Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #722
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 94 16:13:17 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #722, Volume #2                 Wed, 7 Sep 94 16:13:17 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Possible lpd/printcap bug (Wolf Paul)
  PCI+Pentium+Linux+X? (David J Topper)
  Re: Required: Prolog (Erik Troan)
  Re: Unix programming question (Arlie Davis)
  Re: jlisp under linux? (Jeff Weisberg)
  Re: 1542 (Brad Hull)
  [Q] How to create and admin Linux LAN (Joerg Fries)
  Re: Mosaic on Linux (Neil Matthew)
  Tierra for Linux? (Neil Matthew)
  Re: Newest kernel version to fix memory problems... (hoover david)
  Best use of 2 PCs for Linux/X (Dave Bullis)
  Re: Linux Tech Support Job Offering (Clifton Koch)
  Where is Unix Interactive Tools ????? (Thomas Schruefer)

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

From: [email-masked] (Wolf Paul)
Subject: Re: Possible lpd/printcap bug
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 13:23:51 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] writes:
|> I've been stung by something in the way that lpd interprets printcap that
|> probably qualifies as a bug and surely qualifies as unexpected and
|> obnoxious behavior.
|> 
|> If a comment line (starting with #) follows a continuation line in a
|> printcap description, the comment delimiter is ignored and the rest of
|> the line is interpreted anyway.  Since I don't have the man page for
|> printcap (it didn't come with my Slackware 1.0 distribution, alas), I
|> can't verify for sure that the man page doesn't cover this case.
|> However, the Printing HOWTO doesn't cover it.
|> 
|> It is hard for me to see how the current behavior could be either useful
|> or desirable.  A comment line ought to be ignored wherever it appears,
|> I'd think.

The SunOS lpd displays exactly the same behavior, as does every other lpd
I have come across, and in a way it is perfectly logical:

        A comment line ought to be ignored wherever it appears,

BUT, a continuation line is not a a separate line, as far as lpd is concerned,
and the "printcap" format does not provide for comments within an entry.

A workaround which can be used for real comments (but not for "commenting out"
portions of an entry containing colons) is to simply surround your comment
with colons, it is then a superfluous field which is simply ignored by lpd.
We use this here to include a note about where a printer is physically located.

lpd is not the only utility which exhibits this behavior, btw; I have come
across versions of "make" which don't like comment lines, say, in the middle
of a macro definition which stretches over multiple lines. I don't know 
whether this is true of all makes, but it wouldn't surprise me.
-- 
         V           Wolf N. Paul, UNIX Support/KSF     [email-masked]
+-----------------+  Alcatel Austria AG, Site "F"     +43-1-291-21-122 (w)
|  A L C A T E L  |  Ruthnergasse 1-7                 +43-1-292-1452 (fax)
+-----------------+  A-1210 Vienna-Austria/Europe       +43-1-220-6481 (h)

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

From: [email-masked] (David J Topper)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: PCI+Pentium+Linux+X?
Date: 7 Sep 1994 14:12:03 GMT

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Pentium PCI + Linux X Motiff
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: usa
Organization: Columbia University
Keywords: 
Cc: 

Hello,

I could really use some help on the following:

1)  Does Linux support the Pentium?
2)  Does Linux support 32 | 64 bit Video (PCI)?
3)  Would an SCSI HD make life better?
4)  How does one get Linux + a GUI (X Windows / Motiff) + a C++ compiler
    and other utils?
5)  Are there any major brand hardware peices I need to watch out for?
6)  Or, is there a list (are there lists) of Linux / Xfree86 / C++ 
    compatibility and availability w/respect to Pentium / PCI Video. 
    I'd LOVE to know.

I really need to buy a machine and get Unix (Linux) running ASAP.  I do 
some DOS programming so I'd like to go with the Pentium and whatnot, but
perhaps not...  From what I've gathered, I need to watch what I buy if I
go with Linux.

Help would be very greatly appreciated.  My other option is to just buy
the SCO Unix (spelled $$$).  I'd like to avoid that.

Thanks,

DT

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

From: [email-masked] (Erik Troan)
Subject: Re: Required: Prolog
Date: 7 Sep 1994 14:36:58 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Paul J. Nolan, Dept. of Mech. Eng., University College Galway, Ireland <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am having great difficulty getting a version of Prolog to build on my 
>linux machine.  I've tried five of six different versions, all to no avail.
>The build problems were sticky ones which I couldn't simply resolve either.
>I even had one which offered a `linux specific' configuration but that was for
>a v0.99 kernel and wouldn't build either.

Get SWI-Prolog from sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/devel/prolog. It's compied
fine on Linux since 0.96c+. Gosh I miss those version numbers!

