Subject: Linux-Development Digest #221
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 18:13:21 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #221, Volume #2         Sat, 24 Sep 94 18:13:21 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Alpha Linux (Andrew Bulhak)
  Quantum IDE problem w/1.1.51 (Gary Skouson)
  BSD/386 vs. Linux Performance (Michael Nelson)
  Re: Linux 1.1.18, Tcl 7.3: Floating Exception in Expr Test, etc. (David Engel)
  Re: What link options to compile XView (Kai Voigt)
  Re: Cant mount /dev/mitsumi_cd with kernel 1.1.45 (Richard Lamont)
  Re: IP multicast with linux? [and, where's 1.2.0?] (Pete Kruckenberg)
  Re: Pointer to cyclades (Pete Kruckenberg)
  Re: Linux on CD (Jeff Kesselman)
  Re: Pascal for Linux?? (jon m)
  Re: Err in _floppy_release only if mounted at boot (Anthony Lovell)
  Re: Err in _floppy_release only if mounted at boot (Anthony Lovell)
  Re: 1+ Gig SCSI Drives (Drew Eckhardt)
  Re: more elf benchmarks (NightHawk)
  Jumbo250MB speed improvement ([email-masked])
  Re: Linux Floptical Disk Driver? (H. Peter Anvin)
  Re: 1.1.51 Adaptec 1542 SCSI problems (Rene COUGNENC)
  Re: Installing from a QIC-80 tape? (Rob Janssen)
  Re: Windows DLL-type linking possible...? (Rob Janssen)
  Re: Praise and complaint: (Rob Janssen)
  Re: Linux on CD (Rob Janssen)
  Re: A badly missed feature in gcc (H. Peter Anvin)

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

From: [email-masked] (Andrew Bulhak)
Subject: Re: Alpha Linux
Date: 20 Sep 1994 07:16:47 GMT

Anton Ertl ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Alan Cox) writes:
: |> Do we get 128 bit long longs in gcc however ?

: gcc defines long long to be twice as long as long. So if long is 64
: bits, we should have 128-bit long longs. On the MIPS there are options
: (not working yet according to the gcc-2.4.x manual) `-mint64',
: `-mlong64' and `-mlonglong128'.

: Of course, the Alpha OSF/1 people did not use up all idiocy in
: defining ints, so they defined both long and long long as having 64
: bits.

That, granted, is short-sighted. Taking away a usable type, however, for
the purpose of righteous self-flagellation and catching out
"badly-written" programs seems to be more stupid than making an int
smaller than the maximum size of a machine word.

--
Andrew Bulhak            [email-masked]
Remember the good old days, when "spam" on the Net referred to processed meat?

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

From: [email-masked] (Gary Skouson)
Subject: Quantum IDE problem w/1.1.51
Date: 22 Sep 1994 21:38:11 GMT

I have been running on one of the 1.0.? versions of Linux for 
some time and decided to try one of the more recient kernels, so 
I compiled 1.1.51 and everything went fairly normal.  However 
when I booted, I got some errors and the kernel was unable to 
find the root partition.  I seem to remember seing something
having to do with Quantum IDE drives several weeks ago, but I
didn't pay much atention to it then.  Any help would be 
appreciated.

Here are the errors I got:

=====
Partition check:
  hda:QUANTUM LP105A 910109105 100MB W/64KB Cache, CHS=838/7/35, MaxMult=0
HD: win_result: status = 0xff
HD: win_result: error = 0xff
harddisk I/O error
dev 0300, sector 0
  unable to read partition table of device 0300
HD: win_result: status = 0xff
HD: win_result: error = 0xff
harddisk I/O error
dev 0340, sector 0
  unable to read partition table of device 0340
MINIX-fs: unable to read superblock
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
MSDOS bread failed
isofs_read_super: breadfailed, dev 0x303 iso_blknum 16
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:03

-- 
----
Gary Skouson    
[email-masked] 
----
The opinions expressed here are mine and have
nothing to do with what my employer may think.

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

From: [email-masked] (Michael Nelson)
Subject: BSD/386 vs. Linux Performance
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 15:30:15 GMT

Anyone have any performance stats comparing BSD/386 (BSD/OS) with Linux?
Network, disk, and overall...

