Subject: Linux-Development Digest #154
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 94 07:13:04 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #154, Volume #2         Sun, 11 Sep 94 07:13:04 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Hangs with 1.1.49 ? (Brian Kramer)
  Re: Homemade Terminal Server cheap ([email-masked])
  Re: DOSEMU 0.53pl18 und 1.1.49 : Serial Problems (C. Engelmann)
  Re: Does really Linux uses RAM efficiently? Undelete ability? (Zygo Blaxell)
  fdisk buggy? (juergen baumann)
  Drivers for Interlan NP600A e-net card? (David Monro)
  Re: fdisk buggy? (juergen baumann)
  Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux? (David Holland)
  RFD: Linux and end-users (Was: Don't use Linux?!) (Michael Schumacher)
  Re: What on earth is happening to the stability of the Linux Kernel? (H. Peter Anvin)
  Re: Why was ncp removed in 1.1.48? (H. Peter Anvin)
  Re: A thought to improve security (H. Peter Anvin)
  Re: 320x200 X resolution? (Andreas Matthias)

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

From: [email-masked] (Brian Kramer)
Subject: Re: Hangs with 1.1.49 ?
Date: 8 Sep 1994 21:32:42 -0400

Ray Bellis ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I'm having problems where my linux box hangs when doing any significant
: network access, such as compiling or running X applications (I've got
: /usr remote mounted using NFS).

: When the system hangs there aren't any debug messages, the system
: just stops dead.  This didn't used to happen when running 1.0.9.
: Unfortunately I can't stay running 1.0.9 since the precompiled
: version on the Slackware 2.0 distribution doesn't contain the
: devices I need, and if I build 1.0.9 myself it hangs when trying
: to detect my NE2000 ethernet card.

: I've posted this to the development group because it seems to be
: a problem with the new kernel.

I had this problem with 1.1.46 and 1.1.50...I only added the quota patch
to the system.  It just stops dead.  I am back to 1.0.9 till I figure out
how to solve it.
-- 
Brian Kramer - Owner/Systems Administrator - [email-masked]
New Jersey Computer Connection - Public Access Unix Site - pluto.njcc.com
Voice: 609-896-2799 - Fax: 609-896-2994 - Dialups: 609-896-3191
Dialup or Telnet to pluto.njcc.com and log in as guest for more information.

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

From: [email-masked]
Crossposted-To: comp.dcom.servers
Subject: Re: Homemade Terminal Server cheap
Date: 10 Sep 1994 21:41:44 -0400
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Liam Greenwood ([email-masked]) wrote:
: William ([email-masked]) wrote:

: > 1) MSRP for the 16 port card is over $700 apiece - I don't know where
: >    the original poster got $400 for 16 ports.  (MSRP of 8 port cards
: >    was over $400.)  Cyclade also sells a full "terminal server", 16 ports
: Cyclades ad in Linux Journal #5 page 6 says;
:        "Order Now Just $99.- 8 ports $399.- 16 ports"

The ad also specifies that that price is for first time resellers. I
suspect there are a few strings but the ad is, IMHO, very deceptive,
especially coming as it does in something that is more of a user/hacker
mag than a trade journal for VARs.

-- 
===================================================================
|Chuck Mattern           | "Not failure, but low aim, is crime."  |
[email-masked] | -James Russell Lowell-                 |
===================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (C. Engelmann)
Subject: Re: DOSEMU 0.53pl18 und 1.1.49 : Serial Problems
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 19:30:16 GMT

[email-masked] (Martin Cornelius) wrote:

>I just successfully installed Kernel 1.1.49 and Dosemu 0.53pl18,
>but the serial Ports seem to be not working at all. When I try
>to install the MS mouse-driver or the Logimouse driver, they
>both say that no mouse can be found. Also, Procomm cannot access
>the ports. I'm sure the harware is o.k. as i can use the ports
>with kermit, selection and X. The serial entries in my dosemu.conf  
>didn't change since dosemu 0.52, where everything worked fine.

>Any Hints ??

Not a hint, but the same problem using kernel 1.1.44.
DOSEMU locks up if I try to load the mouse driver.
Under X things are working well(the first time !).

