Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #887
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 94 11:13:18 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #887, Volume #2                 Thu, 6 Oct 94 11:13:18 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Yggdrasil Linux Plug and Play CD ver1.1 ? (Paul Bash)
  Re: Split this group! (.help) (zachary brown)
  Re: X News-reader for LinuX (Alexandra Griffin)
  Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Sergei Naoumov)
  Re: Gnuplot and XWindows ? (Orhan Unal)
  Re: Mystery Chip...AMD (Mikael Nordqvist)
  Re: New Linux Distribution (Colin Plumb)
  Re: Idek 8617 + ???? @ 1280x1024x(76-80)Hz (Jim Sun)
  Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Richard L. Goerwitz)
  Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Richard L. Goerwitz)
  Re: SB_PRO does not sound like 4W/channel.. (Mark Cooke)

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

From: [email-masked] (Paul Bash)
Subject: Re: Yggdrasil Linux Plug and Play CD ver1.1 ?
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 08:17:21 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Jeff Kesselman <[email-masked]> wrote:

>>     Funny, Slackware, OS/2 and DOS (all installed on the same disk) don't 
>>     see any problems. I have no other option except skipping the disk 
>>     partition phase of the install.
>
>I'm honestly not sure on this one, but I seem to recalll there being a 
>patch bandied about thats needed for this particular controlelr to run 
>two drives?? (Someone with more experience with Adpatecs feel free to jump 
>in.)

Linux has no problem with this host adapter. I've been running Slackware on 
it for close to a year now. I've run SVR4, OS/2 and DOS on it for years before
that. SCSI host adapters _always_ support more than two devices (up to 7 in 
fact, 8 if you count the adapter itset). Its part of the SCSI specification. 
The OS using the adapter, of course, must have support for the additional 
drives offered before they can be used.

The INT 13 BIOS on the Adaptec provides the basic support DOS needs for the 
first two drives. Beyond that _DOS_ needs additional driver support not 
supplied with the OS. Perhaps that is what you are thinking. I believe, nay 
I'm positive, that this has no bearing on the problem. Linux has all the 
additional support necessary right out of the box (providing you are using 
the SCSI kernel) and Linux has _excellent_ support for the 1542B.

I suspect that this has more to do with the master boot record or the partition
table not being to the liking of the fdisk used in Yggdrasil. It is probably 
checking some form of signature in the MBR that doesn't match up to what it
expects. The OS/2 boot manager is active on this drive and that might be 
confusing things. The OS/2 boot manager, though, is nothing new to Linux
users. There are notes in various README's that tell how to have Boot
Manager and LILO co-exist on the same disk. You install boot manager first,
then you don't allow LILO to take over the MBR during the Linux install. 
This is dirt simple and has worked for a _long_ time. 

The fdisk used in Slackware sees nothing wrong with the disk. Perhaps it is 
different from the one used by Yggdrasil. I can't imagine why but I guess its a
possibility. The Yggdrasil fdisk is obviously less well tested than 
Slackware's if it is in fact the culprit.

And no, this is _not_ another example of how Yggdrasil isn't meant for someone 
such as myself. It is just this ideal Yggdrasil audience you talk about
that would be likely to install it on the same disk with the OS/2 
boot manager... just to try it out while continuing to do their normal work 
on OS/2 (or any other OS on the same disk).

>
>By the way, the hoops you have to jump through to 'get rid of that damn 
>cd-rom' are:
>       umount /dev/system_cd
>And it all goes away.
>

Oh, don't start getting smug now, Jeff. We were doing so well and now you 
have to go and make and _effort_ to piss me off. You don't have a clue 
of what you are talking about here, but you continue to act like you do,
inserting foot into mouth in the process. Sad.

(yes, I'm being excessively condescending, even an asshole, but Jeff just 
keeps pushing :-)

First of all, that should be

     umount /system_cd

You umount a _directory_ and mount a _device_. There is no /dev/system_cd. 
There _is_ a /dev/cdrom0 in Yggdrasil (and its link, /dev/cdrom). Mount/umount
symantics is just basic UNIX so I'm sure you knew that, Jeff, as a 
UNIX System Administrator, but I thought others might not ;-)

Ok, now that we've got the command straight, have you actually tried this? 

