Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #428
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:     Tue, 14 Dec 93 18:13:12 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #428, Volume #1                Tue, 14 Dec 93 18:13:12 EST

Contents:
  Re: _Real_ hackers ... (Bill C. Riemers)
  Re: ld.so, where is it? (Charles Hawkins)
  A typical Linux machine (Harald T. Alvestrand)
  Re: Call for Internationalization Volunteers. (Richard L. Goerwitz)
  Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive (Mark Morley)
  Re: Yet another benchmark results.. (Anatoly.Lisovsky@kamaz.kazan.su)
  Re: ld.so, where is it? (H.J. Lu)
  Re: _Real_ hackers ... (Larry Doolittle)
  Re: Who is the typical Linux user? (Larry Doolittle)
  Re: What Tape Backup to buy for DOS and LINUX? (Stephen R. Savitzky)
  Re: _Real_ hackers ... (Stephen R. Savitzky)
  Re: Seek Medford-area Linux person to help my nephew there (David Feldman)
  Re: Elm 2.4.23 and ISO-8859-1 charset on Linux (Rene COUGNENC)
  Crossposts (was Re: Let's vote) (Rene COUGNENC)
  Backing up DOS partitions from Linux (Pawel Gburzynski)
  Re: _Real_ hackers ... (Eric Youngdale)

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

From: bcr@bohr.physics.purdue.edu (Bill C. Riemers)
Subject: Re: _Real_ hackers ...
Date: 14 Dec 93 12:12:18 GMT

In article <2eikok$o55@fitz.TC.Cornell.EDU> elan@tasha.cheme.cornell.edu (Elan Feingold) writes:
>Real hackers debug by listening to the interferance generated by the
>running microprocessor on their FM radio.

Don't laugh to hard, while I doubt it is the microprocessor producing the
majority of the sound, I have seen people use this technique to find out
exactly when a program died.  (Although I doubt this would work well in
a multi-processing environment.)

                                 Bill



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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: ceh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Charles Hawkins)
Subject: Re: ld.so, where is it?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:00:25 GMT

In article <1993Dec14.125543.27757@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, ceh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Charles Hawkins) writes:
|> In article <2egc3d$2ce@orion.cc.andrews.edu>, beaman@andrews.edu (Kendall Beaman) writes:
|> |>    Ok.  I've been messing with Linux and decided to change my shell.  I like
|> |> ksh better that the others so I got it and untarred it.  I can now no longer
|> |> log in as root.  Each time I get a error telling me that it can't load the
|> |> dynamic linker ld.so.  I logged in as one of my users and searched for it but
|> |> didn't find it.  How can I fix it if I can't log in as root?  
|> |> -- 
|> |> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|> |> I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the
|> |> streets and frighten the horses.    -- Victor Hugo
|> |>                                                         beaman@andrews.edu
|> This one gets asked so often!! Not really your fault Victor, the file has ldso
                                                        ^^^^^^
Sorry I mean Kendall.... OK so I can't tell a signature when I see one, but I've got
flu, a sore throat, hangover ...........

Charles

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

From: hta@uninett.no (Harald T. Alvestrand)
Subject: A typical Linux machine
Date: 14 Dec 1993 14:46:21 GMT
Reply-To: Linux-counter@uninett.no

After more than 200 machines entered into my database, I feel like
offering the following observations about a typical Linux machine:

- It is a 386 or 486, in the 33 to 40 MHz range.
- It has a couple of hundred megs of disk
- It has 8-16 megs of memory (2 being the lowest observed)
- It is either not networked, or networked by Ethernet or SLIP.
- It is mostly a single-user machine

And, most important: There are LOTS of exceptions!
(I wouldn't want to run Linux on a 386/16 with 2 megs of memory and
40 megs of disk - but SOMEONE may be doing that just now....)

Register by using the //MACHINE command to the Linux counter!
Good luck!

