Subject: Linux-Development Digest #163
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 94 21:13:09 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #163, Volume #2         Mon, 12 Sep 94 21:13:09 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Multiprocessing Pentium Systems ([email-masked] (J. Robert Suckling ))
  f2c bug (Richard Maine)
  New 53c400 patch (Kevin Lentin)
  Help with development using vi. (Bill Pacilio)
  Re: Multiprocessing Pentium Systems (Mark Evans)
  Re: RFD: Linux and end-users (Was: Don't use Linux?!)
  Re: Doom Music + PAS-16 (Reginald S. Perry)
  PPP, PPPD and the escape option -- read if you are having problems (James Lathrop)
  Re: f2c bug (Thomas Koenig)
  Re: RFD: Linux and end-users (Was: Don't use Linux?!) (Peter Suetterlin)
  Memory in 1.1.50: What is data? (Peter Suetterlin)
  IDEA: Energy saving features for harddisks (Christer Weinigel)
  Re: 320x200 X resolution? (Erik Blass)
  Re: Help with development using vi. (Rob Janssen)
  Slow curses - is there a better/faster curses? (James Deibele)

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

From: [email-masked] (J. Robert Suckling <bobs>)
Subject: Re: Multiprocessing Pentium Systems
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 94 17:54:19 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Rich Deighton <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>It has to be said that Linux is a very good OS, but there is little need to
>flame something just because it comes from Microsoft. Be open minded about
>such things :-)
>

I do not want to get to high up on my soap box, but

I will be as open minded about their software
as they are with their software (ie. source code),
I could care less about their srink-rape-ware.

Now where is their source code, ... oh, I see...
So much for being open minded.  :(

Sure, if you poor enouph mega-bucks at something, it has got to be
good, sooner of later.  But try doing it for free.  Now do you see why
Linux is more then a just "a very good OS".
Being "very good", is ok, but linux is Free.
It is more like a movement.
(Bob S)

Ya, "You can get anything you like
        at alice's restaurant".

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

Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
From: [email-masked] (Richard Maine)
Subject: f2c bug
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 15:31:54 GMT

(I just posted an almost identical copy of this and then realized that
it had an error.  I cancelled the first one, but in case it got out
ahead of the cancel, note that the only difference is that this one
shows the common block name as revised to "x" instead of "a".
While I'm at it, I changed the subject to be more appropriate).

I wrote in article <[email-masked]>:

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

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

On 12 Sep 1994 11:45:01 GMT, [email-masked] (Thomas Koenig) said:

Thomas> This works on my Linux box:  [and shows that it does]

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

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

Thomas> Can you maybe go back and see what the code actually was like?

You caught me on that one.  Ok, I'm out at work now where I found a copy of
some notes a co-worker made on it.  I see that I left out one critical
feature - the common block and the array had the same name.  The
translated C code from f2c then used the same name for 2 conflicting
purposes.  This is one place that f77 specifically does allow the
same name to be used twice.  Changing the code would have been trivial
in principle, but problematic in practice because these common blocks
were part of the interface definition between the core program and
user-supplied subroutines - several different users have customized
versions of the user-supplied routines, and they don't always even tell
me when they do a customized version.  The co-worker did note that
the code ran correctly if the source was patched to change the
names so that the common block and array name were different.

I've reinstalled a newer Linux version subsequent to when I was testing
this, and I haven't put f2c on the new installation yet.  I'd do it
tonight except that my cdrom drive is out for warrantee repairs
(for the second time - grumble - perhaps I should have just gotten
a cheap drive instead of putting out for a Nec 3xi).  Would you try
the following modification of the above sample for me?

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

The only change is that the common block name chanhed from "com" to "x".
--
--
Richard Maine
[email-masked]

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.announce
From: [email-masked] (Kevin Lentin)
Subject: New 53c400 patch
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Kevin Lentin)
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 18:17:30 GMT

I've uploaded a new version of my 53c400 (T130B) Scsi patches. They are
functionally identical to the previous set but some of the patches in the
40's affected the NCR code and my patch stopped working flawlessly. Here is
the .lsm entry

