Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #416
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, 12 Dec 93 11:13:18 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #416, Volume #1                Sun, 12 Dec 93 11:13:18 EST

Contents:
  Re: Jana CDs shipped in November? (gordon@tradenet.tradenet.com)
  Re: What Tape Backup to buy for DOS and LINUX? (Drew Eckhardt)
  *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.07) (Ian Jackson)
  Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites? (Chuck Fee)
  Re: What scanner to buy? (Greg Wettstein)
  Re: Linux Consortium (Lars Wirzenius)
  Re: Security (Rob Janssen)
  Re: Any visual debuggers ? (Martin Boening)
  Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites? (David Jeske)
  Re: Linux counter: Usage growth of Linux (Brandon S. Allbery)
  Login from serial port (COM2, ttyS1) ? (|S| Andreas Krebs)
  Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites? (Brandon S. Allbery)
  Re: What scanner to buy? (H.J. Lu)
  Re: Linux finds a nonexistant 387 (Mark Hayter)

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

From: gordon@tradenet.tradenet.com
Subject: Re: Jana CDs shipped in November?
Date: 11 Dec 1993 07:39:12 -0000

Ernest Leuenberger (ernestl@bnr.ca) wrote:
: I sent an email to Jay directly last night with my mailing address and got 
: an answer this morning saying that he would mail me a CD.

: Jay also said that the jana.com addresses has not worked for the past week.

: I would urge any one that has not received his/her CD yet to email Jay 
: you real address. Here is the address I reached him at:
:  
: 3179690@QUCDN.QueensU.c  


He can also be reached by phone: +1 613 544-6020

This seems to get some action.
Hope to get my CD in the next couple of days.


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

From: drew@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: What Tape Backup to buy for DOS and LINUX?
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 11:03:00 GMT

In article <2edbqtINN927@ope001.iao.ford.com>,
John Jamulla <jamulla@cadcam.pms.ford.com> wrote:
>
>I have been wondering what type of tape backup I should buy
>which I could use for both LINUX and DOS without and real trouble.

What sort of capacity do you want?

>One thing that complicates my matter is that I'm not sure if you
>can have a SCSI controller and an ESDI controller in the same
>machine. Does anyone know this.

Yes.  

>A guy at Microsoft thought you could have an ESDI and  SCSI in the
>same machine, you must boot from the ESDI though. Is this true?

Yes.

>So What I'm needing to know is whether I should get a scsi tape
>backup, or get one that uses the floppy controller etc.

Floppy interface drives are QIC-40 or QIC-80, rather uncommon
formats.  So, transfering data to non-PC systems on those tapes
is rather problematic.

Raw capacity is limited to either 60M or 120M, meaning you'll
have to do tape switching when you backup, making the process 
more painful.

Some vendors tapes are also of very low quality.

Given these drawbacks, I can't recommend a floppy tape drive unless
you're on a tight budget.

Several SCSI possibilities : 

1.  QIC-150.  250M on a ~1100 foot 1/4" tape.  Available used for 
        about $200, new under $400.

2.  Exabyte 8200.  2.3G on a 112M 8mm tape.  Available used for 
        about $500-$600.

3.  DDS-1 DAT.  1.3G on a 60M 4mm tape, 2G on a 90M tape.  Available
        refurbished for $375 (Wangtek DAT, group buy).

Larger new drives in the $1000-$2000 price range : 

1.  DDS-2 DAT.  4.0G on a 90M 4mm tape.

2.  Exabyte 8500.  5.0G on a 112M 8mm tape.


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

From: ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Jackson)
Subject: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.07)
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 11:03:00 GMT

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

Please do not crosspost anything between different groups of the comp.os.linux
hierarchy.  See Matt Welsh's introduction to the hierarchy, posted weekly.

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.  It is also posted periodically to c.o.l.announce.

