Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #912
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 94 12:13:12 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #912, Volume #2                Mon, 10 Oct 94 12:13:12 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Is linux a multithreaded operating system? (David Barr)
  XFree3.1 + Spea Mercury P64 PCI (Joern Carstens)
  Re: Mail order Linux or CD-roms (Jeff Kesselman)
  Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Byron A Jeff)
  Re: Mystery Chip...AMD (Brad Matthew Garcia)
  Re: Newbies? (was Re: Hmmm) (Starblood)
  Re: Dialup problem (Klaus Lichtenwalder)
  Re: Curious: Why is Linux DOOM so much slower than DOS doom (To Kar Keung Isaac)
  Re: getting linux to work dail-up (Lars Hofhansl)
  OLD LINUX CDROMS (Gideon H. Chonia)
  Oracle for Linux?! (Andrej Sostaric, TF Maribor, 062 25-461 (442))
  ez (was Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?) (Budi Rahardjo)
  Re: Beautifying Linux/Xfree (Terence S. Murphy)

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

From: [email-masked] (David Barr)
Subject: Re: Is linux a multithreaded operating system?
Date: 9 Oct 1994 21:17:30 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
Jeff Kesselman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>So yes, UNIX is multi-threaded in the sens that there are multiple threads
>of control operating in a time-sliced fashion.  The term 'threading' is
>often used in multi-tasking system however to denote a 'lesser form' of
>multi-taskign that goes on completely within a single process.

Not quite.  Most UNIXes (including Linux) are not multi-threaded at all.

Multi-tasking is simply multiple "tasks" (call them threads, call them
processes, it doesn't matter) executing simultaneously.  Traditionally,
the smallest schedule-able "task" is a process.  If you want two
things to be able to execute simultaneously, you make two processes.

Multi-threading extends this such that you can have multiple threads
per process, and each thread can be scheduled on its own.  If one
thread in a process performs a read() and has to wait, other threads
can continue executing.

The difference between a "thread" and a "process" in a multi-threaded
system is that a "thread" shares the same address space as other
threads in the same process.  With processes, in order to share memory,
you need to use something like the SYSV shm*() family of syscalls.

>thsi is
>also sometimes called 'light-weight multi-tasking'.  UNIX (and Linux)

I think you're thinking of what Sun calls "light weight processes",
which is a hokey pseudo-threaded system for non-multithreading kernels.
Under LWP, system calls in one thread block all threads in the process
from executing.

There are thread libraries for Linux (pthreads) that will allow this
sort of multithreading for Linux, but don't confuse that with a
multithreading operating system.  (Like Solaris)  These are called
"user-level" threads, and are not nearly as useful as one with
a kernel that supports threads.  (and if your kernel supports real
threads, you can compile the pthread library to do real threading)

--Dave

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

From: [email-masked] (Joern Carstens)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: XFree3.1 + Spea Mercury P64 PCI
Date: 10 Oct 1994 01:12:30 GMT

Hi all !

Did anybody get a Spea Mercury P64 graphic card combined with
XFree3.1 to work ?? I tried the xf86config programm to config
the card but no modes worked. If I start the server manually
with X -bpp 32 (X is linked to XF86_S3) sometimes I get a correct
screen, sometimes not. Even -bpp 16 or -bpp 8 sometimes work, but
I can't tell how or when or why.
I played with the settings for ChipSet, ClockChip and some
of these settings, but none of them worked out. Some comments
are found in the manuals for the S3 cards and the used chips
but none of the recommended settings give a better result.
The RamDAC is configured correctly, the card is recognized as a
S3 Vision 964, so everything basic is correct.

It seems that the card sometimes gets the timing right, sometimes
not.

Anybody any idea ??

Thanks in advance for any help

--
  Joern Carstens, Phone: +49 (0)30 6871337
  Mail: [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Kesselman)
Subject: Re: Mail order Linux or CD-roms
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 01:05:51 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Jalal J Jemison <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Does anyone know about a CD-rom version of linux which would
>be much easier to install... Or any mail order groups that
>mail out linux
>Thanks
>

I knwo you didn't realize this, but this is  potential flame-war bait.  
Everyone has different experiences.  I've found Yygdrasil very easy to 
install, others swear by Slackware.  There are about as many pro and con 
stories as there are users.  

