SUMMARY: osf upgrade

From: Mario D. Santana <santana_at_nucmar.physics.fsu.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 10:41:25 -0400

Hello again.

Well, I certainly got a lot of good information out of my
question. Find following the original post, a thank-you list, and a
cut-and-paste of the replies.

with deference to protocol,
.dave

---------------------
> I have a single question. It involves a DEC 3000 400 machine, running
> DEC OSF/1 V2.0. I'd like to upgrade it, but am rather timid about it,
> in light of all the problems people seem to be having with 3.2A -- is
> this the wrong attitude? I mean, I've fought for the upgrade, and I
> need it to have a large benefit to hassle/downtime ratio so that some
> of my other requests will be considered.
---------------------

Thanks go to:

Kurt Watkins <watkins_at_picard.swmed.edu>
Saul Tannenbaum <stannenb_at_emerald.tufts.edu>
sherry_at_cpsacs.msu.edu
Dan Winger <winger_at_sewp.nasa.gov>
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com
Chua Koon Teck <koonteck_at_singnet.com.sg>
Peter Kaiser <kaiser_at_heron.enet.dec.com>
Hellebo Knut <bgk1142_at_bggfu2.nho.hydro.com>
j.studnicka_at_ic.ac.uk
John Richards <john_at_zyqad.co.uk>
Joanna Lee Siegel 13-Jul-1995 0928 <siegel_at_took.enet.dec.com>
system_at_pslaxp.nmsu.edu

---------------------
Upgrades aside, the OS in widest use will get the most complaints, hence
lots of 3.2 chatter. IMHO, the best strategy is to upgrade 1) when there
is a killer new feature that you can't live without and 2) when you need
to stay current (so that you can do upgrades rather than installs - I'm a
bit timid w.r.t installs. They go faster initially but have a bit more
adminstrative cleanup afterward.)

I upgraded 2.0 -> 3.0 -> 3.2 and lots of little annoying things went away
but there wasn't a terribly dramatic difference. I suppose most users
wouldn't want to see one, though some non-user management type might :)

K.


____________________________________________________________________

   Kurt Watkins Watkins_at_howie.swmed.EDU
   Howard Hughes Medical Institute Phone: (214) 648-5034
   UT Southwestern Medical Center Fax: (214) 648-5066
   5323 Harry Hines Blvd. Y4.106
   Dallas, TX 75235-9050



---------------------

There is rumored to be a maintenance release of 3.2 (3.2C) due out soon.
I'd advise waiting until that.