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: fee@cxf111.rh.psu.edu (Chuck Fee)
Subject: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites?
Date: 12 Dec 1993 11:13:15 GMT

I'd first like to preface this with the notice that the archive sites
are solely under the control of their respective operators and I do
not wish to insinuate that I am making demands of any kind. Further
I would like to publicly thank Peter MacDonald for putting together
SLS in the first place. SLS made my switch to linux relatively
painful and I couldn't have been happier. I wish he would make his
intentions clear about upgrading SLS.

-=-=-=-

The Demise of SLS

Today, the tide has turned. except for a new a1 disk of some
sort uploaded a few weeks ago, SLS has stagnated at version 1.03. This
would not be a problem if the distribution was acceptably stable, but
unfortunately it is not. Its maintainer seems to have gone the way of
the dodo, driven off for reasons I do not know.

The problem is that SLS is seem by many not in the know as THE Linux
distribution. There are others that are not as well known and are far
better in today's linux world. SLS has stuck at libc 4.4.2, kernel
0.99.12, Xfree86 1.2 and (an apparently unusable) emacs 18.59.

I have noticed that no matter the flaming SLS receives and the pleas
that people not use it, it is still being downloaded regularly. This
should be curtailed for the benefit of those about to install linux
for the first time. to get SLS 1.03 up to par with slackware, you must:

0.) upgrade ext2fs to 0.4!! the version of ext2fs from SLS is really old.
1.) upgrade the kernel to 0.99.13 or 0.99.14.  SLS's 0.99.12 was put out
        an eternity ago. There have been about 50 ALPHA patches put out by
        Linus in the meantime.
2.) upgrade libc to 4.4.4 (not too painful)
3.) get ld.so
4.) upgrade xfree86 to 2.0.  1.2 is ancient.
5.) upgrade emacs to 19.xx 
6.) upgrade gcc to 2.4.5 or 2.5.x

doing this is the equivalent of downloading an entire new distribution.


I cannot see how anyone could possibly recommend using SLS when it has in
fact become so out of date. The networking code alone is a relic of days
long gone by. Alan and Fred have spend these last months providing fixes
to the networking code. It is unconscionable to allow people to use
code that we know is flaky.

As an old time linux supporter, it saddens me to see SLS decay into
the outdated distribution it has become, but at the same time I 
cannot sit back and watch people download it and be plagued by
problems that were fixed 4 months ago and be subjected to nasty
flames by people who did get the chance to get an actively supported
linux distribution.

So my humble suggestion is to either outright remove SLS from the
linux archives or move them to the attic directory (at least on tsx-11)
or at the very least have a warning message explaining just how old
SLS is and that really don't want to be using it. Of course, this
is just a suggestion and I hope it gets some constrcutive debate going.
I am in no position to dictate anything; I'm just trying to help out.

--chuck


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

Subject: Re: What scanner to buy?
From: Greg Wettstein <NU013809@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 03:01:02 CST

> I want to setup a Linux box with an attached SCSI scanner.
>
> What is the class of options which I am restricted to?  Presumably
> vendor-supplied scanner-control software will break.  What is the
> Linux-software scene on scanning?  I don't need much user interface:
> just the raw ability to say "take page" and (seperately) to display
> a tiff file using X.
>

My Linux workstation at home (sitting right next to me) is right now in
the process of compiling a kernel with an ALPHA level SCSI-II scanner
driver in it while I read news.  Hopefully if things stay on schedule and
I get a little time over the holidays we should have something testable
by around the first of the year.  I have been working on this blatted
thing for about 4 months but time constraints at work and home have
effectively neutered the process somewhat... :-)

I studied the market fairly extensively this summer in preparation for
embarking on our image processing project at the Center.  Pickings are
reasonably slim, or at least were this summer.  The scanner that I am
testing the new driver on is a Fujitsu ScanPartner 10 which purports to
follow the SCSI-II specifications for page scanners.  Fully compliant
generic SCSI was one of our vending requirements.  This scanner was about
the only thing that really popped out of the woodwork.  I believe that
Fujitsu may have some higher end units that are accessible via RS-232
as well.  This scanner came in around the 2K mark and was all that I could
get appropriated for the project.

