In my message on Monday March 10, I asked two questions:
1) Is there such a thing as power management for the monitor in the SUN world?
2) I was interested in hearing from people who used WinDD from Tektronix
in their company.
As always with this list, I received numerous messages which were very
helpful. Thanks very much to the following people:
edz@bsn.com (Edward C. Zimmermann)
whamlin@connetsys.com (William L. Hamlin)
jeffw@smoe.org (Jeff Wasilko)
rudi.schwieger@nbnz.co.nz (Rudi Schwieger)
fetrow@biostat.washington.edu (David Fetrow)
stuart@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Stuart Beck)
mstier@hotmail.com (Matthew Stier)
fletch@ttmc.com (Fletcher B. Cocquyt)
rtommase@fir.fbc.com (Robert Tommaselli)
connorsg@macom.com (Gary Connors)
larry@mitra.com (Larry Williamson)
putsch@UICC.COM(Jeff Putsch)
tcbks0@svho1nfs_1.supervalu.com (Brian K. Stolp)
vogelke@c17.wpafb.af.mil (Karl E. Vogel)
clorence@intmex.com (Carlos Lorence)
john@oncology.uthscsa.edu (John Justin Hough)
.... and any others who happen to mail me after I send out this summary.
(it's always bound to happen :)
1) Is there such a thing as power management for the monitor in the SUN world?
Yes! It's on the black and white CD entitled "Updates For SOLARIS
Operating Environment 2.5.1" in the SMCC directory. The CD also has some
other goodies including SyMON, and Online Validation Test Suite. The
power management works with sun4m and sun4u machines. Not only can it put
the monitor in "power saving" mode, but there's a whole system for
suspending and resuming your Sparcstation that I was unaware of. It's
actually quite fascinating. I installed the following packages from the
CD:
SUNWpmu Power Management binaries
SUNWcpr.m Suspend, Resume package (sun4m)
SUNWcpr.u Suspend, Resume package (sun4u)
SUNWpmr Power Management config file and rc script
SUNWpmow Power Management OW Utilities
There's a few other packages, but they didn't seem necessary. There's
also an AnswerBook on the CD, "Solaris 2.5.1 on Sun Hardware AnswerBook",
but it doesn't really mention what specific packages you need to install
for what machines.
After the installation, I ran "dtpower" and set the "power saving" mode time
for the monitor. I also turned off the "auto" shutdown. I certainly wouldn't
want these machines (in a lab setting) shutting down if they weren't used for
the default of 30 minutes :) The changes get written to the file
/etc/power.conf.
I tried it out, and it works great on a Sparc 10. I'll be adding it to
a lot more machines shortly. I'm told that this feature will probably be
built right into Solaris 2.6 (sounds like the dream OS so far :)
By the way, one interesting point - a number of people mentioned to me
that I could just use a screensaver that blacks out the screen. This is
actually what is currently in use, but this doesn't help because the
phosphor is still active as long as the monitor is on. If you use just a
screensaver on your SUN, and you have the time, and these packages, I
suggest giving them a try.
2) I was interested in hearing from people who used WinDD from Tektronix
in their company.
There was lots of information here. From the responses I got, and from
spending a lot of time looking at various items on the web, it seems that
people who use WinDD are pretty satisfied with it. However, it seems like
you need to have a pretty hefty server with loads of memory to be able to
handle the processing. Finally, WinDD isn't cheap. I received a number
of suggestions for other packages as well.
Here are some of the responses that I received:
From: edz@bsn.com (Edward C. Zimmermann)
>From: "William L. Hamlin" <whamlin@connetsys.com>
>
>Well, I can't offer any information on Sun power management, but I can on
>WinDD. We are currently using this at my current employer. It works
>absolutely wonderfully. Be forewarned, though, that it doesn't do any
>integration between the Sun box and the NT box. It merely provides a
>window that is an NT screen. There is no file/printer sharing (without
>using NFS and the like), drag and drop (at least that we've gotten to
>work), or other such features. This may or may not be an issue for you.
>
>In all, I have been very impressed with WinDD and would recommend its
>usage.
From: David Fetrow <fetrow@biostat.washington.edu>
>You might want to consider the near-identical INsignia product. They
>support import of NIS databases (otherwise you have to manage the user
>ids and passwords seperately) and they have done some work for Microsoft
>in getting the DOS stuff in NT to work well.
>This is NOT one of Insgnia's emulation products.
>
> Tektronix (and probably Insignia) will send you an evaluation copy
>for free. You should have a reasonable Pentium on the network with
>a lot of memory in it to try these out (64MB makes a good minimum).
From: stuart@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Stuart Beck)
>We evaluated windd at our site for a few months. It installs windows 3.5??
>server version on the machine itself so if you know about that you know about
>windd. What windd allows you is the ability to bring up a "desktop" on a
>remote machine, they have sun and alpha clients that I know of. We had it
>set up so you could rsh in and get the windows environment so we only needed
>to get the permissions right on the client end (running solaris so we needed
>xhost + the windd machine, and set the display correctly also) it was
>reasonably easy to setup (there was some initial truoble due to internal site
>configuration issues, not related to windd)
From: "Matthew Stier" <mstier@hotmail.com>
>2) When WinDD first came out it had a number of reliability problems, but the
>current implementation is easy enough to setup, and is basically a set and
>forget at our shop. It will handle a number of users, but it only takes a few
>power users, to drag the system down. We implemented it to keep from having to
>install PC on everyones desktops, especially when some needed only minimal
>access to PC productivity applications. Using Samba, (or later the NetApp
>server) to permit WinDD users access to thier Unix home directories is easy to
>implement, and a savior in disk space and headaches in transfering files.