        - Saul

-- 
Saul Tannenbaum, Manager, Academic Systems | "It's still rocket  
                stannenb_at_emerald.tufts.edu |    science" - Vint Cerf
Tufts University Computing and             |
                Communications Services    |
---------------------
People from DEC said that 3.2C is coming at the end of July. I will wait.
SherrY
---------------------
On my 3000 / 600, I went from v2.0 to v3.0.  The option here was to run
the upgrade procedure or perform a brand new install of v3.0.  I ended up
doing a brand new install since the upgrade was not possible due to the 
fact that I did not have enough disk space to perform the procedure.
One thing I did find was that license PAKs were needed for things to work.  
Previous versions did not look at some of the license PAKs for authorization 
to use the software.  In v3.0, that was fixed.
Before you upgrade to any newer level, make sure that you have all of the
license PAKs for your system.
Other than that, my system has not complained or failed in anyway.
I hope this helps.
Dan Winger  __   _     *      )     * NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
SEWP BOWL (soop bol)   *   _ ( \\   * RMS Technologies Inc.
winger_at_sewp.nasa.gov   *  (_X__//_  * Code 251.9
301.286.7658           * (        ) * Bldg 18 Room 274
FAX 301.286.1619       *  \______/  * Greenbelt, MD  20771
---------------------
From: alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com
X-Mts: smtp
	V3.2C should be available soon (August-ish) and will have
	many bug fixes for V3.2 problems.
---------------------
I have a DEC7000 system serving about 7000 user accounts.  Previously, 
the system is running on OSF1 v2.0 and the downtime is very frequent.  
There is more problems that we encountered with OSF1 v2.0 than OSF1 
v3.2a.  Now, with my system running OSF1 v3.2a, we seldom encounter 
system hung problem which occurs in OSF1 v2.0.
Good luck with your upgrade.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
Regards
Chua Koon Teck		
koonteck_at_singnet.com.sg
SingNet			
URL="http://www.singnet.com.sg/"	
Singapore Telecom 
---------------------
Dave --
Well, in my experience people really haven't having so much trouble with
3.2a ... at this point you probably shouldn't bother to upgrade to a version
under 3.2c, which has some functional improvements.
___Pete
kaiser_at_acm.org
---------------------
Hi !
It should be allright to upgrade to version 3.2 (not 3.2A unless you have a
SMP system). In many cases I've noticed that errorsituations arise because
sysadmins don't read the 'Release Notes' and 'Installation Guide' (in that
particular sequence) properly before doing the installation/upgrade.
GOOD LUCK :-)
P.s 3.2c is due out soon...
-- 
      ******************************************************************
      *         Knut Helleboe                    | DAMN GOOD COFFEE !! *
      *         Norsk Hydro a.s                  | (and hot too)       *
      * Phone: +47 55 996870, Fax: +47 55 996342 |                     *
      * Pager: +47 96 500718                     |                     *
      * E-mail: Knut.Hellebo_at_nho.hydro.com       | Dale Cooper, FBI    *
      ******************************************************************
---------------------
 hello,
         we have been in the similar situation here at the College.
 While evaluating OSF/1 v3.2a we have found that the v3.3a requires 64Mbytes
 of memory to run, (48Mbytes real minimum!). Loggin into the system
 on 32Mbyte machines was extremely slow, any background job virtually
 made the system unusable. As we still have quite a large number of 
 the machines configured with 32Mbytes (about 50) this seemed to be quite 
 costly excercise for the departments.
 
 Digital offered to try a beta version of Unix v3.2c (formerly called
 DEC OSF/1, as they say). That runs like a deam even on 32Mbytes and
 is smaller too. I would certanly recommend to wait for this, it is
 supposed to be out in September '95.
 Regards
 Jiri  
 
---------------------
I upgraded our 3000/400 from 2.0 to 3.0 in April.  Except rather than do an
upgrade I chose to just do a complete new installation.  A number of reasons for
this:
1.  Last time I did an upgrade 1.3->2.0 I lost use of the CDROM for a few days.
2.  Upgrade seemed to leave a lot of files lying around.
3.  I wanted to repartition the disk anyway.
This worked OK and we have had only a few problems with it the major one being
with the LISP development environment we run.
We also at the same time bought another machine running 3.2 and have had no
problems at all with it.
I'd go for it and do the upgrade.
Bye
John
(Play Violin & Ride Bike - but not at the same time)
---------------------
Hi,
A word of warning....be careful when you do the firmware upgrade.  There
is an errata sheet sent with the firmware upgrade that warns about doing
upgrades on a 3000/400.  If you don't have the proper SROM version you
will toast your machine and have to call field service.  A way to check
is to do show config at the console level:
>>> show config
CPU     OK      KN15-AA-V6.1-S45E-I077-sV2.1-DECchip 21064 P3.0
                                        ^^^^
                                        SROM: if you have anything below
                                              V2.1 you should upgrade the
                                              SROM before upgrading the
                                              firmware V6.1.
Field service will have to get you the proper SROM version.
Joanna
---------------------
I have 4 Digital UNIX Alphas I take care of and have faced the same problem for
a few years now.  It doesn't seem to matter what the current release is...
there are always bugs.
The conclusion I've come to is that if there is some feature the upgrade will
offer you feel you *need*, then the upgrade is justified.
Otherwise, you're just swapping known/familiar bugs for unknown/unfamiliar
bugs.
BTW, I've been running OSF V2.0 for over a year on these systems.  I also
subscribe to the Consolidated Software Distribution and have had the updates
available to me all this time.
Mike Vihel
New Mexico State University
---------------------
Received on Thu Jul 13 1995 - 16:50:54 NZST

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