Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: jeffrey@agora.rdrop.com (Jeff Raihanan) Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 06:10:33 GMT Vicki Brown (vicki@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: : I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity : test (those of you recently out of college or still working in one know : what a "purity test" is and the rest can guess). Questions range from the : benign to the true test of purity: : Have you changed root's password? : More than once? : More than three times in a month? [stuff deleted] Ok, how about these? 1) Have you ever crashed the server? More than once in a day? On purpose? 2) Have you ever accidently deleted a *LARGE* amount of data from your company's database using query? Did you recover it? Would it have been quicker to retype it all in instead? 3) Ever format the wrong disk? Was this other disk important? Did the owner want to kill you? Were you able to unformat it successfully? Did the owner then treat you like a god? Do you thrive on being treated like a god? 4) Ever just walk into a room to troubleshoot a computer and "the problem" mysteriously goes away? Does this happen all the time? Do the lights dim when you enter? 5) Do you use more than one operating system on your computer? More than three? More than five? Do you use just one, but it's one you wrote yourself? 6) Do you know more programming languages than presidents? Do you read computer magazines? Do you admit it? 7) Ever lied to your boss about having a current backup of the company database? Did he believe you? Do you have a current backup right now? Do you have *any* backups? 8) Have you ever lost power to the server because your UPS died? Did it crash a critical application? Did you explain the irony to your boss? Did he think it was funny? 9) Ever reverse engineer a program? Did it work after? Did you do it to get rid of those pesky "Not Registered" shareware messages? Did you put your own name in there to make it *look* like you were registered? 10) Do you make your own cables? Do they work? Have you ever wondered why anyone would *buy* a serial cable? Have you ever strung 5 or more converters/tranceivers together to make a cable do something it was never intended? 11) Have you ever told a newbie that the "any" key is the big switch labled "1/0"? Did you deny it when confronted by your boss? 12) Ever set up a "God" account so you could send system messages to newbies that say "Message from God:..." Did the newbie then run to your office and say "Come quick! Look at this!"? Do you do this regularly? Has anyone figured it out yet? -- Jeff Raihanan | "A little technique is worth a lot of Portland, Oregon | strength." jeffrey@agora.rdrop.com | -- Rock climber's mantra -- From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 8 Dec 1994 12:49:43 -0800 In article <3c52ca$edg@news.cs.tulane.edu> sirinek@cs.tulane.edu (Bill Sirinek) writes: > >Have you killed a process of your own? Have you ever issued a Kill -9 -1? >Do you ever run your jobs with negative nice values? Have you ever set your shell to a RealTime process with priocntl? Have you ever exclusive-locked your processes on a CPU with mpcntl? >Have you ever deleted a user's files? Have you ever deleted /dev/null? From: crosby@nordsieck.cs.colorado.edu (Matthew Crosby) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 10 Dec 1994 21:13:37 GMT In article <3c0ufb$qet@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Vicki Brown wrote: >I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity >test (those of you recently out of college or still working in one know >what a "purity test" is and the rest can guess). Questions range from the >benign to the true test of purity: > >Have you changed root's password? >More than once? >More than three times in a month? Do you have a couch in your machine room? A stereo? A Bed? A TV? Do you use them all regularily? Do you _need_ a machine room? Have you ever been broken into? By a KGB agent? Did you care? Have you ever broken into someone else? Is that how you got your job? Have you ever threatened to kill someones account if they ask another stupid question? Did you? Have you ever used the phrase RTFM? Shouted it? Do you own a button with it you wear around? Have you ever forgotten your root password? Did it matter? Ever used a Sun? Sun 2, that is? How about a Cray? Ever toggled in a boot sequenece on a PDP/11? Ever used a machine with more then ten blinking lights? Do you mount racks of fake led's to make your hardware more impressive? Do you run more then 5 architectures? Is there less then 100 of one of them in existence? Did you port the OS to it yourself? Do you own a Unix source code license? Do you use it? Ever been to Usenix? How about Lisa? Published a paper at one of them? Are you in the "in" crowd at these conferences? Do you have a localisation checklist? Does it include "rm `which smit`"? (or sam, or admintool, or whatever..) Does it include "Port OS?" Does it include "Write OS?" Does it include building