Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #194
From: Digestifier <Linux-Misc-Request@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Date:     Sun, 10 Oct 93 15:26:49 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #194, Volume #1                Sun, 10 Oct 93 15:26:49 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Linux is very unstable (Oeyvind Flaam)
  Re: Xfree vs. BIOS (Matt McLeod)
  Has anyone got UPS working (the X debugger) ?
  [ANNOUNCE] Slackware xiafs/ext2fs bootdisk (Patrick J. Volkerding)
  Re: maxima:  Where can I find it? (DAVID L. JOHNSON)
  Re: SCSI adapter for linux? (Kevin Brown)
  Re: Window Managers (Kevin Brown)
  *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.05) (Ian Jackson)
  NcFTP(v 1.60b2) binary(ies)
  Re: Linux counter passes 2000 entries (Brandon S. Allbery)
  Re: Linux Magazine... (thomas kevi lynch)
  searching postgres users (Christoph Adomeit)
  Re: PLEASE HELP ME WITH MY SMAIL ROUTING.... (Andreas Klemm)
  a math library for linux? (Hoa Ton-That)
  Re: Linux Magazine (Bill Heiser)
  Problem with term (Michael K Patterson)

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

From: flaam@ii.uib.no (Oeyvind Flaam)
Subject: Re: Linux is very unstable
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 03:33:41 GMT

Rene COUGNENC (rene@renux.frmug.fr.net) wrote:

: Ce brave Hugo Eide Gunnarsen ecrit:

: > I'm running linux-0.99.13 on my 80486DX50 16MB RAM 490MB IDE SMC ELITE
: > SB16 ASP and MS160 cards.
: > I used SLS 1.03.
: > My problem is tat I can not get linux to run for more than 10h before
: > it's craches.
I suggest that you test your memory-chips. I had such a problem
some time ago, and it was ome of my chips that was broken.

The best way to test it is to start multiple compilations.


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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.help
From: matt@krikkit1.apana.org.au (Matt McLeod)
Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 23:39:27 GMT

Michael Griffith (grif@ucrengr.ucr.edu) wrote:
: In article <28uv1s$gos@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>,
: Barzilai Spinak <barspi@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
: [citation deleted]
: >   I want to give a humble (and maybe a little naive) comment on that. 
: >If, as you say, all the needed video info can be gotten by BIOS calls, a few
: >lines of code could be added to the kernel before it goes into protected mode
: >to find out this info. Then, a little program can be written to install
: >XFree, which asks the kernel "What did you find out?", and then fill in the
: >information in that file that XFree uses when it starts (xcongif or something 
: >like that, I think). Now, this may have already been done; so, I may
: >be talking too much...
: [sig deleted]

: Perhaps you miss the point.  Although it might be easy enough for us
: to interrogate the BIOS in Linux, it will not be so easy to do that
: for the dozen or so other OS's that Xfree runs on.  The Xfree folks
: are not interested in solutions that only work on one out of many of
: the operating systems that they support.

Hm.  I was rather under the impression he was suggesting that this be a
part of the installation - no changes needed to XFree itself, just a
little program which can be run to make the necessary changes to xconfig.

It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath...

Matt
-- 
                Matt McLeod     (matt@krikkit1.apana.org.au)
    Sysop, Krikkit One Public Access Unix, +61 49 423565 (11pm-7am AEST)
             "Hey Rocky!  Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"

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

From: fiji@bigwpi.WPI.EDU ()
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Has anyone got UPS working (the X debugger) ?
Date: 10 Oct 1993 05:12:13 GMT

        Ok, I downloaded the UPS debugger for X.  Listened to the way
neat song that came with it.  Got all psyched to try to hack the thing
into operation.  Failed the xmkmf... poked it a bit... still failed...
changed the makefile by hand to get it to compile... it started then
barfed on the system specific stuff (no big surprise) looked at the
code, turned pale at the magnitude of the changes I would have to
make, then decided to ask if anyone else has had any luck (or had no
luck, any feedback is cool)  So if you have only downloaded it and
looked please e-mail me with any experiences.  Sadly I can't keep up
with the flow of these two groups (and still have a prayer of passing
some classes) so please e-mail me.
                Thanks,
                   Ben Bennett.

-- 

        This was the opinion of my hands and not necessarily the rest of my 
body.  The remainder of Ben Bennett (Fiji@wpi.edu) can not be held responsible
for anything typed above.

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

From: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] Slackware xiafs/ext2fs bootdisk
Date: 10 Oct 1993 08:01:31 GMT
Reply-To: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)


A new bootdisk and bloader (disk to boot the b: drive) are up on
ftp.cdrom.com in /pub/linux/slackware. They fix a bug which caused the
setup script to hang while adding software to an existing Linux system
on machines where tabs were used to seperate the fields of the
/etc/fstab.