All the lower-end stuff will talk about being SCSI compliant but everything
we looked at, including the HP stuff, used some proprietary interface card
which nobody wanted to release programming information on.  People have
sent me mail saying that information is available from HP but I have had
no success finding anyone there smarter than a mushroom to talk to.

I will keep everyone posted as to what is happening with the driver.  There
doesn't seem to be much out there in terms of documenting what the programming
information or interface should be.  I was hoping to find something like
a sys/mtio.h equivalent but as of yet have found nothing.  The first round
will thus be basically what I invent in terms of a programming interface.
If anyone has any suggestions or documentation on what the program interface
should look like I am all ears.

There is one other thing that would be of help.  I do not have a heavy
background in graphics or image manipulation.  I have got this thing
generating basic bitmaps but have no real mechanism for getting them
displayed under X (other than od dumps which of course are of limited
interest to end users.. :-) ).  I would appreciate any pointers to stuff
that would get me going in this department.

Thanks for any positive comments or suggestions.  Someone in another group
made the comment that scanning devices are poorly supported in the
desktop UNIX environment.  Perhaps we can make Linux a forward mover in
this area as well.  A pleasant week/end to all the Linux associates.

As always,
Dr. G.W. Wettstein           Oncology Research Div. Computing Facility
Roger Maris Cancer Center    UUCP:  uunet!plains!wind!greg
Fargo, ND  58122             INTERNET: greg%wind.UUCP@plains.nodak.edu
Phone: 701-234-2833
======================================================================
`The truest mark of a man's wisdom is his ability to listen to other
 men expound their wisdom.' -- GWW

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

From: wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius)
Subject: Re: Linux Consortium
Date: 12 Dec 1993 14:48:49 +0200

markline@henson.cc.wwu.edu (Mark Line) writes:
> the name. Who are the *official* speakers for the Linux development
> community, and what is their opinion about the name? Or are *you*
> their spokesman? As you said -- I'm a relative newcomer to Linux, so I
> really don't know if you are their spokesman or not. I assumed Linus
> or Lars was.

There are no official speakers for the Linux development community.
Everyone is expected to speak for themselves.  However, some people
do perceive a consensus on certain things, and will express that.
If they perceive badly, they will be flamed.

Even Linus can't speak for everyone.  And, in this particular case,
his reaction seems to be ``Who cares, gimme back my keyboard''.

Also, I'd like to make it clear, once and for all, that I don't speak
for the Linux developers, ever.  I don't even consider myself one,
though I might if and when I get a certain pile-o-excrement finished
enough to be given to other people.

--
Lars.Wirzenius@helsinki.fi  (finger wirzeniu@klaava.helsinki.fi)
Humans are unreliable, computers are non-deterministically reliable.

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

From: rob@pe1chl.ampr.org (Rob Janssen)
Subject: Re: Security
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 12:53:16 GMT

In <2e53si$hbk@jacobs.jacobs.mn.org> root@jacobs.mn.org (Mike Horwath) writes:

>Mathias Koerber (mathias@solomon.technet.sg) wrote:
>: Ok, that might work for some users. I am thinking of installations, where
>:      a) many people should have access to that PC as normal users
>:      b) they are encouraged to use floppies for backup etc.

>: I want to protect the system against booting from floppy (not actually bad in
>: itself) or moreover against other prople mounting the root filesystem
>: from other OS'es they boot.

>: Mathias Koerber
>: email: mathias@solomon.technet.sg
>: swispl@solomon.technet.sg

>this can be accomplished with current AMI bios' by setting a password to
>get into the bios and YOU set the bios to boot off of C: and ignore A:
>for booting.  Should be in the Advanced CMOS settings.

