Return-Path: jeffrey Return-Path: Received: by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12592; Tue, 18 Aug 92 13:46:18 PDT Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 13:46:18 PDT From: jeffrey (Jeffrey Osier) Message-Id: <9208182046.AA12592@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib Subject: Inside Cygnus Engineering - Monthly Newsletter ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 1 No 8 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING August 1992 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside Cygnus Engineering (ICE) is published monthly for customers of Cygnus Support. Our objective is to provide a relevant but informal summary of news and ongoing activities. Please send all comments, suggestions, and subscription requests to engnews@cygnus.com. PRODUCTS AND RELEASES --------------------- 1. Cygnus Developers' Kit for Solaris 2.0 We'd like to extend a warm welcome to the many new customers who have joined us this month with the shipment of the Cygnus Development Kit for Solaris 2.0. After the hard work of the last few months, it was very gratifying for us to see the rows and rows of product boxes that filled up our staging area just before they went out the door. Our "Early Adopters" program is now over - many thanks again for all your support. Anyone who is interested in the Solaris product can get a year of support for 5 users for $3,000, and $600 for each additional user. There are other ways to obtain the Cygnus Development Kit: We offer a special tape, documentation, and installation support only package for $700. The Developers' Kit will also appear on the SunSoft Catalyst CDware (tm) Volume 4 disc, which will be published later this year. Alternatively, you can get the software via FTP from UUNET Technologies, uunet uucp, or 900-number uucp. This is packaged with separate binaries and sources. Only the binary tar file is required to compile and debug C programs; it also includes the online documentation. To produce high quality printed documentation using TeX, you will need the sources. The following files are available: -rw-r--r-- 1 86 21 28258 Jul 15 07:24 INSTALL -rw-r--r-- 1 86 21 12697 Jul 16 20:11 README -rw-r--r-- 1 86 21 5851617 Jul 16 18:10 cygnus-sol2-1.0.bin.tar.Z -rw-r--r-- 1 86 21 10573106 Jul 16 18:53 cygnus-sol2-1.0.src.tar.Z By Anonymous FTP: ftp.uu.net:/packages/cygnus/... By uucp: uunet!~/packages/cygnus/... Using +1 900 GOT SRCS: uunet!~/packages/cygnus/... Any site in the US running UUCP may call uunet at +1 900 GOT SRCS and use the login "uucp" to retrieve these files. There is no password. Your phone company will bill you $0.50 per minute for the call. Since the original distribution, we have made slight revisions, mostly in packaging although two minor bugs were fixed also. Please do not be surprised if you find a "1.1" release instead of a "1.0" release. The current distribution does not include C++. We will ship C++ on December 1, 1992. A release for Solaris 2 on Intel 386 and 486 architectures is planned for late this year or early next year. 2. Progressive Update The 5-host progressive compiler tools and emacs releases are now shipping. (The hosts are Sun3, Sun4, DECstation, IBM RS6000, and SGI-Iris.) We had some last minute glitches with the emacs release process and had to rebuild and recut the tapes. This is now completed - thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding. The progressive Cross Developers' Toolkit, nicknamed P3, continues to build momentum. A second alpha release now includes Sun3, Sun4, DECStation, and HP9000 Series 700 as hosts, and 68k generic a.out and 68k VxWorks targets. As we gain proficiency in the configure and build process, cleaning up inconsistencies and filling in gaps as we go, it looks like things are finally getting easier. Of course this is no time for us to relax. By the end of the third quarter, we are expecting to package together 44 host-target combinations. The host-target matrix is shown below. Targets are shown with variations in object file formats. For a family of microprocessors like the 68k, the supported family members are listed. \ HOST | DEC IBM SGI TARGET \ | SUN4 SUN3 SOL2 STN RS6K IRIS DOS HP300 HP700 --------------+-------------------------------------------------------- Native | X X X X X X 68k VxWorks | X X X X X X X X 68k a.out | X X X X X 68k coff | X X X 29k MINIMON | X X X X 960 VxWorks | X X X X 960 Nindy | X X SPARC VxWorks | X X X X X X X SPARC a.out | X X ix86 a.out | X X X 68k = 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, 68040 i960 = KA, KB, CA ix86 = 386, 486 SPARC = SPARC, SPARClite This is a rather ambitious task, where the sheer weight of numbers will be a siginificant challenge; for example, each installed host-target combination takes 40 megabytes of disc storage, plus up to 180 megabytes temporary space during the build phases. Although this matrix is only partially filled, as we proceed, we may have to