In addition, the new 3.5" install disk uses the newest NetBSD ash shell,
and adds support for the xiafs filesystem. You can specify xiafs or
ext2fs for each of the Linux partitions on your machine, and the
bootdisk can add software to machines using either filesystem (or both).

Another nifty new feature is the ability to install stuff from your
Linux filesystem right back into it. For instace, if I had the X disks
in /tmp/x1, /tmp/x2, /tmp/x3... I could boot the boot/install disk and
install X right out of those directories, even though they've been
mounted as part of the target filesystem.

-- 
Patrick Volkerding
volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu
bf703@cleveland.freenet.edu

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

From: dlj0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DAVID L. JOHNSON)
Subject: Re: maxima:  Where can I find it?
Date: 10 Oct 93 02:38:06 GMT

In article <28s2i9$qs4@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>, haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de writes:
>> Someone recently posted a sampling of what maxima could do, and it appeared
>> to be similar to maple in functionality, if not capability.  Could some kind
>> soul please direct me to an FTP site where I could get a copy?
>
>Maxima is available via anonymous FTP from ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de
>[129.13.115.2]:/pub/math/maxima/maxima.tar.z .
>
>Maple is certainly much better (and faster) than Maxima, but Maxima is free :-)
>
And maxima runs in linux, whidh maple does not (yet).  BTW, for those who don't
know, you need clisp to compile/run maxima.  That comes with SLS, and both
clisp and maxima can also be found in tsx-11.mit.edu.

As a minor point, there are some things that maxima does better than maple.  Not
many, but some.

-- 

David L. Johnson                             ID:  dlj0@lehigh.edu
Department of Mathematics
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015       Telephone: 215-758-3759 (office)
                                                        215-282-3708 (home)
#include <std/disclaimer.h>

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

From: kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: SCSI adapter for linux?
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 07:58:51 GMT

In article <9BWHB83@oytix.north.de> mike@oytix.north.de (Mike Fleischer) writes:
>Bill Mitchell (mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com) wrote:
>> in comp.os.linux.misc, eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) said:
>
>> Nope.  It's internal, at the end of the bus, and the only terminated device.
>> I've tried shuffling device order along the bus, always terminating only
>> the device at the end, but seen no difference.  SCSI timeouts during tape
>> activity, guranteed SCSI timeouts within a few seconds with mixed SCSI
>> disk/tape activity, solid controller lockups requiring powerdown to correct
>> if I use a 1542C.
>I've the same error coming up on my system. Conf. is:
>Adaptec 1542B 3.2 ROM Normal Settings (No Parity, like every other device)
>Internal:
>Maxtor LXT-213 S ROM 4.18 id 1
>Conner CP-30200 Rev. 4343 id 2
>Tandberg TDC 3660 ROM Archive Viper Emulation 21247 Rev. B07: id 4
>Seagate ST-296 Rev. ?     id 0 Terminated
>
>External:
>Apple CD-300 (Sony 561)   id 3 Terminated
>
>When I try to use the SCSI bus with tar cvf /dev/nst0 /pub/cdrom
>i will get the same error within a short time. If I am trying to
>backup my disks I will see this error sometimes (about 90%).
>
>If I am going to read the CD-ROM or tape, I will see this error  too,
>but only if the system tries to access the disks. It seems it is not
>stable when more than one different devices (tape, cdrom or disk) are
>in use.
>
>I've seen this error since 0.99 pl 2 (in words: two!). Now I am running
>pl 13. The scsi-patches for pl 13 on nic.funet.fi are not useful to get
>rid of this "bug?".
>
>It does not help if I disconnect one of the devices. This happens with
>the CD-ROM *XOR* tape installed, no matter where I install it.
>
>Maybe it's got to do something with "slow" devices?
>
>If I am using a VERY LARGE buffer (tar cvbf 3000 /dev/nst0 .) I'll see this
>error very late, sometimes...

Interesting.  I'm seeing this kind of thing as well, with 0.99.10, Bustek
542B, Maxtor XT-4380 (I think), a couple of Seagate ST-2xx drives, and a
Fujitsu M2511 magneto-optical drive.  I didn't see this at all until I
added the Fujitsu.

The problem happens even when I'm not accessing the Fujitsu.  It happened,
for instance, when I was recompiling the kernel.

Basically, the system will hang, with the computer's hard-disk light on
solid (which indicates to me that the SCSI bus is hung).  I'm using SCSI
only, so there's no other controller which affects this light.

I haven't had to power-cycle to get things working again once this happens.
The magic reset button is sufficient.

>So, is there someone out there fixing this bug???

Good question.  It's a hard one to nail down because it's hard to reproduce.
It happens randomly, and not very often at all.  After I increased the
timeout length for removable media in the kernel, I saw a lot less of this
problem (but it didn't go away entirely).

