From: Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu>
Subject: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/23
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I am an AIX/Solaris Administrator at the University of Chicago. I've
been working
with Solaris 2.x for the past year, and AIX for the past 4 years. Most
of the admins
on campus are Solaris-specific, and the only unity we have is in our
common devo-
tion for Linux.
To get to the point, all I've experienced since I've been around Solaris
admins is
this irritating arrogance, and disdain for other flavors of UNIX,
particularly AIX.
I'm not generalizing about ALL Solaris admins, just the ones that I've
met. How-
ever, I post to both comp.unix.solaris and comp.unix.aix, and I have to
admit that
I sometimes detect that same attitude in this particular newsgroup.
I hear snotty little remarks about the ODM, which, while admittedly
different, is
an optimization that allows for dynamic configuration of devices,
enabling much
less reboots or 'boot -r'. It is also not hard to understand or work
with once
time is taken to understand its function. Also, while NT's Registry is
quite simply
a copycat of AIX's ODM, it's not nearly as functional, and is much more
prone to
error due to its complexity. So, please, stop comparing the two.
I hear snotty remarks about the LVM, which is something that all Unices
would
benefit from implementing in the kernel, as does HPUX-10 and above,
instead of
having to get some third-party solution that costs and arm-and-a-leg to
achieve
similar functionality. It, also, enables MUCH LESS down-time for common
disk
management tasks.
AIX's kernel, like Solaris's kernel, can be configured dynamically w/o
reboot,
although it is much easier in AIX (and I'm not talking about SMIT). I
don't need
adb. I can use command-line "no", "vmtune", "schedtune", and the like,
and for
the most part, will see changes immediately. If I don't like my
changes, I can set
them back easily with the "-d" option for all of these commands. These
commands
can be placed in startup files so that they survive reboots, so there's
no need of
/etc/system or /etc/master. AIX's kernel, like Solaris's, is made in
such a way that
parameters only set high and low watermarks, since neiher OS uses static
tables.
AIX has a rich set of interfaces and commands to make both BSD and SysV
admins
feel reasonably comfortable when learning it.
Last, but certainly not least, is the SMIT thing. I personally use SMIT
very seldom.
But it is a lifesaver/timesaver at times for very difficult tasks where
I would pre-
fer to spend most of my time concentrating on something else. Then,
after comp-
leting the more important tasks, I could go back to the smit.log and
smit.script and
see how the command-line stuff goes. True, you could almost do all your
admin
stuff with SMIT, but that's basically what all Unices are working toward
having in
their OS, in order to beat the "NT is easier to manage and more
user-friendly" ar-
gument that has been beating UNIX upside the head for years.
I know I've said a lot, but my whole point is that I like Solaris and
AIX, and I see
the strengths in both, as well as note the proprietary parts of both
that enhance the
functionality of the OS. Different is not worse. It's just different.
Dawson
From: or...@netcom.com (AIXMighty!)
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/23
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mark,
i agree with you completely! personally, i think trying to beat up another
favor of unix is a kid's play. aix and solaris both have their strengths
and weaknesses. i've spent enough time on both of these and got certified
on both of them within a couple of weeks. they're just different!
for those of you who like to beat up aix, can you tell me you can do both
as well?
now tell me you can certify yourself in hp-ux also!!!
Orphy! :-)
Dallas, TX
ps. this is not meant to beat up anyone. i'm just making a point here...
In article <36812E1D.57672...@uchicago.edu>,
Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
>I am an AIX/Solaris Administrator at the University of Chicago. I've
>been working
>with Solaris 2.x for the past year, and AIX for the past 4 years. Most
>of the admins
>on campus are Solaris-specific, and the only unity we have is in our
>common devo-
>tion for Linux.
>
>To get to the point, all I've experienced since I've been around Solaris
>admins is
>this irritating arrogance, and disdain for other flavors of UNIX,
>particularly AIX.
>I'm not generalizing about ALL Solaris admins, just the ones that I've
>met. How-
>ever, I post to both comp.unix.solaris and comp.unix.aix, and I have to
>admit that
>I sometimes detect that same attitude in this particular newsgroup.