hardware? -- Matthew Crosby crosby@cs.colorado.edu Disclaimer: It was another country, and besides, the wench is dead. From: bfr@panix.com (Brian Reynolds) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 10 Dec 1994 18:16:39 -0500 In article <3c52ca$edg@news.cs.tulane.edu>, Bill Sirinek wrote: >In article <3c0ufb$qet@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, >Vicki Brown wrote: >>I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity >>test (those of you recently out of college or still working in one know >>what a "purity test" is and the rest can guess). Questions range from the >>benign to the true test of purity: >> >Have you ever shutdown the system during peak time? >With no notice? > During a reboot, have you ever pulled the plug on the wrong machine? More than once? Did you go back and label the (backs of) the machines? -- Brian Reynolds -- bfr@panix.com PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC. From: alderc@aol.com (Alderc) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 11 Dec 1994 12:55:35 -0500 In article <3cdcsn$2ue@panix.com>, bfr@panix.com (Brian Reynolds) writes: > >During a reboot, have you ever pulled the plug on the wrong machine? >More than once? >Did you go back and label the (backs of) the machines? Do you write baud rates etc on the backs of networked printers? Do you wake up in the middle of the night in bed in your machine room with the perfect one handed root password that is not "greatest"? From: mike@muise.hookup.net (mike muise) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 10 Dec 1994 01:03:06 -0500 Jeff Raihanan (jeffrey@agora.rdrop.com) wrote: : Vicki Brown (vicki@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: : : I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity : : Questions range from the benign to the true test of purity: : 1) Have you ever crashed the server? : More than once in a day? : On purpose? Ever tried to cover up your guilt? Successfully? Ever put a multi-user system into single-user mode? Unintentionally? Did you continue to use the system, oblivious to the fact that all the other users were gone? Has any recreational programming project prevented others from getting work done? Did you blame the resultant [full disk|lack of inodes|high load average] on some application? Ever used a script to run a command on 2 separate systems at once? 16 systems? 64 systems? 1024 systems? Ever receive mail in the root account complaining about a user's actions? Was the user you? mike From: jb2@qdot.qld.gov.au (John Blackburn) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 11 Dec 1994 23:36:25 GMT Vicki Brown (vicki@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: > I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity > test (those of you recently out of college or still working in one know > what a "purity test" is and the rest can guess). Questions range from the > benign to the true test of purity: > Have you changed root's password? > More than once? > More than three times in a month? Have you ever changed the root password to "superuser"? Have you ever nullified the root password on a machine that has net access? > Have you compiled a kernel? > Have you compiled one and needed the (unsaved) original version? Have you removed options from your kernel configuration? Did you realise that you still needed them? Had you forgotten what they were? > Have you looked at security on your system? > Did you give up? > Do you look at your security logs each week? > Less than once a month? Do you know where the security logs are on your system? Do you care? Has the filesystem containing the security logs ever been filled by these logs? Do you truncate your security logs without ever looking at what is in them? Have you ever wondered why you keep security logs? -- John Blackburn Phone: +61 7 2534634 jb2@qdot.qld.gov.au Fax: +61 7 8541194 From: csdrhugh@genaz.athena.livjm.ac.uk (Richard Owain Hughes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 12 Dec 1994 11:21:30 -0000 In article , Jeff Raihanan wrote: >Vicki Brown (vicki@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: >: I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity >: test (those of you recently out of college or still working in one know >: what a "purity test" is and the rest can guess). Questions range from the >: benign to the true test of purity: > >: Have you changed root's password? >: More than once? >: More than three times in a month? > >[stuff deleted] Hmmm 1) Have you ever tried to shutdown your client forgetting you were logged into the server from it? 2) Have you ever edited sendmail.cf? Did it do what you wanted? 3) Do you have trouble remembering so many root passwords? 4) Have you ever done rm -rf * forgetting you are logged in as root? Have you ever done it form /? 