Subject: Linux-Development Digest #161
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 94 09:13:17 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #161, Volume #2         Mon, 12 Sep 94 09:13:17 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Don't use Linux?! (Michael Dillon)
  Re: 480x360 Res works for me. (Steve VanDevender)
  Re: 3c509 Problems (Kevin Martinez)
  Re: IDE Performance enhancement (Chris Cain)
  Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux? (Martien Hulsen)
  Re: Alpha Linux (Chris Bitmead)
  Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux? (Thomas Koenig)
  Re: Slow curses - is there a better/faster curses? (NightHawk)
  SEARCH: Clock setting Programm for 24X ([email-masked])
  Re: 480x360 Res works for me. (Mikael Nordqvist)
  Re: Don't use Linux?! (Kai Petzke)
  Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux? (Geert J v Oldenborgh)
  Extending a common block backwards (was: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?) (Thomas Koenig)
  Re: Future of linux -- t (Joachim Schrod)

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

From: [email-masked] (Michael Dillon)
Subject: Re: Don't use Linux?!
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 13:32:39 +0100

> >: Okay. Before you start sending me endless flames, I want to make sure
> >: that you know that I *love* Linux. It's probably the best PC Un*x you
> >
> >    That's pretty funny, since Maple V Release 3 has just been ported to Linux.
> He is _perfectly_ right! There a thousands of programs. Maple is _just_
> one of them ...

Maple is a good example because it is not THE top selling product in
it's field. The Flagship dBase clone is another good example. Companies
like Lotus and Wordperfect are too tied to DOS/Windows to be interested
in porting their products to Linux.

But there are OTHER commercial spreadsheets and word processors out
there, some of them already ported to other UNIX's, that might
have less of an investment in DOS/Windows that they would be
willing to take a chance on a Linux port.

Can you imagine somebody selling a 486 with preinstalled Linux, X Windows,
spreadsheet, word processor, etc... just like they do now with
AST and Dell systems.

cruisin' down the information highway, lookin' for a blast
breakin' all the speed limits as I come zoomin' past!
--
Michael Dillon                 Internet: [email-masked]
C-4 Powerhouse                  Fidonet: 1:353/350
RR #2 Armstrong, BC  V0E 1B0      Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Canada                              BBS: +1-604-546-2705

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
From: [email-masked] (Steve VanDevender)
Subject: Re: 480x360 Res works for me.
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 05:39:36 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Daniel L Moore   ) writes:

   DOOM runs fine, now to find solutions to the ctrl, alt - arrow keys
   combinations, (my window manager takes over), and getting the sound
   to work, probably need to upgrade my driver.

You can redefine all of the key commands.  I haven't figured out
what the keycodes are supposed to be for non-ASCII keys, but you
can put the ASCII value of a normal key after the key_* tag in
the .doomrc to use that key for a keyboard command; i.e. if you
wanted to use the 'a' key for key_fire, then put 97 after the
key_fire tag in your .doomrc.

I upgraded my Linux 1.0.9 kernel with the Voxware 2.90
distribution on sunsite (including the two provided patch files)
and I get good sound.  The only problem seems to be that I
sometimes get "delayed echoes"; a fragment of the end of a sound
will sometimes reoccur up to a couple of seconds after it
originally finished.

What I really miss is using the mouse.  I switched to using the
mouse some time ago during a period when I was doing a lot of
intense deathmatch play, and while I have gotten a little better
at using the keyboard in the Linux version, I tried running the
DOS version again with the mouse and it was _so_ much easier to
do things.  I just can't seem to find the right layout for the
key commands that lets me comfortably run, turn, strafe, and fire
all at the same time even half as well as I can with the
mouse/keyboard combination.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: Kevin Martinez <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 3c509 Problems
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 00:37:03 GMT

[email-masked] (Danek Duvall) writes:

>I hadn't changed any relevant pieces of the network config files, so
>it couldn't have been that.  Then I checked /var/adm/messages, which
>had the line:

>  eth0: Missed interrupt, status then 2011 now 2011 Tx 00 Rx 383c

>The same line appeared every time I booted, exced that the last number
>would change.  I found the spot where this gets printk'ed, but I know
>nothing more than that.