>
>I hear snotty little remarks about the ODM, which, while admittedly
>different, is
>an optimization that allows for dynamic configuration of devices,
>enabling much
>less reboots or 'boot -r'. It is also not hard to understand or work
>with once
>time is taken to understand its function. Also, while NT's Registry is
>quite simply
>a copycat of AIX's ODM, it's not nearly as functional, and is much more
>prone to
>error due to its complexity. So, please, stop comparing the two.
>
>I hear snotty remarks about the LVM, which is something that all Unices
>would
>benefit from implementing in the kernel, as does HPUX-10 and above,
>instead of
>having to get some third-party solution that costs and arm-and-a-leg to
>achieve
>similar functionality. It, also, enables MUCH LESS down-time for common
>disk
>management tasks.
>
>AIX's kernel, like Solaris's kernel, can be configured dynamically w/o
>reboot,
>although it is much easier in AIX (and I'm not talking about SMIT). I
>don't need
>adb. I can use command-line "no", "vmtune", "schedtune", and the like,
>and for
>the most part, will see changes immediately. If I don't like my
>changes, I can set
>them back easily with the "-d" option for all of these commands. These
>commands
>can be placed in startup files so that they survive reboots, so there's
>no need of
>/etc/system or /etc/master. AIX's kernel, like Solaris's, is made in
>such a way that
>parameters only set high and low watermarks, since neiher OS uses static
>tables.
>
>AIX has a rich set of interfaces and commands to make both BSD and SysV
>admins
>feel reasonably comfortable when learning it.
>
>Last, but certainly not least, is the SMIT thing. I personally use SMIT
>very seldom.
>But it is a lifesaver/timesaver at times for very difficult tasks where
>I would pre-
>fer to spend most of my time concentrating on something else. Then,
>after comp-
>leting the more important tasks, I could go back to the smit.log and
>smit.script and
>see how the command-line stuff goes. True, you could almost do all your
>admin
>stuff with SMIT, but that's basically what all Unices are working toward
>having in
>their OS, in order to beat the "NT is easier to manage and more
>user-friendly" ar-
>gument that has been beating UNIX upside the head for years.
>
>I know I've said a lot, but my whole point is that I like Solaris and
>AIX, and I see
>the strengths in both, as well as note the proprietary parts of both
>that enhance the
>functionality of the OS. Different is not worse. It's just different.
>
>
>Dawson
From: logan_s...@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/24
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In article <36812E1D.57672...@uchicago.edu>,
Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> To get to the point, all I've experienced since I've been around Solaris
> admins is
> this irritating arrogance, and disdain for other flavors of UNIX,
> particularly AIX.
You have to realize that I'm verrrrry tempted to say, "sounds like
the ranting and raving of someone who's insecure with his operating
system!" :-)
Seriously though, I'm a Unix admin. who cut his teeth on AIX and
NeXTStep(!) but who now has more experience with Solaris.
I do like certain things about AIX alot, but I would have to say
that in some cases, it violates some of what I might call "the
principles of Unix". One such principle is that config files should
be in ascii, so if they really, really get broken and the software
doesn't give you any help with it, then you can always revert to
vi and extensive head-scratching and probably come up with something
that works. AIX violates this a few too many times. Going against
Unix "values" isn't a good way to endear yourselves to Unix people.
It's likely to make them say things like, "If I wanted to give up
control of *my* computer, I'd get a Macintosh." (Of course, I like
Macintoshes, so I wouldn't say this, or if I did, I might mean it
more literally.)
Basically, my perception is that IBM isn't totally committed to doing
Unix the Unix way -- to some extent, they want to do it the IBM way.
Certain parts of AIX are waaaay overcomplicated, and this does cause
frustration on the parts of Unix people, who tend to like to follow
the "keep it simple, stupid" rule.