-- Mike

-- 

____________________________________________________________________________
Michael Nelson                                        |   [email-masked]
Rockville, Maryland                                   |  [email-masked]
       PGP Public Key: Finger or ftp.netcom.com:/pub/mikenel/pubkey.asc

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

From: [email-masked] (David Engel)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.tcl
Subject: Re: Linux 1.1.18, Tcl 7.3: Floating Exception in Expr Test, etc.
Date: 24 Sep 1994 16:30:47 GMT

Daniel Simmons ([email-masked]) wrote:
> from sprite and compiled it.  The compile went fine, but it fails the
> expr test with a floating point exception.  This same test is passed with
> flying colors by the linux-modified version of tcl, but comes up every
> time with the stock tcl.  The mystery is further depened by the fact that
> stock tcl and the linux modified tcl do not differ in any source file--only
> in the Makefiles.

I don't know about your other problem, but this one is easy.  You
need to link with -lieee.

David
--
David Engel                        Optical Data Systems, Inc.
[email-masked]                      1101 E. Arapaho Road
(214) 234-6400                     Richardson, TX  75081

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

From: [email-masked] (Kai Voigt)
Subject: Re: What link options to compile XView
Date: 24 Sep 1994 09:44:22 +0200

In <ulmer.780355252@merope> [email-masked] (Chris Ulmer) writes:

>I'm trying to compile an code under Linux which uses Xview.  I'm linking
>with "-lX11 -lolgx -lpixrect -lxview -lm" which works on the Sun but
>Linux says it can't find X11. I see X11.sa in the lib directory (under
>X386)
>but not an X11.a .  What options to I need to link?

Maybe you should set the path to the library files using the -L option:
        -L/usr/X386/lib -L/usr/X11/lib

Kai
-- 
Kai Voigt, Werftstrasse 2, 24148 Kiel, Germany, +49 431 7297514

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

From: [email-masked] (Richard Lamont)
Subject: Re: Cant mount /dev/mitsumi_cd with kernel 1.1.45
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 08:59:24 +0000

[email-masked] (Aapo Meili) writes:

>Bob Ashmore ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: I have a Gateway 2000 4DX2 66V with a mitsumi cd
>: which works OK with Kernel 1.1.0 but when I installed 
>: kernel 1.1.45 it will not mount. It gives the error on 
>: boot;
>: /dev/mitsumi_cd is not a valid block device.
>: and if I try to mount it manually it gives the error;
>: /dev/mitsumi_cd no such device or address.
>: All is OK if I go back to Kernel 1.1.0.
>: Has anybody any Ideas 
>: PS I did say yes to mitsumi when running make config!

>: Bob Ashmore.

>I have the same problem.
>When booting the mitsumi is recognized but not mounted.
>With 1.1 kernel everything went fine.
>Interupt and address are set well.

It's usually called /dev/mcd, AFAIK. Also, with the more recent kernels, you
need to mount it read only. This can be done by changing the entry in
/etc/fstab in the fourth column from "defaults" to "ro".

Richard.

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

From: [email-masked] (Pete Kruckenberg)
Subject: Re: IP multicast with linux? [and, where's 1.2.0?]
Date: 24 Sep 1994 18:41:17 GMT

Yufan Hu ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Does Linux support or plan to support IP multicasting?

I understand that it will be incorporated into the 1.3.0 kernel
(whenever that comes out), from someone who heard it from Alan Cox. 

On that note, when is 1.1.5? going to become 1.2.0? I saw a post from
Linus a while ago that 1.1.49 would become 1.2.0, or he was going to
release 1.1.50 and then it'd go to 1.2.0. Has that changed? Why are we
up to 1.1.51 now? I'm so confused ...

Pete.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Pete Kruckenberg                       School: [email-masked]
  University of Utah                       Work: [email-masked]
  Computer Engineering    For even more addresses, "finger [email-masked]"

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

From: [email-masked] (Pete Kruckenberg)
Subject: Re: Pointer to cyclades
Date: 24 Sep 1994 18:45:19 GMT

Daniel Gelinas ([email-masked]) wrote:

: I keep on hearing of this Cyclades board.  What is it exactly? How well is
: it tested under linux, and where can I get one?

