Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #220
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 14:13:06 EDT

Linux-Activists Digest #220, Volume #6           Sat, 11 Sep 93 14:13:06 EDT

Contents:
  bug report: ext2 crash (x4) )-8 (Francois-Rene Rideau)
  Linux broke my computer! (manuel Toledo-Quinones)
  Re: WANTED : FTP site for complete Linux package/utilities (KWT Wong)
  A question... (Johan Sultan)
  SLS 1.03 hangs (Raymond Ngai)
  Re: Problems during installation using SLS (Zack Evans)
  Re: BBS package (Datasoft Communications Admin)
  SLIP & Site... (Synthetic Genius)
  Re: UUCP on SLS 1.03 (Matt McLeod)
  Re: Shutdown doesnt unmount ([email-masked])
  Re: FTAPE 0.9.5 problem Please help ([email-masked])

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Francois-Rene Rideau)
Subject: bug report: ext2 crash (x4) )-8
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 00:43:40 GMT

 Hello, everybody. I hereby have a bug report for linux, but
1) I don't know who to send it to
2) I'm not sure the bug still exists as I use an old kernel (0.99.9 from
  SLS 1.01)

 So please tell me (by mail) if this bug report was taken into account, or where
to send it (so next time, I won't use that much bandwidth).

 Here it is:
 As I wrote, I use the Linux 0.99.9 kernel from the SLS 1.01 package, on both
- a Notebook 3500 486DX/33 portable computer (by NOTEBOOK, a Taiwanese company),
with a Cirrus Logic GD610 VGA comp. video card (VGA BIOS 3.03 1991), and
486 DX Modular BIOS v3.20 B 1990 by Award Software, 16 MB RAM, 210 MB IDE disk.
- an older taiwanese "Pulsar" Amd 386/33 computer (it burnt a Cyrix EM387 chip!)
AMI BIOS Jan 1989, "Jaguar" motherboard, Trident 8900B (x386 1.2 vga256 doesn't
work )-8 ) with two IDE HDs, 210 MB and 120 MB.
 (this is for the compatibility list !)

 The problem went from the latest.
 I use the ext2 file system provided with SLS to format two partitions;
an approx. 110 MB primary partition /dev/hda4 at the end of the first disk and
an extended 21000 KB partition /dev/hda7 just before it.
 I could have made it one partition, but it would have meant destroying data in
other extended partition, or modifying the (main&extended) partition tables
with some disk editor (BTW, is there a good, interactive, native disk editor
under linux, or must I go on using the Norton Utilities under my dosemu 0.48
DOS box ?); moreover, I (wrongly) believed two partitions were safer than one,
as I could then protect data by mounting one of these read-only.

 NOW, I four times crashed both filesystems because of expectedly safe everyday
commands run as root:  cp, tar, chown, mv. What is involved is not of course
the said commands, but the system calls used by them, and seemingly not
subject to enough checking when emitted by root. When not root, or with the
msdos file system (I haven't installed any other fs, and I don't intend to
install one, then check if I can destroy everything with the same commands...)

 Firstly, I built homedirs for my whole family, with symlinks to my own files
as a default configuration (as in these days, my configuration files evolved
very very fast; they still evolve very fast). After having installed manually
one directory and finding in an uninteresting task, I looked into my manual
pages (BTW, how do you update the whatis file ? The makewhatis script I found in
SLS blasted the old whatis, and took into account only X manpages 8-C ), and
found -d option of  the cp -d command to be just what I needed: copy symlinks
as are. That happy, I wrote << cp -d zap/.* zop >>. It seemed to work well,
but the . and .. entries of (what I'll here call) zop were destroyed, and when
reading the partition, the ext2 fs manager started to complain. e2fsck
reported tenth errors than proved could be handled only by manual interaction,
because correcting a each bad Inode created a bad directory entry that could be
repaired only by another e2fsck, and correcting two Inodes at a time hung
e2fsck; moreover, each Inode had to be corrected once in the bitmap then
elsewhere (I don't remember, and I don't want to try again !). When I finished
repairing, mounting/unmounting/rebooting half my homedirs were destroyed, and
I had to reinstall it all.