Another thing is that IBM likes to make acronyms for everything,
whereas the Unix tradition is to make clever (or else very
descriptive and/or maximally appropriate) names instead. The
very names themselves are examples! IBM is an acronym (so is AIX,
as far as I can tell, although I never figured out what it stands
for if it is), whereas Unix is a pun on Multics. If you are system
administrator, the Unix culture tells you you are a creative person
putting small parts together into a whole to make something really
cool, but the IBM manual gives you the feeling that you are a droid
following the steps listed in publication #2398562342 in order to
solve issue #787873574. Isn't Unix supposed to be fun? Is AIX fun?
On the other hand, there genuinely are things about AIX that make
administrators go, "Oh, that's cooooooool." The LVM (though its
name is yet another dull acronym) does make things easy, and at
very little loss of functionality. Of course, it does have its
foibles too -- you can't just use "cplv" to copy a filesystem,
even though a filesystem feels like just a data structure that
happens to exist on a logical volume. Your impulse to treat the
operating system like Legos (where compatible parts fit together
nicely and where a large number of parts are compatible) is
thwarted by things like this. Still, with a little work, it
could be made to work, and for many people, that is enough.
"reorgvg" is a sight to behold, and it's a great thing to sit
there and thing, "if this were a Sun, I'd be unplugging disks
and editing files left and right to get *this* accomplished, and
the system would be down". But, in the back of my head, I'm
always thinking, "Is this reorgvg going to spontaneously blow
away all my data due to some teency little bug?" At least with
the manual method, you take intentional steps and you can say
to yourself, "now, at this step, I'm going to overwrite some
data, and I'm *sure* that that's O.K., right?" Once again on
the other hand, I've moved disks from one Sun to another with
Disksuite, and I had to edit some file and from it recreate an
on-disk database to reflect changed controller numbers and other
miscellaneous weird stuff. On AIX, each disk would have been
marked with a unique identifier, and the system would just find
the right disks no matter what controller they're on.
Bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that AIX works fine
and has two major advantages over Solaris: smit and the LVM.
But, AIX also has a whole slew of minor disadvantages which
make the experience more frustrating and stressful. I'm sure
if I thought a while, I could thing of some major advantages
that Sun has over AIX, too.
So, I will say that one is not obviously better than the other
for just plain general use. However, AIX does do a good job
of consistently irking Unix people, which led to them repeating
the Unix person's AIX mantra to themselves: "AIX is not Unix.
It just happens to be really similar, and almost compatible."
Of course, with the changed definition of Unix (a certification
rather than a codebase), this isn't even really a comfort
anymore, because perhaps AIX is Unix.
Still, I will try to refrain from walking around and saying
(in my best Mike Meyers voice), "If it's not Solaris, it's crap."
Because that's not true. (To Sun's credit, the contrapositive[1]
is almost true.)
- Logan
[1] Sorry. http://www.m-w.com/ has a great dictionary for those
who may need it.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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From: Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/24
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Ok, I'll give you the part about "config files should be in ascii," al-
though, for the most part, config files are in ascii (except for the de-
vice config files). As I stated before, this dbm format ODM is an
optimization that, while being IBM proprietary in nature, provides
for a distinguishing feature with BIG benefits in uptime. Proprietary
features are common to all the big players in the UNIX game, i.e. So-
laris, AIX, HPUX, Digital, etc. It doesn't make them less UNIX at
all.
However, your argument about AIX's acronyms is ridiculous, as all
UNIX commands are cryptic by nature. Come on. . . "prtvtoc, ndd,
nscd" type commands are no better/worse than commands like "lscfg,
lsdev, cfgmgr" names. AIX stands for Advanced Interactive eXecutive,
since you wondered. It's kinda like IRIX, or Dynix, or HP-UX, etc.
There is nothing overcomplicated with AIX. The only thing, as I stated
earlier, that would take getting used to is the ODM, which has a pretty
straightforward interface in the case that you do have to mess with it
(which is very seldom). Everything else IS as simple as editing an ascii
file. It's just a matter of finding out the names of certain files, as is the
case on ALL Unices, especially with Solaris (extra subdirectories, dif-
ferent file exporting commands/filenames, etc.). So I'd have to disagree
with that.
