Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!vsi1!altnet!uunet!wucs1!jps
From: jps@wucs1.wustl.edu (James Sterbenz)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Don't Bash Suns
Keywords: Bashing Good Companies vs Evil Companies
Message-ID: <288@wucs1.wustl.edu>
Date: 19 Sep 88 15:54:21 GMT
References: <358@island.uu.net> <626@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <4210@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <3498@ihlpe.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: jps@wucs1.UUCP (James Sterbenz)
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 29

In article <3498@ihlpe.ATT.COM> stuart@ihlpe.ATT.COM (S. D. Ericson) writes:

>On the sun, I may have to wait 5-10 seconds some times for a
>menu to pop up! After choosing a new shell window, NOTHING HAPPENS
>IMMEDIATELY.  Often I think the machine lost my command and
>re-issue it, only to find a whole slew of these windows popping
>up on my screen.  I find it VERY disconcerting that the machine
>can't at least give an indication of menu acceptance (after all,
>sometimes the commands fail - I don't just want to wait around).

Sun seems to have a serious problem with their scheduling algorithm.
The problem gets even worse with CPU intensive background tasks.
Simulations running (nice'd) on our uVAX II have little to no effect
on windowing (X rather than SUNtools).  Just one simulation on
our SUN 3 horribly degrades SUNtools performance.  Either the scheduler
stinks, or SUNtools are horribly inefficient.  Observing the decisions
to swap, etc., I suspect the former.

BTW, what do people think of the SUN mechanically?  When we got ours,
I was suprised at how cheap the keyboard felt, kind of like on a 
PCjr.  When we had a monitor go out, we paid $600, and got a recon
back, that had obvious, and poorly done repaint to scratches in the
on one side.  Second replacement monitor not much better.  Third 
monitor replacement not great, but we're sick of returning it.
-- 
James Sterbenz  Computer and Communications Research Center
                Washington University in St. Louis 314-726-4203
INTERNET:       jps@wucs1.wustl.edu
UUCP:           wucs1!jps@uunet.uu.net