will run on systems with a 286 or higher processor, but does not take advantage of the 386 architecture, and has the 64K executable and 64K data limits. Revision 3.2 is the last revision of Coherent for the 286 protected mode OS. Bug fixes will continue to be posted to mwcbbs to support customers of the 3.2 version. 4.0 was announced in May of 1992, (Now shipping at the end of July 1992) and is targeted for the 386 and 486 processors. This revision does not have the 64K limits of revision 3.2, but, still does not include a virtual memory system that swaps pages out to disk. See the 386 press release notes posted with this FAQ for more information. Both versions of OS are available at $99.00, and updates from 3.2 to 4.0 are priced at $59.00. Features of the 3.2 version include: KSH - A clone of the UNIX System - V.2 Korn Shell Enhanced version of the Bourne Shell New mail facility, supporting domain-style routing Enhanced troff, that supports PostScript and LaserJet binary fonts More than a dozen new commands New and updated online manual pages Various minor enhancements and bug fixes HOW MANY PEOPLE RUN COHERENT? The Mark Williams Company has stated that the sales volume has passed 40,000 copies since its introduction to the market in 1990. CAN POSTINGS BE MADE IN THIS NEWS GROUP (COMP.OS.COHERENT)? It is somewhat accepted that source for Coherent will be posted in this news group occasionally. Keep in mind that large postings cost money to those that pay for telephone and connect time, so perhaps a short posting to query general interest should precede the posting. Direct mailing should be used if there is small interest, and a posting to archive sites such as piggy and orca. If the interest is overwhelming, a posting to this news group may be in order, along with posting to an archive site such as piggy and orca. Posting to this newsgroup has been a topic of constant debate... :( We hope to soon have a source news group for coherent, yet another topic of debate... :) PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE: Several public domain packages are available for use on a Coherent machine. These range from improved mailing packages and spread sheets, to at least four news programs, such as bsnews, cnews, gnews, wnews, along with readers such as rn, tass, and more. WHERE DO I GET THE PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE? There are several ways to get public domain software: 1. Mark Williams Company bbs (mwcbbs) 2. FTP sites 3. Mailserver (ListServ@IndyCMS) 4. The OZ / NZ Coherent Users Group 5. The Pacific Australian Coherent Users Group MWCbbs (mwcbbs) Access information on the mwcbbs is included in the documentation provided with Coherent. In short, it is a uucp site with public domain software as well as updates to the Coherent release, along with Coherent news (not usenet) and a "home" for all Coherent sites to uucp to. For most of us, that is a long distance phone call, as the Mark Williams Company is located in Illinois. FTP sites: Jay C. Beavers has been keeping the Coherent Archives for quite some time on the ftp site orca.alaska.edu, and has moved these to an Ultrix machine for better access (raven). When a previous ftp site was no longer available, Jay quickly put raven into action. Hats off to Jay! Machine I'net Address Archive administrator --------------- ------------- ---------------------------------- raven.alaska.edu 137.229.10.39 J.C. Beavers:sxjcb@orca.alaska.edu on raven: cd /pub/coherent MailServers: ListServ@IndyCMS has been offering a mailserver service since before the start of comp.os.coherent. It is a gateway between two nets: Machine Address Mailserver Administrator ------------------------------------ ------------------------ ListServ@IndyCMS (CREN) IJBH200@IndyVAX (CREN) ListServ@IndyCMS.IUPUI.Edu (Internet) IJBH200@IndyVAX.IUPUI.Edu (I) Coherent@IndyCMS is bidirectional gateway between the ListServ list Coherent and Usenet newsgroup comp.os.coherent co-owned and coordinated by John Harlan and Phil Corporon. All original postings to comp.os.coherent Usenet group are automatically distributed to