Subject: Linux-Development Digest #207
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 94 21:13:09 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #207, Volume #2         Thu, 22 Sep 94 21:13:09 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Installing from a QIC-80 tape? (Thomas Ahn Kj{r)
  Re: aha152x driver lockup on AIC 6360 chips (Bob Crosson)
  Re: Don't use Linux?! (Kay Hamacher)
  Re: Don't use Linux?! (Kay Hamacher)
  COBOL for Linux (Eric Williams @ PCB x5577)
  Re: SIGFPE with atof() (Riku Saikkonen)
  Features Register for use with EIDE driver (John McLaughlin)
  Re: XFig Eats All My Memory. (Rick)
  Re: vt400 terminal emulation (Frank Lofaro)
  Re: How to use a host as a router - READ THIS (Ian McCloghrie)
  Re: Digi Intelligent Boards? (Chris Camacho)
  XFig Eats All My Memory. (Lucas James Sheneman)
  Proteon Token-Ring Driver Survey (Todd B. Templeton)
  Re: XFig Eats All My Memory. (Gordon Patrick Warren)

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Ahn Kj{r)
Subject: Re: Installing from a QIC-80 tape?
Date: 22 Sep 1994 09:43:43 GMT

Thus spake [email-masked] (John Byrns):

>I am trying to upgrade my Linux from an old SLS to Slackware,  I now have
>a Colorado 250mb tape drive and would like to install from it.

>I was going to copy all install files to a DOS partition, then 
>use a DOS program to back it up to tape.  Can I then use this tape
>to install from?
No, No.. the DOS-tapes and the Linux-tapes uses a different format,
so you can't.
In fact, the whole Slackware distribution is _ONE_ big tar 'file' on the
tape.
To install Slackware from tape do it like this: Get ftape working with your
SLS system (if it's possible) and copy ALL files from Slackware to your 
Linux partition, including the directories a1, a2 ...
If you can't get ftape working under SLS, do a minimal installation
from the Slackware disks, remember to include tar, and then copy Slackware
to your Linux partition. O.K. you can have the Slackware files on your
DOS partition, if you can access your DOS partition from Linux...

BTW: get the README.ftape (or similar) from the Slackware dist.

\thomas

>Thanks
>John Byrns
>[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Bob Crosson)
Subject: Re: aha152x driver lockup on AIC 6360 chips
Date: 22 Sep 94 19:40:54 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Bob Crosson) writes:
|> I have a problem with my SCSI driver.  My machine runs either
|> Linux-1.0.9 or 1.1.50 with the aha152x SCSI driver.  I think the
|> problem occurs with both versions of Linux.  I was backing up files
|> (see below) when the errors occurred.  I can't be sure of the
|> version of Linux that was running when this error occurred because
|> I don't know which version was running at the time.  Here's the
|> error message:

More information about the problem.  I can duplicate the problem
in a number of ways, all involving reading the suspect file.  Copying
or checksumming the file contents causes the SCSI driver to lock
up the system.  Although I can telnet to the system and be connected,
but no login prompt ever appears, once the SCSI driver has died.

With linux-1.1.50 I consistently get the error message

scsi0: resetting for second half of retries

When copying the file to another file, 274,432 bytes of 1,398,510
actually get copied.

This file, arthur.wav, was written to this file system using tar.
Accessing the original file, on another machine, doesn't cause that
system to lock up.  The other machine is a Dell 450/ME, running
Linux-1.1.42 with an AHA1742 SCSI adapter and driver.

As long as I don't access the bad file, the system runs error free,
but slowly with a lot of swapping in X-Windows.  I have only 8MBytes
of memory, but will be getting more.

I probably can remove the problem by rebuilding the partition 
containing the bad file.  I assume I'd have to do a surface check
of the disk to make sure the medium is okay.  It just disturbs me
that the driver couldn't fail more gracefully.