 Then I extracted a (huge: 5 MB compressed) xfree 1.3 tar archive on /dev/hda7
mounted as /home (because v1.3 expectedly provided a vga256 driver for my video
card); but I never could compile it, as the filesystem proved bad: just a
(gzip -cd xxx | tar xvf -) command crashed the file system, and not only the
/home partition. I had to reinstall the whole stuff.
 The same tar xvf as a  normal user proved safe.
 Another tar xvf upset my other computer, but some e2fsck'ing could repair it.

 To reinstall my harddisk, I used a script which automatically created dirs,
unzipped files, and restored access rights from my other computer. BUT, my
file restore list wasn't fully updated from previous crash, and the /etc/group
file wasn't restored before the script chown'ed everything. And the whole
file system was corrupted again.

 Finally, an interpartition mv (as root) destroyed directories in both
partitions, and there I was.

 Of course, all such operations behave normally on msdos fs or as non-root, so
I presume it is an ext2 fs kernel bug; but I don't want to try with ext fs or
minix fs or anything, for I don't have any means to reinstall my HD but (slow)
diskettes. I couldn't install kernel 0.99.12 yet, but I sure will soon, then
try on a dummy partition.
 I hope this story won't happen again, for I'm sick with installing SLS again
and again (and if I want to upgrade my kernel, thus my gcc, and if I also
want xfree 1.3 and emacs 19, I think I'm in for another SLS installation soon);
I also hope this message will help the same thing NOT to happen to anyone else
anymore.

--    ,                                         ,           _ v    ~  ^
-- Fare -- [email-masked] -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
--                                      '                   / .
-- 
--    ,                                         ,           _ v    ~  ^
-- Fare -- [email-masked] -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
--                                      '                   / .

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (manuel Toledo-Quinones)
Subject: Linux broke my computer!
Date: 11 Sep 1993 06:03:39 GMT

Not exactly. I guess that I was the magnificent source of stupidity
that is neede to mess things so badly!

I have a problem and I need help. I install linux in my pc a couple
of days ago. I was using a 340Meg drive to run linux, and keeping my
80 meg drive, compressed with superstor, running drdos. They were both
working fine, with no problems out of the ordinary.

Now, tonight I decided that I needed to decompress my 80 meg hard drive
to be able to read the data from linux. Superstor, however, do 
not let you just decompress the drive because is the primary dos disk. 
So I tought: o.k., I will re-partition my new 340 meg drive, this time 
with drdos, to create a dos partition, back up my dos drive into my 
340meg h.d., install drdos again in the 80meg drive, and restore the 
data back from the 340meg. I was going to have to run linux 'fdisk. and 
install it again, but I tought it was better to do  it earlier than late.

The plan was simple, but naive! I did not remove the linux partition
thinking that just running dos 'fdisk' on the drive was going to solve 
the problem. Also I did not remove 'LILO', which was being run 
automatically on boot-up. Now, what happens is that LILO comes up
when I try rebooting, and the computer, of course, goes crazy if I
don't stop it from booting the nonexisting linux. I can, however, 
still run dos from drive c.

I though that just using the bootup floppy created by linux will
hopefully provide me with a way of removing LILO. But now the floppy drives
are crazy, and I can not read floppies nor bootup from them! They are not 
totally dead: drive A does a strange noise if I put a f.d. w/o write
protection. It does not do anything if the disk is write protected. Drive
B does not seem to be doing anything.

I will be inmensily greatful if someone can give me a hand with this
one. Should I just format the 340meg hard drive to see it that removes
anything that might be left from linux there? Or is LILO somewhere in
my C drive?

Again, all help will be greatly appreciated.
manuel

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (KWT Wong)
Subject: Re: WANTED : FTP site for complete Linux package/utilities
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 06:03:39 GMT

Try [email-masked]
or
tsx-11.mit.edu

in the directory /pub/linux or something like that

Kevin

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Johan Sultan)
Subject: A question...
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 11:08:47 GMT

Hi!

