Subject: Linux-Development Digest #244
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94 08:13:06 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #244, Volume #2         Fri, 30 Sep 94 08:13:06 EDT

Contents:
  Re: people using SCSI-IN2000 driver, please read this (Larry Doolittle)
  Re: [?] DIP with auto-redial? (Harald Milz)
  Linux for Powermac? (Olaf Ronneberger)
  Pioneer SCSI Adapter TMC-850MER (Andrew Anderson)
  Re: Process checkpointing (Matti Aarnio)
  Re: Korn Shell '93 Now Available from AT&T (Chris Flatters)
  Please help me ... I can't get InterViews to work !!!!! ([email-masked])
  dip[6461]: SET_ENCAP(VJ_COMP=0): I/O error (Ron Arts)
  Re: Korn Shell '93 Now Available from AT&T (Ahmed Naas)
  Re: i486 Word length, anyone? (Scott A. Laird)
  Re: [STATUS] Linus Floppy Driver Development (Shannon Hendrix)
  Re: xircom pocket ethernet support ??? (Bjorn Ekwall)
  Process checkpointing (Elan Feingold)
  device driver for all three operating systems (Farrah Solouki-John)
  Re: Could TCP/IP be implemented over SCSI? (Ian McCloghrie)
  Re: SMail security hole? (Brian Kramer)
  NCR-SCSI,Audio-CDs => kernel-panic (Gunnar Kempke)

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

From: [email-masked] (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: people using SCSI-IN2000 driver, please read this
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 00:41:53 GMT

Stefan Markgraf ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Is anybody able to fix the problem with the in2000 driver?
: Sometimes while swapping (to a swap-partition) the driver crashes. 
: No read/writes are possible and therefore every process begins to hang 
: when it needs access to the disk. The HD light burns constantly.

I have seen this, always with the "new" fast driver on tsx-11.  If
you want something slow, but (more?) stable, try version 0.3
(released by me :-).  Version 0.3 needs some hacking to mate with
newer kernels.

: Console switching (during the driver crash) is possible as long as
: Xfree do not use the disk or when working at a plain text console.
: However, each console begins to hang as soon as a process needs disk access
: (e.g. excuting a new command)
: "ping" from other machines result in "<hostname> is alive."

Yup, Yup, Yup.

: My in2000-bios version is 1.03, the hardware-version is 27 (bootup message)
: kernel is 1.1.50 with 16 MB, 17 MB swap-space on a swap partition. I use 
: the newest version of the in2000.c. 
: (My memory "upgrade" 8->16 MB has shown, that the driver crashing occurs 
: more seldom --- this is a result of fewer swapping requests, I suppose).

: I HAVE READ THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE USING THE IN2000 DRIVER WITHOUT
: PROBLEMS.  PERHAPS WE CAN FIND OUT THE BIOS- AND HARDWARE-VERSIONS
: WHICH WORK AND WHICH DO NOT WORK. PLEASE POST (OR SEND ME MAIL) YOUR
: CONFIGURATION (KERNEL, RAM, SWAP-TYPE AND SPACE, HARDDRIVE) AND
: IN2000-VERSION HERE.  PLEASE WRITE IF CRASHING OCCURS OR NOT.

Those who use it without crashing either use the slow driver, or use
swapping to a non-IN2000 disk, or swap to a file.  The IN2000 slow
driver comes with patches to the kernel to force swapping to happen
in 512 byte chunks.  (I know, it's lame, but it works).  The "new"
driver allows 4096 byte transfers to happen -- most of the time.
Eventually a latent bug shows up -- it could be in the firmware, for
all I know -- and the bus locks up.  Good luck debugging it!

: Perhaps we can fix this nasty bug.

: Another question: Perhaps one of the gurus can post us how to set up
: the in2000 driver for intelligent debugging. I tried to set "#define DEBUG" in
: in2000.c, redirected kernel-errors/debug/crit-messages of the syslogd to
: /dev/console and recompiled the kernel. However there are so many
: messages, that I cannot bootup again. 

