INFO-VAX Fri, 17 Oct 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 561 Contents: Re: Bypass mount/system request at boot time? Re: DS10 front access storage cage (3X-BA10B-AA) Re: DS10 front access storage cage (3X-BA10B-AA) Re: DS10 front access storage cage (3X-BA10B-AA) Re: OT: Shuttle Columbia Disaster Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: PC Systems for sale Re: strange disk states Re: strange disk states ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:15:59 -0400 From: none Subject: Re: Bypass mount/system request at boot time? Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:13:42 -0700 (PDT), PR wrote: >I have a remote client that has somehow gotten himself into a mess, >and I'm not sure how to get them out of it remotely. > >They hired a consultant to come in an "work on the network." This - >ah - "brilliant person" apparently convinced them he just had to >reboot the 2660. > >He booted the 2660 system with a Linux DVD and somehow or another, >managed to format the second drive (used for data storage) with >Linux. How is beyond me... > >Anyway, I'm a good 500 miles away from this server physically, and >there is a mount/system command in the systartup_vms.com file to mount >this noe Linux formatted disk. Which obviously won't mount. > >The system boot stalls at this mount request. I think I might be able >to put an /ASSIST qualifier in there and cancel the mount, but I have >to get past the mount request to do that. :) > >Is there any easy way around this? Will just pulling the drive enable >it to bypass? > I'd just like to point out, perhaps unnecessarily, that if the error is, in fact, a fatal error on the mount (i.e., "-F-"), then the startup process is not actually stalling or hanging on the mount request. Fatal errors in startup tend to actually *kill* the startup process, and there is no continuing from that as the job controller will not start; and you will never get to login. The suggest to do the conversational boot, set startup_p1 to "min", edit the comment-out the startup's mount command for that device, and reboot, are the only ways around this type of error. It's a little nit, to be sure, but understanding what's going on there might help in the future. When I worked for a large chemical company back in the 1980s & 90s, we developed a startup process that was _way_ better than sysman startup, and essentially guaranteed that you'd at the very least be able to login to a "$" prompt. Basically, it entails a systartup_vms.com that *never* executes any significant startups within it's own process, nor within a sub-process of itself. Guaranteeing the ability to get to a "$" prompt was essential for doing remote support and management, because we didn't always have remote console access, and couldn't rely on the ability to lead someone onsite through the convo-boot steps, edit, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:53:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Dave Gullen Subject: Re: DS10 front access storage cage (3X-BA10B-AA) Message-ID: <10182daa-466f-4d51-8a8f-b3cb3460a79e@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com> > the largegst Logical drive i can make is about > 32gb. and that is not enough for me (that's why i want the 2*146gb disks Isn't that only the case for RAID arrays? I thought JBODS can be any size. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:24:54 +0200 From: The Spriteman Subject: Re: DS10 front access storage cage (3X-BA10B-AA) Message-ID: <48f859e6$0$198$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> Dave Gullen wrote: >> the largegst Logical drive i can make is about >> 32gb. and that is not enough for me (that's why i want the 2*146gb disks > > Isn't that only the case for RAID arrays? I thought JBODS can be any > size. hmm, that could be, i have to try that one out. but then i wanted to have some sort of redundancy (raid 1), but i can also use HBVS or software raid to get some redundancy. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:19:37 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: DS10 front access storage cage (3X-BA10B-AA) Message-ID: <6qednUqtnYznDWXVnZ2dnUVZ_tudnZ2d@comcast.com> Dave Gullen wrote: >> the largegst Logical drive i can make is about >> 32gb. and that is not enough for me (that's why i want the 2*146gb disks > > Isn't that only the case for RAID arrays? I thought JBODS can be any > size. > There are MANY cases for RAID arrays. Making huge logical drives is the least of them! RAID 1 puts identical data on two or more physical drives. Any member of the set can respond to a read request. Smart hardware controllers will read from the disk whose heads are closest, in movement time, to the data requested. All drives in the set must execute a write request. All members of the set but one can fail and you can still access your data! RAID 5 combines three or more identical physical disks into one logical disk. A RAID 5 set with N members has a capacity of N-1 disks and can lose any single member of the set without loss of