Subject: Linux-Development Digest #176
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 94 06:13:13 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #176, Volume #2         Thu, 15 Sep 94 06:13:13 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Don't use Linux?! (Dennis Heltzel)
  General Linux Development (Rich Deighton)
  Re: Another DOSEMU.52 Problem. . . (Mark Uncapher)
  Re: IDE Hard Drives w/ over 1024 cylinders (Frank Lofaro)
  Re: Mosaic and other TCP/IP problems (Frank Lofaro)
  Re: netstat -r takes ages to complete. (Al Longyear)
  Public domain DHCP available ? (G Dinesh Dutt)
  Sound Problems with SW32 (Sunny Yum)
  Re: DOOM for Linux problem - help. (Nigel Arnold)
  Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux? (Thomas G. McWilliams)
  Re: DOOM (Re: 320x200 X resolution?) (Teemu Kilpivuori)
  Re: Porting applications to TERM (Patrick Reijnen)
  Linux and Targa 16/32+ (Maduro Quintini Andres Jose)
  Re: IR remote control for CD?? (olav woelfelschneider)
  VHDL for Linux...? (ADA)
  Re: nvi has a seriouis bug (Re: Help with development using vi.) (Kris Van Hees)
  Re: Driver for NCR 53C825 on the horizon? (Drew Eckhardt)
  Re: Alpha Linux (Dietmar Heidrich)

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

From: [email-masked] (Dennis Heltzel)
Subject: Re: Don't use Linux?!
Date: 13 Sep 1994 20:06:59 -0000

Corey Brenner ([email-masked]) wrote:
: There was a GREAT OO spreadsheet developed originally for NeXT that was then
: taken over by Lotus (I think) that would be a great product for Linux/X.

: I forget the name of the product, though...  (Intuit?  Something like that?).

The product was called Improv and got rave reviews as the "killer app" 
that would propel Job's brain-dead-cause-he-forgot-the-floppy machine 
into the mainstream (actually, he did a lot more wrong than just forget 
the floppy). Lotus wrote it, then, when it became apparent that the next 
machine wasn't gonna be the Next machine, they ported it to Windows. It 
again got rave reviews in the press, but a lot of yawns from the business 
community. They recently announced that they are discontinuing 
development and will include Improv's features in upcoming (even more 
bloated) versions of 1-2-3. Maybe Lotus will port Improv to Linux, but I 
wouldn't hold my breath. It would be more likely for a shareware 
spreadsheet vendor to port their product to Linux, if they could be 
persuaded that there is a shareware market for Linux machines. 
Personally, I'd love to have "As Easy As 1-2-3" ported to Linux. Anybody 
know any shareware spreadsheet developers ?

: If we could get that particular product for linux, the spreadsheet problem
: would be done for... :)

Agreed. If we had any reasonably featured 1-2-3 compatible spreadsheet, 
there'd be a lot more Linux in the business community. I'd like to 
replace all the Windows for Workgroups s/w in our company with Linux, but 
the main reasons they use WFW is to telnet (no problem), and to run Lotus 
(big problem, they want wysiwyg, and it has to read their existing lotus 
files). Until then, I'm stuck with Bill Gates idea of a bad practical joke.

Dennis

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

From: [email-masked] (Rich Deighton)
Subject: General Linux Development
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 08:22:17 GMT

Are there any far reaching goals for Linux such that there is a point where
the kernel is _finished_?  Will development just continue until the kernel
suffers from severe featuritus?  

Just a point that I found interesting to cogitate over and was hoping would 
spark off an interesting discussion.

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

From: [email-masked] (Mark Uncapher)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Another DOSEMU.52 Problem. . .
Date: 14 Sep 1994 21:29:47 GMT

Grungie The Wise ([email-masked]) wrote:

: When compiling Dosemu0.52, I get the following error:

: make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/dosemu0.52/mouse'
: gcc -O2 -Wall  -I/usr/src/dosemu0.52/include -I/usr/src/dosemu0.52
: -I/usr/src/linux/include -c mouse.c
: mouse.c: In function `fake_int':
: mouse.c:587: `VIF_MASK' undeclared (first use this function)
: mouse.c:587: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
: mouse.c:587: for each function it appears in.)
: mouse.c: In function `mouse_do_cur':
: mouse.c:672: warning: implicit declaration of function `mmap'
: mouse.c: At top level:
: mouse.c:156: warning: `mousescreenmask' defined but not used
: make[1]: *** [mouse.o] Error 1
: make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/dosemu0.52/mouse'
: make: *** [dossubdirs] Error 1

: I commented out the bad code, and it compiled, but I got the same
: errors again in dpmi.c.

