Subject: Linux-Development Digest #270
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 94 14:13:16 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #270, Volume #2          Thu, 6 Oct 94 14:13:16 EDT

Contents:
  Re: 3Com 509 Driver Problems - Any fixes - Help (Derek Snider)
  Re: Improving SLIP latency under Linux (John Richardson)
  Re: What GUI to write for? (Hugh Strong)
  Re: umount problem! (Sam Oscar Lantinga)
  Re: kernel textmodes patch (long) (Stormy Henderson)
  Re: weird linux hangs...me too! ([email-masked])
  Re: What GUI to write for? (Shannon Hendrix)
  Re: Linux Access to PCI configuration space (Donald Becker)
  Re: Linux Mud (Stormy Henderson)
  [Q] SLIP/PPP and modems with large internal buffers (John Richardson)
  Re: SCSI Printer? (mac) (Steve Peltz)
  Re: ext2fs vs. Berkeley FFS (Mike Haertel)
  Re: What GUI to write for? (Mario Klebsch DG1AM)
  DOSEMU Questions (386 mode?) (Douglas Rankin)
  Single host firewalling (Bill Wohler)
  Re: Any threads package ? (Steven Buytaert)
  Re: umount problem! (Mitchum DSouza)
  Re: Report on gcc with P5 optimizations (Mr Ivan Alastair Beveridge)
  Re: What GUI to write for? (David B. Lewis)

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

From: [email-masked] (Derek Snider)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: 3Com 509 Driver Problems - Any fixes - Help
Date: 5 Oct 1994 18:37:16 GMT

Brian Kramer ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I get the following error which pretty much disables my system.  Is there
: a fix?  Or can someone recommend a ethernet card that works flawlessly
: with linux?

: Sep 27 20:11:56 pluto kernel: eth0: Missed interrupt, status then 2011 now 2000  Tx 00 Rx 8000.
: Sep 27 21:56:01 pluto kernel: eth0: Transmitter access conflict.
: Sep 27 22:07:24 pluto kernel: eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status 2000.
: Sep 27 22:07:25 pluto kernel: eth0: transmit timed out, tx_status 00 status 2000.
: Sep 27 22:33:54 pluto kernel: eth0: Missed interrupt, status then 2011 now 2000  Tx 00 Rx 8000.
: Sep 28 01:10:52 pluto kernel: eth0: Missed interrupt, status then 2011 now 2000  Tx 00 Rx 8000.
: Sep 28 12:32:12 pluto kernel: eth0: Missed interrupt, status then 2011 now 2000  Tx 00 Rx 8000.
: Sep 28 15:39:43 pluto kernel: eth0: Missed interrupt, status then 2011 now 2000  Tx 00 Rx 8000.
: -- 
: 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.

I get the same errors with the same card... I have no idea why...
I do know, however... that on the machine using the WD SMC Ultra card,
I get no eth0 error reports in the syslog.

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

From: [email-masked] (John Richardson)
Subject: Re: Improving SLIP latency under Linux
Date: 5 Oct 1994 10:12:50 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Nick Kralevich <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
[...]
>interactive SLIP delay during heavy ftp transfers was about 3 seconds.
[...]
>
>My modem is a US Robotics Sportster 14.4 modem.  The modem has a 
>built in transmit data buffer of 3.25 Kbytes, and a receive data buffer
>of 2 Kbytes.  I believe it is this buffer which is killing my 
>interactive response during large transfers.

Ah, I have a (sigh) Supra FAXmodem 14.4 (internal).  This has an
internal 2k recieve buffer, I don't know of any way to turn it off
though.

Anyway, in some more non-scientific testing, my patch brought
ping times from 2000ms to 450ms during ftp sesions.

Is anyone using a standard kernel with SLIP and finding interactive
response to be OK while downloading?  

