XENIX 2.3.2/xnx155b woes

[Alex Pournelle]

A week or so ago I asked for help with this system:

>I have a possibly related problem and would appreciate any insights.
>The system is a 25MHz AMI-licensed 386 with 64K cache and 4 megs; hard
>disk is a Conner CP-3100 with an IDE controller.  Software is now 2.3.2
>with SLS155b installed.  (It responds "XENIX 2.3.3 kid 5.14" at
>startup.)

Which was locking up at irregular intervals with the hard-disk activity
light on permanently, requiring a reboot.  People have asked:

]I have just bought almost identical hardware, and am talking to someone
]who is trying to sell me a used copy of 2.3.2.

]Outside of the problem that caused the above posting, how well does Xenix
]work, and how well does it get along with DOS?

And:

]Have you tried slowing down the bus speed on your system?  Some AMI
]systems will run the bus at SYSCLK/2 instead of ATCLK, and hang, with
]IDE drives.

(No, I haven't--this BIOS doesn't bring out that function.  May get a
different BIOS rev. and try this.)

Some more background from me:

>The hardware listed above is fine, except the IDE drive.  Using an MFM
>other supported drive isn't a problem.  There is a known problem,
>says SCO--if your IDE drive doesn't exactly emulate a Western Digital
>WD-1010 controller, you get this kind of problem.

I am supposed to hear from SCO's drive honchos tomorrow, and will follow
up to the net.

A question: anyone using Dell's UNIX implementation and have any
observations?  Dell uses many IDE drives and so must have better
drivers.


Meanwhile, here's some of my advice from the trenches:

DO get the SLS155 (support level supplement) and install it.  Watch out for
kernel parity error panics--if you get them, gripe to SCO support.
They're supposed to be crafting yet a different fix of SLS155 which
fixes the bogus parity panic errors.  Meanwhile, you can force the SLS to NOT
bring in the "oem.o" code (using the 2.3.2 original one) and remove this
problem if it occurs.  System works, then, like it did before--you've
just kept it from loading in the replacement memory-checker.

(Note that this only happens to me in multi-user mode!  single-user
works fine!)

DO get the latest AMI bios.  You want one dated this year.  The date
comes up on the startup screen at the bottom.  You can get updated
BIOSes from Clyde Washburn Associates at (716) 248 3627.  Make sure you
copy down the EXACT BIOS revision.

DO make backups before installing the SLS, though I've never had a
problem with this.  Hint: learn CPIO.  It's nasty, but it beats BACKUP,
which won't copy the special device drivers (/dev/fd096ds18, etc.) to
tape.

DO kvetch to SCO to speed up their floppy-disk driver code.  Who knows,
if enough of us do, they might!

Thanks again for everyone's help.  I hope to completely clear this up
soon.

	Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
		Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others
		...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979
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