the ListServ list, and everything posted to the ListServ list Coherent, is automatically posted to comp.os.coherent on Usenet. John Harlan humorously adds: "And all without mail looping :-)" To get a list of Coherent files from ListServ, mail the ListServ mailserver as follows, with the contents of the message being the mailserver command: % mail ListServ@IndyCMS.IUPUI.Edu Subject: (none) INDEX COHERENT Privately Owned BBSs: The Australian Coherent Users Group: (From: rjl@spectre.pub.uu.oz.au.) In order to support Coherent users in oz & nz, Mark Williams Co. have agreed to supply a mirror of the downloads directory from their uucp BBS in the states for distribution here [in Australia]. This is being supplied to the Australian Coherent User Group, initially in one 13MB chunk to get things kicked off, then subsequently updated on a monthly basis. Software is available to all registered Coherent users, and may be obtained either by direct UUCP transfer (a little flakey at present :-( ) from this machine, or on 1.2MB floppies for a nominal media/postage charge. Anyone interested in this, or in ACUG in general, (as well as in APANA - the Australian Public Access Network Association) may contact me by email at rjl@spectre.pub.uu.oz.au. Australia-Pacific Coherent User Group. (Robert Chalmers. d10590@tanus.cec.edu.au. Mackay, Queensland. Australia ) Privately operated public uucp site, based in Mackay, North Queensland, Australia. The system connected 24 hours a 7 days a week, apart from some down time for maintenance. Purely Coherent system. Technical: Clone 286-20. 2Mb RAM. 40Mb IDE HDD. 1 x 1.2, 1 x 1.44 FDD. Maestro 2400ZXR Modem. Wangtek Tape Drive.(not yet working). Star printer. Support: I can pass on internet fixes and messages to local users, such as this FAQ, and hope to be able to pass on via uucp the software lists from MWC. Acting as a support site for users anywhere. Contact details: (There are no fees or subscriptions involved.) +61 079-521070 AEST:24 Hours. in:nuucp rd:uupublic Australia-Pacific Coherent User Group. Info file ~/INFO Permissions File:LOGNAME=nanguo MYNAME=bbsuser Chat script: HEATED DISCUSSIONS OF THE GROUP: Mark Williams Company has a patent on bit ordering, which is a software patent. Most think that this is obvious art in software, and should not be patentable, not to mention a move in the software world (i.e., FSF) that "software" should not be patentable in the first place. The Mark Williams Company has committed to comment on this some time in the future. T E C H N I C A L T I P S : ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MODEM FAQ: MODEM DEVICES: Q: What devices should I use with a modem for dialing in / dialing out A: For dialing in you should use a device with modem control. For example com1r or com2r. That is important to ensure that when the calling site dropped carrier, that also at your site SIGHUP is sent to already running processes, to ensure that the modem hangs up (dropping DTR) and a new getty is opened on that port to enable further logins. For dialing out or local terminals you do not need modem control Also you do not have to worry about cabling problems, just use some of those null modem cables available in most computer stores. REMOTE LOGINS: Q: How do I enable logins via modem to my machine: A: I assume that modem is set to AUTO-ANSWER (ATS0=1) and the cabling is ok. Edit the file /etc/ttys. Here an example for com2: 0rPcom2r 0 = not yet enabled (enable = allow login, run getty) r = remote access (will enable asking of a password for remote-access (see /etc/passwd) Why ? System security, additional password P = speed (your modem is connected to the computer) P = 9600 Baud, I use this for my Telebit Modem com2r = device with modem control, when CARRIER is lost it will sent SIGHUP to all processes running on that line and will also drop DTR so a modem hangup or a modern modem does a hardware reset. Now type the following: enable com2r (for Coherent 3.2 that's enough) kill -1 1 (Coherent 3.0.0 or 3.1.0, Process INIT will start a getty on com2r) FAST MODEMS: Q: Can I use fast modems with Coherent ? A: Yes you can. But you must think about the following: a) maximum Baud rate between modem - machine is 9600 Baud (Coherent as a multiuser/multitasking environment is not fast enough for 19200 Baud) b) cps-rates in transfer depend on modem/method calling into my machine (T2500) with a USR, using sz for transfer: 480 cps to 600 cps (compressed, uncompressed files) calling out with uucp (T2500): 860 cps The rate may differ if you use a slow 286 or 386. The above results were yielded with a 386/33. SIMULTANEOUS USERS: Q: I want to use Coherent as a multiuser operating system. How many users can work with it at the same time ? A: Now 11 User: console : 1 com1 : 1 com2 : 1 Multiport : 8 -------------- 11 I still do not know if there are device drivers for intelligent Multiport-Cards but as far as I know there are only drivers for "dumb" Multiport-Cards and only in polled mode. Therefore you need a very fast machine for "multiuser" USENET NEWS SOFTWARE: Q: Is there any Net-News Software for Coherent ? A: Yes, there are several packages available: 1. CNEWS - the famous package difficult to install (although there is a nice installation script in the Coherent version). Only for advanced users ! Has no reader ! 2. WNEWS 3.0 - News for MINIX, ported to Coherent based on BNEWS - small, not bad Has no reader 3. GNEWS 2.0 (or newer now ?) all you need for News, easy to install, Newsreader, nice 4. rn the well known newsreader 5. tass curses based newsreader. Nice, but you should not have too much groups or articles in /usr/spool/news. 6. bsnews small news package for receiving news via email EMAIL PACKAGES: Q: I do not like Coherent's mailer. What can I use instead of it ? A: WMAIL 3.63 - a minix port, MAILX-clone comb 1.29 - curses based mailer, nice interface You should ensure that in both cases you have smail 2.5 as a smart-mailer that understands domain addresses. smail 2.5 is already in Coherent 3.2 THE 64K QUESTION: Q: Does Coherent really have a 64 kb limitation ? I want to port the GNU-C-Compiler and compile big programs. A: Coherent programs are limited to 64 K for code and 64 k for data and stack. The limit is not in the compiler, it's in the kernel or at least in the actual system design. No process can exceed this limitation. But Binaries in Coherent are about 40 % smaller so big programs for "Real-UNIXES" may also be portable COMPILER HINTS: Q: I write a C-program that seems to be ok but it still core dumped. Is this a compiler error ? Is my program wrong ? A: If a program needs a lot of space for local data (resided on the stack in most cases) then the maximum size for the stack may be exceeded and your return addresses or other important things were overwritten. With the program fixstack you can increase the size for the stack (and also cut the space for data) Try size my_prog before and after fixstacking to see the difference. HARDWARE CONFIGURATIONS: Q: What hardware (Motherboard, hard disk) do I need for Coherent ? A: Difficult question. Minimum is a AT 286 with 640 KB RAM and a hard disk (MFM,RLL,ESDI,SCSI (some), IDE (some)) with at least 10 MB free disk space. Nevertheless Coherent is not the fastest operating system, so a 386 with at least 25 MHZ and 4 MB RAM and a fast hard disk (a hard disk is always too small !!!!) is the minimum config- uration for a usable multi-user-operating. TERMIO HINTS: Q: I compiled a program that uses termio but it did not work. A: The termio in Coherent (at least 3.1.0 and the first 3.2.0) did not work in all cases. So try the sgtty, that works fine. When porting programs try to find the -DBSD-parts. There you will find in most cases the sgtty-parts you need for porting. CURSES: Q: I compiled a program that uses curses but the screen sometimes get garbled or the machine seems to hang A: Maybe you still have an old libcurses.a. Replace it with a newer copy. MORE UUCP: Q: I often loose email or files after receiving them with UUCP. A: Try to get the newest UUCP-update from MWCBBS. The old packages still have some problems. Check the permissions, at least for example with comparing them with those on your original