: Just curios, I need a 16 port card and will have to go with a bocaboard
: if nothing else presents itself.

There's an ad for it in the latest Linux Journal. You can get the
source code from sunsite.unc.edu in pub/Linux/kernel/patches, I
think. If that's not right, get the ls-lR in pub/Linux and search it
for cyclades. The code is there, and I think it will work up to
1.1.12. The developer's name is also in the .lsm, if you have more
questions.

Pete.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Pete Kruckenberg                       School: [email-masked]
  University of Utah                       Work: [email-masked]
  Computer Engineering    For even more addresses, "finger [email-masked]"

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

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Kesselman)
Subject: Re: Linux on CD
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 18:33:07 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Matthias Bruestle <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Mahlzeit
>
>
>
>
>
>> What I think (for what it's worth) would be useful would be
>> the ability to merge the CD-ROM's directory with the HD's and
>> the HD's files would take precedence.  That way if you want to
>> make a change or just want the speed of the HD you could copy
>> the file(s) to the HD in the same spot (directory and file name).
>> Just a vague thought...
>Why not put the binary directory of the cd-rom behind the binary
>directory of the hd in the path variable?
>

Actualkly yygdrasil PnP does this, though with a ltitle more complex 
solution.  Any directory you DON'T install, becomes a link to the CD, so 
that if you have the CD mounted its slow but accesible...

I've left alot of stuff on CD that I don't expect to need very often...

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

Subject: Re: Pascal for Linux??
From: [email-masked] (jon m)
Date: 22 Sep 94 11:40:47 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
williams <[email-masked]> wrote:
>   I was wondering if anyone knows of a Pascal compiler that is available
>for Linux.. Please give me a pointer. Thanks!

yup. gpc, at sunsite or ftp.cdrom or another mirror of slackware.
can't remember exactly which directory in the hierarchy, but it's
part of the slackware contrib section. it's also part of debian,
but don't know where debian is, kind of. 
 
>               --Zach

-- 
jon madison
oit consultant in training

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

From: [email-masked] (Anthony Lovell)
Subject: Re: Err in _floppy_release only if mounted at boot
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 16:20:04 GMT

Vincent Fatica ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I had reported an error in _floppy_release at shutdown and when issuing
: "umount /b".

: Apparently the error only occurs if the floppy was mounted at boot-time.

Sorry not true. I got one a few minutes ago, was looking for a file on some
unlabled disks
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
ls -l /mnt
umount /dev/fd0

And it goes Bang,  but it will not repeat the error. 

--

anthony

==============================================================================
[email-masked]          |   If at first you don't succeed
PGP Key available from a server       |
[email-masked]           |   Get a Bigger Hammer
==============================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Anthony Lovell)
Subject: Re: Err in _floppy_release only if mounted at boot
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 19:02:05 GMT

Well that's interesting,  I've just managed to replicate the blow-up
only it was on mount /dev/fd0 /mnt .  It's the same routine and exactly
the same place.

--

anthony

==============================================================================
[email-masked]          |   If at first you don't succeed
PGP Key available from a server       |
[email-masked]           |   Get a Bigger Hammer
==============================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: 1+ Gig SCSI Drives
Date: 21 Sep 1994 22:26:50 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Marc Singer <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Bruce Varney ([email-masked]) wrote:
>
>
>:      I thought I saw something about troubles with large drives
>: under linux, but when I went back through news today, I couldn't
>: find anything. Could someone please tell me what the problem with
>: large drives is.
>
>:                      Bruce
>
>I, too, have been wondering about this.  I believe that there are at
>least two problems with >1G support.  First, the standard IBM
>partition scheme limits the number of heads to 255 and the number of
>cylinders to 1024.  The math comes out such that drives larger than 1G
>cannot be supported without hardware/firmware assist, e.g. Adaptec's
>255 head mapping trick.  Since Linux uses the IBM style partition
>tables, there is nothing simple that can be done.

If you're referring to SCSI drives, they're accessed as a linear
set of blocks, and don't suffer from the WD1003 register compatable
interface problems. 