Unfortunately that won't work when you are using a SCSI controller and
boot from it...
(I would like to set that feature even if it is only to let the system
complete the boot when a floppy happens to be in the drive, but the BIOS
ignores it with my Adaptec 1542B)

Rob
-- 
=========================================================================
| Rob Janssen                | AMPRnet:   rob@pe1chl.ampr.org           |
|                            | AX.25 BBS: PE1CHL@PI8UTR.#UTR.NLD.EU     |
| e-mail: pe1chl@rabo.nl     | Tel. BBS:  +31-30715610 (23:00-07:30 LT) |

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

From: boening.pad@sni.de (Martin Boening)
Subject: Re: Any visual debuggers ?
Date: 12 Dec 93 13:48:48 GMT

Hi,

did you try out xxgdb?

So long,
Martin
--
Email.....: boening.pad@sni.de
Paper Mail: Martin Boening, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG; 
            Dept.: MR OI 4, Riemekestr. 160, 33106 Paderborn, W.-Germany  
Phone.....: +49 5251 835641

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

From: jeske@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (David Jeske)
Subject: Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites?
Date: 12 Dec 1993 14:34:07 GMT


As sad as it is, and as much as I owe alot to SLS for being there and getting
me started in the beginning, all the points made seem to be on the mark.
I have had no problems WORSE then 0.99pl12 (which I ended up never running
because of the problems) and Xfree 2.0 is light years ahead of 1.2. 

At the very least the SLS 1.03 should have a note attached which reminds the
user of the date of the materials and the Places to look elsewhere for newer
material.


-- 
David Jeske(N9LCA)/CompEng Student at Univ of Ill at Cham-Urbana/NeXT Programmer
CoCreator of the GTalk Chat Software System  - online at (708)998-0008
Mail:  jeske@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu    NeXTMail: jeske@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu

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

From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery)
Subject: Re: Linux counter: Usage growth of Linux
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 14:35:26 GMT

In article <1993Dec12.052504.31518@inex.com>, carlb@inex.com (Carl Boernecke) says:
+---------------
| Don't get my wrong, I don't like anything that has left that
| big company in Redmond, Washington, but they know how to make
| it easier for the 'common person.'  This is what Linux should
| strive to achieve if it ever wants to 'saturate' the market.
+---------------

I think this is certainly doable... offer them XF86_VGA16 or XF16_Mono
depending on the card detected (and telling the difference between VGA and
Hercules mono is simple) and write the installation in Tk.

---Auto-detecting hish resolutions isn't being done by NT, right?  That's a
good way to fry a monitor, since you can't detect the monitor's highest
resolution (specifically, highest horizontal frequency) from the computer. :-(
MS-Windows and OS/2 use 640x480 and let you customize it afterwards.

+---------------
| (BTW, the Slackware reference is strictly the local preference,
| or so it would seem.  Mention anything other than Slackware
| or MCS and some of the locals will cut your head off and call
| you bad names.  *smirk*)
+---------------

I can understand that response to SLS, but what do they have against TAMU?

I'm about to help a local bring up TAMU... and probably regret it, because
he knows nothing whatsoever about Unix but won't take my advice to slow down
and get an intro-to-Unix book; he wants to barrel forward at full speed :-(

++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
Do not taunt Happy Fun Coder.   (seen on the Net...)

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

From: S_KREBS@iravcl.ira.uka.de (|S| Andreas Krebs)
Subject: Login from serial port (COM2, ttyS1) ?
Date: 2 Dec 93 13:54:13 GMT

I've connected my amiga to my 486 by ther serial port (COM2, ttyS1) and
want to use it as terminal.
Therefore I enter 'getty 9600 ttyS1' and get the normal login message
on my amiga and can enter user id. Now I get a prompt to type in the
password, but this only works, if I use the console from where I've
started getty. 
After the password is entered, I can continue working on my amiga,
like a normal terminal.

How do I get linux to accept the password from serial port (ttyS1) ???
And what did I have to do, to create an entry into /etc/inittab, so
that I don't have to enter 'getty 9600 ttyS1' each time I want a
connection to my amiga.

If you know a solution for my problem, please let me know.