Erik

-- 
============================================================================
"Due to technical difficulties, the light at the end of the tunnel as been"
                      "turned off until further notice"
        Erik Troan = [email-masked] = http://sunsite.unc.edu/ewt

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

From: [email-masked] (Arlie Davis)
Subject: Re: Unix programming question
Date: 7 Sep 1994 11:45:50 -0400

[email-masked] (Mark Weaver) writes:

>Van Dao Mai <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>I have programmed UNIX for a long time and feel frustrated with the way
>>software is installed on the system. Under UNIX people often have to 
>>hardwire the paths and settings into the executable at compile time.
>>This is in contrast with DOS that passes the full path name of the execuatble
>>as argv[0] so that you can search for library + data files. 

Hardcoded paths are annoying WHEN ABUSED.  I can't stand packages that
rely on more than a handful of hardcoded paths.  My favorite applications
have a single hardcoded pathname that points to a configuration file
(usually in /etc), and the configuration file can either provide or
override the other pathnames.  Good examples: sendmail, Taylor UUCP,
ld.so (for eliminating hardcoded shared library paths), SAMBA, inetd,
named, lilo.  Bad examples: inn, nn, and many, many others.

>Un*x passes the pathname the executable (relative to the current
>directory) in argv[0], and that in addition to the current working
>directory tells you exactly where the program is.

Frankly, I don't WANT my programs looking at argv[0] for paths!
argv[0] can be ANYTHING.  It is only a UNIX convention that argv[0]
contains the name of the executable.

What about setuid programs?  Should they inspect argv[0] to see where
their configuration and library files are?  Do you see what a gaping hole
this is?

>For instance, here's a shell script that will always cat the file
>"notes" which is in the same directory as the shell script.  Notice that
>neither the name of the directory nor the name of the script is
>hardcoded.

>#!/bin/sh
>cat ${0%/*}/notes

UX:(./script) ERROR:Bad substitution

If I use basename instead:

        #!/bin/sh
        cat `dirname $0`/notes

then it works.

However, if I put this script in a directory that is in my PATH,
and run it from a different directory, no it does NOT find
the notes file.  Also, if I point a symlink at it, or even a hardlink,
and run it from a different directory, it does not find the notes file.

I think the above is a horrid example of shell script.

>Of course, if you assume they are always symbolic links, you could make
>the program do an lstat() on the executable to see if it's a symbolic
>link and do the right thing.

Noooo!!!!  NOO!!!!!!

lstat?  Cute, but... revolting.

-- Arlie Davis          | The Point: Inexpensive, high-quality public Internet
-- <[email-masked]> | access.  Flat rate: $20/month.  20G storage online.
-- System administrator | Dial direct at (812)246-8032, or over Internet.
-- E Pluribus UNIX      | FTP: ftp.thepoint.com  HTTP: http://www.thepoint.com
-- 
-- Arlie Davis          | The Point: Inexpensive, high-quality public Internet
-- <[email-masked]> | access.  Flat rate: $20/month.  20G storage online.
-- System administrator | Dial direct at (812)246-8032, or over Internet.
-- E Pluribus UNIX      | FTP: ftp.thepoint.com  HTTP: http://www.thepoint.com

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

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Weisberg)
Subject: Re: jlisp under linux?
Date: 7 Sep 1994 08:55:25 -0400

[email-masked] said:
| 
| Anybody around here compiled jlisp under linux?
| I tried but gcc reports some errors and I don't have
| the time to look in the sources.
| 
| If anybody did modify the sources for linux and/or
| has allready compiled version I would be
| thankfull to send me mail

I (the author of the aforementioned sw) would also be interested
in hearing if anyone has ported it, or if not, would be willing
to help in porting (but I have no access to a linux box)

        --jeff

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

From: [email-masked] (Brad Hull)
Subject: Re: 1542
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 12:53:12 GMT

[email-masked] (Michael Faurot) writes:

>Rob Janssen ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Dominic Fraser) writes:

>: >Looking for info on the compatibility of Adaptec 1542c scsi interface cards.
>: >I understand that the 1542b, which is obsolete, was more forgiving than 
>: >the newer 1542c. Is this a problem with the linux drivers? 

>: This is not related to software, but to hardware.  With the 1542C you
>: just have to be more careful selecting good cables and having the proper
>: termination at the ends of the cables.

I disagree.  There's got to be something wrong in a rom on the 1542C, at least
the one I have.  I have a 760 meg hard drive, a Chinon 435 cdrom, and a 525
meg Viper tape on mine, and have had an incurable problem with reading from
the chinon.  Any other activity that comes to the scsi bus during reading from
the Chinon has good (but not 100%) odds of hanging the scsi so hard I have to
remove power to make it start to function again.

