Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #708
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 94 16:13:20 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #708, Volume #2                 Sun, 4 Sep 94 16:13:20 EDT

Contents:
  Hardware problem with Kelvin64 / PCI (Martin Oldfield)
  Re: ObjectCenter. What is it ? (Jamie Howell)
  Re: Does anybody have NN running under Linux ? (John Henders)
  Re: Does Linux really benefit from video cards? (William M. Eldridge)
  Re: Linus: Leaving for Australia (Mark A. Horton KA4YBR)
  Re: NETATALK for Linux? (William M. Eldridge)
  Re: Sampling with Linux? (Terry Dawson)
  Re: PGP Signature (Was: Suggest:SCSI Tape File System) (Bill Hay)
  Want Motif mailtool... (Philip Baird)
  Re: Linux Journal (Stephen Vance)
  Re: Does anybody have NN running under Linux ? (Sprag Johnson)
  Re: g3topbm problem ? (Hal Sadofsky)
  Re: g3topbm problem ? (Rob Janssen)
  Re: LILO + DOS boot record = disaster (Rob Janssen)
  Re: Mosaic !!! (andy harbick)
  Re: Whats the best _CHEAP_ ISA video card (Marc Fraioli)
  Re: LILO + DOS boot record = disaster (Joe Morris)
  Re: LILO + DOS boot record = disaster (Paul Quinn)
  Re: Linux Journal (Randy Hootman)

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

From: [email-masked] (Martin Oldfield)
Subject: Hardware problem with Kelvin64 / PCI
Date: 04 Sep 1994 14:19:29 GMT

Hiya, 

Last night I posted a cry for help booting Linux on a PCI based
machine. After some investigation, the problem seems to lie with the
Orchid Kelvin 64. To be more specific:

Booting linux (a variety of kernels between 1.0.8 -> 1.1.49) with a
Kelvin card in a PCI bus on my machine produces a hang after the
Uncompressing Linux message. If I replace the card with a random SVGA
card in one of the ISA bus slots the machine boots correctly. I'd be
grateful for any advice, be it a solution or merely a pointer showing
me where to dig.

Thanks,

--

Martin Oldfield, MRAO, Cavendish Labs, CAMBRIDGE, CB3 0HE
Work:  0223 337365 Fax: 0223 354599 Home: 0223 67940
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet! - Anon

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

From: [email-masked] (Jamie Howell)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: ObjectCenter. What is it ?
Date: 4 Sep 1994 01:19:06 +0800

David Charles Leblanc ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Don Clayton) writes:

: >In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (David Charles Leblanc) writes:
: >|> BTW, it's "grammar", not "grammer".  I only attack the grammar and spelling
: >|> of those who call others "fools."...

: >Of course you could try posting something relevant to the discussion.

: And you could try posting something which isn't insulting.

And you could try ignoring crap like this.

--
 //////////////////////////
 /      Jamie Howell      /
 / [email-masked] /
 //////////////////////////

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
From: [email-masked] (John Henders)
Subject: Re: Does anybody have NN running under Linux ?
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 03:35:20 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Matt Midboe) writes:

>with nn. I had very little problems compiling nn-6.5.0 on Linux, but
>you will have to make your own s-linux.h file. If the other site uses
>NOV then you will get to see NN speed along over the nntp connection.

        There's a s-linux.h file in newspak.

-- 
                  John Henders - Wimsey Information Services
               http://www.wimsey.com/ (teletimes, gnn and more)
                  GAT/MU/AE d- -p+(--) c++++ l++ u++ t- m--- 
                       e* s-/+ n-(?) h++ f+ g+ w+++ y*

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

From: [email-masked] (William M. Eldridge)
Subject: Re: Does Linux really benefit from video cards?
Date: 4 Sep 1994 05:45:03 -0700

>But do you need one? I've seen at least one post about a system with no
>monitor, just a dumb terminal on the serial port.  :-)

I spliced mine into the telco closet, so
it displays incoming calls.
-- 
Bill Eldridge                           
[email-masked]      Eight months in LA without a car
310-206-3960                - now if the bus to the beach
310-206-3987 (fax)              only ran on Sunday 

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

From: [email-masked] (Mark A. Horton KA4YBR)
Subject: Re: Linus: Leaving for Australia
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 13:58:50 GMT

