DISCLAIMER: I try to keep this information correct, up-to-date, and useful. From time to time, errors and oversights will occur. While this group is read by numerous SCO staff and other experts, and they tend to catch any mistakes I make, there is no guarantee that the information below is 100% right.
THANKS: I can't do this without the help of a number of other people. You know who you are. Thank you.
It's short for Frequently Asked Questions. If you have a question, look here for the answer before posting, so that we don't have lots of people asking the same questions every week or two. Many of the most common questions regarding the mailing list and SCO products are here somewhere.
There are two other FAQs which appear here from time to time. Ed Hew maintains the "FAQ: SCO Unix newsgroups and mailing lists" FAQ, which contains background on these newsgroups/mailing lists and information on common administrative procedures. There is also an FTP site FAQ which is far more comprehensive than the one included in this FAQ.
There is also a list below of other newsgroups which often cover material which relates to SCO Xenix and Unix as well as other Unix systems. Many of these newsgroups also have FAQs which you may wish to research. For those questions which just can't wait, many FAQs are archived at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/, in a directory structure organized into the same hierarchy as Usenet news.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]There are two different FAQ lists for this newsgroup/mailing list. This is the administrivia one; it is entirely devoted to stuff about what this mailing list/newsgroup is about, what others exist, how to subscribe or unsubscribe, etc. If you want technical answers, please look for the companion list which deals with all sorts of technical questions. The Technical FAQ consists of three parts. The Administrative FAQ and all parts of the Technical FAQ are posted at the same time, approximately every fourteen days, so they should reach you at about the same time. Both lists live at http://staff.ussinc.com/~steved/scofaq/.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]In December 1994, a formal RFD (Request For Discussion, an article which officially begins discussion on proposed additions, changes, or deletions to Usenet newsgroups) was issued proposing that the biz.sco hierarchy be moved and reorganized into a new hierarchy, comp.unix.sco. The CFV (Call For Votes, an article which officially solicits votes on a proposal initiated via an RFD) was issued in March 1995; it passed in April 1995. In that same month, the following three newsgroups were created:
The existing biz.sco hierarchy was not deleted at this time to allow for a graceful cutover. As is normal Usenet practice, after a suitable period of coexistence, it has been removed; the news control messages to remove the biz.sco newsgroups were sent on 3 June 1995.
Many of the biz.sco newsgroups were also available via mailing lists. Subscribers to those mailing lists will find that their subscriptions have been transformed into subscriptions to the appropriate comp.unix.sco newsgroups.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]There are six mailing lists, to go with the six SCO newsgroups. Each of the mailing lists has three addresses:
Here are the charters for these newsgroups, as they appeared in the CFV:
Questions, answers, comments and discussion about past, present and future SCO and related third party products and services, not more specifically covered by one of the other newsgroups, including but not limited to:
Questions, answers, comments and discussion about past, present and future SCO development system products and related software and issues, including but not limited to:
Product, service, and business announcements of reasonable interest to the SCO community of developers, distributors, resellers, consultants, administrators and end-users, submitted by:
This is a general-purpose forum for discussion about products of Novells [sic] Unix Systems Group, primarily its implementation of Unix for PC-architecture systems sold under the name UnixWare.
Appropriate product and service announcements should now be sent to comp.unix.sco.announce.
[SCO acquired the UnixWare product line from Novell in 1995.]The canonical charter is: XENIX versions from the Santa Cruz Operation. The original full charter is unavailable.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Send a message to the administrative address listed above for the list which interests you. Your message should contain one line:
Add: sco???: yourname@youraddress.yourdomain
Replace ??? with the three-letter code for the mailing list you want (msc, prg, ann, uwr, or xnx).
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Send a message to the administrative address listed above for the list to which you wish to unsubscribe. Your message should contain one line. Use exactly the same address you used when you subscribed. The one line should read:
Delete: sco???: yourname@youraddress.yourdomain
Replace ??? with the three-letter code for the mailing list you want (msc, prg, ann, uwr, or xnx).
