Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #960
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 94 19:13:49 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #960, Volume #2                Mon, 17 Oct 94 19:13:49 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Reverse mtools for DOS? (Chuck Slivkoff)
  Re: IS anyone reading users' complaints? (Thomas Kagle)
  Re: Applets; was: Word (Text) processor (Grant Edwards)
  Hitting the nail on the head (was Re: Word...) (Richard L. Goerwitz)
  Re: sony CDU33A / DMA / IRQ (Joseph Stanley (Joe Wisniewski))
  gcc putting ptr in low memory (bug??) (Timothy A. Kobett)
  Thinking about Linux... (Feinstein)
  Re: IS anyone reading users' complaints? (David Dyer-Bennet)
  A1540 and Compaq C2490A (Jay Jones)
  Linux working on a Thinkpad 755C! (James Fidell)
  AHA274x Slackware bootdisk and kernel (James Fidell)
  Re: Word processors for Linux? (Byron A Jeff)
  Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Michael Babcock)
  gdb question (Timothy A. Kobett)

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

From: [email-masked] (Chuck Slivkoff)
Subject: Re: Reverse mtools for DOS?
Date: 17 Oct 1994 11:55:03 -0400

On 17 Oct 1994 14:18:02 GMT, J.J. Paijmans ([email-masked]) wrote:
) [email-masked] (Michael) writes:
...

) >I could then have, say ext2fs on my floppies, and on ocasion, when I need to
) >copy a file to DOS, I'll not have a problem...
) >
) >At the moment most of my floppies are DOS formatted.  When I get something 
) >interesting by FTP (at work), I have to copy it onto a DOS disk. At home I 
) >then have to transfer everything back to linux, renaming truncated filenames 
here's a suggestion:

Simply use one the various DOS-based archiving programs 
(zip,lha,tar,etc) to store the files using 0 compression
(i'm assuming that they are already tar-gzipped, right :)

When you later extract these files on your Linux machine,
the original filenames will have remained intact.

...hope this helps

-chuck
-- 
Chuck Slivkoff          [email-masked]
Computer Science        Youngstown State University

Youngstown, OH:  All the drugs, crime & violence of New York at half the cost!

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

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Kagle)
Subject: Re: IS anyone reading users' complaints?
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 94 10:58:17 CDT

>In article <[email-masked]>,
        [email-masked] (Breakdown) writes:
>>                                         If I were deve-
>>loping the kernel, I'd probably make sure I went through 
>>all 200+ daily problem reports and figure out if there's
>>a real problem behind each and every one of them....

>Fine.  Are you developing the kernel?

>If I were developing the kernel I'd get EXTREMELY PISSED OFF when
>people post crap like this to newsgroups.  It's FREE, remember.  If
>you want guaranteed support, go and buy it from someone.

Amen to this!  I'm happy to have this wonderful OS to play with, regardless of any
bugs!  Bitching about free software, without helping to fix it, is like getting a
free meal and complaining about the service!  (Tho, a bug that trashed a filesystem
without warning might justify a snarl or two :-)

People with the expertise and willingness to be free software developers are heroes,
IMHO, and deserve praise and support.  Linux would be just a Minix-like toy without
their amazing collective efforts.

Thomas Kagle  [email-masked]  "*** Love is just a thing called Linux! ***"

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

From: [email-masked] (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Applets; was: Word (Text) processor
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 20:26:30 GMT

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

: -What I don't understand is the wish to make Linux applications appeal
: -to the "average dos/win" user.  When developing an application for
: -Linux, shouldn't the concern be to make it appeal to the Linux user?

: Yes. However in almost every situation where computers are involved 
: people that I know look to me for guidance. 

Ah, there's the crux of the problem.  I learned to say "Sorry, I don't
know anything about MS-Windows," which isn't quiet true, but I've so
far managed to avoid learning enough to be helpful in most situations.

: Since I really can't stand DOS/Windows I have a selfish motivation
: to encourage folks to use Linux.

If I did that, then I _would_ end up spending all my time helping the
convertees since they would never want to learn enough about Unix to
actually adminster their computers themselves.

: However to do that a basic suite of applications that are available
: for DOS/Windows needs to be available for Linux too.

: -: after a while, this, i think, would get your average dos/win user
: -: happily chugging away on linux.
:
: -There seems to be an assumed goal of "converting" dos/win users to
: -Linux -- and I don't understand why this is a worthy goal.

: Like I said selfishness. If you'd driven the best car you'd ever driven

I do! I do!

: or tasted the best grilled chicken sandwich ever made wouldn't you tell
: your family and friends about it and encourage them to try it?