It doesn't just "all goes away". Jesus, haven't you read this thread yet? More 
than one person has complained about how, when you do a complete 
install from the CD-ROM, you _still_ have symbolic links all over the file 
system that point at directories under /system_cd. You can't just remove the 
CD-ROM without removing all the links that point to it. Those links, most 
likely, have to be replaced by the CD-ROM files they are pointing to else you 
don't have a clean install. You might get away with running without the 
CD-ROM for awhile, but that's like saying you can walk down the middle of 
the freeway at 5pm and not get hit by a car. 

Sure you can... for a randomly short while.  

I ask you again, have you actually tried this? For more than a couple of 
days? While exercising all those neat packages you installed? Since 
you've commented elsewhere that you are quite happily running from the 
CD-ROM without installing everything on your PC, I doubt it. 

Here's an extreme, but highly plausible, illustration of the problem: what 
if I want to access the QRZ Ham Radio CD-ROM but can't because the system 
needs the Yggdrasil CD-ROM mounted to run properly? Well, I guess I just 
can't, right? Sounds like a classic Catch-22. Sure, I could buy a second 
CD-ROM drive just for this application, but then my $35 "Plug and Play" has 
become a $335 "Plug and PAY" system. Yggdrasil just got a whole lot more
expensive.

This issue of extraneous symbolic links is just one of several that started 
this whole thread long before I got involved. If you don't know this, you did 
more than miss a turn a while back, you've been asleep at the wheel. If you
don't understand the ramifications of this, yet continue to throw smug
comments around as if you do, you're just making yourself look silly.

Like I said, you need to do some homework. Here's your first lesson: get a 
300MB+ disk and, using the control panel, install everything from the CD-ROM 
onto your disk. Now issue the following commands:
        
     cd /
     umount /system_cd
     find / -type l -ls | grep system_cd                

You should see more than a couple /system_cd symbolic links scroll by on your 
screen. At least they do for me as that's how _I_ discovered the problem in the 
first place. Try to access one of those files via the symbolic link.
BINGO! It fails, doesn't it? Is a light coming on somewhere, Jeff?

If the links are there, then you don't have a CD-ROM-less install.
You have an accident waiting to happen. It doesn't matter if you are a power
user or a beginner, the problem is just as ugly. From his view, random 
programs are going to blow up and the target Yggdrasil user you defined 
earlier isn't going to have a clue as to what is happening.

Ok, yes, I could just go through and manually fix all of this. That's not the
point. The point is/was that this is sloppy and poorly executed. Particularly
when the Yggdrasil manual indicates throughout that you have the option of
mounting the CD-ROM or not (if you at least install the /usr/bin package). 
With a CD-ROM, you can't afford to miss these details because you don't
have the option of just patching the distribution when you find a problem. 
Instead, the user just has to deal with it again and again every time she 
installs the system. I've personally been through the 2 page Fall 94 errata 
5 or 6 times (each time I've had to re-install the CD-ROM to try and get a 
clean system). I hope I never see it again. If Yggdrasil intends a CD-ROM-less 
installation option, they have to test it, dammit! It doesn't look like they 
did and that's sloppy.

Slackware doesn't have these kind of problems (although it has had _some_ 
problems). It is _much_ more skillfully executed. And, it has been this clean 
for every release I've seen (since 1.1 and it is now at 2.1, I believe). FMPE
(From My Personal Experience), the great majority of users will find it 
satisfying much longer than they would the Yggdrasil CD-ROM.

Thus, we come full circle to my original comments that you jumped on several
posts ago thereby fueling this fire. Yggdrasil is "cute" but it isn't for
serious use. Jan experienced some of the same problems I did and asked if a 
better Linux CD exists. Without going into 20,000 words (like I've had to with
you) I told him what I thought. Do you see what I mean now, Jeff? I hope so, 
but I kind of doubt it.

>>
>>I wasted $35 on the Yggdrasil Fall 94 CD-ROM that I will never use.
>
>I have a feeling that, if you are that unhappy, and you bought it 
>directly from yygdrasil theyw ill probobly refund your money.