: Thats as far as I got. I dont have time right now to search the code
: myself, so I was wondering if anyone has had similar problems, or
: knows what VIF_MASK is and where is is defined.

: Jeff

I am having the same problem.  If anyone has a solution could you
please email me?  howpubs.com!bp!cyberia!tharwood

Thanks

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

From: [email-masked] (Frank Lofaro)
Subject: Re: IDE Hard Drives w/ over 1024 cylinders
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 94 21:35:22 GMT

Why not have the kernel figure out the geometry itself?
If heads > 16 and <= 32, assume its doubled and halve it and double cylinders
If heads > 32 and <= 48, assume tripled,
and so on.

I.e. find n such that h > 16*(n-1) and h <= 16n, 
then multiply cylinders by n and divide heads by n.

Very little kernel code, and would make some people much happier.

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

From: [email-masked] (Frank Lofaro)
Subject: Re: Mosaic and other TCP/IP problems
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 16:03:23 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Alan Cox) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Stewart Allen) writes:
>> show up. My network cohorts claim that 5632 bytes = 1 machine page + 
>> minimum TCP packet + TCP header and that there may be a problem with the
>> VJ conjestion control algorithms. Is this true or is the algorithm not
>> even implemented?
>
>The algorithm is implemented and 5632 almost certainly has no relation to
>anything in the kernel code. However it certainly shouldn't be happening.
>1 machine page + min tcp packet + tcp header is about 4200 bytes for those
>who can add. What are you talking to at the remote end ?
>

I was wondering about the 5632 myself.
5632=4096+1536

1536 is a common mtu, I believe (could be wrong).

5632/512 = 11

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

From: [email-masked] (Al Longyear)
Subject: Re: netstat -r takes ages to complete.
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 20:36:17 GMT

[email-masked] (Mihail S. Iotov) writes:

>Here is an output of time netstat -r

>msi-slip:/etc# time netstat -r
>Kernel routing table
>Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref Use    Iface
>wag-slip.caltec *               255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 sl0
>192.72.1.0      *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0     2826 eth0
>127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0      331 lo
>default         wag-slip.caltec 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        9 sl0
>0.01user 0.18system 2:42.92elapsed 0%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
>0inputs+0outputs (0major+0minor)pagefaults 0swaps

>This is 2 min 42 seconds ! It has been like that for kernels 1.0.9 and 1.1.23
>Is that known and acceptable behaviour, am I doing something wrong, or is it
>a bug ?

It is not a programming error. In order for the netstat to its job, it
must translate the IP address to a name. To do this, it will call
gethostbyaddr(). Since your /etc/host.conf file says to look in the
'bind' library first, or if it was not in the /etc/hosts file, it will
ask the name server at caltec. This is not a fast operation over a
slip link.

It is quicker if you don't translate the names. To do this, use
'netstat -r -n' or 'route -n'.

If you plan to do a lot of name translations then you may wish to look
into setting up a 'cache only' name server. If you plan to do a lot of
names with one domain, setup a secondary server for that domain. A
secondary name server will do a zone transfer and will be
substantially faster for names in the domain.

-- 
Al Longyear           [email-masked]

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

From: G Dinesh Dutt <[email-masked]>
Subject: Public domain DHCP available ?
Date: 15 Sep 1994 01:44:39 -0400
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Hi folks,

Is there a public domain DHCP version available ? For or not for Linux.
Appreciate any pointers,

Dinesh
([email-masked])

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

From: [email-masked] (Sunny Yum)
Subject: Sound Problems with SW32
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:42:39 GMT

I recently upgraded to v1.1.50 of the kernel from v1.0.7 and installed
the new Voxware sound driver v3.0 alpha.  I have an Orchid SoundWave 32
and configured the driver for Microsoft Sound System, Sound Blaster,
and MPU-401 support as follows:

MSS IRQ10, DMA0
SB IRQ7, DMA1
MIDI IRQ5

The IRQs and DMAs, I am *sure*, are correct.

The problem is that I am getting DMA timeouts whenever I try to do
anything with the MSS sound.  "tracker" plays the first 3 seconds of
a MOD over and over and over...  'cat sound.au > /dev/audio' results
in the playing of the sound and then either a) hanging (terminate
with a CTRL-C) or b) playing the sound and then piece(s) of *previous*
sounds played on /dev/audio.  DOOM's sound, and rplay also fail to
work properly with the driver/card.