Not if I knew our tastes differed and they wouldn't like driving my
car.  Some people just have to have automatic transmissions and power
steering.  Many people like front-wheel drive also.  I don't try to
convert them.  They're happy with what they've got and I'm happy with
what I've got, so I leave well enough alone.

:  Linux is the same way.

Agreed.  When I see somebody running MKS toolkit under dos or bash and
emacs under OS/2, I tell them about Linux becuase I have some
indication that they'll like Linux.

Most people are happy with Windows, and I leave well enough alone.

: -I'm a bit of a relativist so I have my doubts that there is a "one
: -true faith" (especially regarding OS/language/editor preferences).

: There is no one true way. However my preference is not to deal with
: DOS/Windows unless it's absolutely necessary. In fact for folks where it's
: clear they don't need anything more I endorse using DOS/Windows. However I
: oftentimes (and sometimes honestly ;-) play dumb to the "how do you do this
: and how do you do that?" questions that invariably come up.

Exactly.  The trick is to stay ignorant enough that you don't have to lie
very often.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Is this an out-take
Rosemount Inc.                                |from the ``BRADY BUNCH''?
                                              |
[email-masked]                          |

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.apps.word-proc,comp.software.international
From: [email-masked] (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Hitting the nail on the head (was Re: Word...)
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 14:14:18 GMT

[email-masked] (Michael Babcock) pretty much hits the nail
on the head when he says that the lack of multilingual text proces-
sing tools

>...is a very frustrating thing....  I know of lots of almost solutions 
>-- they have lots of great stuff going for them, but in the end don't
>cut it for one reason or another. I can't afford to switch to a Mac, and
>I've heard of problems with their solution too. Windows NT advertised about
>Unicode, but in the end, it didn't do anything. Microsoft has articles 
>about internationalization support in Chicago, but the fine print shows
>it doesn't even try to solve my problem. I read about "UniVerse" for 
>ms-windows -- cost a billion dollars, then they charge a million more
>for each extra language you want to add. Even if I could afford that, I
>know from experience in the DOS/Windows world that once you get locked into
>that, you keep paying for the rest of your life.
>
>On my own, I've started working on a multilingual text-edit widget. I've
>considered writing a whole word processor myself. I could probably do
>it but it would take too long and I don't have the time.
>
>Has _anybody_ _ever_ found a solution to this? What?

It's to the point now where American programmers and engineers are be-
coming dimly aware that there are other nations and languages, and that
people don't want to be constrained to using one language at a time.
But they just don't have enough familiarity with "foreign" input methods
& scripts for them to incorporate hooks for these languages into general-
ized interfaces.  They're not dumb.  It's just not part of their culture
or daily needs.

Apple has WorldScript.  Other than them, I don't know any major vendor
who's really attacked this problem head on.  I suspect that the complete
solution will come from overseas.

-- 

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

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

From: [email-masked] (Joseph Stanley (Joe) Wisniewski)
Subject: Re: sony CDU33A / DMA / IRQ
Date: 17 Oct 1994 16:15:36 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Corey Minyard) writes:
|> Rasta Smurf ([email-masked]) wrote:
|> : In article <[email-masked]>,
|> : [email-masked] ([email-masked]) wrote:
|> : > does the current kernel provide irq/dma support for the sony cdu-33a CD? 
|> : > i know it supports access via a polling driver but can find no ifo 
|> : > regarding the interupt driven access.
|> : > 
|> : > thanks,
|> : > taine
|> : > 
|> 
|> : I've been having problems with this drive under Linux. I can
|> : install it fine from CD, but once I'm up and running I'm unable to read
|> : a CD or change directory to the drive. Thinking of going SCSI. Hope you
|> : can figure out what's wrong or maybe there's a kind soul who can provide
|> : the answer.
|> 
|> This is a common problem with the current slackware release.  Apparently,
|> two drivers are distributed, a standard one and an extended one.  Switch
|> to the standard one and things should work fine.  The default in the
|> installed kernel is the extended one.
|> 
Had the same problems with the Mitsumi problem and Slackware. The boot disk
worked fine, but the kernal installed on the hard drive did not. The problem
was that the boot disk had a 1.0.9 (I think) kernal with the standard driver
compiled for IRQ 11 (which did not match the Mitsumi card's default setting),
while the installed kernal 1.1.18 had the extended driver, compiled for IRQ 10
(which does match Mitsumi's default). I started the install, saw the message
about not finding the Mitsumi, changed its IRQ, installed successfully, and
promptly forgot about it. A few days later, I needed to access the CD-ROM
under Linux, and spent an hour troubleshooting, before I noticed that the new
driver wanted IRQ 10 again.