Raw data:


205 machines counted, 26 duplicates eliminated

Distribution of cpu
  6   2.9%: 386/16
  7   3.4%: 386/20
 15   7.3%: 386/25
 19   9.3%: 386/33
 19   9.3%: 386/40
  1   0.5%: 486/20
  9   4.4%: 486/25
  1   0.5%: 486/26
 58  28.3%: 486/33
  1   0.5%: 486/40
  9   4.4%: 486/50
 12   5.9%: 486/66
  1   0.5%: 586/66
 47  22.9%: unknown

Distribution of disk
  1   0.5%:     0-   50
 13   6.3%:    50-  100
 44  21.5%:   100-  200
 45  22.0%:   200-  300
 55  26.8%:   300-  500
 37  18.0%:   500- 1000
  9   4.4%:  1000- 1500
  1   0.5%:  1500- 2000

Distribution of memory
 30  14.6%:   0-  4
101  49.3%:   5-  8
 62  30.2%:   9- 16
 12   5.9%:  17- 32

Distribution of network
 53  25.9%: ethernet
 84  41.0%: none
 28  13.7%: slip
 20   9.8%: term
.....some others deleted by hand....

Distribution of users
  1   0.5%:  0- 0
121  59.0%:  1- 1
 47  22.9%:  2- 2
 16   7.8%:  3- 3
 15   7.3%:  4-10
  4   2.0%: 11-20
  1   0.5%: 31-100

-- 
                   Harald Tveit Alvestrand
                Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
      G=Harald;I=T;S=Alvestrand;O=uninett;P=uninett;C=no
                      +47 73 59 70 94
My son's name is Torbjxrn. The letter between "j" and "r" is o with a slash.
       Register with the Linux Counter - send to linux-counter@uninett.no!

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

From: goer@quads.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Call for Internationalization Volunteers.
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:18:54 GMT

Mitchum DSouza <mitchum.dsouza@mrc-apu.cam.ac.uk> writes:

>(yet to be released), has now been internationalized. This means anyone
>is able to produce the standard system messages in the language of their
>choice (with the appropriate catalog of course) or to change them in any
>shape or content.

The word internationalized is used in many senses, I gather.  Which one
is meant here?  Not all languages are written left-to-right.  Some go up-
down; others go right-left.  True internationalization would mean accom-
modating these languages.  In other cases, the script is ligatured and
also often diacritized, as in, say, Arabic.  Finally, some languages have
so many characters that it's impossible to do them any other way than
with long characters, such as the ISO 10646 standard (I believe this one
is a 32-bit standard).  Until all of these things are supported, there is
not really internationalization.  To what extent is the internationaliza-
tion you are talking about really internationalization?

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the libc implementation.  I
am just a linguist lurking online, trying to keep engineering types hon-
est!  :-)

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer

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

From: morley@suncad.camosun.bc.ca (Mark Morley)
Subject: Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 17:52:55 GMT

Bob Myers (bmyers@dseg.ti.com) wrote:

> p.s.  these opinions are my own...and I know that I might be flamed being
> pro-SLS.  However, if the one's who did the complaining would try to take the
> time to collect everything together themselves and try to do a distribution
> of a "working system", they may find that it's not a trivial task...

> Also, I'm wondering if anyone else took the time to contact Peter to see why
> the SLS release wasn't being updated...instead of griping about it.

I agree!

Peter recently sent be a complimentary copy of the SLS 1.04 CD...  If you
haven't seen it, he's put a LOT of work into it.  Just the packaging alone
would have been a lot of work.  I know I'm impressed with it (and yes I've
tried some of the other distribs and no, I'm NOT a unix newbie)

For those who flamed him about his BYTE ads making it sound like Linux was
an SLS product...  I quote the first paragraph in the small (but
nicely done!) manual:

"Welcome to version 1.04 of SLS, the Softlanding Linx System.  Linux
 is a free 386 inux like operating system similar to System V, which was
 developed by Linus Torvalds, plus a few hundred big hearted programmers
 on the Internet.  SLS is a distribution available since early 1992, that is
 being used and developed by thousands of users around the world."