JK

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

From: [email-masked] (Byron A Jeff)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Date: 9 Oct 1994 20:45:36 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Richard L. Goerwitz <[email-masked]> wrote:
-Sergei Naoumov writes:
->
->It can be easily done with XEmacs. LaTeX is not a text processor. It's a
->different thing -- typesetting system.
-
-Right on.  The point here is that most people prefer for these two things
-to be integrated, and not artificially separated.  Separation here is an
-artifact of the 80s.
-
-Now I realize that many people - particularly people who like to get into
-the internals of every system they encounter - like LaTeX as it is.  Just
-recognize, folks, that you are in the minority.  Also, recognize that the
-rest of us aren't just stupid.  We simply have different priorities.
-
-I can just see it now:  Renegade Unixoid takes over as project manager for
-the next revision of Word, and decides to strip it of its GUI; anyone not
-willing to go along considered brain dead....

You and I are in agreement on this, Richard. Linux is in desparate need
of it's own wordprocessor, not a typesetter.

The problem is what's be best/fastest way to accomlish this. Some observations

1) Must be native. Until we reach a point where emulation is standard and
   stable in Linux distributions we need a unpack and go package.
 
2) Simple. Unfortunately that means that Richard's pet peeve - multiligualness
   must be put on the back burner. Only the most used functions need to
   be available (font styles and sizing, basic paragraph formatting, tables 
   among others) must be available. The obscure, rarely used but "must be
   in there for completeness sake" kinds of functions that all the commercial
   Wordprocessors have need to be carefully evaluated and left off if a
   demonstrated need for it is not shown.

3) Multi-layered interface. I know GUI's are cool. I know that WYSIWYG is hot.
   But frankly a GUI/WYSIWYG interface isn't much good when I'm sitting
   in front of a terminal, or telnetting over a slow link, or when I'm 
   stuck on a 386-25 Laptop with 4 MB of memory, or even the
   rare occasions when I have to use a DOS/Windows machine. Oftentimes it's
   not useful or feasible to use a GUI/WYSIWYG interface. However I agree
   and admit that GUI/WYSIWYG is useful. So I think a multilayered Text/(S)VGA/
   X interface would be useful. That way the product can be used over the 
   variety of physical interfaces that Linux, X, and networking makes 
   available.

Folks neither TeX, groff, or another other typesetter, or emulated WP like
WordPerfect under DOS/WINDOWS or SCO is going to cut it here. A Wordprocessor
is such a critical resource in a computing system that Linux has the potential
of never making inroads beyond its supposed "hacker/Unix junkie" clientele.

Linux needs it's own Wordprocessor. Something simple, elegant, and moderately
powerful. And we need it yesterday.

The question is how to accomplish this?

BAJ
-- 
Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of...
Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel - And Using Linux!
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332   Internet: [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Brad Matthew Garcia)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: Mystery Chip...AMD
Date: 10 Oct 1994 11:44:09 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Daniel Zappala) writes:
|>
|> But doesn't Intel sell a chip that upgrades a 486DX-33 into a 486DX2-66?
|> How do they manage that?
|> 
|> 
|> Daniel

In some cases, the old chip must be yanked and the new chip inserted in
its place.  So it updates a 486-33 computer system to a 486-66, but the
chip itself is replaced.

I know there are (for some systems) ways to upgrade w/o yanking the old
chip.  Does anyone know more about these, or was I misinformed?
-- 
Brad M. Garcia                   Carnegie Mellon University 
   ____/  ____/  ____/ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  __/    /      __/   "The only Engineering department in the world where
_____/ _____/ _____/   the secretaries have the most powerful computers."

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

From: [email-masked] (Starblood)
Crossposted-To: alt.fan.linus-torvalds
Subject: Re: Newbies? (was Re: Hmmm)
Date: 10 Oct 1994 07:32:56 GMT

(ccnet.ccnet.com>
Organization: Brussels Free Universities (VUB/ULB), Belgium
Distribution: 

A computer genius ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Roderick Hoekstra ([email-masked]) wrote:
: : Nyaa,  I got you all beat.  I started with Slackware 1.2.0,
: :  Kernal,  what,  I don't remember right now.  (It was a summer
: :  project,  and CS took my computer away at the end of summer -boo
: :  hoo-)  I think,  though  that it's 1.0.8?  Yeah,  I'm pretty sure
: :  it is.