Since the system is still running, <ctrl>-<scroll> is still functioning.
Try patching some IN2000 status routine printer into that routine.
If you need help crashing your SCSI, e-mail me for a copy of "thrash"
that exercises arbitrary amounts of swap-space.  <grin>

      - Larry Doolitle   [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Harald Milz)
Subject: Re: [?] DIP with auto-redial?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 16:33:01 GMT

In comp.os.linux.development, Mike Castle ([email-masked]) wrote:
> In article <[email-masked]>,
> John Voth <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >I am in search of a DIP or DIP-alike program that has auto redial 
> >functions built into it. 
> >I am in constant competition with others trying to connect to my 
> >university and the DIP I have now just flops at a busy signal.
> I'm not sure if all versions of DIP did this, but I know the most
> recent versions set $errlvl to different values, depending on why
> it failed.  I'm not positive where the values for errlvl are
> documented, perhaps in one of the sample scripts.

I tuned dip-337 some time ago to return an exitcode from the dip script.
Now you can say "exit 5" in the script, and dip returns "5" to the shell.
This allows me to auto-redial if a recoverable error (such as BUSY) 
occurs. I sent the respective patch to Uri Blimenthal but didn't
receive an answer. Seems he's not too interested. If anyone wants
the patch (actually, five or six lines more), drop me a note. 

-- 
They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!
-- 
Harald Milz ([email-masked])      WWW: http://www.ix.de/editors/hm.html
iX Multiuser Multitasking Magazine      phone +49 (511) 53 52-377
Helstorfer Str. 7, D-30625 Hannover     fax   +49 (511) 53 52-378
Opinions stated herein are my own, not necessarily my employer's.

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

From: [email-masked] (Olaf Ronneberger)
Subject: Linux for Powermac?
Date: 28 Sep 1994 23:33:48 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Hi!

I read in the PowerPC-FAQ, that Linux is beeing ported to PowerPC. Where can I get
any further information?
Thanks in advance,

Olaf

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

From: [email-masked] (Andrew Anderson)
Subject: Pioneer SCSI Adapter TMC-850MER
Date: 29 Sep 1994 17:07:12 GMT

Can any developer tell me if the code in ~/linux/drivers/scsi/seagate.c
will support this card?  The board has a TMC-950 chip on it, but the
kernel cannot find it.  Does the TMC-950 referenced in the comments
in the code refer to a *board* or the *chip*?  

This model of the board does _not_ have a BIOS chip on it, does the 
driver need one?  If this driver does not work, does anyone have a 
(pre) alpha driver that I can try?

Thanks for any and all responces,
Andrew

--
|===========================================================================|
|  Andrew Anderson                              [email-masked]          |
|  Novell Network System Administrator          "Making the impossible      |
|  Linux System Administrator                    possible -- daily!"        |
|                                                                           |
| I don't speak for ERAU, and God knows I don't want them to speak for me!  | 
|===========================================================================|

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

From: [email-masked] (Matti Aarnio)
Subject: Re: Process checkpointing
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 07:10:27 GMT

[email-masked] (Elan Feingold) writes:
>
>I seem to remember reading a while back about a program that
>checkpointed running processes.  This strikes me as being a 
>very interesting start for a larger project.  One thing that
>I've always disliked is that when I reboot I have to set 
>everything up again (i.e. boot X, run my programs, position
>the windows, etc.)  I know that there are ways to save my
>desktop, but I'm going one step beyond this.  In a perfect
>OS/World, one could hit a large Red checkpoint button, and have
>the state of all running processes saved onto disk, including
>the state of IPC/file desciptors/etc. and make there a way for
>this to be restored upon reboot (even up to the pids of the
>processes -- why not?!)

        Such facilities do exist, and SparcBook computers act
        quite much like you describe, however not all the things
        are saveable, especially this is true with external
        communication -- say, remote end wants to timeout in
        X seconds, and the system is off for X+1 seconds ?

        Another environment/way to do it is implemented on IBM
        SP2 supercomputer (multi-cpu processor cluster) on which
        processes can be migrated in between the individual
        processors!  (Which said processors are independent
        AIX running systems each.)

....

>Any comments?  Anyone know of the program that did something like
>this already?  Remember this is just sort of a wishful post, not
>a design document or a volunteer notice :)

        On BSD systems there is a  gcore  program, which is used to
        do several "weird" things, like checkpoint dumping of running
        programs -- generally there is no way to CONTINUE such
        program from a dump, just a way to make a core-snapshot..

        However preservation of process external status, (like files
        and TCP sockets, ) is going to be a lot more difficult!