5) Have you ever read the BOFH text and found it perfectly reasonable behaviour? Do you think it's too mild? -- Richard Hughes Unix Sys Admin, Liverpool John Moores Uni Email: R.O.Hughes@.livjm.ac.uk Figthing for Tab Free sigs. "Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!" From: vsn@ic.ac.uk (Vartan Narinian) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 12 Dec 1994 12:13:55 GMT csdrhugh@genaz.athena.livjm.ac.uk (Richard Owain Hughes) writes: > >4) Have you ever done rm -rf * forgetting you are logged in as root? Did you then do rm -rf .* to get rid of the files starting with '.' ? Did you wonder why it was taking so long? -- Vartan From: kyriazis@mistral.esd.sgi.com (George Kyriazis) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 12 Dec 1994 18:41:59 GMT In article <3cd5m1$ckj@lace.Colorado.EDU>, Matthew Crosby wrote: > >Ever used a Sun? >Sun 2, that is? >How about a Cray? > Ever owned a Sun 4? A Sun3? A Sun2? A Sun1? Ever administered an ftp site on a sun2? With more that 500 ftp sessions a day? With a custom ftpd? What was not wu-ftpd? Ever read the original Bell Labs documentation for lex/yacc? vi? ed? Have you ever said 'This adm3 is not adm3 compatible.. Oh, well.. I'll use ed'.? Was anyone impressed? Did you know how to use it? Ever tried to boot up a system without a /dev directory? Did it work? Ever tried to use a dynamically linked tar to restore libc.so? Did you solve the resulting problem? Do you know what the problem is? Have you used an IP address different than the one assigned to you? On purpose? To get around a network problem? To increase your access priviledges? To decrease your access priviledges? To hide your acts? Have you ever used an old disk drive as a door stop? Did people ask you what it was? Did you answer? With the right answer? Did they shake their heads? Did you ever have an account on a machine on the ARPANET? BITNET? MILNET (only if you don't work in the military)? Do they still work? Can you prove it? Have you submitted a question in this test? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | default disclaimer implied... George Kyriazis | Digital Sight and Sound Division, OpenGL Development. kyriazis@esd.sgi.com | MS 1L-945, Silicon Graphics Inc., Mt. View, CA 94039 From: csdrhugh@genaz.athena.livjm.ac.uk (Richard Owain Hughes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 13 Dec 1994 10:34:18 -0000 In article <3cdcsn$2ue@panix.com>, Brian Reynolds wrote: >In article <3c52ca$edg@news.cs.tulane.edu>, >Bill Sirinek wrote: >>In article <3c0ufb$qet@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, >>Vicki Brown wrote: >>>I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity >>>test (those of you recently out of college or still working in one know >>>what a "purity test" is and the rest can guess). Questions range from the >>>benign to the true test of purity: >>> Have you ever had the power fail whilst moving a new kernel into /vmunix? Did you manage to boot from the vmunix.old you thoughtfully saved just before? How many machines do you have on your desk? Do you use them all? How many OS's live on your PC? How many cables/DAT tapes/CD roms live in your desk? How many different forms of backup media can you use? Do you have to take old tapes home so you can transfer them to a format that work supports? What is your favourite bedtime reading: TV listings paper? Reader's digest? New Scientist? Devil book (deduct one point if you are a unix admin and don't know what this is)? -- Richard Hughes Unix Sys Admin, Liverpool John Moores Uni Email: R.O.Hughes@.livjm.ac.uk Figthing for Tab Free sigs. "Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!" From: richard@exxilon.xx.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. Muirden) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test, EMAIL!! Date: 13 Dec 94 10:50:46 GMT here's mine, also sent to vicki: [i love the idea!] here's from me: Do you ever get one of those weird untrackable, and spurious bugs, where only a reboot seemed to fix the problem? Does it happen more than once a week? Do you think machines these days should have big red buttons? If not, do you think the Cray button is just a status symbol? Have you ever used it? More than once at the same place of employment? Did you ever 'cat > /dev/kmem' by accident? On purpose? For fun? Have you ever put in for a coke machine in your office? Have one? Have slabs delivered to the door every week? Have the pizza delivery company's number right under the 'emergency contacts' list handy to your phone? -richard -- Richard A. Muirden, Sys. Admin |Fan of Shostakovich, "Star Trek" and the Boeing Mailto: richard@rmit.EDU.AU |777 (launch: May 15, 1995 - United Airlines). Phone: (+61 3) 660 3814 |I created alt.fan.shostakovich! Fly: UA,QF,WN http://www.rmit.edu.au/richard |Can *YOU* beat my 99 Shost CD's? :-) From: henry@mu.law.utah.edu (Henry J Tillman) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 13 Dec 1994 18:31:19 GMT Have you ever had a user run into your office and say (breathlessly) "STOP THAT EMAIL MESSAGE!" Did you? Was it Internet mail, out-bound? To a site you do not administer, and have no legitimate access to? Have you ever scheduled a down time for a production file server so that you could use a hardware