I did not buy this software directly from Yggdrasil. Instead, I bought it from
an exhibitor at a Hamfest. Third party, cash deal. I don't expect Yggdrasil to
refund my money on this. If they would, great, but I don't expect it. And, it
wouldn't change my opinion of Yggdrasil anyway. I have no beef with Yggdrasil
as a whole, I just said the Fall 94 CD-ROM had major problems. I'm sure they're 
a great group otherwise and I'm sure they'll eventually get it together. 
They obviously have the talent. The execution is what's lacking.

>>
>>(If you aren't interested in Jeff and I bitching at each other, please press
>>"n" now) 
>>
>>Back to Jeff's comments:
>>------------------------
>>
[stuff deleted]
>
>This is kind of childish debate tactics (here comes the return-flame..)
>Paul, and beneath your otherwise very intellegent comments above. 

You just couldn't resist getting that last little dig in, eh? That's beneath
you, Jeff ;-)

-- 
Paul Bash                                                   Techware Design 
[email-masked]                                              Boulder, CO  U.S.A.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- John Gilmore

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

From: [email-masked] (zachary brown)
Subject: Re: Split this group! (.help)
Date: 6 Oct 1994 07:13:01 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
Byron A Jeff <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
[...]
>The solution in my opinion is three-fold:
>
>1) Don't create a whole bunch of new groups.
>2) Make all new groups moderated.
>3) Collapse admin into misc because they're not very much different anyway.

This does not seem to address the problem. The problem as I see it is
the size of comp.os.linux.help. There's no reason to split or merge any
of the other col's until they get unweildy.

Moderation is not fair to use as a means of cutting down traffic. It's
appropriate in comp.os.limux.announce, which is very specialized, and is
not a forum for discussion.

Creating several new groups off of comp.os.limux.help seems very
reasonable as a response to the huge ammount of traffic in that group.
There are also several subjects, such as hardware and networking, that
get a lot of attention and would make good offshoots of col.help.

As for people posting at random and without reading the docs, I think
all we can do about that is to continue to gently point them to the
proper newsgroup and the location of documentation. i.e. that problem
does not fall under the current discussion, in my opinion.

-ZB-

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

From: [email-masked] (Alexandra Griffin)
Subject: Re: X News-reader for LinuX
Date: 5 Oct 1994 10:36:44 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Robert S. Cauthorn <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>But are any of the X news readers threaded? I haven't found one yet, unless 
>I'm using older versions of xvnews and xrn.

There is 'tknews', a Tk (/tcl ?) based newsreader that, as I remember,
does handle threads properly.  I haven't looked at it in a couple of
months; at that time it had some interesting features but wasn't
completely finished or well-polished...

-- alex

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

From: [email-masked] (Sergei Naoumov)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Date: 6 Oct 1994 04:38:02 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Adam Jacobs) writes:
>(It's true that all the languages I mentioned are European and all but
>Russian are written with the Roman alphabet, left-to-right.  I can't
>comment on writing in Arabic or Hebrew script, though it seems to me
>that I've heard of EMACS modes that facilitate even that, along with
>all the niceties involved: juncture forms, vowel marks, etc.  Anyone
>know more?)

I do it with my own Russian, English and Sanskrit (Devanagari) --
no problem.

>Perhaps there are, by now, WYSIWYG word processors that I'm not aware
>of which compete with TeX for output quality; and I'm sure
>high-powered desktop publishing packages do.  I might well start using
>one, if it gives me (1) fully-configurable multilingual writing, (2)
>full support for mathematical equations, (3) all the numerous
>formatting styles that I use, (4) complete control over the 'littlest
>details' if necessary to tune things up at the end.  Oh, and it should
>run under Linux and not cost a fortune :-).

Haven't heared about such a creature! Emacs and TeX!!! Besides, if you'd
make a WYSIWYG for LaTeX, imagine how many menus and control sequences
you nedded to get a good control over your document. Impossible!