Also, you CAN use "cplv" to copy a filesystem, and I'd like to hear the
situation where you were unable to do so. I tend to use "mklvcopy" my-
self, but they'll both get the job done. Your reasoning about "reorgvg"
is something that I don't quite understand. The ease with which this
command reorganizes things is only because of the basic architecture
of the Logical Volume Manager(LVM), so why sit there and worry about
data blowing up just because it seems so easy. Do you worry like that
with DiskSuite, Veritas, or any other type of improvement in admin tools?
Perhaps I'm just not understanding completely what you're writing.
The fact of the matter is, while I can't speak for every Solaris admin, I
can/will speak for the ones I've met here on campus-most Solaris admins
who hate AIX for the "I can't just vi the files" reason, are people who
haven't worked on it or learned it enough to know that SMIT is not AIX's
sole window to administration. You CAN, though I don't know why you
would, administer a system w/o using SMIT at all! You CAN, with the
only exception of the device config database, edit the ascii files if you
want. But most Solaris-specific admins don't know this. They go by what
they've heard and begin to deride it until they have to WORK with a real
AIX Syst. Admin who shows them all the stuff they didn't know, so they
can say,"Oh, you guys can do that, too! Oh, that's how I do it on my box,
too!"
This is not insecurity about my primary OS responsibility, because we
all know that AIX is one of the big three, and is going to be a big player
for a while in the UNIX game. I just like talking to well-rounded UNIX
admins who are open-minded about my favorite work-related subject.
Well, that and, also, the fact that I have very little to do before the holi-
days on my systems, and I'm killing time! :-)
Dawson
logan_s...@yahoo.com wrote:
> In article <36812E1D.57672...@uchicago.edu>,
> Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > To get to the point, all I've experienced since I've been around Solaris
> > admins is
> > this irritating arrogance, and disdain for other flavors of UNIX,
> > particularly AIX.
>
> You have to realize that I'm verrrrry tempted to say, "sounds like
> the ranting and raving of someone who's insecure with his operating
> system!" :-)
>
> Seriously though, I'm a Unix admin. who cut his teeth on AIX and
> NeXTStep(!) but who now has more experience with Solaris.
>
> I do like certain things about AIX alot, but I would have to say
> that in some cases, it violates some of what I might call "the
> principles of Unix". One such principle is that config files should
> be in ascii, so if they really, really get broken and the software
> doesn't give you any help with it, then you can always revert to
> vi and extensive head-scratching and probably come up with something
> that works. AIX violates this a few too many times. Going against
> Unix "values" isn't a good way to endear yourselves to Unix people.
> It's likely to make them say things like, "If I wanted to give up
> control of *my* computer, I'd get a Macintosh." (Of course, I like
> Macintoshes, so I wouldn't say this, or if I did, I might mean it
> more literally.)
>
> Basically, my perception is that IBM isn't totally committed to doing
> Unix the Unix way -- to some extent, they want to do it the IBM way.
>
> Certain parts of AIX are waaaay overcomplicated, and this does cause
> frustration on the parts of Unix people, who tend to like to follow
> the "keep it simple, stupid" rule.
>
> Another thing is that IBM likes to make acronyms for everything,
> whereas the Unix tradition is to make clever (or else very
> descriptive and/or maximally appropriate) names instead. The
> very names themselves are examples! IBM is an acronym (so is AIX,
> as far as I can tell, although I never figured out what it stands
> for if it is), whereas Unix is a pun on Multics. If you are system
> administrator, the Unix culture tells you you are a creative person
> putting small parts together into a whole to make something really
> cool, but the IBM manual gives you the feeling that you are a droid
> following the steps listed in publication #2398562342 in order to
> solve issue #787873574. Isn't Unix supposed to be fun? Is AIX fun?
>
> On the other hand, there genuinely are things about AIX that make
> administrators go, "Oh, that's cooooooool." The LVM (though its
> name is yet another dull acronym) does make things easy, and at
> very little loss of functionality. Of course, it does have its
> foibles too -- you can't just use "cplv" to copy a filesystem,
> even though a filesystem feels like just a data structure that
> happens to exist on a logical volume. Your impulse to treat the
> operating system like Legos (where compatible parts fit together
> nicely and where a large number of parts are compatible) is
> thwarted by things like this. Still, with a little work, it
> could be made to work, and for many people, that is enough.