--
John Richardson
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Hugh Strong)
Subject: Re: What GUI to write for?
Date: 4 Oct 1994 12:52:57 GMT

Marc Fraioli ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article [email-masked],  [email-masked] (Steven Buytaert) writes:
: >Hugh Strong ([email-masked]) wrote:
: >: Check out several API kits on sunsite. The one I'm most aquainted
: >: with is called wxWin, which is installed on my machine, although
: >: I haven't played with it yet.  It's for building applications
: >: for XView, Motif, and (Yes, it does do windows) Windows/WinNT.  It

: Sounds interesting-- I'll take a look at it.  Still, it doesn't 
: sound like exactly what I want.  It seems that it still requires
: one of these other toolkits to be present, and since it can use
: different ones, it doesn't really define a look and feel that will
: be consistent.  Of course, you can argue that it is best to leave
: it to the user which one they want.  

Yes, I don't think that we should tie users down to using one interface
or the other.  Xview is free, but Motif is become the (nonfree) standard.  
Motif users want a consistent interface, but providing motif binaries
to  people who have not bough the package means static linking.  The lesson: 
write for Xview normally, Motif if you must, and both if  possible.

                                                -- Hugh Strong
                                                [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Sam Oscar Lantinga)
Subject: Re: umount problem!
Date: 5 Oct 1994 17:49:02 GMT

Rob Janssen ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Arghh!!  The fix for this has been on this group *so many* times that
: it is really your own fault when you don't know about it...

        Okay, so when is it going to come out in a kernel patch?
Are there any more kernel patches coming out, or are we moving to a 
code freeze?

Later,

        -Sam

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

From: [email-masked] (Stormy Henderson)
Subject: Re: kernel textmodes patch (long)
Date: 6 Oct 1994 04:39:48 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Harm Hanemaaijer wrote:

   On any VGA compatible card, it adds the following modes to the default
   set of 80x25/28/50 (which use a 400-scanline frame at 70 Hz):

   80x36   11-line font, 70 Hz
   80x44   9-line font, 70 Hz
   80x30   16-line font, 480-scanline frame, 60 Hz
   80x40   12-line font, 480-scanline frame, 60 Hz

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh, it WORKS!  (c:

I've been looking for something like this for ages, I don't have enough RAM
to run Xwindow so this is the perfect thing.  (c:

Now someone please add the capability to pick from more colors with setterm
so I can get an easier to read screen...

Be happy...

- Stormy the happinator     "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ
                             Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
  Reply to:                  Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 
  [email-masked]    Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

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

From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: weird linux hangs...me too!
Date: 6 Oct 1994 09:14:31 -0400
Reply-To: [email-masked]

I have a 486dx50 EISA, 20MB RAM, WD8003e (network card),
Adaptec 1742a, NEC CDROM, 2 FDD, PAS16, AtI WinderXL,
Kernel 1.1.51,...

It happens to me as well, specially if I do compile on multiple tty

simultanously. 
It has been doing this since version 1.1.08!!!

I actually had a lots of problem to do the FIRST install from the CD...
It hanged _every_ minutes or so...

I kind a fixed the problem by puting a 12 inches FAN pointing inside my
case (wide open!). Since then it hangs _very_ less often.

It never happend with DOS/Window/NT/OS2 before.
I suppose that Linux make my CPU (or motherboard) work harder???

Give it a try, it could work too. :)

I don't know if it is a 'timings' problem, or a power supply, but the fan
solution worked fine for me!

cheers,
Andre Couture

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

Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.intrinsics,gnu.misc.discuss
From: [email-masked] (Shannon Hendrix)
Subject: Re: What GUI to write for?
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 03:10:15 GMT

[email-masked] (Richard Michael Todd) writes:

>[email-masked] (Chris Toshok) writes:
>>upon.  It shouldn't be too terribly hard to come up with a widget set that
>>is complete and looks nice (Motifish), compiles on just about anything, and
>                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>Make up your mind.  Do you want one that looks nice, or do you want one that
>looks Motifish?  

OK... I see a lot of posts about Motif being ugly.  So, what in your
opinion looks good?  I find Motif not beautiful but it looks OK to
me.  At least it is consistent.  XView, regardless of how good it may
be, is being rapidly abandoned.  Motif is being accepted.  Not my
choice but I don't see how I can change that.  My biggest beef with Motif
is their licensing and the price they charge.

>We now return you to the flamefest already in progress.
-- 
csh
===========================================================================
[email-masked]      | Linux... that's it for the moment
===================================+ 

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

From: [email-masked] (Donald Becker)
Subject: Re: Linux Access to PCI configuration space
Date: 5 Oct 1994 15:00:21 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
don Elwell <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>Is there an "accepted" method for gaining access to PCI configuration
>space under linux?