Depending on weather I left any sign problems in the SCSI disk 
driver and what the rest of the block device code looks like,
this means you can run one or two terrabyte devices without 
problems (32 bit block numbers, 512 byte blocks).

As far as partitioning, 255 heads * 63 sectors * 1024 cylinders 
is a tad short of 8G, so you can have 8G drives that are 100% compatable
with DOS and Linux.

As to Linux using the IBM style partition tables, this is only partially
true.  We ignore the H/C/S fields, and only use the 32 bit starting 
sector and length fields, letting us support terrabyte partitions.

>Second, I suspect that there are some other kernel dependencies
>relating to >1G drives.  Unfortunately, this is merely speculation.

FYI, people have successfully used the 9G Seagates with a single 
ext2 filesystem on them.

>I once read a rumor about a new filesystem standard.  I believe that
>ALL unices are limited to 2G partition sizes due to the 32 bit file
>pointer accepted by the standard OS entry points.  

32 bit file pointers make things messy when you're accessing the 
raw device, ie when you create the filesystem, but have no effect
on maximum size of the filesystem.

>Perhaps there is a
>movement afoot to go to 64 bit pointers as did Microsoft with Windows
>NT.

Many vendors support 64 bit file lengths, and even more support 
64 bit filesystems with 32 bit file lengths, since this is easier
to implement and avoids nasties with the 'C' library.

-- 
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] (NightHawk)
Subject: Re: more elf benchmarks
Date: 24 Sep 1994 16:44:08 -0400

John Richardson ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In a completely unscientific test (running X, slackware 2.0), I used 
: this program to time the differences between elf and a.out formats:

: -------------------------------------------------------------------
: #include <stdlib.h>

: int compare(const void *a, const void *b) { return *(int*)a - *(int*)b; }

: int main(int argc, char **argv)
: {
:         int i;

:         for (i=0; i<1000000; i++) {
:                 int array[10] = { 5, 2, 4, 2, 1, 5, 2, 9, 94, 87 };

:                 qsort(array, 10, sizeof(int), compare);
:         }
:         exit(0);
: }
: -------------------------------------------------------------------
: test>gcc -O3 -V 2.6.0-940917 test.c -o test-a.out
: test>gcc-elf -O3 -V 2.6.0-940917 test.c -o test-elf
: test>ls -l test-a.out test-elf 
: -rwxr-xr-x   1 jrichard users       15400 Sep 24 09:02 test-a.out*
: -rwxr-xr-x   1 jrichard users        2970 Sep 24 09:02 test-elf*
: -------------------------------------------------------------------
: test>time test-a.out; time test-a.out; time test-elf; time test-elf
: 60.98user 0.06system 1:01.08elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
: 0inputs+0outputs (0major+0minor)pagefaults 0swaps
: 61.15user 0.04system 1:01.22elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
: 0inputs+0outputs (0major+0minor)pagefaults 0swaps
: 64.27user 0.06system 1:04.35elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
: 0inputs+0outputs (0major+0minor)pagefaults 0swaps
: 64.36user 0.07system 1:04.60elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
: 0inputs+0outputs (0major+0minor)pagefaults 0swaps

: About 5% difference, not bad.  Still it would be nicer if elf
: was faster. :)

It may be possible. Please try new ELF libraries and keep us posted.

Thanks.

NH

: In limited testing, tests without many system calls were about equal.

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

From: [email-masked]
Subject: Jumbo250MB speed improvement
Date: 24 Sep 1994 17:28:34 -0400
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 17:52:55 +0000
From: Andre Couture <[email-masked]>
Subject: Jumbo250MB speed improvement
To: "comp.os.linux.admin" <[email-masked]>, 
    "comp.os.linux.help" <[email-masked]>, 
    "comp.os.linux.development" <[email-masked]>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9409241701.A4136-0100000@cyborg>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I was wondering howto improve the transfert speed to/from my tape backup.
I need to backup the server and a notebook.

I consider buying one of the adapter card from colorado.

Is it worthed and supported under linux? (I know somes are)
Do Linux support hardware compression?