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Check your request; make sure you didn't misspell anything. If all else fails, send a note to the human administrator behind the list.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Well, you can send multiple requests in the same administrative request. However, there is a waiting period for Add: requests, so you may want to send a message to add yourself at your new address first, then wait until that succeeds before deleting your old address.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Don't. See the Net.Etiquette section for more info.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Note that the announcements list is moderated; anything you send to it must be approved by the moderator before it actually makes its way out to the rest of the world.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Note that the moderated newsgroup comp.unix.sco.announce is specifically for announcements related to the SCO community. Consider posting a one-time announcement about your product to that newsgroup.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Maybe you're listed more than once in the mailing list. If you sent more than one Add: request, perhaps thinking one had bounced, you may be listed more than once.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]I know of two possible causes for this. One is that many articles get crossposted to more than one newsgroup. For example, it is not appropriate for articles to be crossposted to comp.unix.sco.programmer and to comp.unix.sco.misc (as .misc specifically excludes everything which fits into other newsgroups in the hierarchy), but some people do it anyway. If you subscribe to both lists, you will receive two copies of the article, since it appears in both lists.
The other possibility is that some site upstream of you may have a flaky mailer that occasionally duplicates messages (I've been bitten by this one). There is no known cure for the former condition; the latter, if you can identify it, can possibly be remedied by means of a polite note to the sysadmin at the offending site.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]There is one, other than the rest of the comp.unix.sco hierarchy. That newsgroup is comp.unix.xenix.sco, which is for the discussion of SCO Xenix. As comp.unix.xenix.sco specifically includes only discussion of SCO Xenix, please keep SCO Unix discussion out of it.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]There are dozens of Unix newsgroups and hierarchies in the comp.unix hierarchy. Some are specific to certain Unix versions (e.g. comp.unix.solaris), while others are specific to tasks and roles (e.g. comp.unix.programmer, comp.unix.admin). There are also some version-specific groups under comp.os (e.g. comp.os.linux). There are a few Unix newsgroups outside comp.unix and comp.os, such as comp.security.unix.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]All kinds of goodies pass through this list from time to time. You will find lists of SLSes (Support Level Supplements), EFSes (Enhanced Feature Supplements, if memory serves), product compatibility matrices, lists of the most current versions of each SCO product, and stuff like that. I highly recommend capturing the most recent one of each of these and saving it somewhere on your machine; they can be very handy to keep around.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Both the Technical and Administrative FAQ lists live at http://staff.ussinc.com/~steved/scofaq/.
JP Radley <jpr@jpr.com> keeps copies; see ftp://ftp.jpr.com/pub/scoMailListAdm.FAQ.gz and ftp://ftp.jpr.com/pub/scoMailListTech.FAQ.gz
Ed Hew <edhew@xenitec.on.ca> also keeps copies under ftp://ftp.xenitec.on.ca/pub/news/faqs/
Luis E. Velazquez <luelazg@hargray.com> has made the FAQ available on the Web; see http://www.hargray.com/~luelazg/unix/, http://www.bft.usmc.mil/unix/, or http://mcmsmo3.usmc.mil/unix/ (the latter is scheduled to come on-line in mid June 1997).As well, Lucky Leavell <ris@iglou.com> has made a copy available by anonymous FTP at ftp://www.iglou.com/members/ris/sco/; it may also be available from http://www.iglou.com/ris/.
Steve Roy <steve@hendrix.postino.com> also keeps a copy of the FAQ at http://www.postino.com/sco/.
I do not know how often the information at these sites is updated. The master copy is always up-to-date (and may be more recent than the last copy posted to the newsgroups, as well).
There is also a gzipped file, SCOMLT.FAG, in library 1 (potpourri) of SCOForum on CompuServe, which contains the technical FAQ.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]By all means, let me know! But do not post it to the list unless you believe it needs wide discussion. If I think input from the list as a whole is required, I will post your note and my comments. Send it to steved@ussinc.com. The FAQ list is only as good as you make it.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Robert Lipe (the gentleman responsible for many of you having gcc on your OSR5 machines) has put together a FAQ on programming for the SCO environment. It's available at http://www.zenez.com/cgi-bin/scoprogfaq/faq.pl?file=1. [Back to top] [Table of Contents]
Your message will be mailed to hundreds of people around the world via the mailing list. Also, since it's gated to a newsgroup, it will end up on thousands of machines all around the world, with a potential audience of tens of thousands of people.
Keep this in mind as you write, because people will perceive you according to how you write. Your grammar, spelling, and politeness will be noted by all of these people, so make a good impression. And don't forget to press your Return key after every 70 characters or so. Please stick to 7-bit standard ASCII characters; many people will be unable to see (or won't correctly see) any other characters such as those for line drawing, accented characters, or characters not used in the English language.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Well, it's a good idea to put your name, email address (both an internet address and a UUCP bang path are useful), your company name and job title (if appropriate), and possibly your phone number and mailing address.
