[rescue] tip and cu ::::WAS::::Re: SUN PCMCIA SBus Card

[Dave McGuire]

On 05/25/2018 04:09 PM, Jerry Kemp wrote:
>> B B  Terrifying.
> 
> :)B B B  sorry to send shivers down your spine on a Friday afternoon on a
> (3) day holiday weekend.B  I suppose, worse comes to worse, if that's
> terrifying, I suppose that life can't be to bad.

  Heh.  If you only knew.  Multiple deaths, etc recently.  But yeah
thanks for adding to the nightmare, I'll try to return the favor
sometime. B-)

> OTOH, by far, my favorite
> window manager is OLVWM. I guess it takes all types.

  OLVWM!!  I remember it well!  That's a damn fine window manager.  I
tried them all back in the day, and olvwm was where I settled for quite
some time.

  I wonder how well it'd integrate with gnome etc.

> I recently acquired a Raspberry Pi console cable, and for usage, they
> suggest the 'screen' utility.B  I gave that a try on a (somewhat) newer
> (10.12) Mac OS X desktop, and I see that it is using the /dev/cu device
> for communications.B  Reference process table entry:
> 
> 410 % ps -ef | grep -i cu
> 
> B B B  0B  4725B  4717B B  0 30Apr18 ttys017B B B  0:06.52 screen
> /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART
> B B B  0B  4726B  4725B B  0 30Apr18 cu.SLAB_USBtoUARTB B  0:00.03 SCREEN
> /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART
> 
> 411 %

  Yeah, but that's not tip/cu, that's just a device name.

>> B B  But having been a UNIX guy since the mid-1980s, and working with
>> nothing but UNIX guys since I started working, I'm astonished to hear
>> that anyone uses tip (or cu for that matter).B  It's kinda like "goto" in
>> C: Not intended to be used, but when you decide that you need it, it
>> tells you that it's time to refactor your code.B  When you start to
>> execute tip, it should be a reminder to install a real comm program.
> 
> hmmmmmm, I'm going to respectfully disagree here.B  The usage of 'goto'
> is considered bad programming practice.

  Yes. we're actually in agreement there. ;)

> I've worked with many new admin's who, most definitely out-of-the-gate,
> were not vi people.B  It's something that is thrust on them.
> When everything is up and operational, there are (frequently) options.
> OTOH, when something is down, in recovery mode, etc, one is forced to
> use what is available in single-user-mode, failsafe mode, etc.
> B Sometimes that means useage of vi, tip, etc.B B  Sometimes a full
> terminal isn't available and one is forced to use a line-editor.

  When things are a mess in the datacenter, you do what you've gotta do
to get stuff going.  I've used echo and redirection to write
configuration files from scratch, as I'm sure you have as well.

> FWIW, when Solaris 2.5 shipped with PPP capability, one had to do some
> basic setup/configuration of the 'cu' facility for PPP to work.B  My
> understanding was that was the first time that was included as part of
> the OS, and I upgraded (@HOME) from Solaris x86 ver 2.4 to get that PPP
> capability.B  Prior to that, it was 3rd party packages, either PPP or
> SLIP or CSLIP.

  I think that's a matter of the ppp subsystem and cu using the same
dialer configuration file though, isn't it?

          -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA