Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #256
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 03:13:07 EDT

Linux-Activists Digest #256, Volume #6           Fri, 24 Sep 93 03:13:07 EDT

Contents:
  Re: running X appl. by modem ? (Valiant Gough)
  Re: How does Linux compare to SUN IPC? (Valiant Gough)
  Help with mounting dos partition (steven ray)
  A little Linux Humor (Eric Johnfelt)
  Re: X and Slackware 1.0.3 (John Will)
  Problem while starting X (Olaf von Wackerbarth)
  Re: Driver for NE2100 ethernetboard available? (Donald J. Becker)
  Re: NE-2000 Ethernet cards (Paul Gortmaker)
  Re: [Rev.] startx won't start x.. (CHIA CHIEN WEI)
  Re: Anyone Installed Metro-X Motif on SLS 1.03 -> Install sucks!! (Pauline Price)
  Ultrastor & Slackware boot (C.A. Peskin)
  Re: Ultrastor & Slackware boot (Patrick J. Volkerding)
  slackware/smail/uucp don't work! (JL Gomez)
  Re: [Q] Comments on my configuration of PC please... (Mark A. Horton)
  Re: Setting active partition on second hard drive (Lawrence Houston)
  Re: Minicomm not working. Please help. (Mark A. Horton)

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

From: [email-masked] (Valiant Gough)
Subject: Re: running X appl. by modem ?
Date: 23 Sep 93 22:52:32 GMT

William_F._Mitchell ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Tim Cutts (Zoology)) writes:
: |> [email-masked] writes:
: |> 
: |> >In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Pablo Redard) writes:
: |> >> 
: |> >> I'm wondering if I can log into my account at the university 
: |> >> from home (through modem) and run an X application?
: |> 
: |> Look for term 1.07, which allows you to do this.  You can get it from (if
: |> memory serves) ftp.tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Can't remember if that's the right
: |> machine name, but it's close).
: |> 

: Does this require making the modem connection with SLIP?

nope, thats the whole reason for term, you don't need SLIP.

X-windows runs alright under it on a 9600 baud modem - as long as you don't
want to view pictures.  Not everything is fast enough to be useable, but
many things are, and don't forget that term can let you have as many
windows open to the server as you want.

Valiant Gough
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Valiant Gough)
Subject: Re: How does Linux compare to SUN IPC?
Date: 23 Sep 93 22:58:43 GMT

Kees Metzger ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Dhaliwal Bikram Singh) writes:

: >I was wondering, if anyone has done benchmarks between the two for
: >various processors.  I am not saying that Linux is better, it still
: >has a ways to go before it can match the all around appeal of the SUN.

: Although it's not much I can add this:

: My Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V (running Linux) is about 3 times faster than
: the SS 1+ on a compilation job of about 100,000 lines (in 150 files).

  Most of the things I do use only integer instructions (compiling, vision
systems, etc), and my 486dx2-66 is about 2 times the speed of our local
Sparc IPC/IPX for those things, but for heavy floating point stuff
(neural networks), the Sparc wins out.
  As a side note, my computer is also faster then  the RS/6000's
(960,540,320, and 220's) that I use - for integer stuff, but not floating
point.  It seems Intel isn't all that good at floating point
processing.

Valiant Gough
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (steven ray)
Subject: Help with mounting dos partition
Reply-To: [email-masked] (steven ray)
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 02:35:02 GMT

hi,
  I installed linux recently.  When I first installed it I could mount
dos which I had on /dev/hda1 ( the first hard drive), but now it
won't mount.  If I try lilo and a couple of other programs to get
to it, I get a bad majic number error.  Anyone have any such problems
and how to correct it.
                        Any help appreciated, 
                                Steven

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

From: [email-masked] (Eric Johnfelt)
Subject: A little Linux Humor
Date: 24 Sep 1993 02:55:55 GMT

Hey all, 

Tired of unsuccessfully installing Linux?

Here... have a laugh, after all you deserve it.

And BTW Bill man, REAL funny!!!

Bill Reilly (aka wreillyi coyote "Super Genius", and Monkey Spanker
extrodinaire) wrote in a message to me after discussing my beef with
the man pages in SLS's distribution....

I wrote <other crap deleted, and paraphrased for brevity>

>        True, Bash is my shell, but since 'sh' is on the system, it
>should be documented! If Bash is so close to 'sh' that they are virtually
>indistingiushable in the respect that Bash consists of 'sh' plus a
>whole lot more... then 'ln bash.1 sh.1' would be sufficient. So the BIG
>question is..., IS IT?

Bill writes....