Keep it short, though; four lines is the commonly-accepted Usenet guideline.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]As little as possible to convey the salient points to which you are responding. There is no need to include the headers, the .signature, or anything not directly related to your response.
If you are replying to several points in the previous message, then include the section to which you are replying, and then type your reply immediately below it. Then include the next point, and type your reply immediately below it. This will help people keep track of what points you're addressing.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Don't do this. This is not a test newsgroup. Your test message will waste large amounts of computing and communications resources as it travels to every continent (yes, it will go all around the world). Not only will this make people angry, but it will also make you look stupid. Use alt.test, misc.test, biz.test, etc. for test messages.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Don't do this, either. If your message was sent and nobody replied to it, you will likely find exactly the same response if you post it again, and you will have used up more computing and communications resources and have gained nothing.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]If you have something constructive to say, then go ahead. But if you don't, then spare us your flame war.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Well then, don't post it here. There are several thousand Usenet newsgroups and hundreds and hundreds of mailing lists; chances are pretty good that one of these is the appropriate place. If you post a question to an inappropriate newsgroup, you really are wasting large amounts of disk space and transmission bandwidth as it goes all around the world.
Note that even if your question is about an SCO product, the SCO miscellaneous mailing list/comp.unix.sco.misc may not be the right place for it. If it's a question about programming, for example, it belongs in comp.unix.sco.programmer.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Please don't. Tab stops may be set differently on different terminals, and what looks perfectly lined up to you will be gibberish on someone else's machine. This is particularly important to remember if you're drawing a diagram. Use spaces, and most of the world will see your diagram as you drew it. Use tabs, and it will make no sense to many readers who might otherwise be able to help you.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Look it up in your manuals first; chances are it's in there somewhere. In particular, check the permuted index, the table of contents of the System Administrator's Guide, and the Release Notes.
If you can't find what you're looking for, look for it in the technical FAQ for this newsgroup, which is posted every two weeks in parallel with this administrative FAQ. Also, look through old articles from this newsgroup/mailing list if your site stores old messages (if you're reading this via Usenet news, chances are your site has at least a few days' worth of back articles online).
If you still can't find the answer, then post it. Please include as much relevant information as you can, such as your hardware configuration and version numbers of all software that might be involved. Here are a few places to get this information:
The moderated newsgroup comp.unix.sco.announce is for announcements. An announcement of your company's new product would likely be appropriate here, if it's a product relevant to SCO systems. An ad for the old copy of Xenix you'd like to get rid of would not. As this is a moderated newsgroup, the moderator has final say over what is and is not appropriate.
The charter for comp.unix.sco.misc specifically states that SCO-related "help wanted" ads are appropriate. Other than this, however, the charters for both comp.unix.sco.misc and comp.unix.sco.programmer specifically prohibit commercial advertisements.
The intent of this prohibition is to allow someone with a spare item (such as a copy of a SCO product, or a piece of hardware which is targeted at the SCO market) to have a place to advertise it, once and once only. If it doesn't sell, don't keep advertising it.
Generally, if you already have something SCO-related, you're not using it, and you just want to get rid of it and try to recover some of the money you invested in it, you should be OK. Otherwise, you're probably not OK.
Examples of inappropriate advertising would include (but not be limited to) a manufacturer, reseller, distributor, or broker advertising products which they intend to sell for a profit, an announcement of a new product or service (this belongs in comp.unix.sco.announce as noted above), or any advertisement unrelated to SCO systems.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Here are some of SCO's numbers; note that the (800) ones are only applicable within North America.
SLSes (Support Level Supplements) and EFSes (Enhanced Feature Support) are SCO's way of fixing bugs and improving performance between releases. Every couple of weeks, SCO posts lists of all SLSes and EFSes here. If you're having a problem, look at these lists and see if any of them will help you. There are other beasts in this alphabetic zoo as well, such as TLSes (unsupported software), games, termcap/terminfo files, SSEs (System Security Enhancements), and the Hardware Compatibility Handbook in electronic format.
SCO operates the anonymous FTP site ftp.sco.com. This is the primary anonymous FTP site for SCO's own files. For web surfers, look at http://www.sco.com/.
Another option worth investigating is ftp.uu.net. Log in and look around the sco-archive directory. Remember to turn on binary mode before getting any binary files! If your ftp doesn't recognize ftp.uu.net, try 137.39.1.9 or 192.48.96.9. To look around, ftp to ftp.uu.net. Log in as "ftp", and supply your username and fully qualified domain name as the password (e.g. log in as ftp and give joecool@snoopy.peanuts.com as your password). Look around the vendor/sco directory hierarchy.