Check for a similar occurance, before you switch to a possibly poorer driver.

-- 
  Joseph S. Wisniewski  |  The views expressed are purely my own, and do not
   Ford Motor Company   |  reflect those of the Ford Motor Company, or any of
    Project Sapphire    |  its affiliates.
[email-masked] |  "any color you want -- as long as it's black"

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

From: [email-masked] (Timothy A. Kobett)
Crossposted-To: gnu.gcc.help
Subject: gcc putting ptr in low memory (bug??)
Date: 17 Oct 1994 20:33:29 GMT

When building a program with the -g option gcc seems to be
placing a pointer in low memory causing a SEG violation.  I
can see the pointer address is low and as soon as the program
attempts to write to that location I get the seg signal.  The 
problem only seems to exist when using the -g option.  It's 
only doing this with one pointer which is one of several.  If
I move the pointer and make it global to the file the problem
moves to a different pointer?

I'm using gcc-2.6.0 (got it in Aug 94) Linux-1.1.52,
and Motif 1.2.4.  Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
Looks like a bug from what I can tell but I haven't been
programming in Unix very long.  Any help would be appreciated!!!

--
Tim Kobett
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Feinstein)
Subject: Thinking about Linux...
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 01:05:28 GMT

I have a few questions, which probably wouldn't be answered in manuals:
1) In order to use SLS, it REQUIRES 4 MB RAM, how much is *really* needed?
2) What is the latest version of SLS (I tried the announce newsgroup,
 but there were no announcements) - I am currently downloading v1.02?
3) I have a DOS system with plenty of DOS apps.   Can I get the DOS emulator
up & running w/o installing SLS on my hard drive?

Thanks in adcvance:)
From: [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (David Dyer-Bennet)
Subject: Re: IS anyone reading users' complaints?
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 14:11:11 GMT

[email-masked] (Mr D R Barlow) writes:

>In article <[email-masked]>,
>       [email-masked] (Breakdown) writes:
>>                                         If I were deve-
>>loping the kernel, I'd probably make sure I went through 
>>all 200+ daily problem reports and figure out if there's
>>a real problem behind each and every one of them....

>Fine.  Are you developing the kernel?

>If I were developing the kernel I'd get EXTREMELY PISSED OFF when
>people post crap like this to newsgroups.  It's FREE, remember.  If
>you want guaranteed support, go and buy it from someone.

(This started in c.o.l.development, D.R. Barlow redirected follups to
misc, which seems right and I'm letting it stand).

Based on the rate at which I go through problems on the software I'm
maintaining at work, I *entirely* agree with Mr. Barlow.  It is
absolutely and unambiguously *not possible* for one person to go
through 200+ daily problem reports and figure out if there's a real
problem behind each and every one of them.  Or, maybe my 25 years (as
of yesterday) in this business have rotted my brain and the young kids
of today can do it?  Naaah.
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, proprietor, The Terraboard             Minneapolis, MN
[email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Web URL: http://www.mtn.org/~ddb (SF, photo)

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

Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi
From: [email-masked] (Jay Jones)
Subject: A1540 and Compaq C2490A
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 21:44:10 GMT

I am having troubles getting my system to talk to a Compaq C2490A SCSI HD
(2Gb).  It keeps returning "Not Ready" errors and I never hear the drive
initialize after it spins up.  Anyone have any hints as to where I might
be able to get specs and jumper settings for this HD?  Even Compaq's
tech or fax-service number would be greatly appreciated!

E-Mail responses please.
Thanks!
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (James Fidell)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.laptops
Subject: Linux working on a Thinkpad 755C!
Date: 17 Oct 1994 18:02:08 +0100

Yes, I've finally got it working!

I have a 755C with 20Mb RAM, DOCK 1, 540Mb disk.

The problems I had were :

    o The standard Slackware bootdisk doesn't work.

    o The bootdisk didn't work either, because it wouldn't recognise my
      hard disk.  It barfed because it couldn't handle the size of the
      disk.

    o The standard Linux kernel sources don't support the reversed logic
      of the disk-change sense line.

So, I created my own boot disk using a 1.1.50 kernel having modified the
sources to support the disk-change sense stuff properly.  The sources
have changed greatly since 1.0.9 on which the (reversed) patches at
peipa.essex.ac.uk are based.  They have changed again between 1.1.50 and
1.1.54, I notice.

The 1.1.50 drive correctly handled the 540Mb disk, with geometry specified
as 524,32,63 and I got everything installed from the standard Slackware
disks.  Then it was just a case of putting copying the boot kernel onto
the hard disk and running lilo to get the machine to boot from the
hard disk.