From: fletch@ttmc.com (Fletcher B. Cocquyt)
>We've been running the product for close to 2 years without a problem:
>WinDD version 2.x under Solaris 2.5.1 on Ultra1's
>The users actually prefer running Lotus Notes through WinDD on their
>Suns.
>No complaints - then again, the NT admin takes care of those ;)
From: "Robert Tommaselli" <rtommase@fir.fbc.com>
>This is a very cool product. We've been using it for about 9 months.
>The best feature is that you can recieve mail attachments in a mailer
>and relate the attachment to an applicaton in your mailer config file.
>Some mailers will automaticly launch windd/excel if you get an attachment
>type is xls etc.....It looks almost plug and play.
>
>If you plan to run WinDD make sure you couple it with a SAMBA server.
>This will enable you to mount unix disks on to the windd server. This
>will give you your unix home dir on the windd box.
>
>We are using WinDD 2.0 on a big pentium machine. Try it out. Also look
>into NTerprise. It is a smoother looking tool but not as stable as WinDD.
From: Gary Connors <connorsg@macom.com>
>I don't support WinDD yet so I can't give you any support advice but we
>use it here on HP-UX workstations and it's alot better than SoftPC, WABI,
>or SoftWindows. It's faster and more responsive than PC emulators. The
>only drawback I'm aware of so far is if a user turns on one of the
>Windows screen savers, especially the 3D ones, it tends to slow down the
>network.
From: Larry Williamson <larry@mitra.com>
>I have been evaluating a competitive product (build on exactly the
>same Cytrix (sp?) technology) called WinCenter and NTed. WinCenter is
>actually built by NCD. NTed is an excellent Solaris product that
>integrates the Wincenter into the CDE environment is a beautiful way.
>
>These systems actually run a real copy of WinNT 3.51 (no WinNT 4.0
>yet) on a Pentium system. The "trick" is the Cytrix software that
>allows an NT system to display on a remote X terminal. Cytrix has
>been able to convince NT it really is a multiuser machine. It is not
>a perfect match, since there is a lot in NT that is built with the
>sure knowledge it is *not* a multiuser machine. But it does work
>quite well.
>
>WinCenter has a couple of really nice features that WinDD does not
>seem to have. The one I like best is the NIS integration. The
>WinCenter WinNT server does not have to have users defined in the
>normal WinNT way. If an unknown user tries to use the system, it
>queries the NIS system to decide how to autoconfigure the account!
>Very nice.
>
>Others love the idea of double clicking on an email in dtmail that has
>a word attachment and MS-Word starts up with the body of the message
>in it. Quite slick, but I don't use that functionality.
>
>I don't know how much of a price difference there is.
>
>This WinCenter/NTed stuff is sold by TriTeal. Give them a call at
>1.800.874.8325. I have dealt with Linnea Sandler at ext 5533.
From: Jeff Putsch <putsch@UICC.COM>
>With regards to your second question about WinDD, we have decided to go with
>a similar product from a company called TriTeal. TriTeal's product is called
>NTED.
>
>The primary reason for our choice is the higher level of integration TriTeal
>provides. They have integrated the MS environment into the Unix environment
>seamlesly. In your email and on your desktop you will find MicroSoft icons
>(Word, Excel, etc.), click on them and the 'right thing' happens.
>
>Other packages you may want to look at:
>
> WinCenter from NCD
> NTrigue from Insignia
>
>All of these, WinDD, NTED, WinCenter, and NTrigue are based upon technology
>from Citrix. Citrix makes a multi-user NT kernel that can and does support
>all these products.
From: tcbks0@svho1nfs_1.supervalu.com (Brian K. Stolp)
>Well it must be a Sunshine day because Supertvalu is currently using both
>products. We are currently using Windd on a small scale and have tentative
>plans for broadening the scope of use to other departments. We had some
>initial problems with both the 2.0 and 3.0 releases. We are currently using
>Windd 3.0 with cytric Service Pack 5 patches ( this is a must!! - to prevent
>netware 4.0 problems. ) We also have a hot fix from Tektronics that was
>instaled ). All in all, we are cureently running very smoothly in this
>environment for approximately 2 months. ( Supervalu is a very large netware
>site. ) There are some specifics to the installation but over all it is very
>easy for someone with both Sun and netware ( windows NT ) knowledge.
From: "Karl E. Vogel" <vogelke@c17.wpafb.af.mil>
> The Cliff-notes version is: try before you buy. Last year, we set up a
> small test network of around 10 X-terminals plus a Compaq server running
> WinDD, and we were able to beat the thing into the ground by just running
> simple Excel and Word applications. Maybe they've improved their product;
> it has been a year since we tried it.
>
> We had a choice between getting WinDD and getting 380 PCs for our users,
> and we chose the individual PCs. If you want more details, feel free to
> give me a call.
I hope you find this information helpful.
Jason Keltz
cs911089@ariel.cs.yorku.ca
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:11:48 CDT