Sounds like he's perfectly willing to give credit where credit is due.  I
wouldn't blame him a bit for not uploading this version to the net after
all the flaming that went on.

However, I suspect it's really just a matter of time/pressure/stress for
Peter.  He's here in the same city as me, although I've never met him
personally.  His account is at the university here.  I know that most
people (likely including him) have to pay $5 per hour PLUS $5 per CPU
minute for an Internet account there.  That ain't cheap!  As far as I know
he has a full time job too (Softlanding is an "on-the-side" business I
believe).  I don't think he has any employees.  He told me in email that
his BYTE add was generating 200+ calls a week (not necessarily sales mind
you).

Sure, SLS has had a large number of flaws/bugs in the past (it likely
still has some).  But he's only 1 guy!  Give him a break!  He's done more
for Linux than most of you put together!  I bet in another 6 months
or so people move on to flaming Slackware or one of the others too.  

So... who of you under the same circumstances would have the
time/energy/money to upload a huge distribution like SLS?  Very few I'd
wager. 

I'm trying to help by giving Peter a free account on my Linux BBS (full
'net access).  Hopefully this could save him some money...  If he asks me
I'll even consider uploading SLS 1.04 from the CD for him (or mounting it
on my system for others to FTP)

Mark


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

From: Anatoly.Lisovsky@kamaz.kazan.su
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.os.vms,comp.benchmarks,relcom.talk,relcom.fido.su.general
Subject: Re: Yet another benchmark results..
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 18:05:23 +0300
Reply-To: Anatoly.Lisovsky@kamaz.kazan.su

In
    comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.os.vms,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.benchmarks,relcom.talk,relcom.fido.su.general
    article <1993Dec13.215020.14396@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu> Dragon
    Fly writes:

>Thanks to everybody who presented the
>figures from their boxes.
>As of today the accumulated results are:

(about how to use multiuser computers in terms of stupid calculator,
and, of course, his PC with pseudoUNIX is best in such a case:)

May be his poor mother dropped him from 10'th floor,
so he still want to show others that he anyway is SuperMan. :)
What is the English for "Complex Nepolnotsennosti"?

Does it mean inferiority complex?


[stupid results deleted] 



> Serge
-- 
Anatoly M. Lisovsky, KAMAZ Inc., General Economics Department, STAR division
============ The Network is The Computer. Per Aspera ad Sun! ===============



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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: hjl@nynexst.com (H.J. Lu)
Subject: Re: ld.so, where is it?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 17:43:49 GMT

In article <1993Dec14.125543.27757@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, ceh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Charles Hawkins) writes:

[...]

|> This one gets asked so often!! Not really your fault Victor, the file has ldso
|> in its filename NOT ld.so, so search the ls-lR for that.
|> 
|> To those in charge of ld.so and the ftp sites - Any chance the filename can
|> be changed to ld.so????? It might save a lot of bandwidth.
|> 
|> Charles Hawkins
|> 

Consider it is done on tsx-11.

H.J.

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

From: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: _Real_ hackers ...
Reply-To: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 17:36:29 GMT

In article <2eikok$o55@fitz.TC.Cornell.EDU>,
elan@tasha.cheme.cornell.edu (Elan Feingold) writes:
> 
> Real hackers debug by listening to the interferance generated by the
> running microprocessor on their FM radio.
                                  ^^^^^^^^
> 
> elan

You mean AM.  You don't get anything from FM radios.
And you have to tune the AM radio between bands.
I am not sure this trick works any more.  It used
to work best when the radio was on top of the core
memory unit - we don't have that very often any more :-(

I sure hope someone is archiving this thread.