I've now got the 1.1.54 kernel built with networking support built in,
and it's running quite happily on our network :-)

If anyone want's the bookdisk/kernel image, let me know and I'll put it
up for FTP somewhere.

James.
-- 
 "Yield to temptation --             |
  it may not pass your way again"    |     [email-masked]
                                     |
        - Lazarus Long               |              James Fidell

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

From: [email-masked] (James Fidell)
Subject: AHA274x Slackware bootdisk and kernel
Date: 17 Oct 1994 18:03:11 +0100

I've got these built based on kernel 1.1.50.  If anyone's interested,
let me know and I'll make them available via FTP.

James.
-- 
 "Yield to temptation --             |
  it may not pass your way again"    |     [email-masked]
                                     |
        - Lazarus Long               |              James Fidell

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

From: [email-masked] (Byron A Jeff)
Subject: Re: Word processors for Linux?
Date: 17 Oct 1994 14:31:11 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Michael Babcock <[email-masked]> wrote:
>In article <[email-masked]>,
>Byron A Jeff <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>How hard can it be to develop something like this? All the basic tools are
>>already available:
>
>I know most people don't give a damn but ez and (AFAIK) the above combination
>of tools don't support the creation of multilingual documents. Sorry to
>sound like a broken record here.

Michael, you're not the broken record, Richard is!

> [ Goes on the describe the serious need for multilingual support. ] 

I sympathize with you (and Richard too). My proposal would have some kind of
basic multilingual support, or at least the hooks so that it could be added
on. But honestly in the multilingual crowds opinion is it possible to have
a text based multilingual support? My opinion from my limited understanding
is that it's probably not possible to do.

I'm coming to the conclusion that we're going to need multiple tools in order
to come close to solving everyone's problems:

1) A X based WYSIWYG English WordProcessor. EZ seems to fill this slot.
2) A X based WYSIWYG Multilingual WP. This product does not exist. Someone
   must write it. I have no idea how feasible it is to do? Richard, Michael?
3) A text based, non WYSIWYG English WordProcessor. This is my proposed
   application. It's definitely doable.
4) A text based, non WYSIWYG Multilingual WP. Is this possible?
 
Lastly we'll probably need a suite of conversion tools to convert existing
document formats into the formats for the above tools.

I'm almost convinced that one application cannot solve the whole problem.
I think we need to start thinking about splitting the job into multiple
tools. Let's separate the discussions by tagging the type:

(WYSIWYG, not ML)
(TEXT, not ML)
(WYSIWYG, ML)
(TEXT, ML)

in the subjects so that each group can focus on the type of WP needed instead
of arguing what features the supposed global WP needs.

We need them all people. There is no one true faith here.

Comments?

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] (Michael Babcock)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Date: 17 Oct 1994 14:20:27 -0600

In article <[email-masked]>,
Richard L. Goerwitz <[email-masked]> wrote:
>[email-masked] (Byron A Jeff) writes:
>>
>>And we all have our pet peeves. Richard demands multilingualness while mine
>>is that if all I have is a VT100 terminal and modem I should still be able to
>>WordProcess (not format. The interface is the real difference) without having
>>to resort to buying an ISDN line and an Xterminal.
>
>It's not so much a matter of what capabilities are included as what
>capabilities are *pre*cluded by sloppy or narrow design.  The multi-
>lingual "problem" is really only a problem because so many packages
>have been designed without any thought that anyone would be using
>them with up-down or right-left languages, and without any thought
>that millions (billions?) of people on the planet are multilingual.

Again I agree. For example, I DON'T ask that you learn all about the
complications of entering kanji (of whatever language). This is a very
difficult area and IMO no really satisfactory solutions have even been
invented yet (at least for entering Chinese and Japanese without learning
two different systems). Asking this would be unreasonable.

I do ask that you don't just go blindly ahead without thinking about
making the system flexible enough to handle multiple languages. I may
be naive, but I don't really think it is too difficult if this is done
at the beginning of the design. If you try to add it after the program
is done, though, it is just about impossible without rewriting the whole thing.
Actually all you need to do is use good programming practices and this
flexibility will come along for free.

Michael Babcock
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Timothy A. Kobett)
Subject: gdb question
Date: 17 Oct 1994 20:52:23 GMT

I'm using Linux 1.1.52 and gcc2.6.0.  I get the following
error when using xxgdb
  'tcsetpgrp failed in terminal_inferior: Not a typewriter'

Does anyone know how to get rid of this?  This also shows
up using mxgdb.

Has anyone been able to build mxgdb?  I haven't been able
to build and use it, I do have the binary off sunsite but
I'd like to build it as well. 

--
Tim Kobett
[email-masked]

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

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