Drew Eckhardt <[email-masked]> has added BIOS32 and PCI
configuration support to the most recent development kernels (1.1.51).  It
currently is tied to his NCR53c810 driver, but I'm certain that will be
cleaned up after a few other drivers start using it.

A quick outline of how to use the code:

#include <linux/pci.h>
#include <linux/bios32.h>
...

#if defined(CONFIG_PCI)
#define AMD_VENDOR_ID 0x1022
#define AMD_DEVICE_ID 0x2000
   if (pcibios_present()) {
      int pci_index;

      for (pci_index = 0; pci_index < 8; pci_index++) {
         unsigned char pci_bus, pci_device_fn;
         unsigned char irq_line;
         unsigned long pci_ioaddr;
                 
         if (pcibios_find_device (AMD_VENDOR_ID, AMD_DEVICE_ID, pci_index,
                                  &pci_bus, &pci_device_fn) != 0)
             break;
         pcibios_read_config_byte(pci_bus, pci_device_fn,
                                  PCI_INTERRUPT_LINE, &irq_line);
         pcibios_read_config_dword(pci_bus, pci_device_fn,
                                   PCI_BASE_ADDRESS_0, &pci_ioaddr);
         /* Remove I/O space marker in bit 0. */
         pci_ioaddr &= ~3;
         printk("Found PCnet/PCI at %#lx, irq %d.\n", pci_ioaddr, irq_line);
...
     }
   }
#endif  /* defined(CONFIG_PCI) */

-- 
Donald Becker                                     [email-masked]
USRA-CESDIS, Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences.
Code 930.5, Goddard Space Flight Center,  Greenbelt, MD.  20771
301-286-0882         http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/people/becker/whoiam.html

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

From: [email-masked] (Stormy Henderson)
Subject: Re: Linux Mud
Date: 6 Oct 1994 03:03:01 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

[email-masked] (Scott Francis) writes:

   Is there a mud developed for Linux and if so is it possible for me to get
   the source or compiler version of it?

I've compiled and run Merc 2.2 and ROM 2.3 with very little porting.  Both
version required only commenting out a few lines of code that Linux doesn't
support, and ran beautifully.

Be happy...

- Stormy the happinator     "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ
                             Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
  Reply to:                  Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 
  [email-masked]    Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

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

From: [email-masked] (John Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.dcom.modems,comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: [Q] SLIP/PPP and modems with large internal buffers
Date: 6 Oct 1994 14:25:18 GMT

I'm trying to debug some software IP TOS queuing (under linux)
and have a hardware question just to make sure I'm not totally
off base:
 
Several people, including myself, have modems with large internal
buffers (mine is a supra internal FAXmodem 1.44) which we use
with SLIP and PPP.  The problem is, when we start an ftp
download transfer in the background the interactive response
becomes very poor.
 
I don't believe this should happen since TOS queuing is implemented;
however, I'd like to bounce this off the net :
 
Could the large internal buffer in the modem (2k in my case)
be the cause of the problem?  

How about this:  can anyone start a large ftp session and still
have good interactive response (with any system and OS)?  

BTW: I know about keeping the MTU low (I use 296).  Lower MTUs 
do provide somewhat better response times, but still not as good 
as what is possible in theory.  (as described in Stevens' "TCP/IP
Illustrated Vol. I")

thanks for anything you can provide

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

From: [email-masked] (Steve Peltz)
Subject: Re: SCSI Printer? (mac)
Date: 5 Oct 1994 14:32:08 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Petter Gustad <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Hence your biggest problem will not be to get the SCSI connection to
>work, but to get your graphics/text data converted into QuickDraw
>format before sending it to the printer. If you want to get docs
>on the QuickDraw format you'll probably need to pay Apple lots of
>$$$ and sign a NDA. Not very attractive to a Linux device driver
>hacker...

Actually, Quickdraw, including internal format of, e.g. PICT data, is
very well documented. However, I thought that the "Quickdraw" printers
were simply sent a dot pattern from the Mac - the Quickdraw is running
in the Mac, not the printer. That's why the printer is cheaper and slower.