>Probably not (That's SLS for you), but remember, you can be root, you have 
>the power, abuse it well. (And Linus spake to the masses and said "With my
>Linux on thy PC thingie, I giveth thee the power to become the most highest
>and mightiest of all the powers over machine, the title of the superious 
>userorious, root. With thy powers, which I have decreed in my most high and
>holiest wisdom, being me, thou canst do ANYTHING thy wantest to thy silly 
>system. First and foremost among thy powers, which I alone have decreed that
>thee shalt have in my most infinite wisdom, be the power to really fuck up thy
>system..." [The Book of Linux according to Bill, Genesis 2.15-2.23])

Truer words have never been spoken.

Oh, BTW Bill, If you read this, someone came up to me in school and told
me to look at my 'kwho' byline.

STOP F*CKING WITH MY STUFF!!!!!!!!! (Damn Monkey Spanker! ee ee ;)
---
+------------------------------+----->> Disclaimer <<--*Read*----------------+
| Name : Eric G. Johnfelt      | *The opinions expressed here come direct    |
| Rank : President Weenie Inc. |  from Elvis & the aliens who kidnapped him! |
| Ser.#: [email-masked]|                                             |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    errare humanum est : ne cede malis : vea victis : ULTIMA RATIO REGUM    |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

From: [email-masked] (John Will)
Subject: Re: X and Slackware 1.0.3
Date: 24 Sep 93 00:50:00 GMT

JW>C > So far everyone with problems with XFree 1.3 has had
JW>C > a Tseng chip, either ET4000/ET3000 and pl12.
JW>C >
JW>C > Is there anyone who has it working reliably with these
JW>C > video chips??
JW>
JW>I've been running for months with a local bus ET4000 and XFree86, I'm 
JW>currently running a pl12 kernel.  My major bitch is networking, I still
JW>have some problems there, but X works just fine.

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

From: [email-masked] (Olaf von Wackerbarth)
Subject: Problem while starting X
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 20:49:30 GMT

i have installed Linux 0.98 with SLS. Now I have the Problem that
i can not start X. When I type 'startx' the X-Server (X386 or XMono)
tries to open a TCP-Socket an fails with the following error-message:
Creating TCP-Socket: invalid argument

The File /tmp/.X11-unix/X0= exists!!!

Can anyone help about this Problem?

Please Mail to [email-masked]

Thanks!

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

From: [email-masked] (Donald J. Becker)
Subject: Re: Driver for NE2100 ethernetboard available?
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 02:43:33 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Georg Strolka <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Is there any Linux support for Novell's NE2100 ethernetboard?
>I know that this board is not compatible to the NE2000 board,
>which is already supported. Any information is highly
>appreciated.

You are right, the NE2100 is nothing at all like the NE2000.

The LANCE driver in pl13 was written for an AT1500, but I tried to make it
general enough to work with the NE1500 and NE2100.  It should work without
changes, including autoprobe in {0x300, 0x320, 0x340, 0x360} and autoIRQ.  The
default DMA channel is DMA5 -- I haven't yet decided if autoDMA is a good
idea.

Please post a followup article detailing your experience.

-- 

Donald Becker                                          [email-masked]
IDA Supercomputing Research Center
17100 Science Drive, Bowie MD 20715                        301-805-7482

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

From: [email-masked] (Paul Gortmaker)
Subject: Re: NE-2000 Ethernet cards
Date: 24 Sep 1993 03:55:58 GMT

[email-masked] (Wolfgang Utz) writes:

>I started to look around for Ethernet-Cards, too. And what I found out is the
>following:
>On the one hand there are NE2000-cards available and on the other hand they sell
>what is called NE2000-compatible-cards. The first difference one sees is the price:
>The later ones only cost about 100 Marks here in Germany, while the first cost up
>to 600 Marks.
>Now my question: Will those chaep cards really work with Linux? Has anyone any 
>experiences?

...from the Ethernet-HOWTO, which nobody bothers to read. Perhaps you should
get the full document, as it has a recomendation for cheap cards as well.

===============

[...]

6 Possible Problems, Questions and Troubleshooting.

        This section tries to answer any unresolved questions, and not so
        common solutions to common problems.

6.01 Problem with NE2000 Clones -- "DMA address mismatch"

        Is the chip a real NatSemi 8390? (DP8390, DP83901, DP83902 or DP83905)?
        If not, some clone chips don't correctly implement the transfer
        verification register.  MS-DOS drivers never do error checking, 
        so it doesn't matter to them.