Here is my system configuration:
486DX50 EISA w/20MB RAM
Adaptec 1742A
Quantum 525LPS HDD
NEC CDR84J cdrom
ATIXL w/mouse w/o monitor! (long story...)
Colorado jumbo250MB (of course!)

Talking about 'no monitor', is there somebody working on a 'something' 
that would permit me (or anybody) to read tapes mades with TAPE.EXE or 
CBWLITE.EXE with and without compression.

I need something that would be available thru the lan.

I was thinking also at the dosemu and wine but none of them seem to allow 
me to access my tape drive.

any suggestion accepted.

=====
Andre Couture,
[email-masked] (prefered)
     _/_/_/_/  _/_/_/_/  _/_/_/_/         Centre Informatique Couture
    _/           _/     _/         938934 Ontario Inc.  Phone:

+1-613-762-0262
   _/           _/     _/          155 Queen St.        FAX:  
+1-819-775-9697
  _/           _/     _/           Suite 900            Roma: 
+39/6-5125-745
 _/           _/     _/            Ottawa, Ontario      Delphi:    
CoutureA
_/_/_/_/. _/_/_/_/. _/_/_/_/.

@receiver file

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

From: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Subject: Re: Linux Floptical Disk Driver?
Reply-To: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 20:42:23 GMT

Followup to:  <[email-masked]>
By author:    [email-masked] (Phil Hughes)
In newsgroup: comp.os.linux.development
> 
> The story of support of Flopticals is a regular one I tell to explain to
> people why Linux is real.  Ages ago (close to two years) someone asked on
> the net if they were supported.  Within a day someone else posted a note
> that said that they required a special initialization sequence.  Then, a
> day later someone else asked where they could get the initialization
> sequence.  Then, a few days later there was a post explaining that the
> driver was now patched to support them.  A sequence that overall took
> about a week.  Expect a year or more from commercial vendors.
> 

A collegue of mine is still struggling with the MO disk for her SGI
workstation.  She not only had to pay extra for the driver (it is a
SCSI device, but it, too, requires an initialization sequence) but she
has had to wait for months already...

        /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
Unizork:  You are in a maze of twisty little directories, all different...

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

From: [email-masked] (Rene COUGNENC)
Subject: Re: 1.1.51 Adaptec 1542 SCSI problems
Date: 20 Sep 1994 14:08:55 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Rene COUGNENC)

Ce brave Nick Kralevich ecrit:

> I just tried compiling 1.1.51 for my computer.  There was no problem
> compiling, but when I tried using my system, the SCSI subsystem 
> became unstable, causing lots of "interrupt received, but no mail"
> messages, with other messages regarding problems with
> delay timeouts, etc.  None of these problems occured with 1.1.50,
> so I'm guessing that there is a problem in 1.1.51.  
>
> Anyone else having problems?

It works fine for me (386, Adaptec 1540B).
But this doesn't mean that there are no problems... 
(It seems that there are no changes in patch 51 regarding SCSI and
 1542, there are diffs only for aha152x) (and the floppy code).

--
 linux linux linux linux -[ [email-masked] ]- linux linux linux 

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

From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: Installing from a QIC-80 tape?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 17:32:31 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jim Dennis) writes:

>>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?
>>
>>John Byrns
>>[email-masked]

>   Last I read Patrick Volkerding was trying to implement something like
>   this for Slackware 2.0.  I would get the readme file for that 
>   distribution (sunsite.unc.edu:\pub\linux\distributions\slackware? or
>   somewhere off of ftp.cdrom.com?) and see if it ever got tested.

>   You'd have to write the slackware disksets to the tape in a specific
>   order which he specified in one of his readme's.

Most probably it assumes disksets written to tape as subsequent "tape files",
not in some proprietary format used by a DOS backup program...
So, if you want to create the tape from DOS you will need a very specific
program to do it.  (kind of like the RAWRITE.EXE you need to make a
bootable floppy from a disk image)

This technique has worked well with a Dutch distribution of Linux (called
"Snow") which I have installed from tape a few times in the past.  But today,
it is exclusively distributed on CD-ROM.