diskettes. Check also the permissions of the needed directories. In /usr/spool/uucp/Logs./uucp-program you will find the "hints" of the "uucp-program" (uucico, uucp, uux,uuxqt) what goes wrong. In Coherent 3.2. you have the program uucheck that will check your uucp-installation and is also able to "fix" problems. But you have to run it twice if you run it as root because the first time it creates the needed directories and the second run sets the correct permission. Q: I am having a problem connecting to uucp sites not running Coherent after updating to Coherent 3.2. The error looks like a parity problem, with an {expect} / {actually got} output like: uu315323t 342og310n: (With backslashes before the numbers) Again, get the latest UUCP package from MWCBBS. The 3.2 Coherent release may exhibit a parity problem which is cured with the latest uucp release. HOW TO CREATE A BOOTABLE >>>R/W<<< FLOPPY from Coherent From: Peter Fillingham fillingham@att.com The COHERENT Operating System Release Notes (Release 3.1.0) along with the main manual suggest ways of creating a bootable floppy. One difficulty of this procedure is that, after producing a bootable floppy, one can't write to it ! The following shell programs are suggested as a way making a bootable floppy, and below is the fix recommended by mwc for making the bootable floppy system read-write. (0) first boot your system from your hard disk, login in as root, use mkdir to make a convenient subdirectory [e.g., /bin/temp ]. cd to /bin/temp. Place disk #1 of your mwc original floppies in drive A:, then enter dd if=/dev/fha0 of=cohboot count=80 bs=30b Run it in the background if you wish [follow the above line with an &; use ps -axfl if you are curious]. This will take just over three minutes depending on the speed of your system. What is going on is that dd is creating an image of your boot floppy in you default directory with the file name cohboot. When it finishes, remove the mwc original floppy, and insert a blank disk. (1) Next run the following shell program: echo "/etc/fdformat -v /dev/fha0" /etc/fdformat -v /dev/fha0 echo "/etc/badscan -o proto /dev/fha0 2400" /etc/badscan -o proto /dev/fha0 2400 Run it in the background if you wish; it takes time. The echo lines simply display each command line just before it is carried out to tell you what is going on. The second and fourth lines format the floppy and check for bad blocks, respectively. In addition, a file (proto) is being built in your default subdirectory. This file will contain a list of the bad blocks: look for a line with %b in it. Probably it is best to use only a floppy with NO bad blocks: so try until you find one. (2) make sure you have a subdirectory /f0 on your hard disk; if not, use mkdir /f0. (3) Next run the following shell program: echo "/etc/mkfs /dev/fha0 proto" /etc/mkfs /dev/fha0 proto echo "cp /conf/boot.fha /dev/fha0" cp /conf/boot.fha /dev/fha0 echo "dd if=cohboot of=/dev/fha0 count=80 bs=30b" dd if=cohboot of=/dev/fha0 count=80 bs=30b echo "/etc/mount /dev/fha0 /f0" /etc/mount /dev/fha0 /f0 echo "cd /f0 " cd /f0 echo " DONE but f0 still mounted !" The second line produces the file system on the floppy using the information from file proto. The fourth line copies boot.fha to the floppy. The sixth line transfers the image of your system boot floppy to your newly formatted disk (note all these things take time). Finally, the floppy is mounted so that while you have booted from the hard disk and have root permissions you can write to the floppy. The last line simply rings the bell and tells you it is done. (4) next (noting that your default directory is /f0, i.e. the floppy disk) enter: mv begin autoboot then enter db coherent then enter ronflag the response is ronflag=001 then enter .