        Sergei

-- 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+   Sergei O. Naoumov  [email-masked]  tel: (919)962-3998   +
+Department of Physics & Astronomy, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA+
+++++++++++ http://sunsite.oit.unc.edu/sergei/Me/Serge.html +++++++++++

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

From: [email-masked] (Orhan Unal)
Subject: Re: Gnuplot and XWindows ?
Date: 5 Oct 1994 18:44:26 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jon Nash) writes:
>I must be very confused!  I have gnuplot...  I open an xterm window
>and try to run gnuplot.  It says that I don't have a graphics display
>terminal type (or something like that).
>
>I _thought_ gnuplot ran under X ?!  Does it?  What do I need to do?
>
>Thanks for any help you can give!
>
>Jon Nash
>Colorado State University
>Physics Department
>[email-masked]
>
>
You can try a couple of things:

At gnuplot prompt, type "set term" to see available terminal types. If
X11 is there, type "set term x11". If not, you have to recompile it with
X11 support. To do this in Makefile just add "-DX11" to CFLAGS.

Hope this helps.

-- 
********************************************************
*  Orhan Unal  *  Email: [email-masked]  *
********************************************************

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

From: [email-masked] (Mikael Nordqvist)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: Mystery Chip...AMD
Date: 6 Oct 1994 09:48:52 GMT

[ Followups are directoed toward comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems as this
  has nothing to do with Linux ]

>As far as reliability, the AMD 486DX2/66 is an exact duplicate of Intel's 
>chip, or so I read in PC Magazine. And at an average of 100 to 150 dollars
>less than Intel, I am a buyer!

If you are about to buy a new CPU, you might want to check out AMD's
recently released DX2/80. Goes for about the same price as an Intel DX2/66
here in Sweden.

/Mikael
-- 
Mikael Nordqvist, student    | [email-masked] | I'm not paraniod, it's just
Lund Institute of Technology | [email-masked]   | that everyone is out to get me

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

From: [email-masked] (Colin Plumb)
Subject: Re: New Linux Distribution
Date: 5 Oct 1994 05:31:33 -0600

In article <[email-masked]>,
Erik Troan <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was
> good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's
> unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd 
> happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After
> a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file,
> and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do
> a compile.

For an even more interesting story, once upon a time I got the MKS
toolkit.  I played with it, and arranged things so init spawned login
spawned ksh asnd I never touched command.com.  In fact I deleted it
from my hard drive.  (It turned out that I had to switch back, because
I had to use Microsoft nmake (I was working at Microsoft at the time),
and it crashes if command.com's resident part isn't loaded.)

Anyway, I was happily editing a file with vi, and someone asked me
a question, so I typed ^Z and found the answer in a few commands,
and typed "fg" to get back, and Hey!  Wait a minute!  I'm running MS-DOS!

"bg" didn't work, but I could run two copies of vi and switch between them.
I was *quite* impressed.

Still, I enjoy running an Operating System much more.

(I also got to play with an early version of OS/2 and was amazed to
discover that "#include <)" would crash not just the compiler, but the
whole machine.)

Sorry for the highly off-topic diversion; I hope the entertainment value was
worth it.
-- 
        -Colin

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

From: [email-masked] (Jim Sun)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Idek 8617 + ???? @ 1280x1024x(76-80)Hz
Date: 6 Oct 1994 14:21:40 GMT

[email-masked] (Bryon G. Rigg) wrote:

>I am purchasing an Idek 8617 monitor and want reccommendations for a video
>accellerator.  The Idek reports to have refresh rates up 80Hz for 1280x1024.
>I am looking for a card that can support this.
>I will use this for Windoze and Linux/XFree86 so windows performance is more
>important than dos performance.  I have around $275(US) to spend and want the
>best performance at the highest refresh rate.
>I have looking at prices and foound the ATI Ultra Pro 2Mb (Mach 32) fits
>within my operational and monetary constraints.  Can this board give me
>the refresh rates that I am looking for?

I don't think any card will do 80hz at 1280x1024 in Windoze; due to the 
moron-proof user interface, manufacture would have to create a special
entry for the IDEK: 1280x1024 on 135mhz, which will fry other monitors,
most of which are maxed out at 110mhz.  
As for XF86, it's a completely different story; any card that supports
135mhz dot-clock will do.  However, I think ATI GUP (mach32) maxes out
at 110mhz.  A number of 864 cards can handle 135mhz; you can get Diamond
Stl64 for $265 if you can trade-in any garbage; now, according to the XF
doc, Diamond finally changed their policy towards XF86.