Bob Crosson
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Kay Hamacher)
Subject: Re: Don't use Linux?!
Date: 21 Sep 1994 16:34:02 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Lutz Behnke HiWi) writes:
|> In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Kay Hamacher) writes:
    [ some opinions if myself deleted ]

|> I like your analogy:
So I do :-)

|> Its extremly good for the enviroment to have people driving around in old
|> clunkers that burn a gallon a mile. (no smile, face in rage!)
I think not, as I am using a KAT and not an very old car (but not the newest
tachnology, as I am a student and get no money for this :-() I pollute not
the enviroment as big Software-Companies do with several Up-Dates wich are
containig complete new hand-books, new disks, new CD's (they are a real
enviroment problem, see c`t x/94) and produce with this behaviour a lot of
gabbage.

|> So just you and I know that Linux is better than Windows means that we are the
|> profesionals and may be proud of that knowledge.
Yup!

|> Now look at it from the other angle: I am trying to make a living of
|> computers. I have to listen to the whailing of the users all
|> the time: Why is such and such not working (in a Windows envirment (see former post))
|> I would like to bring the good news to John Q Public too. But as long as there is
|> no WYSIWYG text-system for them they will not by it. And as long MS is the
|> only one able and willing to have an aggressive Ad-Campaign running,
|> all those lemmings will have to follown the light.
|> And lets face it: This textsystem may only come from a comercial company.
|> (pleeezzee surprise me on this one)
O.K. I understand the point of someone, who is living from selling computer
stuff. Because I understood, I said, that normal computer-vendors are not
interested in contributing Linux (or other free software). If I had misunderstood
this fact, I would be angry about this point, but I am not ! I do not
thing that it is necassary for Linux to be sold by "Hochschirm" (Ich denke, Du
weisst, wen ich meine :-) or by other country- or maybe world-wide computer-
sellers. If this is necassary, Linux would not be there, because Linux
was created without any support by big selling-numbers.
I do not agree with the original poster about his point of view, that the
"Linux-Community" had to do something in order to get Linux run on even every PC.
Why?
Linux is now installed on several 100.000 PC's world-wide, so there are more
users than Windows had in its first days :-]
I believe that Unix will never be an OS that is used by a high percentage of
computer-users, as many non-technical-orientated people become computer-users
(think about many firms using even more computers in their administration as
they will ever do in research). Especially think about the low education-level
of most computer-users today. They do not know what this machine is really 
doing. They do not know what a CPU is, what Waitstates are, or why they are
sometimes necassary, or ....... Their main interest is that their little
Windows is running and so they must not know anything about these terms.

Kay

-- 
==========================================================================
Kay Hamacher                                 Phone   : ++ 49 2332 80650
Milskotter Str. 19                           Fax     : ++ 49 2332 83518 
58285 Gevelsberg                             InterNet: [email-masked]  
Federal Republic of Germany - European Union                  

      Viele Menschen sind zu gut erzogen, um mit vollem Mund zu sprechen,
      aber sie haben keine Bedenken, es mit leerem Kopf zu tun. (Oscar Wilde)   

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

From: [email-masked] (Kay Hamacher)
Subject: Re: Don't use Linux?!
Date: 21 Sep 1994 16:41:59 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Lutz Behnke HiWi) writes:
|> In article <[email-masked]>, Kevin Martinez <[email-masked]> writes:
|> |> [email-masked] (Michael Schumacher) writes:
|> [some other burdened comments about software-support deleted]
|> I see a rather simple answer to this problem of not enough support.
|> (If there is one)

|> Wy not have a list of people willing to give tech-support for each country
|> included in every CD-ROM arcive.
|> This is the way Richard Stallman envisioned the support for GPL products.
|> I am a student in one of the two major comercial centers of Germany, so 
(Gut, das im Header Hamburg stand, sonst haette ich jetzt lange ueberlegen
mussen ;-)
|> would be glad to help any company or private person in need of some
|> help installing the Linux package on there PCs. I am pretty shure
|> I cost less than the support some companies, I are availiable almost 
|> around the clock, and there is no need for the client to understand the
|> lingo. That beats MS anytime.
An interesting idea ! But there is one thing : You do not buy every 2 months
a new CD so you may get very old telephone-numbers and many people may
become angry about this. So they will not use this service. And :
The manufactures of CD's have a monopoly. They can let you out of a list and
you are out (oder auf gut deutsch : Sie lassen Dich am ausgestreckten Arm
verrecken). That can happen in very short time as you only have to post
something about these firms here or say anything official about it, so they
want revenge -> you are out.
Kay

-- 
==========================================================================
Kay Hamacher                                 Phone   : ++ 49 2332 80650
Milskotter Str. 19                           Fax     : ++ 49 2332 83518 
58285 Gevelsberg                             InterNet: [email-masked]  
Federal Republic of Germany - European Union                  

      Viele Menschen sind zu gut erzogen, um mit vollem Mund zu sprechen,
      aber sie haben keine Bedenken, es mit leerem Kopf zu tun. (Oscar Wilde)   

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

From: [email-masked] (Eric Williams @ PCB x5577)
Subject: COBOL for Linux
Date: 21 Sep 1994 23:32:00 GMT

Does anyone know of a freeware COBOL for Linux? [*]

-- 
==============================================================

Ye gods, I now have work and home Mailing Addresses!