I see the same in my logs after restarts as well. I wonder if this has 
something to do with how the 3C509 is setup? ( it has configurable 
interrupt latency based on what speed serial port you intend on using and 
can also be setup as windows client, dos client, server)

I noticed that at some point the kernel included a newer 3c509.c with a 
rev level of 1.01. This seemed to fix the problem of having to power 
cycle the computer to make the network work when rebooting from Linux to 
windows NT or vice versa.
-- 
========================================================================
 Kevin Martinez    [email-masked]    Member of the Julie Kangas Fan Club
 Work: 1 800 I FEEL OK                              Home: 1 510 676 1111
========================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Chris Cain)
Subject: Re: IDE Performance enhancement
Date: 11 Sep 1994 11:15:56 GMT

[email-masked] (Pete Deuel) writes:

>Harry C Pulley ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: Pete Deuel ([email-masked]) wrote:

>: : I have to think that, if there is to be any noticible speed difference, you 
>: : really must stick to disk-intensive applications.  I would guess kernel 
>: : compilation is not THE thing to test this with.

>: I use iozone.  I got a 50% speed up when I went from 1.0 to 1.1.45 with 
>: multcount 16, read-ahead 16, etc.  Going to VLB with my IDE drives yielded
>: another 35% improvement (on top of the 50% improvement from 1.1.45).

There is a speedup in the code somewhere that isnt ide releated, 
I just recently updated from 1.1.23 to 1.1.49 and the first thing I noticed
was that the news expire that had been taking 7 or 8 hours now complets
in about 4. This is on scsi drives using an adaptec host adapter.
Dont know why its so much faster but I'm not complaining !.

--
 __
/       |\   |         Full service Internet in Southampton area   
\_   _  | \  |  _  |   from 15 GBP/month with FREE phone calls included.  
  \ / \ |  \ | /_\ |-  email [email-masked] for details. 

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

Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
From: [email-masked] (Martien Hulsen)
Subject: Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 08:24:31 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:
> In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ray Hann) writes:

> Fortran code compiled by f2c+gcc can be debugged using gdb. Simply
> transform/compile with -g and set the first break point to MAIN__.
> (If you use f77 script that comes with Slackware (and maybe some
> other distributions), make sure you either remove the section that
> transfers the code to f2ctmp_<filename>.f and compiles it, or
> at least comment out the line that removes f2ctmp_<filename>.f if
> you want to debug.)

I gave up on this procedure. It only worked for simple code without
subroutines. As far as I can remember only variables local
to the subroutines could be accessed correctly. Most of the variables
in the heading (arrays) got messed up. I'm eagerly awaiting a true
fortran debugger.

Martien.
> -- 
> Jim West                                  [email-masked]
> Associate Professor                       [email-masked]
> Electrical and Computer Engineering
> Oklahoma State University

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

From: [email-masked] (Chris Bitmead)
Subject: Re: Alpha Linux
Date: 12 Sep 94 11:37:53

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (David Holland) writes:

>[email-masked]'s message of 06 Sep 1994 16:38:15 GMT said:
>
> > Why drop one? 
> > 16 bits = short int
> > 32 bits = int
> > 64 bits = long
>
>Over in the next thread people were talking about Unicode; why not
>
>16 bits = char
>32 bits = short
>64 bits = int, long

None of these is the best solution. The best solution is to say exactly
what you mean. E.g. If you want to store numbers between -500 and +1000
you should declare this and let the compiler work out how many bits to
use. e.g. int{-500,1000} foo; int{0,65535} bar;
Naturally you could use typedef's for common ranges. This has the added
benefit of not assuming that the computer is binary, assuming one day
someone invents a non-binary computer.
In any case stating what you *really* want to do and letting the compiler
decide on the optimum number of bits has to be the best.