        Are most of the messages off by a factor of 2?
        If so:  Are you using the NE2000 in a 16 bit slot?
                Is it jumpered to use only 8 bit transfers?
        The Linux driver expects a NE2000 to be a 16 bit slot.  A NE1000 can
        be in either size slot.  This problem can also occur with some clones,
        notably D-Link 16 bit cards, that don't have the correct ID bytes
        in the station address PROM. [[ This should be fixed in pl12.]]

        Are you running the bus faster than 8Mhz?
        If you can change the speed (faster or slower), see if that
        makes a difference.  Most NE2000 clones will run at 16Mhz, but
        some may not.  Changing speed can also mask a noisy bus.

        What other devices are on the bus?
        If moving the devices around changes the reliability, then you
        have a bus noise problem -- just what that error message was
        designed to detect.  Congratulations, you've probably found the
        source of other problems as well.

6.02 Problem with NE2000 Clones -- Machine Hangs during Boot.

        Problem:  The machine hangs during boot right after the "8390..."  or
                  "WD...." message.  Removing the NE2000 fixes the problem.

        Solution: Change your NE2000 base address to 0x360 (or 0x340 for
                  pl12 or later kernels.)

        Reason:   Your NE2000 clone isn't a good enough clone.  An active 
                  NE2000 is a bottomless pit that will trap any driver
                  autoprobing in its space.  The other ethercard drivers take
                  great pain to reset the NE2000 so that it's safe, but some
                  clones cannot be reset.  Clone chips to watch out for: 
                  Winbond 83C901.  Changing the NE2000 to a less-popular
                  address will move it out of the way of other autoprobes, 
                  allowing your machine to boot.  

        Problem:  The machine hangs during the SCSI probe at boot.

        Solution: It's the same problem as above, change the 
                  ethercard's address.

        Problem:  The machine hangs during the soundcard probe at boot.

        Solution: No, that's really during the silent SCSI probe, and it's
                          the same problem as above.

[...]

==================

Paul.
--
Paul Gortmaker c/o Microelectronics and Materials Technology Centre.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001,
Victoria, Australia. Ph  (61) 3 660 2601. FAX (61) 3 662 1921.
e-mail: [email-masked] [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (CHIA CHIEN WEI)
Subject: Re: [Rev.] startx won't start x..
Date: 24 Sep 1993 02:50:37 GMT

James F Hall ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I seem to have forgotten to mention the error messages that I got when
: asking for help in getting XWindows to run (please note the address
: has changed.)

: I am using the 1.03 of SLS release.  I followed what docs I could find
: and wrote a .initrc file, which contains the lines shown in the man
: page on startx.

: I did try to answer my question on my own using the docs and faq's,
: but I am getting lost.

: FYI - Getting X to run is the next-to-last item on my "to-do" list
: before I declare my system completely tailored to my needs.  Thanks
: for the help for this newbie.  :-)

Hi 
   I am also having a problem while doing startx.  I have a ET4000 board
386DX-33 with 4M ram.  I have tried what the install text instructs,
changing the Xconfig and doing a symbolic link to X.  

   When I do a startx, problem occurs and here is what I got:

==================================================================
PEXExtensionINit: Couldn't open default PEX font file Roman_M

failed to set default font path '/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,
/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,
/usr/X386/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/'

Fatal server error: Could not open default font 'fixed' because FontPath
is invalid.

xinit: No such file or directory (error 2): unexpected signal 13

====================================================================

I would be very grateful to anyone who can provide any help.  Getting
X up is the only reason why I install linux SLS.

Thanks in advance
Nam
sig under construction

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

From: [email-masked] (Pauline Price)
Subject: Re: Anyone Installed Metro-X Motif on SLS 1.03 -> Install sucks!!
Date: 24 Sep 1993 00:35:48 -0400

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Bradly William Wright) writes:

>Has anyone been able to get Metro-X Motif to work with
>SLS 1.03?  Linux Systems Laboratory claims that it will work
>with SLS 1.03.  When trying to run mwm, I
>get an error message saying that the system can't exec:
>libXm.so.1 improper format.  

>Has anyone been able to make it work?

I got it to work directly out of the install -- no problems.  Of course I
got X to run with tab - or whatever the default window manager was before
I changed it to mwm.  Did you untar it from the exact directory specified
in the docs so that everything ends up where it is supposed to?

--Pauli

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

From: [email-masked] (C.A. Peskin)
Subject: Ultrastor & Slackware boot
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 04:48:25 GMT

OK, I have just set up a system.  I am running a 486DX2 66.  It's got a
Western Digital 1003 MFM controller for the floppys and two MFM drives.
I also have an UltraStor 34F VLB with a Maxtor 340S.  I have finaly
configured both cards to co-exist in the same machine, and it works
smootly under MS-DOS.  Now, When I boot the new SLS install/boot, it
recognizes my two MFMs, but says I have no SCSI devices.  I though
Slackware supported Ultrastor?  WHat should I do?!