   Andreas

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

From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery)
Subject: Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites?
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 14:58:10 GMT

In article <2eeucb$gth@genesis.ait.psu.edu>, fee@cxf111.rh.psu.edu (Chuck Fee) says:
+---------------
| SLS in the first place. SLS made my switch to linux relatively
| painful and I couldn't have been happier. I wish he would make his
+-^^^^^^^

Freudian slip?  :-)

SLS 1.04 is out... on CDROM.  Peter didn't like people suggesting he actually
fix bugs in the distribution, so he stopped putting it out on the net.  If he
still hasn't fixed them in his CDROM-only distribution, I feel sorry for his
customers...

I would prefer that Peter would update and *fix* SLS.  But polite requests and
bug reports were ignored, and when they eventually stopped being polite he
took them as insults and left.  I don't particularly see this as our fault.
And the Slackware 1.0.0 incident didn't help.  (Slackware 1.0.0 was SLS with
bugfixes.  Peter got absolutely p*ssed about it and retroactively stripped the
GPL from sysinstall to stop Slackware's distribution.  Pat wrote pkgtool to
replace it.  ---If sysinstall is still non-GPLed, then SLS is probably in
violation of the GPL as well, since sysinstall can't reasonably be said to be
a mere agglomeration with all the GPLed utilities and the kernel.)

++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
Do not taunt Happy Fun Coder.   (seen on the Net...)

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

From: hjl@nynexst.com (H.J. Lu)
Subject: Re: What scanner to buy?
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 14:33:58 GMT

Greg Wettstein (NU013809@NDSUVM1.BITNET) wrote:

: Thanks for any positive comments or suggestions.  Someone in another group
: made the comment that scanning devices are poorly supported in the

I was wondering why NEXTSTEP was not popular now as it should be.
Nobody knows it. I used a HP SCSI scanner under NEXTSTEP. The software
beats the one in MS-Windows. We unpluged it from the PC and connected
to a NEXTSTATION. But NEXTSTATION is way too slow.

: desktop UNIX environment.  Perhaps we can make Linux a forward mover in
: this area as well.  A pleasant week/end to all the Linux associates.


H.J.

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

From: mdh@cl.cam.ac.uk (Mark Hayter)
Subject: Re: Linux finds a nonexistant 387
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 15:20:01 GMT

In article <755634395snxwomble@spuddy.UUCP>, sweh.womble@spuddy.UUCP (Stephen Harris) writes:
|> In article <2e9km4INNvpl@rs18.hrz.th-darmstadt.de> wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de writes:
|> > I've installed slackware 1.1.0 on a 386DX40 8MB with cyrix cpu and NO 387.
|> > Strangely, the kernel finds a 387 when booting up, it tells something like:
|> > 
|> > Checking fpu.... ok, fpu bound to irq 13 ...   (This is not the exact text,
|> >                                                  but approx...)
|> 
        [ part deleted ]
|> 
|> If you don't use LILO for booting, then grovel around the sources until you
|> find where the kernel decodes "no387" (sorry can't remember off hand)
|> and hack there.
|> 
|> Hope this helps.
|> 
|>                             Stephen Harris
|>        sweh.womble@spuddy.uucp     ...!uknet!axion!spuddy!sweh.womble
|> 
|> *  Meow! Call Spuddy the Cat for Usenet access in the UK.  Call 0203 364436 *

I had this problem, again with a cyrix cpu and no 387. Until I upgraded to
a version of lilo & kernel that understood the no387 flag I would comment out
the 4 lines in boot/head.S so the routine check_x87 always sets _hard_math to
zero and the flags for no coprocessor. Looks to me as though this should work
in pl14 (though I have not tried it), it certainly worked in pl8, 10 and 11.

Mark

====================================
Mark Hayter
Cambridge University Computer Laboratory
New Museums Site,                         Email Mark.Hayter@cl.cam.ac.uk
Pembroke Street,                          Tel   +44 223 334645
Cambridge CB2  3QG                        Fax   +44 223 334678
England

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


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