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Koenig)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?
Date: 12 Sep 1994 11:45:01 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Richard Maine ([email-masked]) wrote in article <[email-masked]>:

>Off the top of my head, the code that I recall giving f2c/gcc the most fits
>combined COMMON and EQUIVALENCE something like

>  common /com/ a,b,c
>  real x(3)
>  equivalence (x(1),a)

This works on my Linux box:

mvmampc66 tom:~/test$ cat com.f
      common /com/ a,b,c
      real x(3)
      equivalence (x(1),a)
      x(2) = 1.2
      print *,b
      end
mvmampc66 tom:~/test$ f2c com.f && cc com.c -lf2c -lm
com.f:
   MAIN:
mvmampc66 tom:~/test$ ./a.out
  1.20000005

>I never figured out how to send in bug reports, so I just dropped it.

Well, you could have posted to comp.lang.fortran, I'm sure somebody
would have picked it up.

Can you maybe go back and see what the code actually was like?
--
Thomas Koenig, [email-masked], [email-masked].
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

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

From: [email-masked] (NightHawk)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: Slow curses - is there a better/faster curses?
Date: 12 Sep 1994 07:31:44 -0400

James Deibele ([email-masked]) wrote:
: 48 hours ago I installed Slackware 2.0 and it was just about the easiest 
: install I've ever done in 10 years of mucking around with computers.
: Color me impressed.

: We are using Linux on a box for people to do remote development - we
: want to compile and run apps on the Linux box.  Exciting things like
: accounting and other business tasks.

: elvis is a pretty faithful implementation of vi although it's noticeably
: slower in screen I/O than vi on a SPARC.  And that's when I'm only the
: user on the linux box and there's nothing else happening on it.  And
: with relatively small - 400-line - programs.

I am using nvi 1.34 from BSD 4.4. It is fast and much more compatible
with vi than elvis.

: Console output under Linux was very quick and I'm sure X performance is
: pretty good.  But curses performance is a little sluggish and adding
: lines near the bottom of the screen is a real killer - curses seems to
: clear the screen with blank lines <then> adds the new text.

: I know that curses and terminals are going the way of the dinosaur but
: like the dinosaur they're going to take a long time to die.  We were
: looking at what it would cost to outfit our very small office with a
: PC/Mac/Unix solution that ran under Windows, MacOS, and UNIX and decided
: we could live with a curses interface.

: But it would be nice if it were a little quicker.  Is there a
: replacement curses out there somewhere?  I checked the FAQs, How-Tos,
: and Meta-FAQ and didn't see a word about curses.

There is a new curses from BSD 4.4 in libc 4.6.x. It is under beta testing
now. I like it very much.

NH

: Thanks!

: -- 
: [email-masked]                 "Slowly cursing he deleted the word"
: Full internet (ftp, telnet, irc, ppp) available.   Voice: (503) 223-4245
: Portland: (503) 220-1016 2400, N81.  Login as "new" to setup an account.
: Vancouver: (206) 260-0330   Salem: (503) 364-2028    FAX: (503) 223-4372

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

Date: 12 Sep 1994 12:15:00 +0200
From: [email-masked]
Subject: SEARCH: Clock setting Programm for 24X

## Nachricht vom 12.09.94 weitergeleitet
## Ursprung : /comp/os/linux/admin
## Ersteller: [email-masked]

Hello...

I'am searching for an Program named: CLOCK !
This tool is designed, to change the clock settings of an Speedstar 24X  
Graphicsadapter.

A few day's ago, some men post his Xconfig for an Speedstar 24X in this  
group. He also had the Clock program...

Where can i get this ???

---Kai
###
## CrossPoint v3.0 ##

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

From: [email-masked] (Mikael Nordqvist)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: 480x360 Res works for me.
Date: 12 Sep 1994 12:12:58 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Paradox) writes:
>Steve VanDevender ([email-masked]) wrote:
> [ snip ]
>       Ok, who wants to make a linux-based wad editor now? ;)

Check out Linux-DEU 5.21 on infant2.sphs.indiana.edu:/pub/doom/deu (fsp).

Runs under svgalib. Version 6.0 will probably run under X.