Jim

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
From: [email-masked] (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 14:02:51 GMT

>Gamma Universe word processor for almost every language, incl. keyboard  
>redefinition on the fly
>
>The point is: you can do that under Windows easily (NT even easier in Unicode)

I'm not sure this is right, actually.  Even Gamma Universe, I believe,
has a great deal of trouble mixing left-right and right-left languages.
You have to enter in carriage returns and multiple-line text will not
wrap right.  An imperfect system overlaid upon an even less perfect sys-
tem.  No, I believe that Apple has done the best job of solving these
problems.

As has been noted here by others, though, Unix doesn't even have the few
tools that Windows does:  Just a few hacked pieces of software done by
non-US groups who dispair of US engineers ever bothering with their
languages or scripts :-).

>as you just have to create TrueType (or Postscript if you want) fonts and  
>intercept the keyboard driver with a suitable one or for more exotic languages

I always am irked by the term "exotic."  It has the connotation of bizarre
or unusual.  In fact, these languages are just non-Western.  There are a lot
of people using Chinese, Devanagari, Arabic, and other scripts.  More than
there are English speakers.

I'll have to take your word for it w/ regard to Windows and TrueType fonts.
I've never been able to stomach the idea of learning to program in that
environment.  Windows for me is exclusively an applications platform.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              [email-masked]
   [email-masked]          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
From: [email-masked] (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 13:48:44 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (J.J. Paijmans) writes:
>>
>>Guys, the race is on to capture growing markets in China, India, and
>>perhaps Russia and Islamic countries, and Unix is way behind the Mac
>>(WorldScript) and NT (Unicode); probably behind NeXTStep, too, though
>>I don't know what they've been doing lately....
>>
>
>Richard: I don't understand. OK, you can get Hebrew or Arabic under
>Windows (I even saw a wordprocessor for old-egyptian hieroglyphs
>demonstrated), but surely they are just translations of graphics for
>existing characters? You can't even write hebrew in the right
>direction (i.e. from right to left) when you select the font.

NT at least uses Unicode internally.  My favorite multilingual word
processing program actually runs under DOS of all things.  Lets you
switch writing directions arbitrarily.  Not perfect, but it has style
sheets, so I just type away without worrying about minor formatting
details.  It's pretty much WYSIWYG (not quite), but good enough for
me.  I just want to see Arabic as Arabic, Greek as Greek, etc., and
not have to go though those silly preview cycles.  It's called Multi-
Lingual Scholar, and it's made by a firm called "Gamma Productions."
This system is lousy for math, though, so beware :-(.

>So if the waiting just is for somebody to draw a new font, I see no
>intrinsic superiority of MS-Windows (or MacIntosh) over Unix. And if
>you want to mess with the basic left-right orientation, the situation
>in X Windows is not worse than in MS-Windows.

Gee, I'd rather die than program for MS-Windows or a Mac, but I thought
that WorldScript for the Mac pretty much solved the font/direction
problem.  For an example of a word processing application that takes
full advantage of these facilities, try Nisus.

>But I am not an expert in this sort of things, so please enlighten me.

Nor am I.  I'm just reporting what little I know.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              [email-masked]
   [email-masked]          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer

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

Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: [email-masked] (Mark Cooke)
Subject: Re: SB_PRO does not sound like 4W/channel..
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 09:08:07 GMT

Joseph Stanley (Joe) Wisniewski ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] () writes:
: |> 
: |> 
: |> 
: |> I have just installed SB_PRO + MITSUMi_double-speed
: |> CRrom drive + 8_ohm  unamplified SONIC speakers on my
: |> Linux box. I hooked up the CD sound to Sb_Pro after
: |> switching the pins.  It works, but it did not live up
: |> to my expectations. It does not sound like 4W per
: |> channel to me.
: |> 
There is an onboard mixer on the SB-Pro.  ISTR it is set to
about 75% of maximum output when my card powers up.  Could be
your card powers up lower than this.

As a quick test, find a Dos boot disk and the SB-Pro utility
disks, and try running sbp-set.  It should tell you the
output levels on the card (ranges 0-15)

[Snip post about using lower impedance speakers]

Hope that helps.

Mark

====================================================================
Mark Cooke                         EMail : [email-masked]
Electronic Engineering             Snail : Room 2 Library Block
Badock Hall Net-Rep &                      Badock Hall
Data Safety Officer                        Stoke Park Road

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

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