Begin3
Title:          Patch to Linux 1.1.49+ for 53c400/t130b scsi
Version:        1(beta)
Entered-date:   18/8/94
Description:    These patches allow the Trantor T130B and any other
        NCR53c400 based card to work with the Generic NCR5380 SCSI driver
        under Linux. Ineterupts and PSEUDO-DMA are supported. This will
        become part of the development kernel eventually.
        This also includes some patches from Drew Eckhardt to do with
        resets and aborts as well as some timing issues. I couldn't be
        bothered separating them out. They'll all go in eventually anyway.
Keywords:       SCSI T130B NCR5380 NCR53C400
Author:         [email-masked] (Kevin Lentin)
Maintained-by:  [email-masked] (Kevin Lentin)
Primary-site:   sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/kernel/patches/scsi
                13k 53c400.tar.gz
Alternate-site: 
Original-site:  
Platform:       Linux 1.1.49+
Copying-policy: GPL
End

-- 
[==================================================================]
[ Kevin Lentin                   |___/~\__/~\___/~~~~\__/~\__/~\_| ]
[ [email-masked]  |___/~\/~\_____/~\______/~\/~\__| ]
[ Macintrash: 'Just say NO!'     |___/~\__/~\___/~~~~\____/~~\___| ]
[==================================================================]

--
Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: [email-masked]
Be sure to include Keywords: and a short description of your software.

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

From: [email-masked] (Bill Pacilio)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Help with development using vi.
Date: 12 Sep 1994 10:51:41 GMT

I use the elvis/vi editor to do my development work. On a unix system you have
the capability to cut and paste using the mouse. This does no seem to work
under Linux. I checked out the man pages and looked for a FAQ but found no
reference. Can someone direct me to a reference or tell me if the editor can be
configured this way
Thanks

-- 
###############################################################################
                REALITY HAPPENS WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT
###############################################################################

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

From: [email-masked] (Mark Evans)
Subject: Re: Multiprocessing Pentium Systems
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 20:29:46 GMT

Alan Cox ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Hugh Emberson) writes:
: >The easy way is the way that SunOS 4.1.3 does it, or is rumoured to do
: >it.  Allegedly 4.1.3 has a single spin lock around the entire kernel, so
: >that only one processor can be executing inside the kernel at any time.

: I don't know about SunOS but it's how several systems do it. The syscall()
: entry point from a process not on CPU #0 puts the process into a
: sleeping-in-kernel state and the process then gets rescheduled into
: running-in-kernel state only by CPU #0 (which looks for these first).

One obvious place I would look for idea is the Sequent Symetry Dynix system,
this used Inter processors (386), I am not sure how close the hardware is
to a PC, however.

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

From: [email-masked] ()
Subject: Re: RFD: Linux and end-users (Was: Don't use Linux?!)
Date: 11 Sep 1994 23:22:38 GMT

Michael Schumacher ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Greetings!

: [start of quote][Also start of deleted stuffs! -gaj]

: 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

I'll not disagree that this individual has a problem.  None of us need that
sort of hassle, whether we're familiar w/that kind of language or not.
 
However, you seem to have some misconceptions about shareware.  Several weeks
is hardly enough time to get decent exposure, let alone see decent returns.
You can expect that even the best of shareware needs anywhere between three
months to a year before seeing significant returns.  It's gotten much
shorter than it was years ago, due to more folks being online & due
to CD-ROM distributions, but it is still not retail.  I guess you could
say that the time & money saved in the marketing stages are payed for
waiting for the response.  There is no free lunch.  (Free Linux yes; free
lunch, no)  This is not to say that you will ever see returns on your
product.  But to say that shareware isn't effective is silly.  Try to
explain to Ferrari that they never really sold those Testarosas to the
boys at Id.  Or explain to Bob Wallace's accountant that all those numbers
that he deals with are imaginary.  Software in general is a less than
wonderful business.  Most of what is sold is dross, and a vast amount of
what is used is pirated.  Tit for tat, you might say.  Even this wonderful
freeware concept is a pain in the proverbial ass.  If I want to develop
shareware for Linux, I either have to become an expert in license 
interpretation, write my own development tools, or hope that rms & co. take
pitty and grant another "exception", thus complicating the license issue
further.  Enough of that, tho...that's fodder for another news group.