I took Adaptec's advice and set the controller to disallow stops on the
chinon, and I even cobbled my 1542 driver in the kernel to only allow 1
mailbox, as suggested by the howto files (which agree that this is not a rare
occurrence).  These two both helped some, but the problem still occurs on such
a regular basis that I can't get some files off my cdroms at all.

Under msdos, this is less common on the same machine (Chinon and adaptec
themselves supplied drivers there) but it still occurs.

I suspect Adaptec has some kind of assumption about timing coded into the rom
on this board and the Chinon is exceeding what somebody thought was the
longest time you'd ever have to wait for a response.

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

From: [email-masked] (Joerg Fries)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: [Q] How to create and admin Linux LAN
Date: 7 Sep 1994 15:14:03 GMT

I'am looking for some Linux admins which have experiences in installing
and managing a small (private) local network.

This is my equipment:
i486/33 20Mb, i386/25 4Mb, 2 HD (340Mb, 120Mb), 5 1/4 + 3 1/2'' floppies,
2 multisync Monitors, 2 VGA cards, 2 seriell cards, 2 mices, 2 keyboards,
a printer.
I will buy 2 Ethernet cards etc.

These are my goals: Running the i486 as an NFS server and let the
other one boot diskless via NFS (if possible, otherwise boot the kernel
by diskette). Having two X Terminals with WINE emulator running
MS-Windows (argh..). One of the two should work as a spooler/print
server.

Now my questions: Is this possible? Has anyone done this? What do I have
to buy additionaly? What should I buy? And:
        WHERE can I find DOCUMENTATION for that?

I'am happy about any help!

Send email!
Thanx for all, Joerg
--

==============================================================================
Joerg Fries
Department of Computer Science
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany

email: [email-masked]
==============================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Neil Matthew)
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Mosaic on Linux
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 13:47:03 +0000

Jae W. Chang ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Select the Help menu on the upper right of ncsa Mosaic and select help
: on 2.4 or something like that. Somewhere there's a page describiing
: the various other resources you can set that are for the Mosaic
: specific widgets. All the other color specs can be done through the
: standard Motif widgets in your .Xresources file.

A little off-topic I know, but does anyone know where I might find the
Mosaic help pages in a form I can download? I'd like to avoid having to
dial up NCSA to get help on Mosaic, and instead serve the html pages
locally via an httpd daemon. Trying to save the pages as html does not
save the in-line images. The html pages at NCSA are not accessible by ftp
it seems. :-(

Regards
Neil

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Neil Matthew                           Non sequitur                    |
| [email-masked]                 Your facts are uncoordinated    |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

From: [email-masked] (Neil Matthew)
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Subject: Tierra for Linux?
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 14:16:22 +0000

Hi,
 I have been playing recently with some 'Artificial Life' books and software,
 notably Rudy Rucker's Artificial Life Lab (Waite Group Press) and Boppers
 program. (Highly recommended). In the book Rucker refers to Tom Ray's
 'tierra', which I have downloaded and am trying to get running under Linux.
 (anon ftp: tierra.slhs.udel.edu:/tierra/tierra.tar.Z)

 Basically, it compiles with a few minor tweaks (Linux and GCC grumbles),
 and seems to run OK. There is an X windows view on the process ('ov'),
 which I cannot get to run. It is supposed to connect via a socket to the
 main 'tierra' program, but it hangs in connect(). It all works a treat
 on the Sun at work, but that's not much help.

 Has anyone successfully ported 'tierra' and friends to Linux? If so, what
 did you do?

Regards
Neil

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Neil Matthew                           Non sequitur                    |
| [email-masked]                 Your facts are uncoordinated    |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

From: [email-masked] (hoover david)
Subject: Re: Newest kernel version to fix memory problems...
Date: 7 Sep 1994 15:56:01 GMT

[email-masked] (Gabe Krupa) writes:

>I've been watching the /proc/meminfo file lately to see how memory intensive
>some of the programs I run in the background are and I noticed something fairly
>disturbing to me.  After running a while with normal usage (say a day or two)
>without being shutdown and rebooted, memory seems to be marked as used, even
>though all ''memory expensive'' programs have been killed.

>At one point, 11 mb worth of buffers were shown as being used and I thought
>that it had to do with playing audio cd's through my cdrom.  So I stopped
>doing that.  It didn't help.  So I unmounted all nfs file-systems.  Ditto.

>I'm stumped.  It seems that the kernel should return all alloced memory to the
>general memory pool after a process terminates even if that process never freed
>the memory itself.  So I tried mallocing a meg or so and exiting, but that did
>not seem to be the cause.