Thanks

-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Rochester Institute of Technology              Chris A. Peskin  |
|  Electrical Engineering                                          |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+ 

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

From: [email-masked] (Patrick J. Volkerding)
Subject: Re: Ultrastor & Slackware boot
Date: 24 Sep 1993 05:27:11 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Patrick J. Volkerding)

In a previous article, [email-masked] (C.A. Peskin) says:

>OK, I have just set up a system.  I am running a 486DX2 66.  It's got a
>Western Digital 1003 MFM controller for the floppys and two MFM drives.
>I also have an UltraStor 34F VLB with a Maxtor 340S.  I have finaly
>configured both cards to co-exist in the same machine, and it works
>smootly under MS-DOS.  Now, When I boot the new SLS install/boot, it
>recognizes my two MFMs, but says I have no SCSI devices.  I though
>Slackware supported Ultrastor?  WHat should I do?!

Assuming the 34F is one of the supported UltraStor cards (and I don't
think all of them are), I'd say to play with any IRQs or other hardware
settings you can change. You might, for instance, want to temporarily
pull the MFM controller and see if that makes any difference.

-- 
Patrick Volkerding
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin.help,comp.os.linux
From: [email-masked] (JL Gomez)
Subject: slackware/smail/uucp don't work!
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 06:01:49 GMT

I've upgraded to Slackware 1.03 and have TCP/IP, UUCP, ELM, and SMAIL
installed.

This combo of tcp/ip-uucp-smail-elm worked fine under 1.02 of slackware
for calling my uucp smart host.

Now under 1.03 of slackware no outgoing mail is sent at all.

I've read all the FAQ's and changed every occurence of smtp to uucp
but still no go.

Thanks for the help!
--
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Mark A. Horton)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: [Q] Comments on my configuration of PC please...
Date: 23 Sep 1993 23:19:15 -0700

Rusty Carruth ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mark A. Horton) writes:
: >Taek-Soo Kim ([email-masked]) wrote:
: >: After some survey and recommendation, I decided to purchase
: >: the following PC. Any comments would be very helpful.
: >
: >: 486-DX2 66 (Comtrade)
: >: EISA
: >: 16MB RAM
: >: Adaptec 1742 scsi-2 controller
: >: 545MB HD
: >: Orchid Fahrenheit 1280+ or VA (32bit VLB) with 1MB.
: >: 17" Monitor (MAG or CTX).
: >
: >     WOW!  what a box!  How many users are you going to support?

: I've got a very similar machine, except for the controller is ide
: and the motherboard is EISA/VESA/ISA (oh, and a different VGA board).

: Actually, I assume that the above system is ALSO VESA since the 
: quoted SVGA board is "(32bit VLB)" :-)

: Anyway, I'm the only user, and its WONDERFUL ;-)

: >: As you can see, I have not fixed the monitor and the video card.

: Don't let anybody talk you down from your 17" monitor, that's what
: I've got and its GREAT.

: >: Any suggestion is welcome.
: >
: >     Get a bigger SCSI disk -- prices being what they are, you can
: >     pick up a Toshiba 1.2GB 9ms. SCSI-2 drive for around $900. (us)
: >     it's worth spending a little more from the price of the  545 MB
: >     drive to get more storage.  And it looks like you're sparing no
: >     expense in setting up a killer system!

: I'd agree completely.  My only "real" sorrow with my system is that I did
: not get a bigger drive - mine is ALREADy completely full...

: >: I plan to attach scsi tape drive in the future, any recommendation
: >: on this would also be appreciated.
: >
: >     ...  I am STILL trying to figure 
: >     out where they put all that data on those tiny little tapes!

: They use maxwell's daemon    ;-)   ;-)
                ARF! ARF!  (gotme!) ;-) 
                BTW - my dog's name is Rusty!  
                73, Mark
: Rusty

: -- 
: 73 de Rusty Carruth, N7IKQ   P.O. Box 27001, Tempe, AZ 85285
:       (602) 870-3330         @'s: [email-masked]  or  [email-masked]
: !'s:{ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!rusty               ^^^^broken!!!^^^^
: The Phoenix Linux Users Group has formed!  Email: [email-masked]