=0 then a response appears ronflag=000 then enter :q and you should get back your prompt. (5) Finally while the floppy is still mounted, cp over your most useful programs to the appropriate directories (e.g., vi or me, du, df ...) Lastly umount f0, shutdown, sync and boot your writable floppy. MASTER BOOT REINSTALLATION: From: doug@mwc.com (Doug Peterson) I want to upgrade the DOS partition from MS-DOS 3.3 to 5.0, and the installation program refuses to work with the Coherent master bootstrap program. It no longer asks for the ability to boot Coherent! The problem specifically is caused be Microsoft's faulty update install procedure. They assume you have no other operating system on the computer. When the 5.0 update install is run, the procedure archives the original master boot block of the hard drive and rewrites a brand new one. Problem is, it takes Coherent's master boot along with it. To restore the master boot is very simple: Use dos 5.0 fdisk to change the active partition to COHERENT. Reboot. Use COHERENT's fdisk utility with the -b option to rewrite a new master boot. Specifically; fdisk -b /conf/mboot /dev/at0x <ENTER> Once completed, you can now boot either system no matter which one is active or inactive. LINE PRINTER HELP: From: dave@uvm-gen!pete (Dave Peterson) I have my printer hooked up to lpt1 and cannot get any output. I have checked my files, but, no luck. What's the problem? 1) ls -li ( The i will list the inode number, this will tell you where you have linked /dev/lp to. ) 2) ln -f /dev/lpt2 /dev/lp ( link to lpt2 IBM and MWC number the ports differently thus lpt2 is the first printer ) [ you need to be root or bin to do the link ] This is a partial listing of my /dev directory note the first number is the inode number. I have linked lp to lpt2. 174 c-w--w--w- 2 bin bin 3 1 Mon Nov 25 17:36 /dev/lp 101 c-w--w--w- 1 bin bin 3 0 Fri Apr 27 1990 /dev/lpt1 174 c-w--w--w- 2 bin bin 3 1 Mon Nov 25 17:36 /dev/lpt2 173 c-w--w--w- 1 bin bin 3 2 Fri Apr 27 1990 /dev/lpt3 As a final point when you send data to /dev/lpt2 use pipes not redirection. Try cat (file) | /dev/lpt2 it works for me. MOVING DATA FROM A SUN TO COHERENT: (From: PINEAU@uqac.uquebec.ca (Louis Pineau)) First, the floppy have to be formatted whether on the sun or on the Coherent system (with fdformat /dev/rfd0c on the sun). Once the floppy is formatted, there is no need to reformat or mkfs it for the life of the floppy or until something unusual happens. To write and read the floppy, on both system (sun and coherent), I use the command "ustar" since it can handle multi-volume files (files that are too large to fit on a single floppy). Thus, on the sun, I do: /usr/5bin/ustar -cvf /dev/rfd0c file [files ...] to write on the floppy /usr/5bin/ustar -tvf /dev/rfd0c to list the floppy /usr/5bin/ustar -xvf /dev/rfd0c [file ...] to read the floppy On my coherent system, I use the same commands without the /usr/5bin prefix and with the proper floppy device (/dev/fva1 on my system). I know that there is a way to read or write ms-dos formatted floppy but in order to mount or unmount the floppy, you must become superuser. MULTI-VOLUME ARCHIVE: (From: jr@connie.de.convex.com (Joachim Riedel)) I'm trying to archive a 5 mb file (which is itself a compressed cpio file) from hard disk onto floppy disk (fva1). I've tried cpio and tar and even pax directly but cannot get past one volume. Use the raw device (i.e. /dev/rfva1 ) instead of the device fva1. SCSI MKFS NOTES: Answer From: stephen@mwc.com (Stephen Davis) I am trying to add a second scsi drive to my system. mkfs will not accept a proto file. What do I do? You do not badscan a SCSI drive. Instead of giving mkfs a proto file, you give it the total number of blocks in the partition. The number of blocks is listed in the partition table under f-disk. DOS TO COHERENT: Q: The question is, is it possible to read DOS-format 360KB-diskettes? A: yes it is :-) From: lvds@tfpbbs.uucp (Laurent Cas) Here is the device type reference table: Device name Sectors/track Heads Sectors Bytes Format /dev/f9a0 9 2 720 360 KB 5.25" /dev/fqa0 9 2 1440 720 KB 3.5" /dev/fha0 15 2 2400 1.2 MB 5.25" /dev/fva0 18 2 2880 1.44 MB 3.5" If your 360KB drive is 'A:' (MSDOS reference) you can do dos t /dev/f9a0 to list your disk, or if your 360KB is 'B:' you will have to do dos t /dev/f9a1 drive A is number 0 and drive B is number 1 ; same for partitions on your hard disk... Cheers, Laurent. UUINSTALL BUG HELP: (From