If you don't have FTP, you can get them via anonymous UUCP from SCO. You can find the information on how to do this in your SCO documentation. This information is also included in the lists of SLSes and EFSes that SCO posts here. I've included a brief summary below.
There are also directories for games, updated terminal information, and other miscellaneous tidbits. See the section on how to contact SCO for more details.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]This information is culled from the list of available SLSes that SCO posts periodically.
Call SCO's California modems:
Call SCO's London, England, modems:
SCO also has a system in Frankfurt:
If you have problems, try the second number first. If you still have problems, call the people at +49 (0) 6172 4867-0.
SLSes are stored in /usr/spool/uucppublic/SLS. If you are not sure of the file you want, download the file file.list in this directory. For more information, check the lists of SLSes etc. in this newsgroup; these lists include information on how to find and retrieve the files.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]You can send information requests to info@sco.com. SCO no longer receives support requests by email, but there is a Web page for reporting bugs (http://www5.sco.com/Support/assist/bugassist.html) and you can track the status of a reported bug through the Web as well.
If you have a suggestion for SCO regarding their products, you can post it here or send it to SCO directly, though the latter may appear to go into a bitbucket. There are several SCO employees here, including some development folks, and they do like to hear suggestions on how you think they could better serve your needs.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Ask Archie. Archie is a service that keeps track of all files on a large number of anonymous FTP sites worldwide and allows various queries on its database. For a good tutorial on how to use it, see "Archie, Your Directory for Internet Software" on pp. 96-104 of the September 1992 copy of UnixWorld.
To conduct an interactive session with Archie, telnet into an Archie server site. Log in as archie; there is no password. If you do not have telnet access, you can still access Archie via email. Mail a script of Archie instructions to archie@some-archie-site, where you (obviously) replace some-archie-site with the name of your closest Archie site.
The first time you use Archie, you should issue the help command. This will show you a list of valid Archie commands. Before your next use of Archie, take a few minutes to study the help list. Pay particular attention to the variety of set commands, which can greatly alter the behaviour and efficiency of Archie. Also, please use the Archie server that is closest to you, to help reduce unnecessary network traffic.
The following is a list of Archie servers around the world, as given by ftp://nic.switch.ch/file_server/archie/servers (dated 03/DE/93):
Instructions on using Anomaly are periodically posted to the Usenet groups comp.unix.xenix.sco and comp.unix.sco.misc; please check this posting for full instructions. The following section is condensed from that posting, as of 6 October 1995. Please look for an updated version of that document, which is periodically posted to comp.unix.sco.misc, if some of the instructions below don't work.
The Anomaly Ported Software Archives is an archive of source code which will compile under various SCO operating systems. Software for SCO XENIX, SCO UNIX, and SCO OpenServer is available for transfer. Pre-compiled binaries for SCO OpenServer 5, and full access to the SCO SkunkWare 5 CD-ROM are also available.
To download a file, issue the following uucp request on your machine:
uucp anomaly!~// yoursite!
If you have a file to donate to the archives, then kindly upload it as follows:
uucp yoursite!anomaly!~/incoming/
This will store the file in ANOMALY's incoming directory for posting to the archives. Please include a mail message to "kd1hz" indicating what the file is, etc.
To answer the demand of people on the Internet who wish access to the archives, we have established a mail-based server which can process requests for files. Note that in order to keep our SMTP connection from getting bogged down, we only process *5* megabytes worth of software requests PER DAY. Users with alternative means of obtaining files are encouraged to do so.
To receive instructions on how to use the mail-based archive server, send an e-mail message to snarf@ideamation.com, with a Subject: of 'snarf' and the following two lines starting in column 1:
snarf address [your e-mail address] snarf help
These commands will forward a help file to your reply address. This help file contains all information you require on how to obtain software listings and uuencoded mailings of archive contents.
Note that if you do not have an address line, or you have other errors in the body of your text, you will not get a reply from the server.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]KUSO, the Kanji Users Service Operation, 143.167.25.1 is an archive specializing in
KUSO also carries a limited amount of material in the following areas:
Access to kuso may be made by
The kumitori mail server is experimental. To use it, first send a message with the subject "kumitori" (no quotes) to jp1ek@sunc.shef.ac.uk. The body of the message should be the single line "!help" (no quotes). This will send you the kumitori command list.