--
Greg A. Jandl  a.k.a.  ShadowFyr        "You can believe anything you
EMail> [email-masked]                  want.  The Universe is not
  "I will choose a path that's clear,    obligated to keep a straight
   I will choose freewill." -- N.P.      face."  -- Solomon Short

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

From: [email-masked] (Reginald S. Perry)
Subject: Re: Doom Music + PAS-16
Date: 12 Sep 1994 05:49:36 GMT

>"Tracy" == Tracy S Schuhwerk <[email-masked]> writes:

> In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
> (Christopher M. May) writes: |> Hi, Has anyone gotten the music to
> work in DOOM?  |> I've seen 1 person post with a SB16 who said it
> worked.  |> I thought doom was working perfectly, until I remembered
> there's |> music too :) |> |> My card passes the "fmtest" included
> in the sndkit.  |> (After I load the general midi patches... is this
> necessary?)  |> |> Also, do I have to compile in the MPU-401
> support?  |> The PAS-16 emulates an MPU-401.  |> Is the DOOM code
> sensitive to Soundblaster IRQ?  |> |> Does the Music go out
> /dev/sequencer or /dev/midi, or /dev/dsp?  |> |> Finally, does
> anyone with a PAS-16 have music working?

>    If it is anything like the SGI version (which it is supposed to
> be), there is no music...

        Correction. In both the SGI and the Linux version, there are
sound effects, but no background music. I have a SB16 basic and the
effects are loud and clear. I can barely hear the doom baseline in the
background but its barely there.

-Reggie

--
===================
Reginald S. Perry -- University of Washington, Department of Physics FM-15
                     Seattle, Washington 98195
[email-masked]     (Personal-Mail) 
[email-masked]             (General-Mail) 

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

From: [email-masked] (James Lathrop)
Subject: PPP, PPPD and the escape option -- read if you are having problems
Date: 12 Sep 94 06:22:53 GMT

To make a long story short, if you are trying to escape any codes outside
0-31 with the escape option on the linux side of a PPP link, then you
should be having problems.  I think I have found a nasty bug that resets
all of the extended escape codes.  This will cause you to have intermittent
hangs in telnet and especially binary FTP transfers, depending on what
you are escaping.  Since I'm not sure if the patch I made messed up
anything else I'll not post it publically.  If you know what you are 
doing and want to know the fix, fell free to E-mail me at
[email-masked].   As soon as I get a chance, I'll send this to someone
that can verify that what I've done is correct.

--- Jim

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Koenig)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: f2c bug
Date: 12 Sep 1994 16:09:34 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

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

>I wrote in article <[email-masked]>:

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

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

>On 12 Sep 1994 11:45:01 GMT, [email-masked] (Thomas Koenig) said:

>Thomas> This works on my Linux box:  [and shows that it does]

>I see that I left out one critical
>feature - the common block and the array had the same name.  The
>translated C code from f2c then used the same name for 2 conflicting
>purposes.  This is one place that f77 specifically does allow the
>same name to be used twice.

>Would you try
>the following modification of the above sample for me?

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

mvmampc66 tom:~/test$ cat com.f
      COMMON /X/ 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 && ./a.out
com.f:
   MAIN:
  1.20000005

So it appears to work...

If I look at the generated C code, I find the following:

struct {
    real a, b, c;
} x_;

/.../
#define x ((real *)&x_1)

so the problem appears to be fixed.

Actually, the last could be handled better (for debugging purposes)
by specifying

    real *x = ((real *)&x_1)
--
Thomas Koenig, [email-masked], [email-masked].
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

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

From: [email-masked] (Peter Suetterlin)
Subject: Re: RFD: Linux and end-users (Was: Don't use Linux?!)
Date: 12 Sep 1994 14:36:26 GMT

Michael Schumacher ([email-masked]) wrote:
: 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.

Indeed, the subject screamed for flamewars. But nevertheless, there was
some good discussion following. 

: 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.

Maybe you are right. BUT, o.t.o.h., those people that want to *work*
with their Linux System are not going to change to every patch level of
the kernel or the clib. They would stay with the most recent production
kernel, which, in the case of 1.0.9, is stable now since April. And *if*
the upcoming 1.2 is going to break the old version of any adopted
commercial software, it should not be too difficult to provide a new
compiled binary (e.g. via non-anonymous ftp). 

  Peter

==================   Peter 'PIT' Suetterlin   =================
|   Kiepenheuer Institut     |   Sternfreunde Breisgau e.V    |
|   fuer Sonnenphysik        |                                |
|   0761/3198-210            |   0761/71571                   |
-<[email-masked]>-<[email-masked]>--

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

From: [email-masked] (Peter Suetterlin)
Subject: Memory in 1.1.50: What is data?
Date: 12 Sep 1994 20:48:41 GMT

Hi together.