           - Larry Doolittle   doolittle@cebaf.gov

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

From: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: Who is the typical Linux user?
Reply-To: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 17:42:25 GMT

In article <1993Dec13.234128.18292@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca>,
barb@brule.forsci.ualberta.ca (Barb Beck) writes:
> Dan Mattrazzo seems to think that 10 year olds and mothers are too dumb to
> handle linux.  I have met several 10 year olds much more capable of
> doing something on such a system than some cs grads.  My GRANDAUGHTER should
> start learning something about it soon.
>                                          GRANDMA Beck
>                                          A linux user

My four-year old is quite comfortable logging in
(his username is his first name, no password *yet*),
typing "startx" to bring up XFree86, and navigating the
fvwm menus.  His favorite programs are xroach, xpaint,
xfig, and lander (he always crashes).  He is a little
erratic about logging off, though.  College will cure
that :-)

My two-year old is still having trouble getting the
hang of xpaint, but he is making progress.

(I kept my old '286 on the side, serial linked in,
so I can continue to read my mail when my children
demand a turn on the fancy screen)

             - Larry Doolittle   doolittle@cebaf.gov


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

From: steve@crc.ricoh.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky)
Subject: Re: What Tape Backup to buy for DOS and LINUX?
Date: 14 Dec 1993 19:10:57 GMT

In article <2edbqtINN927@ope001.iao.ford.com> jamulla@iao.ford.com (John Jamulla) writes:

   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.

I have an HP DAT drive that works just fine.  The DOS backup software
that I got with the Corel SCSI tools is ghastly, so I just mount my
DOS partition from Linux as /c, and type "tar -c /".  Backs up 340Mb
in 20 minutes.

--
\ --Steve Savitzky--  \    343 Leigh Ave   \ REAL HACKERS USE AN AXE!
 \ steve@crc.ricoh.COM \ San Jose, CA 95128 \     Free Cyberia!
  \ w: 415-496-5710     \   h:408-294-6492   \ 
   \_________________________________________________________________________

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

From: steve@crc.ricoh.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky)
Subject: Re: _Real_ hackers ...
Date: 14 Dec 1993 19:15:06 GMT

In article <CHuHAC.LM@seneca.ix.de> hm@seneca.ix.de (Harald Milz) writes:

   *Real* hackers don't even use disks, they use flintstones.

Is that a new benchmark?  If so, shouldn't it be spelled fhlintstones?
I've always said that real hackers use an axe.
--
\ --Steve Savitzky--  \    343 Leigh Ave   \ REAL HACKERS USE AN AXE!
 \ steve@crc.ricoh.COM \ San Jose, CA 95128 \     Free Cyberia!
  \ w: 415-496-5710     \   h:408-294-6492   \ 
   \_________________________________________________________________________

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

From: dgf@netcom.com (David Feldman)
Subject: Re: Seek Medford-area Linux person to help my nephew there
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 17:58:50 GMT

In article <2ek0sd$s04@news.cerf.net> jkreznar@ininx.com (John E. Kreznar) writes:
>My 14-year old nephew is just getting interested in computers, and I'd
>like to be sure he doesn't get trapped by Microsoft.  Unfortunately, I'm
>in Los Angeles and don't often get to visit him at his home near
>Medford, Oregon.
>
>If you're a Linux enthusiast near Medford and would like to provide
>occasional personal guidance to a promising young man, please respond by
>email.
>-- 
>
>       John E. Kreznar         | Relations among people to be by
>       jkreznar@ininx.com      | mutual consent, or not at all.

Somehow this just made me think of how hard it was to quit thinking/programming
in BASIC once better languages came out - could Microsoft be the BASIC of the
90's? Good luck!

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

From: rene@renux.frmug.fr.net (Rene COUGNENC)
Subject: Re: Elm 2.4.23 and ISO-8859-1 charset on Linux
Date: 14 Dec 1993 13:57:39 GMT

Ce brave Arjan de Vet ecrit:

> >This is a common problem whith all versions of elm :-((

> The real problem is the uncomplete setlocale implementation of the Linux
> C-library. But Mitchum DSouza is working on it.

Yes, I have been told that :-)

I admit that the locale stuff is one thing that I have never tried to
understand :-)  (Most systems I used did not come whith that, that's another
reason...)