/Mikael
-- 
Mikael Nordqvist, student    | [email-masked] | I'm not paraniod, it's just
Lund Institute of Technology | [email-masked]   | that everyone is out to get me

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

From: [email-masked] (Kai Petzke)
Subject: Re: Don't use Linux?!
Date: 12 Sep 94 09:00:07 GMT

[email-masked] (Michael Schumacher) writes:

>Hello Linuxers!

>1. Commercial software products are typically binary-only (i.e., no
>   source code is available). No matter what language you use for
>   compilation, you will finally need libc, which happens to be FSF's
>   libc on Linux. From the GLPL you learn that you are not allowed
>   to make statically linked, binary-only releases of your software.

Wrong.  You may make statically linked, binary-only releases.
All you have to do is to distribute an unlinked version of your
program along the ready-to-use version.  This is not too much
of a hassle.

>2. Linux's libc tends to change its version number almost every week
>   (sometimes even more often).

Linux libc has three version numbers: major, minor, and patch level.
From time to time, the patchlevel increments real fast.  The minor
version has been stable for over half an year now, and the major 4
is around for 2 years now.

I have lots of binaries linked against 4.1, and they still work with
4.5.26!

>3. The kernel versions change faster than the speed of light. If you
>   ask for a "stable" version, you'll be teached that there are two
>   versions: 1.0 (production) and 1.1 (hacker's paradise). Wanna have a
>   stable one? Get 1.0! Okay, but if I want to offer a commercial
>   product, it doesn't matter what kernel version *I* am using, but
>   what version is used by my potential *customers*!

Your potential customers use 1.0, maybe 1.2 by the end of the year.
Some may use 1.1.X or 1.3.X, but most of them know, what they are
doing.  They can find out themselves, that the kernel broke their
software.

>   There's a reason
>   for 1.1: it is a bit faster, it supports more hardware, it provides
>   more features. As a result, most Linuxers traditionally pick up the
>   the newest kernel releases all the time

Most linuxers, that post in this group, do so.  Remember: it is
called comp.os.linux.development.  Most Linuxers by now do not
upgrade their kernel every week or two.  They install a system,
and stay with it, when it runs.  But again, these people will
not post or read to this group.

>   - and usually end up in this
>   newsgroup, saying "this is broken", "that doesn't work anymore",
>   "can't compile", etc. (if you don't believe me, just exit this thread
>   for a moment and take a look at the other subjects). Besides other
>   disadvantages, this will definitely not convince companies of the
>   stability and usefulness of Linux!

Linux problems are in the open, not hidden.  Everybody can see, what
is going on.  Companies, who do not like the truth, shall go away.
Others, who have reasonable experiences from themselves, will see,
that linux has problems as any other software.

>4. ...
>   I'm the author of tgdb,
>   a graphical user interface for gdb.

Actually, I do not know your package.  You will have to wait, until
it spreads in the linux community.  Unlike DOOM, you cannot expect,
that 1001 people download it on the first day.

>5. On the other hand, I can tell you how to make lots of money with Linux: 
>   simply download the archives of tsx-11, sunsite, nic.funet.fi,
>   prep.ai.mit.edu and ftp.x.org, put them on a CDROM, call it "Dream Linux"
>   or similar, and sell if for US$35 per copy.

Pressing CD-ROMS is expensive in the beginning, and you may end up
with 10 people on the net being angry about your CD, writing flames.
Off goes your bussiness.

>   What will happen? I'm quite sure that most of these desperated people
>   will close the Linux chapter - forever.

When OS/2 came out, many of your arguments were true, too.  It was
unstable, often changing, had few users, no commercial software.
And now?  It is starting to establish as a real OS.

Kai
-- 
Kai Petzke                      | How fast can computers get?
Technical University of Berlin  |
Berlin, Germany                 | Sol 9, of course, on Star Trek.
[email-masked]   |

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

From: [email-masked] (Geert J v Oldenborgh)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?
Date: 12 Sep 94 11:58:02 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Geert J v Oldenborgh)

(About using gdb on Fortran translated using f2c+gcc)

>I gave up on this procedure. It only worked for simple code without
>subroutines. As far as I can remember only variables local
>to the subroutines could be accessed correctly. Most of the variables
>in the heading (arrays) got messed up.