I'm using 0.99.13 now (at least tentatively) with the same modifications.
We'll see if this becomes a problem.

My suspicion is that this is, indeed, a problem with relatively slow SCSI
devices.  Any thoughts, Drew?


-- 
Kevin Brown                                     kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com
This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end >
            This is your .signature virus on drugs: <>
                        Any questions?

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

From: kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Window Managers
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 08:03:46 GMT

In article <aa160.749896972@Luxulyan> aa160@city.ac.uk (CHANGAROTH A M) writes:
>sjkangas@major.cs.mtu.edu (STEVEN J. KANGAS) writes:
>
>>      Anybody else notice how your dos partition keeps getting smaller 
>>and smaller the longer you've had Linux?  Right now, I have 130 meg set
>>aside for Linux, and I'm still running out of space.  I can envision
>>a day when dos is gone altogether.  That'll probably be the day when
>>WINE and DOSEMU are perfected.
>>--
>>Steve Kangas
>>sjkangas@major.cs.mtu.edu
>
>WINE maybe, but I'm not so sure about DOSEMU. I was a DOS junkie for ages, and
>now only use it for WordPerfect stuff.  WINE and a Word Processor and I'd remove
>my 20 Meg stackered DOS partition forever.

There's one, and only one, instance where DOS is actually good for something,
and that's when you want the thing you're running to have 100% of the CPU and
minimal overhead for getting to the hardware.  In other words, games.  In
that instance, you *want* your "OS" to be just a filesystem and application
launcher.

So I have a 30 meg partition for DOS, and a 128 meg magneto-optical disk
dedicated to games.

Sure would be interesting if something like X-wing were written to run under
Linux using the VGA libraries and the joystick device...


-- 
Kevin Brown                                     kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com
This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end >
            This is your .signature virus on drugs: <>
                        Any questions?

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

From: ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Jackson)
Subject: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.05)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 10:03:01 GMT

Please do not post questions to comp.os.linux.misc - read on for details of
which groups you should read and post to.

If you have a question about Linux you should get and read the Linux Frequently
Asked Questions with Answers list from sunsite.unc.edu, in /pub/Linux/docs, or
from another Linux FTP site.

In particular, read the question `You still haven't answered my question!'
The FAQ will refer you to the Linux HOWTOs (more detailed descriptions of
particular topics) found in the HOWTO directory in the same place.

Then you should consider posting to comp.os.linux.help - not
comp.os.linux.misc.

Note that X Windows related questions should go to comp.windows.x.i386unix, and
that non-Linux-specific Unix questions should go to comp.unix.questions.
Please read the FAQs for these groups before posting - look on rtfm.mit.edu in
/pub/usenet/news.answers/Intel-Unix-X-faq and .../unix-faq.

Only if you have a posting that is not more appropriate for one of the other
Linux groups - ie it is not a question, not about the future development of
Linux, not an announcement or bug report and not about system administration -
should you post to comp.os.linux.misc.


Comments on this posting are welcomed - please email me !
--
Ian Jackson  <ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu>  (urgent email: iwj10@phx.cam.ac.uk)
2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England;  phone: +44 223 64238

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

From: fingon@highcave ()
Subject: NcFTP(v 1.60b2) binary(ies)
Date: 10 Oct 1993 11:31:58 GMT

Well, I just wanted to inform everyone that I have compiled, and
tested somewhat, NCFTP 1.60 beta2. It's available in sunsite.
Or has been already for 1 day, :)


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

From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery)
Subject: Re: Linux counter passes 2000 entries
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 12:59:33 GMT

In article <1993Oct08.194735.12767@taylor.uucp> mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) writes:
>\___/  Yep, I do tend to sound like a broken record on that subject, sorry.
>       It just would provide instant access to TONS of Unix software without
>       all this hastle about trying to "convince" vendors to port their
>       software to Linux (won't happen for most).

I tried to mail Mark on this several times, but it always bounced...

...the reason you're hearing nothing about COFF is that it's in development
but still so early that announcing its availability isn't considered a good
idea --- and since there aren't any working shared libraries yet the only way
to make shlib-using programs work is to steal someone else's shlibs.  And
there's no prognosis at all for COFF+X11.

Those who are *truly* interested in helping should join the iBSC2 channel of
Linux-Activists:  they're looking for volunteers to help finish it.

(If I ever get upgraded to a reasonable kernel I'd like to help with the
libraries...)