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

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

From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: Windows DLL-type linking possible...?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 17:38:23 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (BATES, ROBERT P.) writes:

>Howdy!  I'm currently working on a Windows-based app, and want to try to port 
>it to Linux under XF86... However, one of the cornerstones of this project is 
>the ability to relink the function libs on the fly, without having to exit and 
>restart the application... Is there anything even remotely similar available on 
>the Linux or any other Un*x platform?

There exists a "dynamic loading" library package, I think it is called "dload".
Is this what you require?

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

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

From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: Praise and complaint:
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 17:55:15 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Sean McNeil) writes:

>I want to start by praising Linux and all the people that have helped to
>make it what it is.  Great job, keep it up.

>Now, the complaint:  Why has everyone been placing EVERYTHING in /usr/???

>I am sure other people would like to hear the history around placing these
>applications in /usr.  If you know the reasons, please give us the
>run-down.

I think /usr/local has been traditionally used to store things that were
added to an existing system locally.  E.g. you bought a 'complete' system
from your favorite manufacturer or OS distributer, but it still lacked
emacs.  Then you added emacs yourself in /usr/local.

However, with Linux all these things come with the system (or none of them
does, depending on your point of view w.r.t. the name "Linux"), and you
just put them directly under /usr where everything is.

As you already explained, the location can usually be configured in some
Makefile, so it really isn't an important point anyway.

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

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

From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: Linux on CD
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 18:01:53 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jeff Kesselman) writes:

>Youa re most probobly dead on here.  The big problem in CD-ROm based 
>programming (we do it for a living at Crystal Dynamics) is the seek time 
>of a CD-ROM drive.  If you seek more than abt. 20meg away from, your 
>current position, it gets VERY slow.  This is because CD-ROM is a CLV 
>(continuos linear velocity) medium.  In order to pack maximum data on the 
>disc, it actually changes rotational speeds durign these longer seeks.  
>This emans that you have to wait for it to spin-up or spin-down to the 
>right speed.

Of course, CD-ROM was developed as a sequential-access medium, and CLV
is just the most optimal/practical method of reading the data in that
environment.
When you actually want to run it as a random-access medium, it should
be possible to keep the angular velocity at a constant value, and vary
the datarate according to the position on the medium.  This may require
some complicated frequency- and filtering switching, but it should be
possible.

Probably we will see high-performance drives that keep the angular
velocity constant...  or maybe this is already done in the newest drives.

However, this is not the only reason why long seeks are slower: the
positioning mechanism on a CD drive is two-level.  There is mechanically
moving arm which does the coarse positioning, and a fast voice-coil controlled
mirror that does the tracking and fine positioning.  This also counts
in the access times.

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

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

From: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Subject: Re: A badly missed feature in gcc
Reply-To: [email-masked] (H. Peter Anvin)
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 17:44:29 GMT

Followup to:  <[email-masked]>
By author:    [email-masked] (Matt Day)
In newsgroup: comp.os.linux.development
> >
> >This should work as long as there are no files in the C++ include
> >directories that conflict with any in the C include directories.  I
> >haven't still figured out how to get it to properly pass the
> >-nostdinc++ flag if you are not compiling a C++ program.  Nothing I
> >have tried has worked properly, so it is probably best to leave it
> >out.
> 
> If it's just // style comments you want, use the -lang-c-c++-comments
> option to cpp, specified in the specs file like above.  That turns on
> // handling only.
>
> A while ago, I mentioned to the gcc2 list about the need for an
> all-purpose way to pass arguments to the various compiler pass programs
> from the gcc command line, but I don't believe such a feature can be
> expected in 2.6.  :-(  So for now, we have to edit the specs file.
> 

I didn't know about the -lang-c-c++-comments option; it wasn't in the
man page.  As far as passing arguments to the various compiler passes,
-Wa will pass it to the assembler pass, -Wl to the linker pass, and
Jim Wilson just sent me the patch to support -Wp which passes it to
the preprocessor.

        /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
PGP public key available by finger to the above address.

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

** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **

The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:

    Internet: [email-masked]

You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.development) via:

    Internet: [email-masked]

Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
    nic.funet.fi				pub/OS/Linux
    tsx-11.mit.edu				pub/linux
    sunsite.unc.edu				pub/Linux

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