norm@mwc.com) Using Coherent 3.2, I run UUINSTALL, upon exiting, I am back at my prompt, but, the system hangs. the only way to restart via a reboot. Is this problem specific to 3.2 or is it something I have possibly done? This is a bug in the 3.2.0 release of uuinstall. Occasionally, upon exiting, it leaves your terminal in "raw" mode. The Errata sheet which is included with 3.2 releases mentions this, as far as I know. To fix your terminal after exiting uuinstall, enter the following (note that <ctrl-J> is the control key plus the letter J): <ctrl-J> stty sane <ctrl-J> XWINDOWS: (From doug@mwc:) From time to time, we get people asking about X windows on Coherent. Many new entrants into the field of UNIX have probably heard of the popular UNIX graphics interface called X-WINDOWS. X-WINDOWS was developed by MIT. To the best of our knowledge they still hold the rights to the source code and it is in the public domain. To the best of our knowledge, the source code takes up 110mb of disk space! The binaries, an additional 12 - 20mb's of disk space. It requires TCP or Streams support, neither of which is in COHERENT. X-windows it seems, has become somewhat of a popular GUI for UNIX in a very short time. Various hardware firms have developed and are marketing X-workstations, servers and cards. On page 14 of the November 1991 issue of UNIX REVIEW, is an ad for X11 Release 5 for System V/386. The price advertised is $495 with printed manuals, $395 without. So, X is not cheap via the commercial route. Given COHERENT'S small model compiler, it is obviously impossible at this time for COHERENT to even compile the code, let alone run it. COHERENT 386, currently undergoing intensive development, will feature a 32-bit native mode compiler. At this time, we don't envision COHERENT ever shipping with X-Windows given the fact that the size of it would double the size of COHERENT overnight. Tar Help: The Coherent version of tar has been known to create problems for users. It is believed that the latest version of tar has alleviated most of these problems. Some of the original problems include inability to read a tar archive to tar creating recursive inode/file loops that can only be removed by "clri". The more recent Coherent releases also includes ustar, which appears to be much more robust. It has been suggested to use the ustar command instead of the Coherent native tar command in most cases. Setting Boot Partition: DOS or Coherent? Occasionally, a user may want to boot to Coherent for the most part, rather than come up in DOS by default. You can leave the DOS partition in tact, and switch between the preferred operating systems on as "as needed" basis. To do this, simply use the fdisk program in either operating system and make the partition active for the operating system that resides there. Reboot the system, (AMI Bios system owners require a hard reset) and the system will now boot to the partition made active with fdisk. For example, if you wish to boot DOS by default, make the first partition active. If you want to boot Coherent by default, make the partition active that Coherent resides on. DISCLAIMER: ANY REFERENCE TO THIS ARTICLE, IN ANY FORM, IS PURELY AT YOUR OWN RISK! All opinions, tips, and instructions in this article are those of the contributors, and not of any company associated with the individual contributor, or any company mentioned in this article. Any reference to this article is done purely AT YOUR OWN RISK! The information contained within is not guaranteed to be free of errors in any way. The intention of this note is only to inform curious usenet readers about some aspects of the operating system of Coherent, and those companies mentioned are encouraged to add corrections, additions, or suggest deletions to this note to as per their policy or willingness to provide positive criticism. TRADEMARKS Unix is the trademark of AT&T / Unix System Laboratories, Inc. Coherent is the trademark of the Mark Williams Company. -- mike@array.com So much fun, so little time to enjoy it... System Administration: n, 1. Fixing yesterdays' problems tomorrow.