Phil Hughes ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Guess we mailed those T-shirts to him too late for his trip.  (Belinda
: noticed that he didn't have a shirt on in his picture in the September
: Wired so she sent him a "My Other Computer is a LINUX System" shirt and a
: "Virtual Brewery" shirt.)
: --
: Phil Hughes, Publisher, Linux Journal (206) 527-3385
: usually [email-masked], sometimes [email-masked]

        Nor the "platypus" t-shirt from InfoMagic!  :)  - mailed him
        a couple of those a while back, too. ---  Guess he's been
        working on his tan! :)  (actually, that's the old, old, old
        picture file that's been kicking around in the logos directory
        forever -- you ought to see it after a few laps through the
        coloureditor in XV!  heh-heh)

        - Mark

--
"Linux!     Guerrilla UNIX Development     Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus."
============================================================
Mark A. Horton       ka4ybr             [email-masked]
P.O. Box 747 Decatur GA US 30031-0747         [email-masked]
+1.404.371.0291                     33 45 31 N / 084 16 59 W

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

From: [email-masked] (William M. Eldridge)
Subject: Re: NETATALK for Linux?
Date: 4 Sep 1994 05:55:31 -0700

>Has anyone ported or worked on porting the netatalk package to Linux?
>This looks to me to be a better alternative to CAP for those of us

And pretty much a no-brainer to compile and install.
Plus seemed quite a bit faster.

Now if I only knew how to program...
-- 
Bill Eldridge                           
[email-masked]      Eight months in LA without a car
310-206-3960                - now if the bus to the beach
310-206-3987 (fax)              only ran on Sunday 

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

From: [email-masked] (Terry Dawson)
Subject: Re: Sampling with Linux?
Date: 4 Sep 1994 11:00:37 GMT

>[email-masked] wrote:
>: Question:
>: How do I go about sampling with a dumb AD converter.
>: What I need is a way to have an accurate sampling frequency
>: variable between 10 and 15 Hz.

  13.1. Software Oscilloscope

     Author
        Jeff Tranter, [email-masked]

     Description
        Scope is a simple software emulation of an oscilloscope. It
        graphically displays voltage as a function of time.

     Status
        ALPHA. First release.

     System requirements
        Sound card with input capability supported by the kernel sound
        driver. SVGALIB is used to do the display work.

     Detail
        Scope uses the /dev/dsp device to take audio in from the
        soundcard and displays it on the screen in a manner similar to
        an oscilloscope.  Jeff claims Scope was written more for
        amusement value than for any serious purpose.

     Where and How to obtain it.
        You can obtain source, makefile and man page for Scope from:
        sunsite.unc.edu
        (ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/circuits/scope-0.1.tar.gz)

     Licensing/Copyright etc.
        GNU Public License. Copyleft.

regards
Terry

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

From: [email-masked] (Bill Hay)
Subject: Re: PGP Signature (Was: Suggest:SCSI Tape File System)
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 16:39:17 +0000

Jeffrey Oxenreider ([email-masked]) wrote:
> Close.  Signing a message with the [---Begin PGP Signature Block---] 
> public key is basically a way that people can verify the author and 
> authenticity of a message.  If I write a message and sign it with my 
> public key (that you have and you *KNOW* comes from me) you can tell 2 
> things: 1) that I wrote it and 2) the message text was not tampered with.
Actually I think you sign the message with your private key so that it can
then be authenticated by anyone with your public key.  If you signed it with
your public key then anyone who possessed your public key would be able to
fake messages from you.

--
Bill Hay

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

From: [email-masked] (Philip Baird)
Subject: Want Motif mailtool...
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 16:11:52 GMT

        Does anyone know of a mailtool that uses Motif and runs on linux?
I've searched lots of places, and can't seem to find one.  I have tried 
tkmail, but would prefer to find actual motif sources.

Thanks
- Phil Baird

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

From: [email-masked] (Stephen Vance)
Subject: Re: Linux Journal
Date: 4 Sep 1994 16:33:29 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (David Reid) writes:
>I am thinking of subscribing to the Linux Journal.  Can anyone who is a 
>present subscriber or has seen the magazine, comment on whether it will be 
>money well spent.  I don't really have easy access to any old copies so I am a 
>little wary about spending the money without knowing what I am buying.  Any 
>comments would be appreciated.  Thanks
>
>
>David Reid  -  Stratford, Ontario, Canada
>Email - [email-masked]

I not only have subscribed, but have also ordered all back issues.  Definitely
money well-spent.  Very perinent and informative articles ranging from how-to
type stuff to interviews with some of the core developers to announcements.

