How about a <flame> on UHC R4 Unix?

[Andrew Herbert]

I have UHC SVR4.0 version 2, and, also, am rather annoyed with UHC.

In <10270 at hub.ucsb.edu> jim at ferkel.ucsb.edu (Jim Lick) writes:

...
>The first thing I noticed is that the default shell is the
>Bourne shell.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I find the Bourne
>shell hideous.  I can only tolerate using csh or bash.
...
>There is one more bug I found, and it is a big one!  I haven't figured out
>exactly what is causing it, but it has something to do with the length of
>the path to your current directory.  The bug is only in csh.  The same
>command sequence will work fine in sh.  The bug occurs in a 3rd or 4th
>level directory.  For instance, /usr/share/man or /home/jim/temp.  Go to
>such a directory and type 'ls'. [comments about csh dying]
...

Try ksh - I find it rather likeable; indeed slightly superior to csh.  It
also has the advantage of not core dumping in semi-deep directories.  Make
sure, if root uses ksh, to copy it from /bin/ksh to /sbin/ksh and have the
passwd entry refer to it in /sbin (same applies to any non-sbin shell for
root).  This prevents nasty happenings when /usr is unavailable (not a
pretty sight when trying to boot...).

>I started my inquiry on a Monday.  The person I needed to talk to was then
>out to lunch, but the secretary took down the information and promised to
>have him call back.  Nothing happened, so I called back on Tuesday.
>[comments about UHC's unresponsiveness]

I haven't been able to get anything out of UHC since I purchased their
SVR4 about two months ago.  Their uucp connection is either dead or
they can't be bothered replying, just as they don't care to reply to faxes.
I'm waiting for something to *really* annoy me (rather than problems which
people on the net have helped me solve, while UHC ignored requests for
support) before I phone them (international call expense, grumble).  The
absence of many online man pages is showing potential, however :)...

>However, I am feeling more and more like UHC is trying to screw me over.
>Please send any ideas you have on the subject.

I am getting the same vibes from them.

>I'd also like to hear more from other UHC owners!  Hopefully this is an
>isolated incident, and there are fixes for my problems, or maybe this is
>just an elaborate April Fools joke.  However, the lack of input from UHC
>owners here seems rather odd.  I'd also like to hear from Dell, Intel and
>Microport SVR4 owners.  I had previously seen problems with these other
>systems, and that was one reason I had been leaning towards UHC.  Now it
>seems like I could have been better off with one of them.

Yes, I think that when I move from version 2 to version 3 or 4, I'll be
looking at Dell/Microport/Interactive unless UHC get their act together.
Hopefully I'll be able to get some discount out of sympathy for having chosen
such a badly supported product :).  Dell seems to responsive to their customers
(judging from their net presence); hopefully Microport and Interactive are
better than UHC in this respect too.

As for the actual product, I think it is quite good.  However, this is probably
due more to AT&T than UHC.

>                            Jim Lick		       
Andrew Herbert
herbie at dec18.cs.monash.edu.au