[Info-vax] VSI software

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <rghuou$aje$1 at dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
<davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes: 

> >> How do you know that the V8.4 system is the problem?  Because it
> >> manifests itself there?  That in no way says that is where the cause of
> >> the problem exists.
> >
> > It worked fine before the upgrade.  It didn't work after the upgrade.
> > I've done upgrades many times, and this one was straightforward.
> >
> > I appreciate the sympathy and concern :-) but life is short.  Since a
> > fresh install of x86 is on the horizon anyway, and even before that I'll
> > have to go to VSI VMS on Alpha, it really isn't worth worrying about.
> >
> 
> I find your attitude humorous.
> 
> Your horizons are rather far off.  Figure maybe 2022, or, if you're 
> going to wait for "bare metal", perhaps much further off.

It's just a hobbyist system.  I have two nodes with 7.3-2 which has no 
problem with DECwindoes, and can boot satellites off of them (which is 
how I usually work with CDE).  I need practically no features of 8.4.  
If the 8.4 node failes, I just swap the hardware.  No problem waiting 
another couple of years, especially since I've been living with it for a 
couple of years already.

Note: I spend only a small fraction of my free time on my VMS hobby.

> You admit you will need to do a fresh install on x86.  Can't avoid it. 

Right.

> But why would you do the other upgrades, 

Because I have to if I want to do a rolling upgrade to x86.  

> and there may be issues with 
> getting Alpha VMS V8.4 2L1.  

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

> All you really need, assuming you want your 
> data on x86, and will stop using VAX/Alpha/itanic, is to copy your data 
> to the new HW.  An excellent tool for this would be DECnet, which will 
> work with HPe releases and VSI releases.
> 
> Oh, wait, you don't use DECnet ....

I could, and probably will, for other reasons, set up DECnet.  But it is 
not an option here.

Note that when the system is up, I have to copy "live" disks.  Not only 
is that iffy, but after the copy, the one still facing the internet 
changes (incoming mail, etc.).  

For static data, sure, I could copy, but doing it via shadow copies is 
easier and less error-prone.