        I think that when a "shutdown" is hit on the SparcBook, it
        writes ENTIRE core-state to the disk, and when it comes up
        again, that state is retrieved from the disk as is.
        (That includes the contents of the display RAM...)

        Device drivers must also be up to the task, several (all?)
        need special resetting on powerup, and running kernel can't
        be thrown in, unless the devices are on proper state.

        I don't think a kernel change can be done under such conditions.

>Regards to all the Linux people out there...
>
>Elan

>-- 
>|| Elan Feingold (Cornell '94)    || "Two of the most famous products of     ||

        /Matti Aarnio   <[email-masked]>

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

From: [email-masked] (Chris Flatters)
Subject: Re: Korn Shell '93 Now Available from AT&T
Date: 29 Sep 1994 22:06:48 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Hmm.  I seem to have missed something here.  Could someone mail me the
original article.

---
==============================================================================
Chris Flatters                                          [email-masked]
==============================================================================
Well, our problem stems from the fact that we, basically, allow every planet
and moon-base this side of Alpha Centauri to make their own version of Spam.
                                                        "Mystery Meat"
                                                        Man... or Astroman?

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

Subject: Please help me ... I can't get InterViews to work !!!!!
From: [email-masked]
Date: 29 Sep 1994 22:10:38 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Hello,
        Each time I tried to run InterViews' programs such as 
Docs, Logo, or the others, I got an error message saied Floating
Point Exception.  I can't find a way to solve it and please help me.  I do have a math coprocesser.  I even complied the kernel with math emulation by it still not work. I Linux kernel is 1.1.18.

Thanks in advance.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
From: [email-masked] (Ron Arts)
Subject: dip[6461]: SET_ENCAP(VJ_COMP=0): I/O error
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 06:40:41 GMT

HI,

Subject line says it all.
I get this error in the log *only* for every 5th (concurrent) SLIP session. 
Note I run the 1.1.51 kernel with 16 SLIP channels enabled.
I use dip-3.3.7-lilo-3.2 (called as diplogin from /etc/passwd).

Any clues?
I can provide more info.
Email replies preferred please, there's too much noise in the c.o.l.* groups
already.

Thanks,
Ron

NetLand Internet Services - Email, Usenet, gopher, WWW, ftp, telnet etc
We also set up Internet-connected BBS'es or a WWW server for your organisation
Info: +31-(0)20-6943664, dial-up +31-(0)20-6940350, Email: [email-masked]
<A HREF = "http://www.netland.nl/">Info</A> (dutch language only).

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

From: [email-masked] (Ahmed Naas)
Subject: Re: Korn Shell '93 Now Available from AT&T
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 12:17:11 GMT

Ralph Sims ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Chris Bitmead) writes:

: >In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (James J. Yorton) writes:

: >>     "The Labs raised some software packaging and porting issues
: >>     Prices for the binary version of K-shell '93 are $99 per copy
: >>     (per cpu) until December 31, 1994. Orders placed after that date
: >>     will be licensed at $149 per copy. We will also write a site
: >>     license, for a variety of platforms, without restriction as to
: >>     the number of users or cpus, for $10,000."

: >$149 just for a shell? Forget it!

: You run a Linux box with more than one user and want to make it
: available to everyone, it's $10K, NOT $149.  There's a lesson
: to be learned somewhere in there.

I think you misunderstood the license terms. It says $99/$149 per cpu (i.e.
per machine), not per user. (Hmmm. What about multiprocessor machines, you
say?) The $10k (source?) license makes sense for sites with hundred(s) of
hetrogeneous workstations.

-- 
The above is a result of random neuron activity in the writer's brain.
Ahmed M. Naas                                      [email-masked]
======================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Scott A. Laird)
Subject: Re: i486 Word length, anyone?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 22:28:55 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Thomas Koenig <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Andrew F. Lee ([email-masked]) wrote in comp.os.linux.development,
>       article <[email-masked]>:
>
>>A long is 32 bits.  The registers of a 486DX (as 
>>opposed to SX) have a 32 bit capacity
>
>The registers of a 486SX also have 32 bits, it't the external
>bus that's 16 bits.
>

Argh!  This is the third time I've seen this this week.  The only real
difference between a 486SX and a 486DX is the math coprocessor -- the
DX has one and the SX doesn't.  The _3_86SX has a 16 bit external bus,
but even it still has 32-bit registers.