A friend of mine is trying to install Linux, in one partition, and dos
on another. Well, the problem seems to be that he is using the Adaptec 1542
controllercard, and he can't quite get the settings alright. So, if anyone
has got it to work, please tell me how. (Both hard, and software settings).

Thanx.

     /[email-masked]

(Please respond by email, as i doubt this question is interesting 
for anyone else)

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Raymond Ngai)
Subject: SLS 1.03 hangs
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 12:06:02 GMT

My linux system crashed while I was try to gunzip a 34 Meg tar file,
so I'm trying to start fresh from SLS 1.03

However, the system hangs while booting disk a1 after the soundcard
detection and initialization.  Does anyone have any idea what might be
wrong?

Here my hardware setup:

486/66 VLB
2 ide drives on primary controller.
Ultrastor 34f with a 1.6 G SCSI disk.
SoundBlaster Pro compatible card.
Logitech Bus mouse.

I obtain a bootdisk with a kernel supporting just UltraStor SCSI and
the problem still persist.

I have no problem using the prior versions of SLS (short of the
problem of not recognizing the 34f).

Any help would be much appreicated.  Please direct your reply to my
e-mail address:

[email-masked]

Thanks in advance,

Ray Ngai
--
( Raymond Ngai                                  <[email-masked]>         )
( Senior Applications Engineer                  300 Oracle Parkway, #670A  )
( Vertical Applications Division                Redwood Shores, CA 94065   )
( Oracle Corporation                            (415)506-3385 FAX:506-7262 )

------------------------------

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (Zack Evans)
Subject: Re: Problems during installation using SLS
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 13:09:27 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
travis jensen <[email-masked]> wrote:
>I am in the midst of installing Linux on my 486 system and 
>I run into the following problem:
>
>After installing disk a2 of SLS v1.03 without any problems,
>it dies on a3 and a4 with the following messages:
>
>(a3) base      stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated
>               tar: unexpected EOF on archive file
>
>(a3) comms     tar: skipping to next file header
>               stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated
>
>(a3) efs2      stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated
>
>...(errors given during attempt to install all files on a3)
>
>(a4) bin       tar: hmm, this doesn't look like a tar archive
>               tar: skipping to next file header
>               stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated
>
>...(errors given during attempt to install all files on a4)
>
>For specifics, I have a 486dx33 w/a 234 MB IDE HDD and 4 MB RAM.
>I am installing off of 3.5" floppies.  The hard drive is configured
>as follows:  /hda1 is a dos partition of 120MB, /hda2 is an extended
>2 file system of 110k blocks, /hda3 is a swap partition of 6.5k 
>blocks.
>
>I downloaded all of the floppies again, putting them on freshly
>formated disks, but nothing changed.
>
>Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Travis
>
>-- 
>Travis A. Jensen               
>[email-masked]  (preferred)
>[email-masked]  (next best)
>"My elelator! Not your elelator, my elelator!!"--Baby Plucky Duck

--
Zack Evans        [email-masked] or [email-masked]

UNIX was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things,
as that would also stop them from doing clever things.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Datasoft Communications Admin)
Subject: Re: BBS package
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 01:18:45 GMT

Kristian Koehntopp ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ralph Sims) writes:
: >>How about waffle?  See comp.bbs.waffle for details.

: >A user in waffle would become userid 'bbs' in the shell, unless
: >a 'wrapper' (setname, in this case) were used.

: IMHO this is the main structural bug in most "BBS"-setups for
: UNIX. There you have an operating system that went through
: great pains to stick an owner-ID to each system object (files,
: processes, devices and so on) and the first thing a UNIX-BBS
: does is to put all its users under a single UID. The second
: thing the BBS does is to duplicate the effort the OS made to
: seperate the BBS users and their data again - apparently a
: major braindamage.

: IMHO a BBS setup for UNIX should consist mainly of two parts.

: The first is the BBS program in form of a users shell with
: integrated news and mail users agent. Such a program should
: utilize native UNIX news and mail transport agents and not try
: to implement a propietary data format.