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

From: [email-masked] (Zygo Blaxell)
Subject: Re: Does really Linux uses RAM efficiently? Undelete ability?
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 00:01:50 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
John Saunders <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Anthony W. Kay ([email-masked]) wrote:
>> Undelete is a feature you can build on by replacing the rm command with
>> a program that moves the file to some sort of "trashcan (a directory
>> like /tmp)". Then write a program (call it unrm if you wish), that 
>> searches the "trashcan", and moves the file(s) back.  Remember to add
>> a program to your crontab that "times out" these files and actually
>> removes them. (you might also add a rmtrash command).
>
>One idea would be to have a "disk space" daemon that periodically checks

I already do all of this.  A 'trash' command mv's files to a
subdirectory per user in /tmp.  A 'tmpclean' script deletes the oldest
files first until 15% of /tmp is free.  They're written as 'bash'
aliases and 'perl' scripts.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (juergen baumann)
Subject: fdisk buggy?
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 19:01:29 GMT

after some days well working system a
rather interesting phenomenon

Disk /dev/sda: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 515 cylinders
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot  Begin   Start     End  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda4      184320  184320 1054719  435200    5  Extended
/dev/sda5      184352  184352  225279   20464   83  Linux native
/dev/sda6      225280  225280  286719   30720   83  Linux native
/dev/sda7      286720  286720  348159   30720   83  Linux native
/dev/sda8      348160  348160  409599   30720   83  Linux native
/dev/sda9      409600  409600  614399  102400   83  Linux native
/dev/sda10     614400  614400  860069  122835   83  Linux native
/dev/sda11     860160  860160  962559   51200   83  Linux native
/dev/sda12     962560  962560 1054719   46080   83  Linux native

Nr AF  Hd Sec  Cyl  Hd Sec  Cyl  Start   Size ID
 4 00   0   1   90  63  32  514 184320 870400 05
 5 00   1   1   90  63  32  109     32  40928 83
 6 00   0   1  110  63  32  139      1  61440 83
 7 00   0   1  140  63  32  169      1  61440 83
 8 00   0   1  170  63  32  199      1  61440 83
 9 00   0   1  200  63  32  299      1 204800 83
10 00   0   1  300  63  32  419      1 245670 83
11 00   0   1  420  63  32  469      1 102400 83
12 00   0   1  470  63  32  514      1  92160 83

eigentlich alles kein Problem, jede Partition hat ihren
eigenen Raum, keine Ueberschneidungen. Denkste...
die ersten Partitionen habe ich aus der Liste geloescht, 
waren nicht betroffen, daher unwichtig.

first partitions are deleted --- they weren't important.
normally no problem, every partition has its own room,
no overlapping...
parttion 4 is the first extended one. every partition is
preceeded by a block with one entry for the mainpartition
and a pointer to the next partitionblock if there's any
further extended partition. 
look at the table above. there's no room for these blocks 
at all! beetween every extended partition there should be
at least one block free, not listed as part of a partition.
a diskeditor show, that the needed partitionblock is found
on the last block of the partition before.

the partitions was build with fdisk 1.4. normally it works
ok, so that the necessary block is inserted automatically.
if you try to enter a used block, you'll get an error and
I think the partitions were ok 2 weeks ago, when they're built.
I don't know, what's happened. today I've done a reboot to
load another kernel and get errors while reading the partitions,
cause some partitionblocks was overwritten by some files.

once the intention of this is to prevent damages on other systems
and naturately It would be nice to get know what's happened there...

jb

-- 

automatically created signature was bounced to prevent the forwarding to /dev/null....

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

From: [email-masked] (David Monro)
Subject: Drivers for Interlan NP600A e-net card?
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 15:37:11 GMT

I have just dredged up a couple of MICOM-Interlan NP600A net cards and
was wondering if there is any way of using them under Linux. They look
like they would have been nice cards in their day - on board 80186 w/
512K memory etc, designed to do some of the protocol stack on-card
rather than under the OS, 16bit bus.
Anybody any ideas on how to drive them out there - can they fake a
cheap card (NE2000 or WD80x3?) or something like that? Or am I out of
luck this time? (I've been able to drive just about all the other random
hardware that's fallen into the black hole I call my room...)

David

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (juergen baumann)
Subject: Re: fdisk buggy?
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 19:04:45 GMT

oops, the kernel is 1.0 ;)
file-system was build
with ext2 0.5a

jb

-- 

automatically created signature was bounced to prevent the forwarding to /dev/null....

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

Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?
From: [email-masked] (David Holland)
Date: 9 Sep 94 15:53:29

[email-masked]'s message of 7 Sep 1994 22:24:25 -0700 said:

 > 1. Are people interested in a commercial compiler suite for Linux on
 >    Intel Architecture platforms? 

Probably.

However, you'd have to keep the cost in the range people expect
($50-500) - none of these $20,000 two-user licenses that some Unix
software vendors offer. Nobody would jump for that.

 > The suite would include true compilers for extended Fortran 77,
 > ANSI C, Draft-ANSI C++ with extensions, and High Performance
 > Fortran.