>If anyone knows the cause of this, and if there is a kernel patch that will fix
>it, please let me know.  I'm running kernel ver 1.0 and haven't seen the need
>to look for a later version until now.

>Please reply here or directly via email.

I am not an expert, but I don't think this is a bug.  If you access the hard
drive, the disk buffers are stored in free ram.  When the program terminates,
if there is still some free memory, it makes sense to mark the previously used
memory as 'buffers', and use some more of the totally free memory.  That way,
if you try to access the hard drive again in the same place as you did before,
the stuff is already in a buffer. 

If the kernel had 'freed up' the memory, this info would no longer be 
available.  So, there is no reason to free up this memory to the general
pool unless it is needed at the moment.  For this reason, if you use your
computer for a long period of time, all of the memory will be used after
a while (for buffers) and there will remain basically no free memory.
This makes perfect sense.  Otherwise, you are completely wasting your
precious memory.

I don't think you have any reason to worry.

>A thousand thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer,
>Gabe Krupa
>[email-masked]

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

Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video
From: [email-masked] (Dave Bullis)
Subject: Best use of 2 PCs for Linux/X
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 15:14:55 GMT

I have a 386/DX-40 (ISA-bus, 8Mb) and am thinking of getting bigger PC,
(say 486/DX2-66, >=16Mb).  I'm running Linux/X11.  I have about 1Gb of ESDI
disk, probably move to SCSI in the future.
This is for S/W development, mail and general fooling around.
I also have some diskless PCs that need a disk server.

(Actually I'm trying to justify an accelerated ISA video card. VL or PCI
would mean buying a new mother board)

I can think of 3 possibilities:

1) Junk the 386 and put everything on the 486, (but I'd like to move the
disks to the cool quiet basement).

2) Put the disks on the 386 for a NFS server and use the 486 as a compute
and X server.

3) Put the disks on the 486, use it as a disk and compute server and make
the 386 a Xserver (essentially a X-terminal).

Option 3 makes sense to me as it keeps the disk in the compute server.
Also, the kids can play MSDOS games on it without interfering with the
server.

The 386 is maxed out at 8Mb (and I don't want to buy any more obsolete 30pin
simms).  It looks to me that 8Mb is ok for a X-server. 
IBM Xstations (140 and 150) come with 4Mb and 8Mb.
I think a disk-server could use all the memory it can get.

Some questions:

I assume X traffic would be less of a load on the net than NFS: TRUE of FALSE?
(X-terminals seems to work, and Linux-NFS seems slow at the current time).
I've tried a simple test (doing a ls -lR on a NFS mounted disk (on HPUX)
and doing the same from a xterm on the disk-server with display on my W/S)
and the xterm won the race.

Assuming a accelerated card (ATI Graphics Xpression looks good, once XFree 
supports it; any other suggestions?), what about performance?
From looking at X-bench numbers, performance is mostly independent of the type
of BUS (ISA/VL/PCI).  What about the impact of processor speed (the xbench
survey lists few 386 boxs)?

If I did want to use an ISA video card in a machine with >=16Mb it would
mean I couldn't use the linear frame buffer.  Does this matter a whole lot?

What is a good networking card (NE2000 clone)?  Does it really matter?

Followups to comp.windows.x.i386unix.

--
Dave Bullis        Cognos, Inc     VOICE: (613) 738-1440 FAX: (613) 738-0002
3755 Riverside Dr. P.O. Box 9707    WORK: [email-masked]
Ottawa, Ontario,   CANADA  K1G 3Z4  HOME: [email-masked]
"I didn't know the terminals were haunted.  The salesman didn't tell us."

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

From: [email-masked] (Clifton Koch)
Subject: Re: Linux Tech Support Job Offering
Date: 6 Sep 94 21:36:21 GMT

[email-masked] (Michael_Johnston) writes:

>Please send your resume with salary requirements to Michael Johnston at
>(516) 889-8665. We will not accept phone calls or email about this 
>position. We will contact you within 1 week of receipt of your resume and 
>salary requirements to setup an interview if we are interested in meeting 
>with you.

  Umm, won't accept phone calls, but you leave a phone number as the contact
point?  Is this a FAX line?

Cliff
-- 
=============================================================================
    Cliff Koch
    Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Division
    [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Schruefer)
Subject: Where is Unix Interactive Tools ?????
Date: 7 Sep 1994 16:17:12 GMT

I am looking for the latest version of Mthe utility program 
UnixInteractiveTools, it was on PUB.PUB.RO but I cannot access that site 
anylonger. Does anyone know of an alternate site it may be at???????

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Thomas Schruefer                                         [email-masked]
                   Howard County Public School System

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

** 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:

    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-Misc Digest
******************************