I previously (in v1.0.7) had v2.4 (?) of the Sound Blaster driver
installed and also was getting DMA timeouts when trying to play
MOD files with tracker, but /dev/audio worked ok.

In addition, I don't think that card is being initialized properly
at boot-up because I have an audio-CD hooked up the the SW32 whos
signal is supposed to pass-through the sound card and out the line-out
so that you can listen to CDs and whatever while the card is active
playing MIDI or sound effects or what have you.. however, under
Linux, the audio-CD volume is extremely low (almost need to max
the volume on the stereo to hear the CD playing).  I also noticed that
sounds that do play with /dev/audio are muted compared to those
played under /dev/audio1 (SB emulation).

Any ideas?

-- 
Sunny D. Yum ([email-masked]) -- My Opinions Are MINE!
GCS d-- H-- s g+(-) p? au->+++ a- w+ v+(*) C++++$ UL++++ P- L+++ 3- E N++ K-
W- M-- V-- -po+ Y+ t- 5++ j- R- G? tv b++ D++ B(-) e+ u h!>++ f+ r n-(----) y?

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

Crossposted-To: alt.games.doom,comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (Nigel Arnold)
Subject: Re: DOOM for Linux problem - help.
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 20:19:01 +0000

Try upgrading to Linux 1.1.4 or above.
-- 

 Nigel Arnold                 |
 [email-masked]      |
 Leeds, England               |   'Oooh My Poor Circuits'

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas G. McWilliams)
Subject: Re: Survey: who wants f77,cc,c++,hpf for linux?
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:55:02 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
 >Most likely the Mark Williams C compiler (they produce better
 >  compilers than operating systems (coherent)).

Alan Cox ([email-masked]) responds:
: It produces code about as fast or fractionally slower but much much smaller,
: and although its not a proper ANSI compiler so speed comparisons are not
: totally fair it compiles much quicker than gcc.

It should be noted that GCC 1.42 is still maintained. GCC 1.42 
produces smaller executables and compiles code faster than GCC 2.x.
The last version of GCC 1.x which I used under Linux was 1.39.
It might be interesting to compare GCC 1.42 with GCC 2.5.8 under
Linux.  

[email-masked]

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
From: [email-masked] (Teemu Kilpivuori)
Subject: Re: DOOM (Re: 320x200 X resolution?)
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 07:05:13 GMT

Philippe Steindl ([email-masked]) wrote:
: > 
: > Note that pixel doubling/tripling doesn't work, and sound only
: > works with a 16 bit soundcard.  (Anyone want to sell one cheap? *grin*)

: Nope, that's wrong :-) There is a newer version on sunsite now, where  
: pixel doubling and tripling are fixed. The 16 bit soundcard thing is true,  
: though...

Not anymore. I found a package called doom_16to8bit_snd.tar.gz 
(or something like that) from ftp.funet.fi:/pub/OS/Linux/Incoming

I haven't tried it yet, so I don't no if it works, but ...

--
   _________________________
 /______________________    | Address:Teemu Kilpivuori
|    _________________ /|   |         YO-Kylä 1B25 
|   | |_______________|_|   |         20540 Turku
|   |/______________________| Voice  :921-2543427
|__________________________/  Email  :[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Patrick Reijnen)
Subject: Re: Porting applications to TERM
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 07:22:08 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Preston William Gilchrist) writes:

>Does anyone have some decent documentation on what is required to port 
>applications to TERM.  Any help would be appreciated.

As Term-HOWTO maintainer I'm interested too. Porting software is still a major
gap in the HOWTO which needs to be filled.

>-- 
>Preston Gilchrist                       Texas A&M University, Computer Science
>E-Mail: [email-masked]                 http://tamsun.tamu.edu/~pwg7503/

Patrick Reijnen

--
************************* Patrick Reijnen *************************
* Department of Computer Science, Catholic University of Nijmegen * 
* Email:  patrickr@{sci,cs}.kun.nl                                *
* WWW:    http://{atlas,zeus}.cs.kun.nl:4080/homepage.html        *

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

From: [email-masked] (Maduro Quintini Andres Jose)
Subject: Linux and Targa 16/32+
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 17:27:55 GMT

I have the developer kit for the Truevision Targa 16/32+ video frame buffer.
I want to port the code if I can to the Linux environment. If some one out
there have experience programming in low level under Linux please help.
How is the assembler used????  What restrictions must I consider????

Any help would be appreciated.