> "reorgvg" is a sight to behold, and it's a great thing to sit
> there and thing, "if this were a Sun, I'd be unplugging disks
> and editing files left and right to get *this* accomplished, and
> the system would be down". But, in the back of my head, I'm
> always thinking, "Is this reorgvg going to spontaneously blow
> away all my data due to some teency little bug?" At least with
> the manual method, you take intentional steps and you can say
> to yourself, "now, at this step, I'm going to overwrite some
> data, and I'm *sure* that that's O.K., right?" Once again on
> the other hand, I've moved disks from one Sun to another with
> Disksuite, and I had to edit some file and from it recreate an
> on-disk database to reflect changed controller numbers and other
> miscellaneous weird stuff. On AIX, each disk would have been
> marked with a unique identifier, and the system would just find
> the right disks no matter what controller they're on.
>
> Bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that AIX works fine
> and has two major advantages over Solaris: smit and the LVM.
> But, AIX also has a whole slew of minor disadvantages which
> make the experience more frustrating and stressful. I'm sure
> if I thought a while, I could thing of some major advantages
> that Sun has over AIX, too.
>
> So, I will say that one is not obviously better than the other
> for just plain general use. However, AIX does do a good job
> of consistently irking Unix people, which led to them repeating
> the Unix person's AIX mantra to themselves: "AIX is not Unix.
> It just happens to be really similar, and almost compatible."
> Of course, with the changed definition of Unix (a certification
> rather than a codebase), this isn't even really a comfort
> anymore, because perhaps AIX is Unix.
>
> Still, I will try to refrain from walking around and saying
> (in my best Mike Meyers voice), "If it's not Solaris, it's crap."
> Because that's not true. (To Sun's credit, the contrapositive[1]
> is almost true.)
>
> - Logan
>
> [1] Sorry. http://www.m-w.com/ has a great dictionary for those
> who may need it.
>
> -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
From: "dave" <nospam. davegrant...@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/27
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I'll agree on the LVM thing...
Sure, LVM makes life "Easy" when it's time to expand a logical partition.
(btw, I've never actually done this on AIX, only HP-UX, but the point of
this post is the same...) This works great until you go to upgrade the OS
and have to blow away the root drive...How do you remount the intact
filesystems on the other drives? In HP-UX, you should hope that you did
vgcfgbackups and vgexports before the new OS install (yeah, you can always
restore from backup...but it's still a pain). With good old-fashioned scsi
device numbers, you can just "mount /dev/dsk/cxtxdxsx /mntpoint" and you're
off! Maybe AIX "just knows" its there...I don't know...but the whole point
is that less overhead makes me feel more comfortable.
As far as GUI tools go, I guess HP's version of SMIT is SAM...and I prefer
not to use that either...as these GUI tools just don't always allow the
flexibility of scripts or command-line switches.
Pls don't get me wrong, I have no disdain for AIX, HPUX, or any other
*real* OS (which leaves out NT, obviously)...It's just that more and more
overhead ("smart" utilities, GUI's, etc.) just confuses things during those
tense moments.
It's sort of like when Win95 "plug&play" continues to automagically a
detect and re-detect failed devices - over and over, even when those
devices are explicitly dropped or disabled in the control panel. I know
there's a way to disable the autodetection...I just don't how to get in
there and do it!
Windows 95 has detected a new device. Please wait while ... (argh!)
Anyway, that's how I feel when using sophisticated tools like LVM..
Just thinking into my keyboard
happy holidays,
Dave
--
nospam. mindspring.com
davegrantier@ nospam
logan_s...@yahoo.com wrote in article <75t0kk$7e...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <36812E1D.57672...@uchicago.edu>,
> Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > To get to the point, all I've experienced since I've been around
Solaris
> > admins is
> > this irritating arrogance, and disdain for other flavors of UNIX,
> > particularly AIX.