Just half an hour ago, I compiled the latest 1.1.50 kernel version.
During bootup, I got the following message:

Memory: 12956k/16384k available (624k kernel code, 384k reserved, 2420k data)

So what is the data block? wasn't there in the previous versions, and it
is 'eating' 2.4 Meg of my memory! I used to have a total of ~15MB.
Is it a bug or a feature? and if its a feature, what is it doing?

And, at last, sorry if it's the wrong group, but who if not the
developers do know about it?

Thanks for any info,

   Peter

 ----------------------   Peter 'PIT' Suetterlin   -------------------
|   Kiepenheuer Institut   |   Sternfreunde    | Planetarium Freiburg |
|   fuer Sonnenphysik      |   Breisgau e.V    |                      |
|   0761/3198-210          |   0761/71571      |     0761/276099      |
 [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Christer Weinigel)
Subject: IDEA: Energy saving features for harddisks
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 23:27:13 GMT

Hi,

  Is there anybody working on energy saving features for Linux?
More specifically, has anyone tried to use the "power-off" features
found in most IDE and SCSI disks.
  For example, the START_STOP command can be used to turn off the
motor on most SCSI drives (I've tried this on my 20MB Mac drive,
which is quite old, so I think most drives should support this). And
the IDE command set contains half a dozen commands which look promising
(E0 - Standy, E1 - Idle, ... E5 - check power mode ...).
  If nobody else is working on this, I'd be interested in trying to
implement this myself, the problem is that I'm not really sure of
where to begin, so any pointers would be appreciated.
  I could probably use some more information about the IDE command
set too, all I've got so far is a copy of a table from BYTE which
contains codes and names, and nothing more.
  And wouldn't it be great to be able to proudly say "Linux supports
the EPA (or whatever the latest three letter acronym is) specification."

  /Christer ([email-masked])

blubbering_about_ideas(TRUE)
    I should probably try to implement an IOCTL in the
  scsi disk or IDE disk code, which sets the "sleep timeout" for a device.
  Turning off a disk is (almost?) trivial, but when am I supposed to activate
  the drive again? Should I implement a function "activate_if_stopped(dev)"
  which would be called from just about every other function in the disk
  code or should I activate the disk when a command returns a NOT_READY
  error.
blubbering_about_ideas(FALSE)

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
From: [email-masked] (Erik Blass )
Subject: Re: 320x200 X resolution?
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 21:44:28 GMT

Hi !

Orest Zborowski ([email-masked]) wrote:

: For running DOOM, I use the XF86_SVGA server and chipset "generic"
: with a stock VGA 320x200 modes line:
: "320x200"       25      320 344 376 400         200 204 206 225

: You can simply run the server, without any clients, and start linuxxdoom
: on a VT. Looks very nice!
So, you are all lucky, You can run DOOM, my linuxxdoom exits with a:
 
            "Error: W_GetNumForName: STBAR not found!"

Erik

-- 
Erik Blass|Internet [email-masked]
Theegartener Str. 38 | 42651 Solingen | Tel.: 0212-201660 
Ich habe Dinge gesehen, die ihr Menschen niemals glauben wuerdet. Gigantische
Schiffe die brannten an der Schulter des Orion. Und C-Beams - glitzernd in der
Dunkelheit nahe dem Tannhaeuser Tor. All diese Momente werden verloren sein in
der Zeit...so wie Traenen im Regen.       Zeit zu sterben...       [Roy Batty]

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: Help with development using vi.
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 21:25:12 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Olli Vinberg) writes:

>In article <[email-masked]>,
>Bill Pacilio <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>I use the elvis/vi editor to do my development work. On a unix system you have
>>the capability to cut and paste using the mouse. This does no seem to work
>>under Linux. I checked out the man pages and looked for a FAQ but found no
>>reference. Can someone direct me to a reference or tell me if the editor can be
>>configured this way

>Get a better vi. nvi from ftp.cs.berkeley.edu (if I remember the
>address correctly) is a much better vi than elvis. (And let's you
>cut&paste under X, which is the exact reason why I dumped elvis)

What is the problem with cut&paste under X using elvis?
I'm using it all the time, and I'm not aware what is wrong with it...

Rob
-- 
=========================================================================
| Rob Janssen                | AMPRnet:   [email-masked]           |
| e-mail: [email-masked]     | AX.25 BBS: PE1CHL@PI8UTR.#UTR.NLD.EU     |
=========================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (James Deibele)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Slow curses - is there a better/faster curses?
Date: 12 Sep 1994 00:51:27 -0700

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.

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.

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

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

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