: Don't got me beat.  Thats when I started too.  (And yes, it is 1.0.8.  I
: think slackware is still in that one, even with 2.0)

What are you guys talking about?? I think nobody will beat me. My first
linux system will probably be Slackware 5.0. That will probably be the
first release that supports the IBM PS/2 architecture :(.

--
  _
  \ \
   \ \_____________________________
    (     -------                  | --------------------------------------
   (     (       )    _____________| -----          Tourwe Tom            |
  (      (       )  /                    |                                |
 (        ------- /                      |  2nd year of Computer Science  |
 |        -------                        |             at the             |
 |        |                              |  FREE UNIVERSITY OF BRUSSELS   |
 |        |                              |                                |
 |        |                              |  e-mail: [email-masked] |
 |________|                              |________________________________|

``It's not a case of telling the truth
  Some lines just fit the situation
  Call me a liar ...
  You would anyway.''

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

From: [email-masked] (Klaus Lichtenwalder)
Subject: Re: Dialup problem
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 22:00:23 GMT

[email-masked] (Rob Janssen) writes:

>Use my special program for the ZyXEL, available from sunsite in directory
>/pub/linux/system/Serial.
>For me it works all the time.  Plus you can use it as a FAX and an answering
>machine as well...
Never tried Rob's software, but I'm (among others ;-) using mgetty+sendfax,
one of the better (IMHO) packages, especially if you're using a ZyXEL
modem. Sorry, Rob, again, I never tried your software...

Klaus
-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
Klaus Lichtenwalder, Dipl. Inf., Buschingstr. 65
D-81677 Muenchen, F.R. Germany,  Fax +49-89-98292755
email: [email-masked], [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (To Kar Keung Isaac)
Subject: Re: Curious: Why is Linux DOOM so much slower than DOS doom
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 11:10:18 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jeff Kesselman) writes:
>>
>>Well, first off, I've heard that the code for Linux DOOM is pure C, whereas
>>the DOS version has some optimized assembly in it for speed. So you should
>>expect less performance.

The following is just my guess, and I don't know whether there is workaround...

First, DOOM in DOS have the permission to do anything on the machine, but Linux
one can't. The DOS one actually use DMA to transfer data from memory to DMA,
while the Linux one call X to display an image. What it means, with shared
memory, is to copy the data to an area provided by X, then wait X to find
whether any clipping is necessary (e.g. if another window obscure the DOOM
window that shouldn't be displayed), and finally the X server will copy that to
the video memory after a color mapping. That long process should be the
bottleneck of linxdoom.

Second, DOOM in DOS is near to the sole memory user. In Linux, it must compete
with all other clients, like the Xserver, the 4 virtual console, the window
manager, all system daemons, etc., and must also compete CPU time with them.
This is another bottleneck of the linxdoom.

That means that DOS is unique in providing such an environment. Even SGI doom
can't beat it. (However, the superb computational speed and pipeline of the SGI
should be able to compensate the problem completely)

Isaac.

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

From: [email-masked] (Lars Hofhansl)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: getting linux to work dail-up
Date: 10 Oct 1994 12:47:38 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jacob Zielinski) writes:
>
>Has anyone be able to hook their modem up so that you can dail into linux?
>
>The people on #linux suggested agetty, and mgetty. But I didn't get to far
>with those to commands. Could somebody who as done this explain how or at
>least point me toward some docs.
>
>Thank you
>
Hi Jacob,

I don't know which getty the best; personally I use agetty.

In /etc/inittab you insert a line like
d1:56:respawn:/sbin/agetty -mt60 38400,19200,9600,4800 /dev/ttyS1

(Several baudrates enables baudrate switching, when the autobaud function (-m)
 failes)

Now you have to setup your modem to "pick up the phone". On Hayes-compatible
modems you do that with
ATS0=n where n is the number of rings the modems should wait before it picks
up the phone (you will most probably want to set n to 0).
You can send the command using sezon,kermit or minicom...
For me "echo -nf ATS0=0" works, but I heard that doesn't for everyone.