component in a personal machine to bring up an operating system with a pathetically limited set of installation options? Did the production file server work afterwards? Was it back up in time? Did you wipe the operating system from the personal machine two days later because it was patetically limited in other ways as well? Henry J Tillman henry@mu.law.utah.edu From: blast@crl.com (Tim Keanini) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 13 Dec 1994 10:57:06 -0800 Ever named one of your children after a UNIX command? Ever got into an argument with your wife because she hated the thought of naming your child after a UNIX command? Ever got a divorce over a subject involving UNIX? Ever wrote sh scripts or c code while on the toilet? Ever wanted to have a vt100 in the bathroom? Ever read some man pages to your child for a bed time story? --blast %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \ Tim Keanini | "The limits of my language, / / aka blast | are the limits of my world." \ \ | --Ludwig Wittgenstein / / | \ \ +================================================/ / for more info on BayMOO... \ \ email baymoo@worldbit.com / %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: SYSADM Purity Date: 13 Dec 1994 10:07:29 -0800 Have you ever done a "stty eof e > /dev/term/foo" as root to someone else's tty and watched what happens when they type the inevitable "e"? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: ard@siva.bris.ac.uk (PDP11 Hacker .....) Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 18:09:00 GMT In article , jdt@ulysses.att.com (Jonathan D. Trudel) writes... >Have you ever had to talk the service person through a task that they >should know? Have you ever had to explain the upgrade instructions to a field servoid ? Have you ever had to teach a field servoid how to solder (I have, twice!). Have you ever been loged on to several machines at the same time and accidentally shut down the wrong machine (I know somebody who did...) Jon -tony Bristol University takes no responsibility for the views expressed in this posting. They are the personal views of the user concerned. From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 13 Dec 1994 09:48:02 -0800 In article <3cg2dp$7iv@camelot.qdot.qld.gov.au> jb2@qdot.qld.gov.au (John Blackburn) writes: > >Have you ever nullified the root password on a machine that has net access? Have you ever used the "-n" argument to init? >Have you removed options from your kernel configuration? Have you ever hacked the MAX values in mtune? From: cornet@OTech.fgg.EUR.nl (Jan-Pieter Cornet) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test, EMAIL!! Date: 12 Dec 1994 12:26:41 +0100 Did you ever used the $HOME partition for swap space? Did you test it with a malloc(1<<31)? [note: i recently did use the $HOME partition as swap space. unintentionally, of course, i'm not BOFH ;] Have fun, -- Jan-Pieter Cornet Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Path: tridom!uunet!allegra!ulysses!ulysses.att.com!jdt From: jdt@ulysses.att.com (Jonathan D. Trudel) Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) In article <3cj7k8$8cn@hera.ryutai.co.jp> peter@ryutai.co.jp (Peter Evans) writes: >vicki@cco.caltech.edu (Vicki Brown) wrote: >>I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity >>test >Do you name your machines in a semi-arbitrary fashion? >Are any of your machines named after: Cartoon Characters? (My last job we had at least 200 such, from all sorts of sources (but not anime!)) >Have you ever read the instructions that come with a new machine? >Have you ever read the "read me first or forever repent"? >Have you ever read a manual? >Any Manual? The one for the combined console/vending-machine ... Actually, I would argue that answering yes to some of these questions should *raise* your purity. >Have you ever been asked a stupid question by a user? >Three times in a row? >Ten times in a row? By the same user? (is that what you mean?) Others: Have you ever gotten in an argument with someone that insists you tend to a disaster immediately, but won't let you get off the phone to fix it? Have you ever been the first person to discover a security hole? Did you report it to CERT (or the Manufacturer)? Have you been the first person to report an OS bug? Did they fix it before the next OS release? Have you ever had to restore from a backup tape created on a system you don't use (or have) anymore? Have you ever had to talk the service person through a task that they should know? Have you ever accidentally powered off a system when it was active? Have you ever done it intentionally (not because it was hung)? Have you ever considered the purchase of heavy weaponry to better interface with the users? Do you actively avoid answering the phone after 4:30PM on Fridays? Jon From: prl@algonet.se (Ragnar Lonn) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 14 Dec 1994 14:38:49 +0100 mike muise (mike@muise.hookup.net) wrote: : Jeff Raihanan (jeffrey@agora.rdrop.com) wrote: : : Vicki Brown (vicki@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: : : : I'm compiling a list of questions to be made into a sysadmin purity : : : Questions range from the benign to the true test of purity: Did you ever newfs your root filesystem? After just being finished installing all software and configuring the system and with no backups? Twice? :-) -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ / Ragnar Lonn <--> prl@algonet.se <--> Phone int +46-8-7993011 / / Algonet AB Public Access Site, Stockholm / +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ From: ley@cert.dfn.de (Wolfgang Ley) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 28 Dec 1994 16:32:03 GMT Darryl Wagoner-MIS Manager (darryl@dax.ptltd.com) wrote: > Yeechang Lee (ycl6@ciao.cc.columbia.edu) wrote: > : Here's a naive question: Why is AIX generally considered to be the spawn > : of the devil? Is it because it's from IBM? > Because IBM took the best parts of Unix and replaced it was the worst parts > of VM (Is there is good parts to VM?) and did their damnest to change > all the config files to VM style. Did you ever changed config files on an AIX machine and nothing happened? Did you like binary "config" files? Or to say some words about VM: Did you ever discoverd usefull error messages on VM? More than one? Are your programs respoding with error-/warning-codes in IBM style? Are you using 'DMTX308I - no error happend (yet)' in your programs? Have you ever recognized that your programs are running slower than IBMs? Did you some investigation on IBMs code? Have you asked IBM about their undocumented system calls? Did you get an answer? Other than "for internal use only"? Are you using this calls in your own programs? Are your programs now twice as fast and much more stable than IBMs? Bye, Wolfgang. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email: Ley@cert.dfn.de Phone: +49 40 599624 Smail: Wolfgang Ley, Timm-Kroeger-Weg 15, D-22335 Hamburg (Germany) Work: DFN-CERT, Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30, 22527 Hamburg; Phone: +49 40 54715-262 PGP-Key available via "finger ley@concert.cert.dfn.de" or any key-server.... From: szymon@uci.agh.edu.pl (Szymon Sokol) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 30 Dec 1994 12:37:47 +0100 Morten Reistad (mrr@Hadrian.Boers.no) wrote: : In article <3ckue0$gqo@arcadia.informatik.uni-muenchen.de>, : >>Did you ever "ifconfig en0 down" while logged in from a remote host ? : Was the host in another timezone? Another country? : Did you have to make the plane trip there to fix it? Did you have to instruct (by phone) someone computer-illiterate (secretary, janitor) how to login as root and fix the problem? -- Szymon Sokol -- Network Manager U U M M M M University of Mining and Metallurgy, Computer Center U U MM MM MM MM ave. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, POLAND U U M M M M M M M M TEL. +48 12 338100 EXT. 2885 FAX +48 12 338907 UUUUU M M M M M M finger szymon@galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl for PGP key WWW page: http://www.uci.agh.edu.pl/~szymon/ From: pgd@algonet.se (Per Lindqvist) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 31 Dec 1994 10:28:23 GMT Have you ever had to step into a computer to fix something? Have you ever had a big-size (14 inch) disk drive make a massive head-crash? Or: Do you know what you see though the glass window of mainframe disk drive after a massive head crash? From: Steinar.Haug@runit.sintef.no (Steinar Haug) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: 01 Jan 1995 13:38:50 GMT > >>Did you ever "ifconfig en0 down" while logged in from a remote host ? > > Was the host in another timezone? Another country? > Did you have to make the plane trip there to fix it? Did you ever upgrade Sunlink X.25 on a host far away (in another country), said host being reachable only via (you guessed it :-) X.25? Steinar Haug, SINTEF RUNIT, University of Trondheim, NORWAY Email: Steinar.Haug@runit.sintef.no Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: dfalk@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (David Falk) Subject: Re: sysadmin purity test! (xposted) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 22:59:35 GMT Gerald Hall (gdh@cvsd.cv.com) wrote: : In article <3dda3i$90b@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu>, : Yeechang Lee wrote: : >According to William Lewis : : >|>Have you ever seen AIX? : >|... and could you sleep afterwards? : >Here's a naive question: Why is AIX generally considered to be the spawn : >of the devil? Is it because it's from IBM? Say what you will about AIX, but it's still IMHO better than SCO. Have you ever installed SCO? ` Successfully? Version 1.0.1? How many days did it take? Were you stupid enough to try to install native X11? Were you begging for a Solaris 2.0 Early Access install? There are fates much worse than AIX. Dave. -- David Falk, Technical Specialist, SoftQuad Inc. *My opinions do not represent those of SoftQuad Inc.* IRC: Sutekh ****KIMAGURE ORANGE ROAD... FOREVER*****Paranoia is Heightened Awareness****