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery         kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org          bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org
"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development."  ---dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca

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

From: lynchtk@wfu.edu (thomas kevi lynch)
Subject: Re: Linux Magazine...
Date: 10 Oct 1993 15:15:32 GMT

derek@aivru.sheffield.ac.uk (Derek Jones) writes:


>Someone said:

>If there's enough interest, I *might* be able to make a proper commercial 
>venture out of it and put it in a "glossy" format for folks to buy. (BTW, 
>the previous magazine I put together was sold at virtually no profit to 
>myself, - the idea was that the cover price would pay for the production, 
>mailing and sundry costs and hence be self financing. I'm thinking along 
>the same lines for a LINUX mag. [ though I wouldn't *discount* profit... 8-) ] )

>What does the community think?

I think it would be an excellent idea.  I've read a few of the follow-ups
after this message, and it seems you would have a great deal of support
and readers.  A  non-glossy edition would be much more appealing to me, and I
would be willing to pay for such overhead in a subscription.  (Though if
this goes through, I'll subscribe to ANY format it happens to come out in :).
There were suggestions as to a electronic readable edition.  I would
suggest first establishing (or perhaps simultaneously) a paper/hardcopy
published edition. As to profit/etc... If such a magazine could be
put together, I would certainly be willing to pay more than just the
production/material costs (not TOO MUCH more, mind you :).  Anyway, I
think it's a great idea, and really hope it goes through.
                                                        Tom Lynch


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

From: ado@bigcomm.gun.de (Christoph Adomeit)
Subject: searching postgres users
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 03:40:49 GMT

Hi,
who uses postgres and can help me by learning it ? Do you think it's stable
enough to develop a multiuser application with it ? 

Ciao
  Christoph

-- 
==============================================================================
fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
(stolen from L.Peter Deutsch, but the signature is too good,isnt't it)
==============================================================================

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

From: andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.development
Subject: Re: PLEASE HELP ME WITH MY SMAIL ROUTING....
Date: 10 Oct 1993 14:24:01 -0000

pogyk@unixg.ubc.ca (Pogy Kurniawan) writes:

>I have recently installed Slackware 1.04 (great package) get it. But I 
>am no smail expert. My machine name is holly.can.com (and holly.uucp).
>Yes my machine has to take email to others within my domain and forward
>it to my uucp neighbors. I have a smarthost defined at van-bc just a uucp
>call away. And I have two downstream feeds (ve7lad.can.com or ve7lad and
>provar.can.com or provar) If mail comes in to my machine it should be
>should put it into their /usr/spool/uucp/provar and /usr/spool/uucp/ve7lad.
>Which would make sense. (they would call me and pick up their mail)
>But it does not, it just gives it to my smarthost. This is very frustrating.
>Also if I type mail ve7lad!bj or provar!root  it still gives it to the smarthost
>If you have any suggestions please email. I am desperate for advice.

I think you have to make an entry into smail's paths file,
usually located in /usr/lib/smail

There should be entries for your machine, your smarthost and each
system, that should receive mail directly from you.

Something like this:

.can.com        van-bc!%s
holly   %s
holly.can.com   %s
provar  provar!%s
provar.can.com  provar!%s
van-bc  van-bc!%s
van-bc.can.com  van-bc!%s
ve7lad  ve7lad!%s
ve7lad.can.com  ve7lad!%s

Usually this file is sorted.
-- 
Andreas Klemm                 /\/\____ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH 
andreas@knobel.knirsch.de ___/\/\/     andreas@sunny.wup.de (Unix Support)

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

From: hxt6@po.CWRU.Edu (Hoa Ton-That)
Subject: a math library for linux?
Date: 10 Oct 1993 18:25:21 GMT


I am looking for a math library for the linux operating system.  Does one 
exist?  and if so how can I get it?  (in particular I need FFT and trig
routines).

Thanks in advance,
Hoa Ton-That
hoa@cwxtl.bioc.cwru.edu
(PS. E-mail replies would be appriciated as I'm a little busy lately)
-- 



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

From: bill@bhhome.ci.net (Bill Heiser)
Subject: Re: Linux Magazine
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 13:45:47 GMT

robjan@rabo.nl writes:

>Maybe a CD-ROM would be a better idea?

A lot of us still don't have [can't afford] CD-ROM drives yet!

-- 
Bill Heiser   bill@bhhome.ci.net       heiser@world.std.com

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

From: mikep@iastate.edu (Michael K Patterson)
Subject: Problem with term
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 18:58:38 GMT

I've got a (simple?) problem with term. I compile it on a DECstation (have
tried 3100s, 5000/133s, etc) and when I run it, it doesn't do anything. It
simply exits. I was under the impression that it would run, waiting for input
from stdin in order to start working. It doesn't leave any background
processes running, so that isn't it... I've tried compiling with the mips 
Makefile, and with the generic one. neither work (although the mips version
compiles cleanly)

Any help is appreciated, email preferred unless it would interest the news
group.

--Michael Patterson (mikep@iastate.edu)

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


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