For me it seems to work quite well, for common one uses commonname_.variable.  
The main proble I have is that my version of gcc (NeXT cc) chokes on some of 
the line breaks introduced by f2c.  Does anyone know how to tell f2c not to 
break a line between '(ftnlen' and ')'?

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Koenig)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Extending a common block backwards (was: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?)
Date: 12 Sep 1994 12:16:20 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

[Followup-To: comp.lang.fortran]

Richard Maine ([email-masked]) wrote in article <[email-masked]>:

[problem about equivalence and common in f2c, which didn't happen in
the example he gave]

Well, I played around some more, and found a construct on which f2c
barfs:
mvmampc66 tom:~/test$ cat com.f
      COMMON /COM/ A,B,C
      REAL X(3)
      EQUIVALENCE (X(2),A)
      X(2) = 1.2
      PRINT *,B
      END
mvmampc66 tom:~/test$ f2c com.f
com.f:
   MAIN:
Error processing equivalences before line 4 of com.f: attempt to extend common com backward

So, is this a bug in my program, or in f2c?  (HP f77 compiles the program
without complaint, but I know that doesn't mean anything :-)
--
Thomas Koenig, [email-masked], [email-masked].
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

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

From: [email-masked] (Joachim Schrod)
Subject: Re: Future of linux -- t
Date: 12 Sep 1994 09:59:34 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Keith Smith) writes:
> In article <[email-masked]>, Lau <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >[email-masked]
> >On 09/05/94, Joachim wrote:                   
> >
> >>As an example, I'm currently thinking about upgrading my 16MB to 32MB
> >>since it's not enough for serious work. The AIX system at work is
> >>already short at memory with 32MB, 64 or 128 MB would be fine. How
> >>can I put 128 MB in my VLB PC? That's the reality I'm living in, and
> 
> My PC motherboard will hold something like 512MB, not that I could ever
> afford anything close.  Compile "Hello World" under Linux, and on your
> AIX box.  Compare the size of the stripped binaries.

But I don't use "Hello World" programs. In large applications with
large data sets code size differences are not so important any more.

> >>I suppose Larry has a similar environment. I was even astonished that
> >>he listed only a 400 MB disk, I wouldn't buy anything below 1 GB.
> 
> Also compare the size of the AIX OS (tit for tat) with Linux.  It is a
> "no contest" if IBM is remotely true to form in code bloat. 

You're right, on an AIX 1 GB is too small. My comment above was
explicitely meant for Linux. I'm not playing with a system, I'm
working with it.

> Actually the 72pin SIMM spec allows for up to 64MBytes of RAM on a
> single simm (maybe more, but I KNOW it goes to 16Mx36bits)  That will
> get you something like 384MB :).  Gosh, thats a lot of RAM.  Dunno what
> a SINGLE user is gonna need that much ram for.  I'd say 32MB should be
> more than adequate for anything you might be able to do on a PC/x86 type
> box.  If your application calls for more than that, then you need
> something a little more esoteric anyway.

Try to run Garnet, or any other Lisp-based UI-centric
programming-by-demonstration system. And then come back and tell me
that 32MB is `more than adequate'. Sorry, but I'm not interested in
undergrad programs.

Btw, I really cannot put 128 MB in *my* VLB system. Yes, I can change
the motherboard. The last time I did this I needed three exchanges
until the kernel didn't panic any more. It's nice to have a Unix
system at home, I can even work with it; but IMO one has to see the
difference to a high-class workstation like a multi-processor Sun
SparcStation or a IBM C-10 (which are the other systems I'm using).
Yes, it's more expensive, but it's in other dimensions, as well.

        Joachim

--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Joachim Schrod                  Email: [email-masked]
Computer Science Department
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany

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

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End of Linux-Development Digest
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