Steve

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
From: [email-masked] (Sprag Johnson)
Subject: Re: Does anybody have NN running under Linux ?
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 16:12:12 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Matt Midboe) writes:

>In article <[email-masked]>,
>Martin Schulze <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>[email-masked] (Mubashir Cheema) writes:
>>
>>
>>} Hello world,
>>
>>} I need to know if anybody out therr is using nn under Linux.
>>} I can't get our nn to read news off of a remote site. Any help
>>} will ne greatly appreciated.

>Actually I'd recommend getting it from:

>    ftp.uwa.edu.au                    /pub/nn/beta/nn-6.5.0.b3.tar.gz

>Kim Storm no longer maintains nn and the version that most places have
>is still 6.4.18. This newer nn is much nicer I have found as it
>supports NOV so you don't have to run all the extra database programs
>with nn. I had very little problems compiling nn-6.5.0 on Linux, but
>you will have to make your own s-linux.h file. If the other site uses
>NOV then you will get to see NN speed along over the nntp connection.

>Matt
        I'm still pretty new to linux...can you e-mail me your s-linux.h file,
or at least tell me what has to be defined?  I tried and I can't get it to
compile (all kinds of errors).
        Thanks!
        Brian
        [email-masked]
-- 
******************************************************************************
* Brian 'Nautical' Wheeler - These are my opinions, do you hear me?  MINE!
* cat flames > /dev/null                    "Wombats are our friends" - Me
******************************************************************************

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

From: [email-masked] (Hal Sadofsky)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: g3topbm problem ?
Date: 4 Sep 1994 16:58:00 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Wolf Paul) writes:
>I have just installed Rob Hooft's 1mar1994 binary NETPBM package, and
>trying to print a received fax with efax's "fax print" command
>resulted in the following error message:
>
>       "g3topbm: error allocating memory for a row"
>
>and no usable output.
>
>Has anyone encountered this before, is there a fix, or has anyone a
>suggestion, before I spend a lot of time tracking this down?

I had this problem too.  g3topbm seems to use an amazing amount of
memory.  I have 16MB plus about 12 MB swap, and that is usually
insufficient.  Sometimes it is enough if I kill x.  Instead I had to increase
my swap (by adding a swap file).  16MB memory plus 20MB swap always
seems to be enough.

It seems kind of ridiculous, and of course it is a little slow since
it is using all this swap space.  It is a fun way to get your hard disk
light to go on and stay on for several minutes!

        Hal Sadofsky

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: g3topbm problem ?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 11:42:16 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Wolf Paul) writes:

>I have just installed Rob Hooft's 1mar1994 binary NETPBM package, and
>trying to print a received fax with efax's "fax print" command
>resulted in the following error message:

>       "g3topbm: error allocating memory for a row"

>and no usable output.

>Has anyone encountered this before, is there a fix, or has anyone a
>suggestion, before I spend a lot of time tracking this down?

In general, you need *a lot* of memory to run the pbm tools, especially
on images of the size of a FAX.
Did you try to add swapspace?  That may help.  However, once I tried to
rotate an image by 90 degrees, and even 80M of swapspace wasn't enough :-(
(this wasn't a FAX, but a 300dpi scanned A4 sheet.  however, the situation
is similar for FAXes)

It should really be possible to handle some of the special cases of
conversion much more efficient than pbm does it...

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

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: [email-masked] (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: LILO + DOS boot record = disaster
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 11:49:56 GMT

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

>LILO overwrote my DOS boot record (not the Master Boot record).  Of course
>that only means one thing:  my entire DOS partition is toast.  $#@*&^!!!
>(I have no idea how LILO could have written itself to the DOS 
>boot record--it's not supposed to do that.)

Probably because you told it to do so in the configuration file.
There it says something like "boot=/dev/hda1" and you selected your
DOS partition there.

>The DOS partition is 434M and resides on Maxtor 546 drive.

>At first I got an Invalid Media Type error when trying to access C:, but
>I corrected that problem by copying the boot record from my 130 drive
>onto the 546's corrupted DOS boot record.

This is not normally happening when you put LILO in the DOS bootsector.
Are you sure it is really caused by LILO and not some other mistake?

>But now when I do dir c: I get nothing but garbage.  I need to know
>the details of the standard DOS boot record (or whatever is responsible for 
>telling DOS where the FAT and root directory are) so I can correct this.