: The second part would be an administrators shell for easy
: creation and removal of users.

Egads...someone that agrees with me! I posted thing idea before and
lots of nice BBS sysadmins trying to tell me to run XYZ BBS software
which does require a single BBS account. Talk about ludicous.

If it matters to you or anyone. I am creating a BBS program or, more
appropriately, a set of BBS like utilities to:

1) Get the new user information and create the account by logining in
as new (optional).
2) Act as the menu system or shell (The PSC Menu I use now has
limitations) (optional)
3) Act as a file section shell (Utree is limited in this respect)
4) Use whatever UNIX mailer an newsreader is available. (I use Elm and
tin current). Why re-invent the wheel?
5) All users will have a UNIX account such that accounting can be done
on the user for time online.
6) Provide Sysop Tools to manage users (create, delete, validate, etc).

My first attempt was using bash shell scripts...no C code!

Alpha releases will be out most likely next month for Linux. Full
ncurses and color support done in C. If anyone has any good ideas for
this type of BBS setup, please email me. Flames to /dev/nul.

Mark
--
==============================================================================
Mark Buckaway           | [email-masked]   |  DataSoft Communications
DataSoft Communications | uunorth!datasoft!root     |  62 Rock Fernway
System Administrator    | Voice: +1 416 756 4497    |  Willowdale, ON M2J 4N5
==============================================================================
    "UNIX and OS/2 are operating systems. Windows is a shell, and
                         DOS is a boot virus"
==============================================================================

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Synthetic Genius)
Subject: SLIP & Site...
Date: 11 Sep 1993 16:48:08 GMT

Greetings all, just posting to tell you I think I found out what
is wrong with my SLIP connection. If you haven't read my previous
articles, I was getting alot of data fragmentation. I then set the
MTU to 276, and continued to recieve some [but not nearly as much]
fragmentation, when accessing specific services. It turns out that
all the services now that cause fragmentation are UDP protcol services:
nslookup, archie client, fsp, etc.  Anyone have any idea why? Anyway,
I THINK i've found a solve to the nslookup problem by making the
nslookup server in resolv.conf one at georgia tech (gatech) rather
than a local one. We'll see I guess. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Please e-mail replies to [email-masked] for now, and mail will
be forwarded to me.

Also, if your interested in conversing, or just playing around on a Linux
site, I've been allowing guest connections into my machine for now to
test it stability, we're usually at slip-c13.cis.ufl.edu [yes, SLIP!]
or 128.227.224.222: login guest, if you'd like your own account, mail root.
(Well, its at a friends house, but lets see if it workz!)

Take it easy...

sg
mail to:[email-masked]

Thanks.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Matt McLeod)
Subject: Re: UUCP on SLS 1.03
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 18:33:17 GMT

[email-masked] (Willie Lim) writes:

>Questions:
>a) How tightly "hardcoded" is the uucp neighbor "quick" to SLS 1.03?

It isn't, as far as I know...  I found though that the best idea was to
dump the HDB config files and use the Taylor config files instead.  For one
reason or another this got better results for me.  You could use uuconv
to create basic Taylor configs then place them in /usr/conf/uucp (the files
concerned should be port, dial and sys), then create a file called 'config'
which contains the line

  nodename <name of node>

>b) How fast does the C.* and D.* files get created in the
>   /usr/spool/uucp/hostname directory?  I notice that sometimes those
>   files (email addressed to hostname) get created as soon as I "send"
>   them out of the mail program (Emacs rmail mode) but then there are times
>   I notice that the files don't get created that quickly.

I find that this mostly just depends on how much else is going on at the time.
On my machine it takes about 30 seconds or so when it is being quick, but
then my machine is a little underpowered.

>c) I haven't left my system alone long enough (e.g. for > 24 hours)
>   to see if the UUCP link will "wake" up again.  Is the uucico's behavior
>   described in 3 above expected?

Not that I know of.  Although you could try changing the -s to -S.  That
*might* help, but I don't know if uucico creates a .LCK file everytime
it starts up or only when it actually does a dialout...