There's definitely room for a Fortran compiler, especially a good one.
f2c just doesn't cut it for a lot of things. As far as C goes,
remember you have to beat gcc and g++; but that shouldn't be terribly
difficult. A native 80x86 compiler generates much better code than
gcc, because the 80x86 architecture is so weird.

 > 2. How much would people pay for such a product [ loaded question ]?

Depends on how good it is. If it doesn't offer any noticeable
improvement over gcc, almost nobody's going to bother.

One area where gcc falls seriously short, IMO, is performance...

 > 3. What distribution media would be required?

Floppy, CD-ROM are good... non-anonymous ftp might be good too.

 > 4. Is there interest in accompanying GUI/non-GUI debuggers and
 >    performance analysis tools?

Yes. We're all used to gdb, but it's awfully primitive. (A
command-line debugger? Please...)

--
   - David A. Holland          | -- "Do you have a moment?"   -- "Yes.
     [email-masked] | Unfortunately, it's a moment of inertia."

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

From: [email-masked] (Michael Schumacher)
Subject: RFD: Linux and end-users (Was: Don't use Linux?!)
Date: 11 Sep 1994 07:36:42 GMT

Greetings!

I received some mail in response to my "Dont use Linux!?" article, which
I posted to c.o.l.d. People kindly reminded me that subjects like "Dont
use Linux" are typically used to start a flame war, but not a serious
discussion. Well, I really *hate* wars of any kind, and just to take
away any potential snake-oil, I changed the subject line in the hope that
you carefully read what I've written, and that you now are willing to start
a serious discussion.

Please allow me to explain a few details: I do *not* think that the policy
for the kernel or the C library needs to be changed. I didn't say that,
I didn't write that, and I didn't think that. The problem I tried to
describe is the following: If you're offering a commercial product (e.g.
a database) for Linux, it might happen, that it will not run with newer
versions of the C library. If a customer purchases your database and is
not able to get things running, he will definitely make YOU responsible
for that, even though the problems are not caused by your database code.

I mentioned some CDROMs which contain dumps of the major Linux/GNU/X
ftp archives. I did *not* mean the CD versions of dedicated Linux
distributions (slackware, debian, SLS, ...), which usually come with
printed documentation, boot disks, and hotline support. I explained
(well, tried to ...) what I think is wrong with the sort of CDs
described above: they might be very useful for experienced users (e.g.,
it might be cheaper to buy such a CD, than to download the sources of
X11R6 using a slow SLIP connection), but they are not appropriate for
average users, who have no idea of Un*x and just want to try out Linux.

Again: I don't think this newsgroup is read by someone who hates Linux,
so we all - more or less - love this OS. It's great for developers and
for people who want to learn about Un*x and such, but it's a pain for
end-users. Have you ever tried to convince a typical DOS- or Mac-user
of Linux? Sooner or later talking comes to applications, and at that
point you'll have to talk a lot about emulators, and people will ask
you: I've got DOS/Windows right now. Could you please explain me, why
I should use Linux? If it's nothing more than just a platform for
any-sort-of-emulators to run my applications, I don't need that! This
is the public opinion about Linux, sorry to say that. IMHO, Linux is
just to great to deserve this, and therefore I want *YOU* to start a
discussion about how we can change this. Linux needs commercial products,
so we have to convince the companies that Linux *IS* a target. The race
is not run before the huge companies and market leaders appear on the
scene. If someone like WordPerfect or Borland will offer their products
for Linux, this will be a signal for others, too. Without the support
from the commercial world, Linux will stay the "best OS without success".
I don't mind if you don't share my opinion, and I don't mind if you send
me a mail about your opinion. But please not in that style:

[start of quote]

From daemon Sat Sep 10 07:51:45 1994
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 22:50:47 -0700
From: [email-masked] (Thomas G. McWilliams)
To: [email-masked] (Michael Schumacher)
Subject: Re: Don't use Linux?!
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Status: RO

In article <[email-masked]> you wrote:
:    and so I asked my employer for permission to make it GPL'd freeware.
:    Guess what, he said "No way!". So I ripped off my bones and used all
:    of my talents to persuade him to make it a shareware product instead
:    of a true commercial package. Well, now that tgdb is available for
:    a couple of weeks, I'm quite sure there are 100's or even more people
:    who use it for their daily debug sessions. Fine. But the bloody truth
:    is that not even a *single* person has paid the nominal shareware

Mikey,

Why don't you sell your bullshit to NT users? 
I'm sure you'll find plenty of buyers for your penny-ante cruft.