That is documented in many places.  Many disk utilities also have this
knowledge built-in so you can edit the bootsector using meaningful
numbers.  (E.g. Norton DE)

>I searched my entire HD to see if LILO kindly saved a copy of my
>original DOS boot record, but it didn't (pretty lame).  [I searched
>on some keyboards such as MSDOS5.0 and FAT16, which are standard "tags" in 
>the DOS boot record but the search was fruitless.]

LILO saves your bootsector in a file.  However, from the above description
I doubt it was LILO that caused this problem, so maybe it did not save
the bootsector either.  If it did, look in /boot for a file "boot.0201"

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

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

From: [email-masked] (andy harbick       )
Subject: Re: Mosaic !!!
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 16:50:22 GMT

Benjamin Alman ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I am trying to get Mosaic on my linux box here, but it requires Motif - 
: and i only have an emulator for it, not the libraries!! Does anyone know 
: of a COMPILED binary version of the latest version (2.4 or so) with all 
: the other required files ???

: i got version 1.2 off of tsx-11.mit.edu, but it says it can't find the 
: 'Connect' program...

: I really would like the latest version, though !!!!

: Please email any replies, thank you!! 

try alf.uib.no /pub/Linux/util/X11/mosaic

Andy
([email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Marc Fraioli)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: Whats the best _CHEAP_ ISA video card
Date: 4 Sep 1994 18:05:54 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

In article [email-masked],  [email-masked] (Mark A. Horton KA4YBR) writes:
>It's not an accelerated card, but the little beastie is FAST! - the Trident
>8900CL with 1MB... you can get them for about $60.00 and I've seen them
>run rings around some so-called accelerated cards!  I dunno how they do it,
>but they do!
>
Not sure how the 8900CL differs from the 8900C, but I had an 8900C and it
was truly pathetic.  Its speed was fine in DOS, but under Windows, OS/2,
and Linux/X it was horrible.  Scrolling in an xterm or shell window took
forever, and shot the CPU meter through the roof.  I now have an Orchid
Fahrenheit 1280+ with 1 Meg and an S3 chip, and I scroll like blazes
without affecting the CPU at all.  It does have that font bug (I'm still
running XFree 2.0), but I hardly care.  I use restorefont from SVGAlib
and I have no trouble.  The card cost me about $150 mail order, and that
was almost a year ago.  I'm talking ISA here in both cases, on a 486DX33.
I get about 58,000 xstones now, which is more than 10 times as many as
I got with the Trident.

---
Marc Fraioli          | "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist- " 
[email-masked]         |    - Last words of Union General John Sedgwick,
                      |    Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, U.S. Civil War

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

From: [email-masked] (Joe Morris)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: LILO + DOS boot record = disaster
Date: 4 Sep 94 17:41:24 GMT

[email-masked] ( ) writes:

>LILO overwrote my DOS boot record (not the Master Boot record).  Of course
>that only means one thing:  my entire DOS partition is toast.  $#@*&^!!!
>(I have no idea how LILO could have written itself to the DOS 
>boot record--it's not supposed to do that.)

>The DOS partition is 434M and resides on Maxtor 546 drive.

>At first I got an Invalid Media Type error when trying to access C:, but
>I corrected that problem by copying the boot record from my 130 drive
>onto the 546's corrupted DOS boot record.

>But now when I do dir c: I get nothing but garbage.  I need to know
>the details of the standard DOS boot record (or whatever is responsible for 
>telling DOS where the FAT and root directory are) so I can correct this.

The boot record (as you have guessed) contains information about the
geometry of the disk on which it resides: number of cylinders, heads
per cylinder, sectors per head, and the total number of sectors on
the disk.  If your 130 drive differs in any way other than the total number
of sectors, or the number of cylinders (and sometimes even if these
are different) you'll get garbage.

This problem *must* occur, because DOS (like many other systems) keeps its
disk references in terms of sectors and clusters, which must be translated
to cylinder/head/sector format before the physical disk can be accessed.
If the numbers used in this translation are wrong, all sorts of Bad Things
can occur.

The format of the drive parm table in the boot sector is documented in
the MS-DOS Programmer's Reference from MS Press and available in most
large bookstores.