[email-masked]
[email-masked]

My views; I don't think my company will want 'em!
(At least not in this newsgroup...)

======
[*] No, I am NOT brain dead! I believe that Linux is one of
the greatest operating systems I have ever seen (although I
haven't seen Microsoft's NT yet :-).

I believe, though, that COBOL and its ilk are still useful.
I have a friend that was using a package written in COBOL --
he swears at it, but uses it.  If COBOL is written for Linux,
he may be able to use Linux when he replaces his SCO Xenix system.
(That's assuming the program's vendor is even interested in porting
his package to Linux...)

I also have written some stuff in COBOL.  It may be wordy, but
it's useful.

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

Subject: Re: SIGFPE with atof()
From: [email-masked] (Riku Saikkonen)
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 94 17:16:00 +0200

>Linux 1.0.8, libc.so.4.5.24, gcc 2.5.8, 486DX40.
>Here's the snippet of code that's causing it.  (This works on SunOS 4.1.3)
...
>    glength = gstop - gstart + 1;
>    for (k = 0; k <= glength; k++)
>        gestr[k] = gstr[gstart+k-1];
>    gestr[glength] = '\0';

I know nothing of the program in question (xweather, was it?), but...

This seems to me a quite dubious piece of code. gestr[0] becomes
gstr[gstart-1]! And the for loop executes glength+1 times. And
gestr[glength] becomes first gstr[gstart+glength-1] and then '\0'.

It might just be that Linux is pickier and notices an error...

Try correcting "for (k = 0; k <= glength; ..." to "for (k = 0; k <
glenth; ..." and "gstr[gstart+k-1]" to "gstr[gstart+k]". And notify the
author of the program about this! :)

-=- Rjs -=- [email-masked] - IRC: Rjs
"For still there are so many things / that I have never seen: /
in every wood in every spring / there is a different green." - Tolkien

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

From: [email-masked] (John McLaughlin)
Subject: Features Register for use with EIDE driver
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 16:55:36 GMT

Greetings,

I am looking at modifying the IDE hard drive controller
(hd.c) to support some of the enhanced IDE transfer modes
(PIO 3), however I have come across my first issue....

To put the controller into a new PIO mode, you have to issue 
the set features command, with the feature in the 'features' 
register, however I am not sure what the proper port address is
for the features register...

If anybody could point me the right direction, it would be 
appreciated.

-John

[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Rick)
Subject: Re: XFig Eats All My Memory.
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 1994 03:48:50 GMT

[email-masked] (Russell E. Dube) writes:

>Lucas James Sheneman ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: I am running Linux 1.1.49, XF86_VGA (from XFree86-2.1.1).  When I run 
>: xfig, it rapidly eats up all of my available memory and never actually 
>: pops up.  I have 20MB RAM and 25MB swap.

>FWIW, I have the same problem with 1.0.9 and Slackware 2.0.  Eats my 
>available memory (16M machine), never pops up.  Please post since
>undoubtedly others have a need to know.  Thanks in advance.

The file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Fig includes Fig-color, which is
a symlink to Fig.  Hence a recursive include and the memort eater is
born.  Comment the line out and all should be well.

Rick.
-- 
Rick "JT" Lyons   | C/C++/x86/X           | What claim?  Dis claim!
Telecom Australia | Unix/DOS/Novell       | Usenet before net uses you.
ACN 051 775 556   |                       | 
work:[email-masked] | play:[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Frank Lofaro)
Subject: Re: vt400 terminal emulation
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 94 19:46:35 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] () writes:
>hi, i'm looking for a vt420 terminal emulator that can work under
>linux/x-window.  vt102 just won't suffice........
>
>
>any help would be greatly appreciated
>
>
>vipin k agrawal
>
>[email-masked]

Anywhere on the net we can find control code specs that define vt420? 
If so, where? That would be a big help, then I and others could start 
hacking it in to the xterm code and the console driver (I personally 
would do the kernel console code, but there are probably some people that 
would do the xterm code)

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

From: [email-masked] (Ian McCloghrie)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: How to use a host as a router - READ THIS
Date: 20 Sep 1994 09:47:10 -0700

[email-masked] (Jay Ashworth) writes:
>Now, since we know that IP addresses must be unique, it follows that it is
>not correct practice to assign the same address to two different
>interfaces on the same machine.