This is a C question, but after all this is the  .misc group:

If, isacii()  happens to return true on 8 bit characters when my language
is something like French... How will all the code I wrote work, when I
use that for testing the validity of a string which MUST be ASCII, I mean
pure 7 bits ?

8 bit chars may be printable, for sure, depending of the country. So no
problem for isprint(). But the ASCII set defines only the 7 bits ones...

Locale really lose me :-) What about the output of ctime(), if the French
version comes to return a French output format, if it is parsed somewhere
in an obscure shell-script or something like that...?

Well, I think I have to learn some more C, the world is changing too fast
for me  :-))   Are K&R still alive ? :-))

--
 linux linux linux linux -[ cougnenc@renux.frmug.fr.net ]- linux linux linux 

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

From: rene@renux.frmug.fr.net (Rene COUGNENC)
Subject: Crossposts (was Re: Let's vote)
Date: 14 Dec 1993 14:03:43 GMT

Ce brave Phillip Hardy ecrit:

> personly i hate all the crossposting :) i read one group and then 
> i get the message in the next ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
> alt.linux.help.kernel
> alt.linux.help.Xwindows


Hmm:
        >> X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Upgrade your newsreader. Tin works proprely whith crossposts now, you
just read the article once.

--
 linux linux linux linux -[ cougnenc@renux.frmug.fr.net ]- linux linux linux 

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: pawel@cs.UAlberta.CA (Pawel Gburzynski)
Subject: Backing up DOS partitions from Linux
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 17:49:35 GMT

I wonder if it is possible to back up a compressed (double-space)
DOS partition from Linux. I have a SCSI tape drive which is not visible
from the DOS portion of my dual system because I don't have any DOS
software for it. Nonetheless, I would like to be able to back up the
DOS partition from Linux. Obviously, there should be nothing wrong
with backing up (and later restoring) a regular DOS file system, but
what about a compressed file system? When I mount this partition from
Linux, I see there the following files:

-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root     16338944 Dec 13 20:27 386spart.par
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root     219858944 Dec 13 20:12 dblspace.000
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root        40566 Sep 30 06:20 io.sys
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root        38138 Sep 30 06:20 msdos.sys
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root        54619 Sep 30 06:20 command.com
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root        64246 Sep 30 06:20 dblspace.bin
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root           91 Jul  9 22:37 dblspace.ini

If I back them up, then erase, and later restore (all from Linux),
will DOS recognize the restored compressed file system, or perhaps it assumes
some parameters of these files which are not carried over to the Linux
environment?

Has anybody done it before? Well, I can always try, but, as you can see,
the DOS partition is rather large, so I would prefer to avoid losing it if
something goes wrong. I am not a DOS expert and, without offending anybody,
I would prefer not to become one.

Thanks for any comments,


======================================================================
Pawel Gburzynski
Department of Computing Science
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta CANADA  T6G 2H1
e-mail: pawel@cs.ualberta.ca, tel: (403) 492-2347, fax: (403) 492-1071
======================================================================

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

From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale)
Subject: Re: _Real_ hackers ...
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 20:08:12 GMT

In article <STEVE.93Dec14111506@shasta.crc.ricoh.COM> steve@crc.ricoh.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky) writes:
>In article <CHuHAC.LM@seneca.ix.de> hm@seneca.ix.de (Harald Milz) writes:
>
>   *Real* hackers don't even use disks, they use flintstones.
>
>Is that a new benchmark?  If so, shouldn't it be spelled fhlintstones?
>I've always said that real hackers use an axe.

Reminds me of an old rhyme (updated for the 1990's):

        Lizzie Borden took an axe,
        gave her hard disk fourty whacks.
        When she saw what she had done,
        she gave her modem fourty-one.

-Eric

P.S. Lizzie Borden was accused of being an axe murderer in Fall River
Massachusetts, sometime in the last century I recall.  In the original version
of the rhyme "hard disk" == father, modem == mother.

-- 
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,
And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep."

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


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