>
> You have to realize that I'm verrrrry tempted to say, "sounds like
> the ranting and raving of someone who's insecure with his operating
> system!" :-)
>
> Seriously though, I'm a Unix admin. who cut his teeth on AIX and
> NeXTStep(!) but who now has more experience with Solaris.
>
> [ snip ]
From: Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/28
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Hello, Dave. I haven't worked a great deal with HP-UX, but I can tell you
that on AIX, and OS upgrade does NOT blow away the root drive. AIX
has a choice of about 3 or 4 types of installations so that you can choose
to upgrade w/o messing with your data at all. Check it out.
Dawson
dave wrote:
> I'll agree on the LVM thing...
>
> Sure, LVM makes life "Easy" when it's time to expand a logical partition.
> (btw, I've never actually done this on AIX, only HP-UX, but the point of
> this post is the same...) This works great until you go to upgrade the OS
> and have to blow away the root drive...How do you remount the intact
> filesystems on the other drives? In HP-UX, you should hope that you did
> vgcfgbackups and vgexports before the new OS install (yeah, you can always
> restore from backup...but it's still a pain). With good old-fashioned scsi
> device numbers, you can just "mount /dev/dsk/cxtxdxsx /mntpoint" and you're
> off! Maybe AIX "just knows" its there...I don't know...but the whole point
> is that less overhead makes me feel more comfortable.
>
> As far as GUI tools go, I guess HP's version of SMIT is SAM...and I prefer
> not to use that either...as these GUI tools just don't always allow the
> flexibility of scripts or command-line switches.
>
> Pls don't get me wrong, I have no disdain for AIX, HPUX, or any other
> *real* OS (which leaves out NT, obviously)...It's just that more and more
> overhead ("smart" utilities, GUI's, etc.) just confuses things during those
> tense moments.
>
> It's sort of like when Win95 "plug&play" continues to automagically a
> detect and re-detect failed devices - over and over, even when those
> devices are explicitly dropped or disabled in the control panel. I know
> there's a way to disable the autodetection...I just don't how to get in
> there and do it!
>
> Windows 95 has detected a new device. Please wait while ... (argh!)
>
> Anyway, that's how I feel when using sophisticated tools like LVM..
>
> Just thinking into my keyboard
>
> happy holidays,
> Dave
>
> --
> nospam. mindspring.com
> davegrantier@ nospam
>
> logan_s...@yahoo.com wrote in article <75t0kk$7e...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> > In article <36812E1D.57672...@uchicago.edu>,
> > Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > > To get to the point, all I've experienced since I've been around
> Solaris
> > > admins is
> > > this irritating arrogance, and disdain for other flavors of UNIX,
> > > particularly AIX.
> >
> > You have to realize that I'm verrrrry tempted to say, "sounds like
> > the ranting and raving of someone who's insecure with his operating
> > system!" :-)
> >
> > Seriously though, I'm a Unix admin. who cut his teeth on AIX and
> > NeXTStep(!) but who now has more experience with Solaris.
> >
> > [ snip ]
From: henne...@cloud9.net (Mathew A. Hennessy)
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/29
Message-ID: <76bdg2$6id$1@remarQ.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 426871236
References: <36812E1D.57672A6F@uchicago.edu> <75t0kk$7e6$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
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Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris
In article <75t0kk$7e...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <logan_s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>In article <36812E1D.57672...@uchicago.edu>,
>It's likely to make them say things like, "If I wanted to give up
>control of *my* computer, I'd get a Macintosh." (Of course, I like
>Macintoshes, so I wouldn't say this, or if I did, I might mean it
>more literally.)
Then again, there's more in common with Macs than you think..
o PowerPC
o Plug And Play
o Graphical administration stressed.
>Basically, my perception is that IBM isn't totally committed to doing
>Unix the Unix way -- to some extent, they want to do it the IBM way.
I dunno: they've been getting much better since v3.2, but their
price/perfomance could stand _lots_ of improvement..
>Certain parts of AIX are waaaay overcomplicated, and this does cause
>frustration on the parts of Unix people, who tend to like to follow
>the "keep it simple, stupid" rule.