This is common practice (and, in fact, required by many TCP/IP protocl
stacks).  Whether or not it is "correct" is unclear.  It's quite
possible to implement routing using the same IP address on two
interfaces, if one of them is a point-to-point link (namely,
a slip line).  The idea of every physical network having its own
IP network is ideologically pure.  Ideological purity, while clean
and elegant, is often discarded in favour of optimizations.  Given
the current state of the IP address space, it could easily be argued
that wasting an entire network on a 2-host point-to-point slip line
is incorrect behaviour :)

Keep in mind that BSD is just the most prevalent TCP/IP
implementation, and not the definition of the protocols.

--
____
\bi/  Ian McCloghrie      | FLUG:  FurryMUCK Linux User's Group
 \/   email: [email-masked] | Card Carrying Member, UCSD Secret Islandia Club
GCS (!)d-(--) p c++ l++(+++) u+ e- m+ s+/+ n+(-) h- f+ !g w+ t+ r y*

The above represents my personal opinions and not necessarily those
of my employer, Qualcomm Inc.

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

From: [email-masked] (Chris Camacho)
Subject: Re: Digi Intelligent Boards?
Date: 22 Sep 1994 02:01:29 -0400

Troy DeJongh ([email-masked]) wrote:
:
: Well, I'm responsible for the maintenance/development of our SCO serial 
: drivers and the development of the Linux driver for our PC/Xe product, 
: and I haven't heard anything like that yet.  Plans are to release a 
: Linux driver for our PC/Xe line of products this fall. 
:
 This is terrific! I picked up a PC/8e in the not too distant past and
 have wished for a Linux driver so I could put it to use for some time
 now!  :)  any chance there might be a mailing when its available? how
 about taking volunteers for testing it?  :)

-Chris
-- 
[email-masked] - Public Access Unix in Atlanta - 404/659-5720 - 404/521-0445

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

From: [email-masked] (Lucas James Sheneman)
Subject: XFig Eats All My Memory.
Date: 20 Sep 1994 16:43:50 GMT

I am running Linux 1.1.49, XF86_VGA (from XFree86-2.1.1).  When I run 
xfig, it rapidly eats up all of my available memory and never actually 
pops up.  I have 20MB RAM and 25MB swap.

Anybody know what's up?  Please e-mail me if you can help me.  Thanks.

--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 Luke Sheneman     [email-masked]                 | 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Laboratory for Applied Logic, University of Idaho                        |
| http://www.cs.uidaho.edu/lal/students/sheneman.dir/sheneman.html         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

From: [email-masked] (Todd B. Templeton)
Subject: Proteon Token-Ring Driver Survey
Date: 20 Sep 1994 18:18:28 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Todd B. Templeton)

I am considering developing a device driver for Proteon token-ring adapters
and would like to find out what kind of interest there would be for such a 
thing.  There is currently an alpha driver for the IBM adapters, but here at
Phelps Dodge, we use the faster Proteon boards.  I would like to find out how
many people would be interested in a Proteon driver because the SDK and board
docs cost about $500 and I would like to know the resulting drive will be used
before buying the kit.  Please reply via E-Mail or post flames.  :-)

Thanks in advance
-- 
<------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
Todd Templeton         | All opinions are solely my own and do not reflect the
Lead Software Engineer | views of Phelps Dodge Corporation or its management.
<------------------------------------------------------------------------------>

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

From: [email-masked] (Gordon Patrick Warren)
Subject: Re: XFig Eats All My Memory.
Date: 21 Sep 1994 16:51:31 GMT

: The Fig-color file includes the Fig file, which is actually a link tot
: he Fig-color file, which opens the Fig file,.... you get the idea.

: To fix this, change the include in Fig-color to inckude Fig-standard.

Or, just remove the #include Fig altogether...this is what
I did and it works fine.

-gw

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

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