That's all I did to set it up, and it works for dialin and dialouts;
problems may arise when using UUCP on the same line. In that case you should
switch over to uugetty (or getty_ps)...

good luck,

Lars

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

From: [email-masked] (Gideon H. Chonia)
Subject: OLD LINUX CDROMS
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 12:59:20 GMT

Thanks to all who contributed in a way.
We have sent the PC's and modems to Ghana, West Africa.

We are now soliciting for OLD or USED LINUX CDROM.
Any version is O.K.

We just want them to start somewhere with Linux.

Thank you all

I know it is short, but that all we need.

Gideon 

--
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Name:     Gideon Hayford Chonia                                      %
% Org:      University Of Zurich, Computing Centre                     %
% Tel.      +41 1 257 4542                                             %
% Fax.      +41 1 257 4505                                             %
% Internet: [email-masked]                                       %
% X.400:    C=ch ADMD=arcom PRMD=switch O=unizh OU1=rzu S=k042240      %
% Bitnet:   K042240 at CZHRZU1A                                        %
% WWW:      http://www.unizh.ch/~k042240                               %
% Bushmail: ....!Earth!Africa!Ghana!Pokoase!Yaovi                      %
%                                                                      %
%        ---------- Ich darf ge-Du-zt werden ----------                %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

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

From: [email-masked] (Andrej Sostaric, TF Maribor, 062 25-461 (442))
Subject: Oracle for Linux?!
Date: 10 Oct 94 14:17:07 +0200

Hello, dear Linux friends, 

  just a short question. Are there any possibilities for Oracle to run 
under Linux (at least version 5)?

Andrej Sostaric
e-mail: [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Budi Rahardjo)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: ez (was Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?)
Date: 10 Oct 1994 13:52:19 GMT

[email-masked] (Byron A Jeff) writes:

: Linux needs it's own Wordprocessor. Something simple, elegant, and moderately
: powerful. And we need it yesterday.
: The question is how to accomplish this?

Who about Andrew's  "ez" ? I think that's what you want. 

-- budi

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

From: [email-masked] (Terence S. Murphy)
Subject: Re: Beautifying Linux/Xfree
Date: 7 Oct 1994 22:55:04 -0500

I don't like the idea of a menu to set the appearance of X because it
would be too limiting.  What I think would be more helpful would be 
something like a BeautifyX-HOWTO, or something similar.  For example,
think of all of the different neat things there are to put in the root
window.  One can run xearth (my favorite!), run xfishtank, load a 
picture, set the solid color, and no doubt many other things that 
I don't know about.  A menu couldn't solve the problem.  The closest
it could come would be to set up a prompt for the command to bring
up the root window, which defeats the purpose of a menu.

I think that a HOWTO file would be truly useful.  It would be more of
a tips file, actually.  I'm sure that there are dozens of neat little
toy programs that many people run, as well as several useful programs,
that would really enhance X.  By pooling all of our experiences into
a file, a user could choose exactly what he wanted to do.

One thing that would be neat would be a list of nice color combinations.
Sometimes I see these discussed and I often test them out and like
them enough to incorporate them enough into my configuration.  And
whenever I add a new program to my configuration, I'm at a loss to
think of a new color combination.

This could cover so many things like this.  For example, what about
setting up FvwmSound?  Which sounds are nice tied to which events?
Under xearth what angle of the earth looks the nice?  What programs are
useful to put on the GoodStuff bar?  Which clocks look nice and how can
they be configured?  Which monitor programs are useful to include
on startup?  There are so many questions like this and I'm sure
everyone has his preferences, but we would all learn from others
tastes and incorporate them as our own.

A menu program works under MS-Windows because everything is configured
by the OS.  Under X, though, most visual things are determined by
individual user programs which have nothing in common, so it would
be very difficult to have a menu aided configuration.  This is why
I think a file containing experienced users' tips and experiences
would be far more useful.
-- 
Terry Murphy | UIUC Frosh/CS Major  | "The whole world has been made again" -
Marillion | There ought to be an alt.fan.linus-torvalds! |  "The S.A.T is not
geared for the lower class so why waste time even trying to pass?"-Gang Starr
"I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude"-H.D.Thoreau

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

** 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
******************************