Like the ODM? It's a design philosophy, and it's the kind of
thing which allows easier kernel tweaking in multiuser mode.. I don't
usually have anything against it, until it corrupts..
>Another thing is that IBM likes to make acronyms for everything,
>whereas the Unix tradition is to make clever (or else very
>descriptive and/or maximally appropriate) names instead. The
Oooh, like NFS is so creative. ;) ;) Then again, I'm sure that's
from their storied history in large computing.. Of Unix people, only
AIXers refer to SNA, APPC, DASD, etc.. ;)
>very names themselves are examples! IBM is an acronym (so is AIX,
>as far as I can tell, although I never figured out what it stands
>for if it is), whereas Unix is a pun on Multics. If you are system
Advanced Interactive eXecutive.
>solve issue #787873574. Isn't Unix supposed to be fun? Is AIX fun?
Ooh, I dunno, I always found slamming in more disk for different
partitions in multiuser kinda fun, as well as boosting maxuprocs/maxusers
while production DBs were on full bore.. fiddling with shm* in multiuser
is possible as well IIRC, as is fiddling with the vmtune/schedtune..
Then again, it's also fun _not_ to have to worry about a system,
and when I started on AIX/Solaris, I spent 2x as much time worrying about
2 Solaris boxes than 10 AIX boxes..
>very little loss of functionality. Of course, it does have its
>foibles too -- you can't just use "cplv" to copy a filesystem,
>even though a filesystem feels like just a data structure that
man crfs
man cplv # note the -e flag!
How tough is that? IIRC, you may be able to simply cplv and then
manually update the /etc/filesystems file, but it's been 2+ years since
I've been on RS6K equipment ;(
>"reorgvg" is a sight to behold, and it's a great thing to sit
>there and thing, "if this were a Sun, I'd be unplugging disks
>and editing files left and right to get *this* accomplished, and
>the system would be down". But, in the back of my head, I'm
>always thinking, "Is this reorgvg going to spontaneously blow
>away all my data due to some teency little bug?" At least with
Backups? Besides, I would be surprised if reorgvg (or even
mksysb) gave errors that weren't reported on usenet..
>the manual method, you take intentional steps and you can say
>to yourself, "now, at this step, I'm going to overwrite some
>data, and I'm *sure* that that's O.K., right?" Once again on
>the other hand, I've moved disks from one Sun to another with
>Disksuite, and I had to edit some file and from it recreate an
>on-disk database to reflect changed controller numbers and other
>miscellaneous weird stuff. On AIX, each disk would have been
>marked with a unique identifier, and the system would just find
>the right disks no matter what controller they're on.
That's the difference between something being integrated into the
OS (with all the concomitant benefits/drawbacks) and being an bolt-on..
Optimizations and stuff..
>make the experience more frustrating and stressful. I'm sure
>if I thought a while, I could thing of some major advantages
>that Sun has over AIX, too.
Sun has wider app support, better price/performance, more admins,
more HW support (SPARC/Intel), more 'compatability' when it comes to
building tools/compilers, better NFS v3 (IIRC), and more mature SMP (not
clustering).. Among others..
>Of course, with the changed definition of Unix (a certification
>rather than a codebase), this isn't even really a comfort
>anymore, because perhaps AIX is Unix.
According to the various branding officials, AIX _IS_ Unix..
Depending on whom you ask, so is NT.. ;|
The right tool for the job, I say.. If I were building a large
disk server, I'd go with AIX.. CPU server? Sun.. DB server? Depends..
(It's nice being systems agnostic.. ;)
Cheers,
- Matt
--
Mathew A. Hennessy (henne...@thoughtcrime.com)
bleh.
From: henne...@cloud9.net (Mathew A. Hennessy)
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/29
Message-ID: <76bejb$3u3$1@remarQ.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 426874864
Distribution: inet
References: <36812E1D.57672A6F@uchicago.edu> <75t0kk$7e6$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
<01be314d$1ae15390$142d56d1@buzz>
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Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris
In article <01be314d$1ae15390$142d56d1@buzz>,
dave <nospam. davegrant...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I'll agree on the LVM thing...