Here's a fragment from one of my routines:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  begin included text  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

.radix 16
;-------------;
; Definitions ;
;-------------;

boot            segment byte
;--------------
;   NOTE: The layout of the boot data block is mandatory regardless of
;         the type of device on which it appears.  The locations are
;         fixed and are assumed by numerous other programs.
;--------------
;         On the other hand, the data beginning at "new_sect_ct" did not
;         exist prior to DOS 4.x and cannot be relied on if the boot block
;         was written by a prior release of DOS.  The determinant seems to
;         be whether "old_sector_ct" is zero (new format) or nonzero (old
;         format).
;-------------

main            proc near
                jmp     short start             ; jump over data block
                nop

;------------------;
;  Boot data block ;
;------------------;

oem_name        db      'MSDOS5.0'
bytesect        dw      512d                    ; bytes/sector
sectclust       db      04                      ; sectors/cluster
reserve_sect    dw      01                      ; Reserved sectors at beginning of disk
fatcopies       db      02                      ; number of FAT copies
rootentries     dw      512d                    ; Number of root dir entries
old_sector_ct   dw      0                       ; Total sectors on disk
                                                ; (zero in new format block)
mediadesc       db      0f8h                    ; media description byte
sectorsfat      dw      64d                     ; sectors per FAT copy
secthead        dw      32d                     ; sectors per head
headcyl         dw      64d                     ; heads per cylinder
hiddensect      dd      32d                     ; special hidden sectors...
new_sect_ct     dd      65504d                  ; Total number of sectors
;                                               ;   on disk (new format)...
disk_id         db      80                      ; Physical disk ID for INT 13
;                                               ;  (00h for floppy, 80h for HD)
                db      00                      ; Reserved
ext_sig         db      29                      ; extended boot signature
volser          db      1ch,9eh,0adh,16h        ; volume serial
vol_label       db      11 dup (' ')            ; volume label (if diskette)
fat_type        db      'FAT16   '              ; Type of file allocation table

;---------------------;
; end boot data block ;
;---------------------;

;-----------------------------------------------------

; >>>> starts execution here <<<<

start:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  end included text  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Most of the fields are self-explanatory; the mysterious "hidden sectors"
is the number of sectors one must skip over on the *phycical* disk before
reaching the boot sector you're looking at.  If your DOS partition is at
the front of the physical disk, the number of hidden sectors will
usually be equal to the number of sectors on one track.

Note the ".radix 16" line: the default radix for numbers in this fragment
is hex rather than decimal.

Use a sector editor to fix up your drive parm table and you've got a better
chance of recovering the use of the disk.  Norton Utilities allows you to
edit the symbolic contents of the DPT, and somewhere I think it has some
other functions for the explicit purpose of rebuilding a damaged boot
sector.

Joe Morris / MITRE

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: [email-masked] (Paul Quinn)
Subject: Re: LILO + DOS boot record = disaster
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 18:29:28 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mikko Hypponen) writes:
>[email-masked] wrote:
>> I basically need some (major) help reconstructing the DOS boot record.
>
>Try overwriting your boot sector with zeroes (use some disk editor)
>and booting up from a DOS diskette with SYS.COM on it and doing a SYS C:.
>
>Make sure the diskette has exactly the same version of DOS as the
>partition had you are trying to recover.
>
>--
>        Mikko Hypponen // [email-masked] // Finland
>  Data Fellows Ltd's F-PROT Professional Support: [email-masked]
>           Check out our WWW site at http://www.datafellows.fi/

Try using a DOS boot disk and typing

fdisk /mbr on hte dos partition

Then use fdisk to remake the partition active.

--
________
Paul Quinn
[email-masked]
Computer Science: Systems Architecture
Concordia University
Montreal, QC, CANADA
========

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

From: [email-masked] (Randy Hootman)
Subject: Re: Linux Journal
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 18:25:51 GMT

Money WELL spent. Learn alot each issue.

Randy

: I am thinking of subscribing to the Linux Journal.  Can anyone who is a 
: present subscriber or has seen the magazine, comment on whether it will be 
: money well spent.  I don't really have easy access to any old copies so I am a 
: little wary about spending the money without knowing what I am buying.  Any 
: comments would be appreciated.  Thanks

: David Reid  -  Stratford, Ontario, Canada
: Email - [email-masked]
-- 

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
     "In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings,
      we pay ourselves the highest tribute." - Thurgood Marshall
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Randy Hootman                Randysoft Software             (408) 229-0119

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

** 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.misc) via:

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Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
******************************