OWS install errors/fixes

It was suggested that since I was one of the few running Informix OWS 7.20.uc2 on a Sun that I should let everyone on this list know about some of the problems with the OWS install. The techsupt area was not aware of these and the cases I had opened with them never were resolved. It is true that I hit some of these problems because I came from the Windoze world but it should also be said that the old Informix releases could be installed by the janitor (just about). I have done Informix Installs on a bunch of systems with 4.0 being my last on a Unix platform. This release was less than perfect but was not all that bad once I found someone that had already done it. #1 It needs to be documented somewhere where and how to get at the manuals (see my other posting to this group). #2 Some of the install documentation suggests that 40 mb of disk space is required for an install. The little note in with the cdrom suggests 200mb. The install script checks for something bigger than 250mb. I had to increase /usr to 430 mb to get the install script to work. Fact is that most configurations of informix take less than 100mb so this seems a bit extream. (mine was 92mb) #3 The install script attempts some sneaky updates to the /etc/services file which is unused by NIS and NIS+ sites. The documentation fails to tell you this so you need to know someone that has figured out how to get this going in order to get around this bug. Add sqlturbo and srv_agent to the proper services via NIS(+)and your in like flynn, almost. #4 Since OWS does not come with on-Monitor (a neat tool) you need to have the OWS (and not the Dynamic server) manuals to get through the basic oninit and other trivial start up stuff. #5 Manual 7953 (install guide/readme file) tells you that you need to set INFORMIXDIR before running the setup program but it forgets to tell you that setup can not finish its job if you do not set the INFORMIXSERVER environment variable. I guess you already have to have known something about Informix Online to have known about that variable. Good thing I made some friends on this list who helped me out. I sent this info to informix tech support in the hopes it might be passed on to the support agents. I have not received a reply as yet (May 15th). I did hear that a training instructor tried an install and found some of the things that two of us reported (a guy from the UK also had some of this). So I expect that this will make it into the release in the future. The current tech agents do not seem to me to have much experiance with the OWS installs on Sun's. Other than that, things run great on the Sun. The last riot caused by those switching off of NT onto Sun's seemed a bit to steamy for me so I will end my comments here. Suffice it to say we got a lot more bang for our buck on the Sun even though its a bit harder to find Unix people and drag them away from Internet projects. It was worth the effort. A lot more stable than NT 4.0 on DELL or Compaq as well (knock wood). I think we will stay on the Sun's for awhile. So far we have had two weeks with no down time for anything ! I have never seen a BLUE screen error on a Sun either. :-) No memory frag problems either. ,,, Tim