>
>Sure, LVM makes life "Easy" when it's time to expand a logical partition.
>(btw, I've never actually done this on AIX, only HP-UX, but the point of
>this post is the same...) This works great until you go to upgrade the OS
>and have to blow away the root drive...How do you remount the intact
>filesystems on the other drives? In HP-UX, you should hope that you did
Not quite sure I follow you: In upgrading AIX from v3.2.5 to both
4.1 and 4.2, I've never had to blow away the rootvg or the / partition..
Are you talking about rebuilding the rootvg? Or adding a new disk to
handle a larger OS? You can have multiple drives in the rootvg, and you
can migratepv your data from smaller drives to a single huge drive if you
like..
>As far as GUI tools go, I guess HP's version of SMIT is SAM...and I prefer
>not to use that either...as these GUI tools just don't always allow the
>flexibility of scripts or command-line switches.
SMIT is better than SAM.. And I don't recall if SAM does it, but
SMIT logs the scripts it generates, so you can learn AIXisms pretty
quickly (and automate them)..
>Pls don't get me wrong, I have no disdain for AIX, HPUX, or any other
>*real* OS (which leaves out NT, obviously)...It's just that more and more
>overhead ("smart" utilities, GUI's, etc.) just confuses things during those
>tense moments.
Depends. I guess it's kind of like trying to find directions to
the Munich Airport in German when you're running late and English is your
first language.. People more familiar with AIX will have just as much
trouble trying to do stuff on Solaris ("how do I chdev -l sys0 -a
maxuproc=100 online?") as the reverse..
>Windows 95 has detected a new device. Please wait while ... (argh!)
>
>Anyway, that's how I feel when using sophisticated tools like LVM..
Funny you mention W95.. I recall when I first started on AIX
(several months before Win95 was released), I was kind of stunned at how
well cfgmgr detected _everything_ I could attach (granted, it was all IBM
branded equipment.. ;)
--
Mathew A. Hennessy (henne...@thoughtcrime.com)
bleh.
From: "dave" <nospam. davegrant...@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Why do you hate AIX?
Date: 1998/12/30
Message-ID: <01be341f$56756fc0$f81556d1@buzz>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 427175925
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References: <36812E1D.57672A6F@uchicago.edu> <75t0kk$7e6$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
<01be314d$1ae15390$142d56d1@buzz> <3687A9DC.8BF52D64@uchicago.edu>
Organization: MindSpring Enterprises
Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris
Hi Mark,
On HP, you can "upgrade" hpux from 10.x to 11.0 and there's no need to blow
away the file systems... That is, unless you find your "/" partition is too
small because the guy you inherited the machine from did an upgrade from
9.x to 10.x and was using the 9.x recommended size for "/".
However if you'd like to do a little house cleaning of all the junk "the
other guy" loaded into various nooks and crannies of the core OS partitions
(/, /usr/bin, et cetera) a clean install has a nice quality to it...of
course the users, apps, databases, etc. live on separate physical devices,
so there's no need to mess with them.
my only point was that its super easy to grab a few core files from /etc
(passwd [shadow] , hosts, nsswitch.conf, resolv.conf, fstab, dfs/dfstab, et
cetera) and just put them back after a clean OS install. mount -a comes to
mind. There's no need to point and click and drag and right click and
(yuk).
Happy holidays,
Dave
--
+-----------------------------+----------------+
| ple...@do.not s...@me.spam |...@mindpsring.com |
| iw...@not.buy.from.spammers |davegrantier |
+-----------------------------+----------------+
Mark <m-daw...@uchicago.edu> wrote in article
<3687A9DC.8BF52...@uchicago.edu>...
> Hello, Dave. I haven't worked a great deal with HP-UX, but I can tell
you
> that on AIX, and OS upgrade does NOT blow away the root drive. AIX
> has a choice of about 3 or 4 types of installations so that you can
choose
> to upgrade w/o messing with your data at all. Check it out.
>
> [ extra lines clipped ]