eliminate a few additional elements. However, this is the goal we have set for ourselves this quarter, and we are currently making steady progress. NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS ---------------------------- We are implementing some of these only for certain platforms, so for the moment, they are not all tested or available for generic use. 1. DOS x AMD 29k Cross Development Tools A number of our customers and propsective customers have expressed strong interest in DOS hosting for cross development tools. We showed the DOS x AMD 29k GNU toolset, using an i486 notebook as the host and the AMD29200 eval board target, at the AMD Fusion29k Conference in early August. This attracted a great deal of interest, particularly among Pacific Rim representatives. DOS will be a supported host for the progressive GNU Cross Development Toolkit scheduled for the end of September. SUPPORT ACTIVITIES ------------------- In addition to new developments, a significant part of our engineering resources is devoted to answering questions, fixing problems in the GNU software, and providing a range of support services to our customers. 1. "Could you please file a Problem Report with Send_PR?" A number of our customers have heard us make this request. This is not because we love bureaucracy here; it's simply one of the ways you can help us most effectively meet your needs. A PRMS Report provides a centralized, permanent record of a bug report or a support request. Unlike personal email or voice-mail messages, it will not be inadvertently misfiled, or buried when someone goes on vacation. It is distributed to everyone in Cygnus interested in the software program and/or the sender (customer). The result is that you get increased coverage and better response time. Regular overview reports and summaries are generated from PRMS entries. We can provide these reports to our Core and Leveraged customers on a weekly basis. We also use these reports internally to review our customer support and project statuses. PRMS reports are also used as a "software release bulletin" to describe the state of software in progressive releases. To put it another way, PRMS is a major communication channel between our customers and our staff, and amongst our staff internally. It is, of course, only one of a number of channels, but it can be very effective, and we'd like your help in keeping it so. 2. Closing Problem Reports One part of the PRMS communication mechanism is to make sure that you, the customer, is satisfied. When you receive a patch for a problem report, or a response to a support request, the PR is put into the "feedback" state. The PR is not closed until you tell us that you are satisfied. The following table shows the distribution of PR's in the different states over the last few months. % % % % % # Date Open Analzd Fdback Closed Suspnd Total ------------------------------------------------------------ 04/27/92 22.4 2.9 8.9 59.7 6.2 970 06/01/92 21.9 2.8 8.5 60.6 6.2 1039 07/06/92 20.7 5.1 11.0 57.2 6.0 1187 08/10/92 20.0 5.4 12.7 54.4 7.5 1347 Two trends are discernable: decreasing percentage of open's with increasing percentage of analyzed's and feedback's, and decreasing percentage of closed's. The first is part of a concerted effort to respond quickly to our customers by reproducing and identifying the problems (analyzed) and providing fixes (feedback). The second, seemingly contrary statistic is the result of more consistently waiting for customer input before closing each problem report. We need your help in closing PR's that have been resolved to your satisfaction. Please let us know when we may move one of your PR's to the "closed state". 3. Software maintenance status Starting this month, we are reporting the maintenance statistics for all states in PRMS rather than just the number of new and closed reports. # # # # # # Date Open Analzd Fdback Closed Suspnd Total ------------------------------------------------------------ 07/06/92 246 61 71 130 679 1187 08/10/92 269 73 101 171 733 1347 ------------------------------------------------------------ Change +23 +12 +30 +41 +54 +160 OTHER ITEMS ----------- We value your inputs, and would like to ask for your response to the following questions (to engnews@cygnus.com). We will publish summaries of answers in the following issue. 1. How Important is the Guide to Cygnus Support Services to you? We were hoping to have first draft copies of our Guide to Cygnus Support Services available in August. However, due to a shortage of technical and documentation bandwidth, this project has been put on hold. Please let us know if you think this document will be of benefit to you as your inputs will influence our prioritization on this effort. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Cygnus Support 814 University Avenue One Kendall Square Palo Alto, CA 94301 Cambridge, MA 02139 +1 415 322 3811 voice +1 617 494 1040 voice +1 415 322 3270 fax +1 617 494 1325 fax