A bunch of questions about UUCP on the Unix PC

[Boyd Ostroff]

Several months ago I remember seeing a lot of talk on the net about
mysterious crashes related to 3.51 uucp.  At the time, I was not running
uucp and didn't really follow the subject...WELL, I just set up a
uucp connection with oswego.Oswego.EDU using /dev/ph1 a few days ago, and
then the fun began!

First some background.  I have a 3B1 with 2 MB RAM/67 MB disk and am
running 3.51 as supplied with my machine last fall.  I run a BBS 24 hrs
daily using my own software.  I have a data line hooked up to /dev/ph1 
for logins and nothing on /dev/ph0; I don't use the phone manager with
a voice line.  /dev/tty000 is set up as a direct terminal line at 9600 baud.
Until yesterday, I have had absolutely no problems - the only times my
system has been down is when I have shut it down, and two power outages -
uptimes of 4-6 weeks have been typical.

Last night uucp called up oswego, sent and received a file and disconnected
as it should (according the the LOGFILE).  When I logged in the mail icon
was showing and ksh informed me that I had mail.  I started to read my 
mail and things slowed down to a crawl, garbage characters began to spew
on the console screen, the "working" icon stayed on and everything froze
up.  The "Suspd" key didn't work, but the mouse cursor did move.  Tried
to login over tty000, but nothing happened.  Tried to dial in and the OBM
clicked to answer, but no response there either.  Finally I pressed the
reset button and it booted up ok.  /usr/adm/unix.log shows a "HD: Spurious
Interupt", which I assume is when I hit the reset button.

SO,  here's what I'd like to know...

1) Does this sound like the same problem that others have experienced
with 3.51 uucp?

2) Will 3.51a really fix it?  Our AT&T users group just got a hold of 3.51a,
but nobody has tried to install it yet.  No one else is making much use
of uucp on their Unix PCs yet, but they want to in the future, so my
experiences will hopefully guide them.

3) If the answer to question 2 is "yes", then what NEW problems might
3.51a create for me?  I don't want to "fix" anything that isn't broken.

4) I also remember lots of discussion about problems using the same line 
for dial-in and outgoing uucp calls.  I have a second phone line which I
use for voice only - its not connected to the system at all.  Would I
gain anything by putting an external modem on tty000 and setting it up
for UUCP dial-out ONLY late at night when I'm not using the voice line?

5) On a slightly different but related topic, are there any (preferably
public-domain) mail programs available?  I don't see any listed in
THE STORE! catalog.  The mail(1) provided with the system is pretty limited.
Is anything available for SysV through anonymus ftp? 

6) FINALLY, I would eventually like to get USENET news on my 3B1.  Is there
a version of rn especially for the Unix PC, or is it generic enough that I
can get the sources running under Ultrix from my local vax and compile it 
under SysV?  I'm really only interested in a handful of newsgroups - how
much disk space will the sources/binaries/whatever eat up?  How much will
it hog my cpu/disk when it runs?

All responses will be greatly appreciated!

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Boyd Ostroff * Technical Director * Department of Theatre * SUNY Oswego
Voice: (315) 341-2138  *  sysop "The CallBoard": (315) 947-6414 300/1200 baud
Internet: ostroff at oswego.Oswego.EDU
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