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

From: [email-masked] (Mike Haertel)
Subject: Re: ext2fs vs. Berkeley FFS
Date: 03 Oct 1994 20:53:37 GMT

In article <ianm.781206424@miles> [email-masked] (Ian McCloghrie) writes:
>4.3, in fact.  (may even have been 4.3 Tahoe).  The FFS was one of the
>big things 4.3 gave over 4.2.

Nope, FFS first appeared in either 4.1b or 4.1c, I forget which, and
was officially released in 4.2 in 1983.  I have the 4.2 manuals to
prove it.

The big thing that 4.3 gave over 4.2 was genericly improved performance.
There were a number of FFS improvements in 4.3, most notable of which
was the namei cache, but don't confuse performance improvements with
the introduction of FFS itself.
--
Mike Haertel <[email-masked]>

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

From: [email-masked] (Mario Klebsch DG1AM)
Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.intrinsics,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: What GUI to write for?
Date: 6 Oct 1994 14:09:41 GMT

Hello!
[email-masked] (Shannon Hendrix) writes:

>[email-masked] (Richard Michael Todd) writes:

>>[email-masked] (Chris Toshok) writes:
>>>upon.  It shouldn't be too terribly hard to come up with a widget set that
>>>is complete and looks nice (Motifish), compiles on just about anything, and
>>               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>OK... I see a lot of posts about Motif being ugly.  So, what in your
>opinion looks good?  I find Motif not beautiful but it looks OK to
>me.  At least it is consistent.  XView, regardless of how good it may
>be, is being rapidly abandoned.  Motif is being accepted.  Not my
>choice but I don't see how I can change that.  My biggest beef with Motif
>is their licensing and the price they charge.

One main point agains Motif in my opinion is that I want a GUI
(Grafical User Interface). The Motif specification is full of Keyboard
User Interface (I do not think of shortcuts). Every Motif program has
to be usable without a mouse. This leads to jumping default buttons
and lots of other strange things. Why are there functions like move
and resize in the menu in the upper left corner? To be used with
keyboard UI? Or, because the graphical resize UI is to hard to use?
The corners are to small to hit on first try?

Does this still sound like a good GUI?

And consistence is made by the programs, not the toolkit. Mosaic is a
good example for a bad GUI. The save as... dialog bos often has no
popup for the file type, becaus it resizes itself to narrow. The
open... dialog box has the last text in the only text field not
selected. And it has dialog boxes with buttons labeled YES and NO.
Motif specification name the right mouse mutton the menu button. But a
lot of Motif programs just don't do anything, when pressing the right
mouse button on a menu bar item. Mosaic is not the only one, that does
not open it's menues.

There is a lot more to judje, when speaking about GUIs. I think Motif
has focused to much on impressive look and they forgot to implement
their own feel. Or does Motif feel like

        ThisProgramDoesNotObeyTheSpecification?

This should be easy to implement.

        Mario
--
Mario Klebsch, DG1AM, [email-masked]               +49 531 / 391 - 7457
Institut fuer Robotik und Prozessinformatik der TU Braunschweig
Hamburger Strasse 267, 38114 Braunschweig, Germany

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

From: [email-masked] (Douglas Rankin)
Subject: DOSEMU Questions (386 mode?)
Date: 5 Oct 1994 11:31:46 -0400

 I know this is probably a dumb question. does dosemu emulate 386 protected
mode? If not are there plans to do so?? The reason I am wondering is that
I have several dos programs that use Phar Lap dos extender and it won't
run becasue it say the chip is in 8086 mode. Is there a way to have it run
in 385 mode so I can run thse programs, If so how, any help would
be apprecited!! Thanks

Doug "The Hitman" Rankin
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Bill Wohler)
Subject: Single host firewalling
Date: 6 Oct 1994 12:23:34 -0500
Reply-To: Bill Wohler <[email-masked]>

  [This note sent to [email-masked] and cc'd to
  comp.os.linux.development]

  Strick's posting of infilt gave me the idea that it would be
  possible to firewall my (Linux) host at home which is directly
  connected to the Internet via SLIP (or PPP).

  As more and more folks are getting the Internet into their homes on
  inexpensive PC's, this might actually turn into an important aspect
  of firewalls.