Now, I suppose I should mention that Cyrix's 486SLC chips are designed
to fit into a 386SX socket, more or less, so they have a 16 bit
external bus, but Intel's 486SX does not.

Scott.
-- 
Scott A. Laird            |  "But this goes to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615"
[email-masked]  |                - Nigel on his 64-bit computer

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

From: [email-masked] (Shannon Hendrix)
Subject: Re: [STATUS] Linus Floppy Driver Development
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 03:23:33 GMT

[email-masked] (Matthew S. Crocker) writes:

>So does Fastback for DOS,  the drive light is *not* on all the time
>but it can tell when you insert the next volume (I think).  There must
>be a way somehow...

Fastback, Norton, and MS-DOS 6.2 poll the drive to do this.
-- 
csh
===========================================================================
[email-masked]      | Linux... that's it for the moment
===================================+ 

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

From: [email-masked] (Bjorn Ekwall)
Subject: Re: xircom pocket ethernet support ???
Date: 29 Sep 94 16:03:45 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:
 > Is anyone working on a driver for the Xircom parallel
 > port ethernet adaptor ????
 >
 >
 > What is the difference between this and the dlink ????

D-Link encourages development of drivers and willingly shows you how.
Xircom don't...

Bjorn Ekwall == [email-masked]

 > Thanks
 >
 > Steve Hunt    [email-masked]
 >               [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Elan Feingold)
Subject: Process checkpointing
Date: 28 Sep 1994 17:07:37 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Elan Feingold)

I seem to remember reading a while back about a program that
checkpointed running processes.  This strikes me as being a 
very interesting start for a larger project.  One thing that
I've always disliked is that when I reboot I have to set 
everything up again (i.e. boot X, run my programs, position
the windows, etc.)  I know that there are ways to save my
desktop, but I'm going one step beyond this.  In a perfect
OS/World, one could hit a large Red checkpoint button, and have
the state of all running processes saved onto disk, including
the state of IPC/file desciptors/etc. and make there a way for
this to be restored upon reboot (even up to the pids of the
processes -- why not?!)  I realize that this requires support
at multiple levels of the kernel to handle this persistance, 
but as with many ideas, one could take an incremental approach.
In OS/2, for example, when I reboot I get the same applications
that I was running, but of course it doesn't do checkpointing
of DOS/Windows programs, or even OS/2 programs I believe.  But
it looks nice.  Imagine a future where one recompiles a kernel, 
reboots into DOS just for the heck of it, and then boots up 
Linux again, to have X come up, the raytrace that has been going 
for the last week to continue, the TCP/IP connections to reestablish
themselves, and the two dosemu sessions to continue with the
EPIC Pinball games they were busy with. :)  It seems that different
applications try to support this persistance in a user visable way
(i.e. an option to continue an interrupted raytrace, or a save desktop
option in a window manager), but doing it with kernel support (i.e. 
SIGCHKPNT) is of course much more powerful.

Any comments?  Anyone know of the program that did something like
this already?  Remember this is just sort of a wishful post, not
a design document or a volunteer notice :)

Regards to all the Linux people out there...

Elan

-- 
===============================================================================
|| Elan Feingold (Cornell '94)    || "Two of the most famous products of     ||
|| Software Engineer II           ||  Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don't     ||
|| Digital Equipment Corporation  ||  think that is a coincidence."          ||
|| Work: 603.881.1115             ||                       - Anonymous       ||
===============================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Farrah Solouki-John)
Subject: device driver for all three operating systems
Date: 29 Sep 1994 22:42:36 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Anyone know how to write a device driver logic for  Adaptec 2940 scsi
for Linux operating system?

Or,  Does anyone know of a PCI-Scsi controler that would be compatible with
all three (Dos, Linux and OS2) oeprating systems?

I would appreciate any info.

Thanks much
Farrah.
Farrah@farrah

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

From: [email-masked] (Ian McCloghrie)
Subject: Re: Could TCP/IP be implemented over SCSI?
Date: 28 Sep 1994 10:44:16 -0700

[email-masked] (Jason Venner) writes:
>With differential scsi, your scsi bus can extend quite a distance.
>With SCSI 2 fast wide/SCSI3 I think you are limited to 256 id's and 256 feet
>for the scsi bus.

>So: given a little change in technology, networking via scsi will make a lot 
>of sense.