--
================================================================================
Mark A. Horton                  |  Email: [email-masked] (soon) 
  Mark Horton Associates        |  Voice: +1 (404) 371 0291 (office)
    Strategic Planning          |    Fax: +1 (404) 371 0291 (office)
    Performance Tuning          |   Data: +1 (404) 378 7046 (Linux bbs)
"The opionions expressed here   |  Snail: P.O.Box 747, Decatur, GA US 30031-0747
DO represent those of myself."  |   ICBM: 33 45 N / 084 16 W
                                | Cruise: 33 45 30 N / 084 16 50 W
================================================================================
        "We may note that, for the purposes of these experiments, the symbol 
        "=" has the meaning "may be confused with."
                                 - Anon.
================================================================================

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.msdos,comp.os.msdos.misc
From: [email-masked] (Lawrence Houston)
Subject: Re: Setting active partition on second hard drive
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 06:44:56 GMT

From article <[email-masked]>, by [email-masked] (Tim Reczek):
> Hi everyone,
> 
>     I have two hard drives: Westen Digital 340MB as master, Maxtor 130MB
> as slave.  I was considering using the 130MB dive to run linux on while 
> leaving the 340MB drive solely DOS.
> 
> Question: Can I make the linux partion on the 2nd drive the active partition?
> 
> I tried to do this with fdisk (with both drives having DOS partitions) and 
> it said that only partions on the first drive can be made active.

There are only few of the "fancier" Boot Managers which allow booting from
Active Partitions on a Second Hard Drive (I do not believe Linux's fdisk
has the potential).  What I have successfully done on my system (with its two
SCSI Hard Drives), is install Linux (Slackware 1.0.3) on the second drive
(leaving the DOS and Interactive Partitions on the first drive untouched)!
I am restricted to booting from the LILO Boot disk which Slackware's 
Setup Program generated for me.  Sounds like your's are IDE Drives, I do not
know if the same will work (but we are planning to attempt the same thing
on an IDE based based machine next week). 

> Does this mean that I am unable to run linux on the 130MB drive because 
> I can't make it the active partion (short of physically swapping the drives).
> 
> Admittedly I haven't delved much into linux, so I don't even know if this
> makes a difference.  But if I have to have the linux partition on the first 
> drive (the 340MB), I'll have to backup and repartion the whole thing (yuck!).
> I'd really prefer to keep my O.S's on separate drives if possible.
> 
> Any info is appreciated.

If you try the LILO Boot Disk "trick" can you let me know your results.  We are
planning to do the same with a 210 Meg WD and a 200 Meg Maxtor (both IDE, the
Maxtor will be the slave, DOS is already on the WD)?
 
> Thanks,
> 
> Tim

Lawrence Houston,
McGill University.

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

From: [email-masked] (Mark A. Horton)
Subject: Re: Minicomm not working. Please help.
Date: 22 Sep 1993 21:51:01 -0700

[email-masked] wrote:
: I have just ftp'd the source for MINICOM off of sunsite.unc.edu.

: I have linux .99pl12 and all the up to date libraries and compiler.

: After I make all, and try to run the program, I get the following error
: message:

: Segmentation fault (core dumped)
        If you ran it without installing it, results will be unpredictable
        since the headers tell it where to find stuff.  It probably went
        after runscript (in usr/local/bin by default or keyserv (in usr/
        local/etc and came up empty-handed.

: What does this mean?  I checked the config.h and makefile to make sure
: everything was set properly for Linux.

: Also I noticed that the make install places the files in /usr/local/bin.  I
: don't have a usr/local/bin, just a usr/bin.  Should I just make it a symlink to
: usr/bin?
        NO! go ahead and create a /usr/local/bin as well as a /usr/local/lib
        and a /usr/local/etc if you don't already have them!  You're gonna
        need 'em in the future anyhow, and it'll make life a lot easier to
        have them around.  Also, from an aesthertics point of view, it
        is nicer to keep application stuff away from systems stuff - upgrades
        then become far less annoying. ;-)

        Hope this explains some things. - Mark

: Any help would be appreaciated.

: -- 
: 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

--
================================================================================
Mark A. Horton                  |  Email: [email-masked] (soon) 
  Mark Horton Associates        |  Voice: +1 (404) 371 0291 (office)
    Strategic Planning          |    Fax: +1 (404) 371 0291 (office)
    Performance Tuning          |   Data: +1 (404) 378 7046 (Linux bbs)
"The opionions expressed here   |  Snail: P.O.Box 747, Decatur, GA US 30031-0747
DO represent those of myself."  |   ICBM: 33 45 N / 084 16 W
                                | Cruise: 33 45 30 N / 084 16 50 W
================================================================================
        "We may note that, for the purposes of these experiments, the symbol 
        "=" has the meaning "may be confused with."
                                 - Anon.
================================================================================

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

** 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:
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    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
******************************