  While all the discussion here has been about expensive chokes,
  filters and bastion hosts, what work, if any, has been done to
  address the single host, no network, connection?

Bill Wohler <[email-masked]>
President, Newt Software

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

From: [email-masked] (Steven Buytaert)
Subject: Re: Any threads package ?
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 07:38:52 GMT

Bich-Cau Le ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I'm doing real-time OS simulations under Unix. Is there something
: similar to Sun's lightweight process library for Linux?

: Bich C. Le
: UC Davis

--
Steven Buytaert 

WORK [email-masked]
HOME [email-masked]

        'Imagination is more important than knowledge.'
                        (A. Einstein)

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

From: [email-masked] (Mitchum DSouza)
Subject: Re: umount problem!
Date: 6 Oct 1994 14:33:44 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Mark D. Roth)
writes:
|> I just encountered a weird problem with umount.  I am using the umount
|> that comes with the binary distrib of util-linux-1.10 under linux
|> 1.1.51.  When I mount a floppy and move files to it (the filesystem
|> was ext), and then umount it, is SOMETIMES seg-faults.  Here's the
|> output from the syslog:
|> 
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer
|> dereference at virtual address c0000000
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: current->tss.cr3 = 00b8c000, Zr3 = 00b8c000
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: *pde = 00102027
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: *pte = 00000027
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: Oops: 0000
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: EIP:    0010:00170f4c
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: EFLAGS: 00010246
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: eax: 00170000   ebx: 00000000   ecx:
|> 00000000
|> edx: 00170000
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dnamic kernel: esi: 00b5bed4   edi: 00b5bed4   ebp: 00000000
|> esp: 00b5bea8
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: ds: 0018   es: 0018   fs: 002b   gs: 002b  
|> ss:
|> 0018
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: Process umount (pid: 131, process nr: 21,
|> stackpage=00b5b000)
|> Oc  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: Stack: 001b0200 001b0002 001261a3 00b5bed4
|> 00000000
|> Oct  3 14:37:52 dynamic kernel: Code: f6 01 02 74 0d 0f b7 46 10 50 e8 b1 10
|> fb
|> ff 83 c4 04 be 38
|> 
|> Anyway, I dunno what's causing this.  Any ideas?  What can I do to fix
|> it?

Install the 1.1.52 kernel.

Mitch

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

From: [email-masked] (Mr Ivan Alastair Beveridge)
Subject: Re: Report on gcc with P5 optimizations
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 18:27:49 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Erann Gat) writes:
>FWIW, FYI, ETC:
>
>Several people asked me to report my experiences using gcc-2.5.8 with
>pentium optimizations.  I got the version from sunsite, which appears
>to be slightly different from the version from intel.  (For one thing,
>the intel version claims to be revision 2.4.0.)  It compiled without a
>hitch, and the kernel recompiled OK using -O2 but not -O4.  This is
>consistent with earlier reports.  Bootup dies during delay loop
>calibration.

I realise that this is probably the wrong group to send to, but does anyone
know whether the new GCC includes 586 optimisation?

(To justify my putting this msg here) Does this make any difference to the
Linux kernel?

Cheers

Ivan

P.S. If someone knows, I wouldn't mind a brief email to say so, as I do not get
to logon very often.
--
Ivan Beveridge <[email-masked]>

PGP key available

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

From: [email-masked] (David B. Lewis)
Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.intrinsics
Subject: Re: What GUI to write for?
Date: 6 Oct 1994 17:21:23 GMT

|> Motif is a user interface specification, i.e., a prescription of how certain
|> things are supposed to look and behave on a computer screen.

This is incorrect; OSF/Motif is an API. OSF's implementation has a particular
behavior; applications which offer this behavior can be certified as
Motif-compliant, whether or not they are using an implementation of OSF/Motif
derived from OSF's source or some other toolkit.

Note that the visuals are not specified, although they are the most obvious
characteristic of the toolkit and the one that Motif knock-offs emulate, at
the cost of behavior.

-- 
David B. Lewis                  Temporarily at but not speaking for ICS
day: [email-masked]                evening: [email-masked]

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

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End of Linux-Development Digest
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