[email-masked]

[end of quote]

I'm not very familiar with that kind of language, and I definitely hope
this is not the way the Linux community treats people who try to make
Linux a successful operating system outside the academic world.

Thanks,
mike

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

From: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Subject: Re: What on earth is happening to the stability of the Linux Kernel?
Reply-To: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 06:04:09 GMT

Followup to:  <[email-masked]>
By author:    [email-masked] (Alan Cox)
In newsgroup: comp.os.linux.development
> 
> Well the 1.3.x networking code will probably start out fairly interesting
> with all the additional IP multicasting, protocol layering and other toys.
> 

Wonderful... I can't wait!  :)  Thanks, Alan, and all you other
developers for a fantastic job.

Here at Northwestern, when the freshmen come in this fall (that is,
next week) they will be able to install Linux directly over the
network, from their dorm rooms.  We expect that to lead to a lot more
Linux users here on campus.  Something quite amusing about the whole
thing is that we initially were going to have the file server for this
job being a SunOS box, but we had to change it to a Linux one since
the Sun couldn't NFS-export a directory to a whole domain (and our
netadmin said we were not allowed to export to the world).

We are basically using a Slackware distribution with slightly modified
install scripts (automatic network configuration via BOOTP).

        /hpa

-- 
INTERNET: [email-masked]             --- Allah'u'abha ---
IBM MAIL: I0050052 at IBMMAIL     HAM RADIO:   N9ITP or SM4TKN
FIDONET:  1:115/511 or 1:115/512  STORMNET:    181:294/1 or 181:294/101
Help!  I'm stuck on this planet!

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

From: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Subject: Re: Why was ncp removed in 1.1.48?
Reply-To: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 06:05:47 GMT

Followup to:  <[email-masked]>
By author:    [email-masked] (Alan Cox)
In newsgroup: comp.os.linux.development
>
> It was something Mark Evans added that really didnt belong in the kernel
> (NCP uses three sockets in a way you can handle cleanly in user mode).
> 

How about SPX?  SPX seems like it ought to belong in the kernel.

(SPX is to IPX as TCP is to IP, pretty much.)

        /hpa

-- 
INTERNET: [email-masked]             --- Allah'u'abha ---
IBM MAIL: I0050052 at IBMMAIL     HAM RADIO:   N9ITP or SM4TKN
FIDONET:  1:115/511 or 1:115/512  STORMNET:    181:294/1 or 181:294/101
First hug free; all subsequent ones free.

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

From: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Subject: Re: A thought to improve security
Reply-To: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 06:14:14 GMT

Followup to:  <[email-masked]>
By author:    [email-masked] (Craig Woodward)
In newsgroup: comp.os.linux.development
> 
> >Now my suggestion :
> >Let's modify the kernel a bit,....
> 
>       If I had a penny for every time someone wanted to change the kernel...
> Why not compile the shell right into the kernel? Heck, MSDOG did it.
> 

Certainly MS-DOG did not... the kernel in MS-DOG is IO.SYS and
MSDOS.SYS (IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM on some OEM versions).  The shell
is COMMAND.COM.  However, several of the *user utilities* (COPY, DEL...)
are compiled into the *shell*, and for reasons that were good for the
original purpose of MS-DOG (to run on a floppy-only system too small to
run UNIX).

Now, many of the old Z80-based machines used BASIC in ROM as their
operating system.  There you can indeed say that the shell was built
into the kernel.  (And many of them had a command prompt ready by the
time the monitor picture had stabilized after power-on... sigh.)

        /hpa
-- 
INTERNET: [email-masked]             --- Allah'u'abha ---
IBM MAIL: I0050052 at IBMMAIL     HAM RADIO:   N9ITP or SM4TKN
FIDONET:  1:115/511 or 1:115/512  STORMNET:    181:294/1 or 181:294/101
Have you hugged your Swede today?

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
From: [email-masked] (Andreas Matthias)
Subject: Re: 320x200 X resolution?
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 20:23:13 GMT

:       So.... 320x200 resolution anyone? :)
: I'll post if I figure out how to do it.

I have one that's working here (ET4000 with 17'' AOC monitor), but it
occupies only about half of the screen in vertical direction. I did
not find out how to make it bigger vertically. Perhaps someone else
can continue with this:

**********************************************************************
ModeDB
# name        clock   horizontal timing     vertical timing      flags

 "320x200"     25      320  360  424   440    200  200  240  250
**********************************************************************

btw: Could it be that fvwm gets confused with this resolution? It
seems not to scroll correctly in the vertical direction.

Ciao,

Andreas

--
Andreas Matthias <[email-masked]>

Zehntenstr.9 
D-37120 Bovenden

Voice: +49/551/81377

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

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