data or access to data. You can take N random disk drives and mount them as a volume set. The set will have the capacity to store the sum of the capacities of the individual members. Lose any one member and you are totally hosed! I've done this to make space for Oracle redo files. There are not very many other applications in which I would feel comfortable using a volume set! Note that technology has improved to the point where you can buy drives with capacities of 300 GB or more! -- draco vulgaris ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 07:44:40 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: OT: Shuttle Columbia Disaster Message-ID: In article <04df5fe5-4eb0-4ed9-a64d-359ec8b937f8@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck writes: > NASA should have learned a few lessons from the 1986 Challenger > disaster (listen to the engineers) but they didn't (listen to the > engineers) and so the Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003 > because they didn't listen to the engineers. I'm a fan of the manned > space program but NASA has morphed from an organization of "Scientists > and Engineers" to an organization of "Politicians and Bureaucrats" > with Dilbert as their mascot. Back in the 1960's NASA was the world's premier engineering organisation, and did science on the side. Burned up 20% of the US federal budget in the process. Now NASA is a huge beauracracy that does science and engineering on the side. And manages to do it on 0.6 of 1% of the US federal budget, with a little help from ESA, CSA, and sometimes the Russians. But since they just analysed and restored the Hubble Space Telescope from broken hardware without being able to actually touch it, I think they're not so bad to work for. Try getting Field Service to do that. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 07:35:17 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: In article <6lotukFd8o53U3@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: > > Why don't you try convincing HP of that? The 20 year old GUI they have > leaves quite bit to be desired. Oh wait, you probably meant the VT100... They offer the same GUI all those UNIX systems do. And in most cases the first thing I see those UNIX users do is pull up a shell window. It's not VMS' fault that HP management doesn't think VMS is a desktop system. And although it does not have drag and drop capabilities of CDE, I still find the older FileManager much more readily extensible. DCL started from FileManager is like tcl with Tk, but without UNIX bound assumptions. If I had to use CDE on UNIX again, yes, I'd load up tcl and Tk rather than try to extend anything CDE gives me. And my kids, who are wizzes on KDE and Gnome, and all that other stuff don't even try to keep up with tcl/Tk. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 07:36:27 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: In article <6lou39Fd8o53U4@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: > > You must have missed the part about this being the same problem > recursively. No, what I saw was the part where you claimed another OS is _required_, then admitted it was just a matter of convinience. You study under W? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 14:21:34 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: <6lrlbeFdcu60U1@mid.individual.net> In article , koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: > In article <6lotukFd8o53U3@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >> >> Why don't you try convincing HP of that? The 20 year old GUI they have >> leaves quite bit to be desired. Oh wait, you probably meant the VT100... > > They offer the same GUI all those UNIX systems do. Hardly. Surely you don't really believe that the rest of the X11 world has sat still since the last release of DecWindows? > And in most cases > the first thing I see those UNIX users do is pull up a shell window. Depends on the user and what he needs to do. I don't do my word processing in a shell window (although I have a professor here who actually does. He has always been a TEK user.) There are graphical tools for just about anything you need to do today. But then, admiting that would take away the ability to bitch about Unix's so called cryptic commands, wouldn't it. > > It's not VMS' fault that HP management doesn't think VMS is a desktop > system. I never said it was. I still use VMS on the desktop. DECWindows on a VAXStation 3100. I like it and always have. But even you have to admit that it is more than a decade behind the capabilities of current X11 implementations making it incapable of running a lot of the current GUI software. Even trying to run apps on other boxes with the display on the VMS system frequently fails because there ar things missing from the XServer itself. > And although it does not have drag and drop capabilities of > CDE, I still find the older FileManager much more readily extensible. Not sure what "extensible" means int his context but int he rest of the world there are at least a dozen different filemanagers with different feature sets available. Just pick the one that you like. > > DCL started from FileManager is like tcl with Tk, but without UNIX > bound assumptions. If I had to use CDE on UNIX again, yes, I'd load > up tcl and Tk rather than try to extend anything CDE gives me. > > And my kids, who are wizzes on KDE and Gnome, and all that other > stuff don't even try to keep up with tcl/Tk. Probably because there is so much available that X11 has entered the user realm and it just isn't necessary. If you want some other feature it is probably already available. Except on VMS. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 14:24:00 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: <6lrlg0Fdcu60U2@mid.individual.net> In article , koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: > In article <6lou39Fd8o53U4@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >> >> You must have missed the part about this being the same problem >> recursively. > > No, what I saw was the part where you claimed another OS is > _required_, then admitted it was just a matter of convinience. > > You study under W? So, tell me, if VT's are the way to go what will you give me for the pile of 420's I still have in their original boxes? These must be worth a fortune today cause they are so much better than all this GUI stuff everybody is using. Make me an offer. I think it should start around $1000 a terminal. :-) bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:06:18 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: <48F8A9EA.4080508@comcast.net> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article , > koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: >> In article <6lotukFd8o53U3@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>> >>> Why don't you try convincing HP of that? The 20 year old GUI they have >>> leaves quite bit to be desired. Oh wait, you probably meant the VT100... >> They offer the same GUI all those UNIX systems do. > > Hardly. Surely you don't really believe that the rest of the X11 world > has sat still since the last release of DecWindows? > >> And in most cases >> the first thing I see those UNIX users do is pull up a shell window. > > Depends on the user and what he needs to do. I don't do my word > processing in a shell window (although I have a professor here who > actually does. He has always been a TEK user.) There are graphical TEK?? Did you mean TeX? It's not really a "word processor", it's more like a document processor. It's overkill for writing a letter but great if you are writing books, reports, plans, etc. It has been years since I used TeX and when I did, I used it with the LaTeX macro package. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:09:31 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article , > koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: >> In article <6lou39Fd8o53U4@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>> You must have missed the part about this being the same problem >>> recursively. >> No, what I saw was the part where you claimed another OS is >> _required_, then admitted it was just a matter of convinience. >> >> You study under W? > > > So, tell me, if VT's are the way to go what will you give me for the > pile of 420's I still have in their original boxes? These must be > worth a fortune today cause they are so much better than all this > GUI stuff everybody is using. Make me an offer. I think it should > start around $1000 a terminal. :-) > > bill > Have you considered using them to check erosion in gullies? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 15:23:42 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: <6lrovuFds9jtU1@mid.individual.net> In article <48F8A9EA.4080508@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> In article , >> koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: >>> In article <6lotukFd8o53U3@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>>> >>>> Why don't you try convincing HP of that? The 20 year old GUI they have >>>> leaves quite bit to be desired. Oh wait, you probably meant the VT100... >>> They offer the same GUI all those UNIX systems do. >> >> Hardly. Surely you don't really believe that the rest of the X11 world >> has sat still since the last release of DecWindows? >> >>> And in most cases >>> the first thing I see those UNIX users do is pull up a shell window. >> >> Depends on the user and what he needs to do. I don't do my word >> processing in a shell window (although I have a professor here who >> actually does. He has always been a TEK user.) There are graphical > > TEK?? Did you mean TeX? Oops, yes. I was thinking something else while I was typing, Damn multi-tasking. Maybe I need a cpu upgrade or something. :-) > > It's not really a "word processor", it's more like a document processor. > It's overkill for writing a letter but great if you are writing books, > reports, plans, etc. It has been years since I used TeX and when I did, > I used it with the LaTeX macro package. He uses it for all his class handouts, exams, a lot of his letters. He frequently turns out one-pagers with it as fast as someone else would with a word processor. I tried to get him ot use LyX but after trying it he still prefered the old way. I guess when your good at it and don't have to lookup how to do something it isn't really hard. I haven't used it in years and actually have more experince with things like Univac's Documnet Processor (from my 1100/Exec-8 days), the University of Maryland Document Processor and Runoff from the Prime. And, of course, nroff. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:31:47 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: <00A813D4.672CB2D5@SendSpamHere.ORG> In article <6lrlg0Fdcu60U2@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >In article , > koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: >> In article <6lou39Fd8o53U4@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>> >>> You must have missed the part about this being the same problem >>> recursively. >> >> No, what I saw was the part where you claimed another OS is >> _required_, then admitted it was just a matter of convinience. >> >> You study under W? > > >So, tell me, if VT's are the way to go what will you give me for the >pile of 420's I still have in their original boxes? These must be >worth a fortune today cause they are so much better than all this >GUI stuff everybody is using. Make me an offer. I think it should >start around $1000 a terminal. :-) VT420s can be purchased for about %20 of your quoted figure, so you'll be the proud owner your boxed VT420s for the foreseeable future. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM ... pejorative statements of opinion are entitled to constitutional protection no matter how extreme, vituperous, or vigorously expressed they may be. (NJSC) Copr. 2008 Brian Schenkenberger. Publication of _this_ usenet article outside of usenet _must_ include its contents in its entirety including this copyright notice, disclaimer and quotations. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 2008 15:38:53 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PC Systems for sale Message-ID: <6lrpscFds9jtU2@mid.individual.net> In article <00A813D4.672CB2D5@sendspamhere.org>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: > In article <6lrlg0Fdcu60U2@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>In article , >> koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: >>> In article <6lou39Fd8o53U4@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>>> >>>> You must have missed the part about this being the same problem >>>> recursively. >>> >>> No, what I saw was the part where you claimed another OS is >>> _required_, then admitted it was just a matter of convinience. >>> >>> You study under W? >> >> >>So, tell me, if VT's are the way to go what will you give me for the >>pile of 420's I still have in their original boxes? These must be >>worth a fortune today cause they are so much better than all this >>GUI stuff everybody is using. Make me an offer. I think it should >>start around $1000 a terminal. :-) > > VT420s can be purchased for about %20 of your quoted figure, so you'll be > the proud owner your boxed VT420s for the foreseeable future. I know their real value. I was not the one saying VT's are just as good as consoles as PC's. :-) I actually use them for, wait for it, consoles on my Vaxen and PDP's. Oh yeah, care to guess what I paid for them? I got more than a dozen. They used to be used by our registration people so they only got used 8 days a year until retired so they are still just like brand new. Guess what replaced them? :-) bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:14:03 +0200 From: Wilm Boerhout Subject: Re: strange disk states Message-ID: <48f8b9cd$0$8592$ba620dc5@nova.planet.nl> John Santos vaguely mentioned on 17-10-2008 4:38: [snippety snip] > You could use planets to name your clusters (or subnets; didn't > you used to have one in England and one in Germany?) Aurora IIRC > was the planet with the 1000-1 robot/human ratio in The Naked Sun. > Trantor is too long, though. Ah, but we're the Overlords of *this* universe. We can do anything we like, naming systems. TRANTR would do nicely, IMO. /Wilm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:46:45 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: strange disk states Message-ID: In article , John Santos writes: > You could use planets to name your clusters (or subnets; didn't > you used to have one in England and one in Germany?) I never had full clusters in more than one country at a time, though there was some overlap during my moves Germany-England-Netherlands-Germany. > Aurora IIRC > was the planet with the 1000-1 robot/human ratio in The Naked Sun. > Trantor is too long, though. Actually, had I needed names for clusters, ROBOTS and EMPIRE would do nicely. ASIMOV is also 6 letters, as is CLARKE. ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.561 ************************