Matt
-- 
Matt McLeod
Bob-Fearing Freelance Writer
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Shutdown doesnt unmount
From: [email-masked]
Date: 11 Sep 93 10:43:31 -0800

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Gilbert Callaghan) writes:
> In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>>
>>Well, I got SLS 1.01, and I have since gone from .99pl9-6 all the way to
>>.99pl12 without obtaining all of the support files.  Like I said, if I use
>>shutdown now and go single user and type umount -a, it works.  If I just use
>>shutdown -r now it doesnt unmount root.
> 
> Shutdown runs the script '/etc/brc' which actually does the job of umounting:
> 
> /etc/brc:
> 
>     #!/bin/sh
>     echo "Unmounting Filesystems"
>     umount -a
> 
> and make sure it's owned by root with perms 700.

Thanks for your information, Gilbert.  I have had users from all over the world
telling me I needed utile14, but it has programs in it that are much older than
the ones I downloaded off of the ftp systems.  For example, the shutdown
command has a date of last year, where the shutdown I got with my SLS package
is much newer.

I did create a /etc/brc, but did not set the permissions on it.  I will try it
and get back to you on it.

> 
> --
> Gilbert Callaghan
> [email-masked]
-- 
Eric Levinson
[email-masked]      |  Home computer (UUCP)
[email-masked]         |  Vax
I can also be reached on my BBS system, Color Galaxy Milky Way (415) 883-0696

------------------------------

Subject: Re: FTAPE 0.9.5 problem Please help
From: [email-masked]
Date: 11 Sep 93 10:46:30 -0800

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Nils Rennebarth) writes:
> [email-masked] wrote:
> : I have ftp'd the .99pl12 kernel source in its entirety and have gotten the
> : ftape0.9.5.  I patched the .99pl12 source and re-built the kernel.  On bootup,
> Get ftape-0.9.6 please.
> 
> : What is the problem?  Am I supposed to have an ftape device in my /dev
> : directory?  I have a Conner Archive 250MQT QIC80 tape drive hooked to my
> : floppy.
> Yes. (The documentation is a bit sparse. It's still pre-alpha software,
> so you should maybe wait a little)
> 
> Look in the sources for the right major and minor number of the device.
> (Don't have it handy here, sorry) and use the mknod program to create the
> device:
> 
> mknod /dev/ftape c major minor  (the c is to be taken literally. It stands
>                                for character device. Yes, tapes are character
>                                devices)
> chmod 777 /dev/ftape
> 
> : Any suggestions?
> 
> 
> : -- 
> : Eric Levinson
> : [email-masked]          |  Home computer (UUCP)
> : [email-masked]             |  Vax
> : I can also be reached on my BBS system, Color Galaxy Milky Way (415) 883-0696
> 
> 
> --
> neulich im Netz:("uber WABI, Windows emulator auf Sparcs)| Nils Rennebarth
> Budi Rahardjo                                            | Altenessener Str.93
>  >Sure it is nice, but there are still too many bugs.    | 45326 Essen
>  >[...] every session it crashes at least 3 times for me.| 0201/328083
> Carlo J. Calica                                          | Internet: nils@
>  Hmmm. Sounds like a perfect Windows emulation to me :-).| exp-math.uni-essen.de

Thanks, I set up the ftape device and all works well.  Get the ftape.0.9.6.  I
just got it, and it is nicer.

-- 
Eric Levinson
[email-masked]      |  Home computer (UUCP)
[email-masked]         |  Vax
I can also be reached on my BBS system, Color Galaxy Milky Way (415) 883-0696

------------------------------

** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **

The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:

    Internet: [email-masked]

You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux) via:

    Internet: [email-masked]

Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
    nic.funet.fi				pub/OS/Linux
    tsx-11.mit.edu				pub/linux
    tupac-amaru.informatik.rwth-aachen.de	pub/msdos/replace

The current version of Linux is 0.99pl9 released on April 23, 1993

End of Linux-Activists Digest
******************************