===============================
Andres Maduro
Universidad Simon Bolivar
Caracas Venezuela.
================================

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

From: [email-masked] (olav woelfelschneider)
Subject: Re: IR remote control for CD??
Date: 15 Sep 1994 07:57:02 GMT

Humenberger Edmund ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Is there any hardware that my linux box can
: understand my standard cd player remote control?

I planned to build such a thing in the next months. I've not much spare time,
so it will take a while.
I always dreamed about controlling my PC with the remaining keys of my
video remote control... (:

The circuit I've in mind is build around a SFH505A as receiver (or a small
circuit built around a TDA3048 if the SFH is not available), an 87C750
singlechip microprocessor which decodes the RC signals and a MAX232 which
transfers the decoded signals to the serial port of a computer.
I think it is not a good idea to let the pc decode the signals, since your
oh-so-fast x86 should do other things but waiting in a busy loop for slow
serial data...
I will make the circuit diagram available as soon as it is ready, but it may
be difficult for most people to get an 87C750 programmed, though...

 Olav
--
/======================================+======================================\
| Olav "Mac" Woelfelschneider          | I refuse to grow up,                 |
| [email-masked] | I don't want to lose my humor...     |
\======================================+======================================/

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

From: [email-masked] (ADA)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.lsi.cad,comp.lang.vhdl
Subject: VHDL for Linux...?
Date: 13 Sep 1994 21:06:14 GMT

Hi all...

This primarily addresses the circuits community...

I have been playing (or trying to play) with both magic and ocean.  I
was wondering if there are any free VHDL simulators available or being
worked on for Linux.  If so, what about synthesis tools?

If I'm asking something outrageous, please tell me so...

While I'm on the subject, and I know this isn't the proper group but I
know there are a lot of hardware weenies out there like me, is there
an emacs major mode for VHDL floating around?

Thanks in advance,

Mark
([email-masked])

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

Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 09:48:51 +0200
From: jhgacab@cc4 (Kris Van Hees)
Subject: Re: nvi has a seriouis bug (Re: Help with development using vi.)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help

Bryan S. So ([email-masked]) wrote:
: :
: : >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)

: The problem with nvi (mine is ver 1.03) is, you can delete a line and put it
: into a buffer.  Try this:

:       "add

: to delete a line and put it in register a.  And use

:       "ap

: to put it back.  It says "buffer a is empty" ... very scary!

: Use another better vi -- "vim".

: Bryan

It works for me but I have nvi 1.34. I think it's really nice.

[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Driver for NCR 53C825 on the horizon?
Date: 14 Sep 1994 17:13:08 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Janne Sinkkonen <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Does it exist (as ALPHA) or is there any hope that one will appear in
>near future? I've a PCI Pentium here with a NCR 53C825 and an ISA
>SCSI is currently the only available option.
>
>Or should the 53C810 driver work with 53C825?

The NCR53c810 driver works after one (minor) bug is corrected,
namely the removal of the [2] which had been used to dimmension
the pci_chip_ids[] array -

istatic struct pci_chip pci_chip_ids[] = {
    {PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C810, 810, 1, 1}, 
    {PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C815, 815, 2, 2},
    {PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C820, 820, -1, -1},
    {PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C825, 825, -1, -1},
};

in drivers/scsi/53c7,8xx.c.

The complete set of device identifiers, in include/linux/pci.h,
are :

#define PCI_VENDOR_ID_NCR               0x1000
#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C810        0x0001
#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C815        0x0004
#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C820        0x0002
#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_NCR_53C825        0x0003
-- 
Since our leaders won't respect The Constitution, the highest law of our 
country, you can't expect them to obey lesser laws of any country. 
Boycott the United States until this changes.

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

From: [email-masked] (Dietmar Heidrich)
Subject: Re: Alpha Linux
Date: 14 Sep 1994 17:39:02 GMT

David Willmore ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Joe Zbiciak) writes:
: >[email-masked] (Johan Myreen) writes:
: >>What is the natural word size of the 68000?  Or the 8088?  Or a

: >Even better:  The 68008...  8 bit data path, 16 bit registers, 32 bit ALU.
: >By 32 bit ALU, I mean two registers would combine together and make a 32 bit 
: >register for ADD & SUB and MUL & DIV (I think.) 

: Nope, sorry.  The 68008 had an 8 bit data path, 32 bit registers, 32 bit
: ALU.  The only funny thing about this chip was the small bus.

The 32 bit ALU was introduced with the 68020. The former family members,
including the 68008, have 16 bit ALUs, causing them to take longer for
32 bit addition etc. Refer to the instruction timing.

The 68008 has a 16 bit ALU. Period.

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

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End of Linux-Development Digest
******************************