If you do not get a reply, change the message body to
!reply_to string !help
where "string" is an explicit e-mail address of whatever form you have found to work from the uk.
Please note that this mail service is experimental and may be withdrawn or modified at any time.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]To download a file, issue the following uucp request on your machine:
uucp ispi!~/archives/yoursite!
Special Note: The archives on ISPI are in source code format. Programs that need GCC are noted.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]XeniTec Archives, Anonymous Access Information: nuucp, ftp, WWW
Orig_Date: Tue Nov 6 22:54:06 EDT 1989xenitec Any ACU 19200 CUP15197435247 ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin: nuucp word: fall89 xenitec Any ACU 19200 CUP15197438363 ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin: nuucp word: fall89
xenitec Any ACU 38400 15197434697 ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:\K-ogin: nuucp word: fall89 xenitec Any ACU 38400 15197435450 ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:-\K-ogin:\K-ogin: nuucp word: fall89
You may substitute an appropriate baud rate depending on what you support, on a per-entry basis for each modem line.
Download the current public archive index file, /archive/pub/index
Should you need freely available source code we don't already have available, email "arcmastr"; we'll try to get it for you.
Anon FTP - ftp xenitec.xenitec.on.ca, log in as "ftp", use your FQDN address as the passwd, eg, "user@foo.bar.com".
WWW (NCSA Mosaic) Server URL: http://www.xenitec.on.ca/
Please note that the above information will change from time to time. Should you find that your results are not what you expect, please email edhew@xenitec.on.ca for updated connectivity info.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]For a list of files currently available, you can UUCP a copy of the list from TeleSys:
Phone Number: 602-649-9099 Multiple Telebit WorldBlazers for V.32/V.32bis/PEP and other baud rates from 300-2400.There are two copies of the list, one 16 bit compressed and the other non-compressed:
uucp telesys!~/files.dir.Z ~/ (16bit Compressed Version)Please read the files.dir file carefully for determining download paths and proper filenames. Unlike the directory files, the files for downloading are not located in the /usr/spool/uucppublic directory.
For assistance, email info@tnet.com
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]ftp.celestial.com is located at 192.136.111.2. It's available at all times, though concurrent usage is restricted to five users during the day and ten at night, Pacific time.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]There is a list of anonymous FTP sites with SCO software posted here occasionally. It is also available at http://www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~smallsa7 or as FTPSITES.LST in library 8 of SCOForum on CompuServe.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]Before I tell you how to do this, think twice before sending such a request, as it has the potential to generate large volumes of email. This not only will fill your mailbox, but will also take up spool space on the drive of every machine it passes through on its way to you.
SCO has an ftpmail server which can be used to get files from SCO's own FTP sites. Send a note to ftpmail@sco.com. The body of the message should simply say
help
The server will return a help message.
For information on using ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com, send a message to that address with any Subject: line (it will be ignored). The body of your message should say:
reply yourname@your.site.com help quit
BITNET users can try bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu. Send a message there with the word help in the Subject: line. Note that this server no longer serves users who are not on BITNET.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]As always, the first answer is RTFM (Read The Manual). Any reputable manufacturer will include instructions on getting technical support with their product. The more aware ones will include not only phone and fax numbers, but often a BBS and sometimes an email address.
However, sometimes a vendor will have an email and/or ftp address which they do not publish in their manuals, and sometimes a user will discover that a critical manual cannot be found in a time of need. Here, then, are some phone/email/ftp addresses for some vendors. Note that this is not intended to be anything close to being an exhaustive list, that it is skewed towards North American phone numbers (particularly (800) numbers), and that the appearance or omission of a vendor below does not constitute in any way an opinion on that vendor. For information on contacting SCO, see elsewhere in this FAQ.
Yes. SCO operates the SCO Forum (GO SCOFORUM) on CompuServe. From the SCO Forum Policy file:
The purpose of the SCO Forum is to provide a useful, open environment for SCO end users, resellers, developers, and partners to converse and exchange their experiences and expertise regarding SCO products and services. It is also intended as a vehicle for SCO to disseminate product information and bug fixes.
In addition to providing a discussion forum, it also provides libraries, including such items as SLSes and EFSes. The forum sysops have access to SCO's TAs and these are frequently posted in reply to questions. As with this mailing list/newsgroup, it is not intended as an alternative to formal SCO support; however, it can be a useful resource for those with an interest in the SCO environment.
[Back to top] [Table of Contents]