Ummm... it's certainly be possible.  But make sense?  Last I checked,
fast/wide scsi 2 cards weren't exactly cheap.  Granted, it's faster
than ethernet, but how many people really, seriously, need more
than 10Mbits on their LAN?  Especially at home (the main Linux
presence).  The cabling for it would be a nightmare (25 pairs, not
just 2 as in 10baseT, *and* you have to worry about termination).

It's a cool idea, and perhaps useful in a Desk-Area-Network concept
(put an xterminal on your system via scsi and use that as your main
display, etc).  But it's not well suited as a general LAN technology.

--
Ian McCloghrie    work: [email-masked]     home: [email-masked]
  ____   GCS d-- H s+:+ !g p? au a- w+ v- C++$ UL++++ US++$ P+>++
  \bi/   L+++ 3 E+ N++ K--- W--- M-- V-- -po+ Y+ t+ 5+++ jx R G'''
   \/    tv- b+++ D- B-- e- u* h- f+ r n- y*

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

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

From: [email-masked] (Brian Kramer)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: SMail security hole?
Date: 29 Sep 1994 19:34:02 -0400

I tried setting my transports up exactly as you have them, and still
had the same problem.

Lee J. Silverman ([email-masked]) wrote:

:       If your version of smail is writing files as root then you
: have smail configured incorrectly, and should fix it IMMEDIATELY.  If
: user xxx has a .forward file that sends output to a file, then smail
: should write to that file as user xxx.  In order to make sure that
: this is true, make sure your /usr/lib/smail/transports file has these
: entry:

: # pipe - deliver mail to shell commands
: #
: # This is used implicitly when smail encounters addresses which begin with
: # a vertical bar character, such as "|/usr/lib/news/recnews talk.bizarre".
: # The vertical bar is removed from the address before being given to the
: # transport.
: pipe: driver = pipe,                  # pipe message to another program
:       return_path, -local, from, -unix_from_hack;

:       cmd = "/bin/sh -c $user",       # use Bourne shell to execute
:       parent_env,                     # environment info from parent addr
:       user=nobody,
:       group=mail,
:       -pipe_as_user,                  # not user-id associated with address
:       umask=0022,
:       log_output,                     # do not log stdout/stderr
:       ignore_status,                  # exit status may be bogus, ignore it
:       ignore_write_errors,            # ignore broken pipes

: # file - deliver mail to files
: #
: # This is used implicitly when smail encounters addresses which begin with
: # a slash or squiggle character, such as "/usr/info/list_messages" or
: # perhaps "~/Mail/inbox".
: file: driver = appendfile,
:       return_path, local, -from, unix_from_hack;

:       file = $user,                   # file is taken from address
:       append_as_user,                 # use user-id associated with address
:       expand_user,                    # expand ~ and $ within address
:       suffix = "\n",
:       mode = 0644,

: With the drivers set up this way, mail written to a file is written as
: user xxx, but mail sent to a pipe is sent as user nobody.  It's a
: little bit more secure that way.

: --
: Lee Silverman, Brown class of '94, Brown GeoPhysics ScM '95
: Email to: [email-masked]
: Phish-Net Archivist: [email-masked]
: "Nonsense - you only say it's impossible because nobody's ever done it."
-- 
Brian Kramer - Owner/Systems Administrator - [email-masked]
New Jersey Computer Connection - Public Access Unix Site - pluto.njcc.com
Voice: 609-896-2799 - Fax: 609-896-2994 - Dialups: 609-896-3191
Dialup or Telnet to pluto.njcc.com and log in as guest for more information.

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

From: [email-masked] (Gunnar Kempke)
Subject: NCR-SCSI,Audio-CDs => kernel-panic
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 09:36:21 GMT

Hello all!

My system: PCI/I-P5MP3 ASUS-board (BIOS ver 2.01) with NCR53C810-SCSI
           (BIOS ver 3.04), SCSI-HD, Toshiba 4101B SCSI-CDROM
           Kernel 1.1.19 with Drew's NCR-Driver Release 3

My problem: Every time I start playing an Audio-CD (with Workbone, Workman,
            doesn't matter), my system crashes. Everything else (including
            CD-Rom operations) works just fine. How come?

tia,

Gunnar
  
-- 

===============================================================================
       Gunnar Kempke, Kopperpahler Allee 41, 24119 Kronshagen, Germany 

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

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