Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #431
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:     Wed, 15 Dec 93 08:13:08 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #431, Volume #1                Wed, 15 Dec 93 08:13:08 EST

Contents:
  Hardware questions: ethernet, video, disk (merkel@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
  Re: Linux / DOS boot chooser anywhere? (Dustin Mollo)
  RE: Yet another benchmark results.. (Brian Tillman)
  Re: A typical Linux machine (H.J. Lu)
  Re: Slackware Seyon faults with sig 11 (Patrick J. Volkerding)
  Re: Linux counter: Usage growth of Linux (Cameron L. Spitzer)
  BusLogic BT747 not work (Alex Y.M. Fan (Online Education))
  Re: Windows emulation  was Re: Microsoft Invented Inferior Personal C (Harald T. Alvestrand)
  Re: Yet another benchmark results.. (Jan Christiaan van Winkel)
  *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.07) (Ian Jackson)
  Re: Linux counter: Usage growth of Linux (Andy Bolton)
  Linux meets COSE Standards (Edmund Numenberger)
  Linux Counter: 4352 registered Linux users (Harald T. Alvestrand)

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

From: merkel@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
Subject: Hardware questions: ethernet, video, disk
Date: 14 Dec 1993 21:18:58 -0500

Hi,

I'm sorry to ask such specific questions, but I am about to build several
Linux boxes for some research labs and I don't want to sink a load of
money into the wrong hardware.

Because these computers will be used in real research applications, speed
and reliability are big concerns.

1) Ethernet cards: IBM is among the many vendors offering inexpensive 
   ISA ethernet cards ($115 for a 10b2/5/T card, others cheaper, buy
   3 get 1 free, 800-IBM-CALL [I don't own stock]).  These are allegedly
   NE-2000 compatible.  Will these work with the Linux NE-2000 drivers?
   Does anyone have any experience with them?

2) I understand the differences between IDE and SCSI-1.  Given the limits
   of the ISA bus, though, which makes a better disk system: LB-IDE or
   SCSI-1?  Should a *second* disk be SCSI?  Is/will SCSI-2 be available
   for Linux?

3) I'm well aware of the battles between XFree and Diamond.  Excluding
   Diamond, what is the best video card for Linux/X if price is no
   object?

Thanks in advance!

Fred Merkel
Department of Psychology
The Johns Hopkins U

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

Subject: Re: Linux / DOS boot chooser anywhere?
From: dmollo@odie.santarosa.edu (Dustin Mollo)
Date: 13 Dec 93 23:25:10 PST

[Misc. Replies Deleted]

There is also LILO.  The God of all boot choosers..  I can't believe someone
hasn't brought this one up before..  Hmm..  Oh well, if I am completely off
the subject on this one, let me know.  C'ya.!

-Dustin
dustin@cs.santarosa.edu
dmollo@odie.santarosa.edu

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

Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.os.vms,comp.benchmarks,relcom.talk,relcom.fido.su.general
From: tillman@agvax (Brian Tillman)
Subject: RE: Yet another benchmark results..
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 09:33:02 GMT

In a previous article, viznyuk@mps.ohio-state.edu (Dragon Fly) wrote:
>    Notwithstanding possible critique from alleged
>computer specialists the insightful observer might note
>that the "benchmark" code is pretty typical for scientific
>calculations. Whatever other merits the system might have,
>if it's dragging its feet on this test it means the system
>from the point of view of consumer [insightful observer] is
>a crap. As many insightful observers probably have already
>noticed, the crap is being limited mainly to two mainstreams:
>SUN Sparcs and DECs running VMS.
> 
Your protests notwithstanding, conditions on any of your "fast" machines can
make your benchmark run more slowly than the slowest number you've received so
far.

[chomp]
> 
> DEC 3000 Model 400
> Single user                              9 sec.
> 
> DECPc AXP 150 (6.6ns pass 2.1 EV4), 32mb RAM
> OpenVMS AXP V2-FT3
> Single User, DECnet, Motif                11 sec.
> Single User, No DECnet, No Motif          10 sec.
> 
> DEC 3000-400 (6.6ns pass 2.1 EV4) 128mb RAM
> OpenVMS AXP V1.5
> Single User, DECnet, Motif                9 sec.
>

DEC boxes running VMS are crap?  Seems to me that DEC boxes running VMS are
among your *best* performers, not your worst.

=============================+================================
 Brian Tillman               | Internet: tillman@swdev.si.com
 Smiths Industries, Inc.     |           tillman_brian@si.com
 4141 Eastern Ave., MS129    | Hey, I said this stuff myself.
 Grand Rapids, MI 49518-8727 | My company has no part in it.
=============================+================================

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

From: hjl@nynexst.com (H.J. Lu)
Subject: Re: A typical Linux machine
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 05:11:50 GMT

Harald T. Alvestrand (hta@uninett.no) wrote:
: 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

Mine is 386SX/16 with 4MB RAM and 100 MB HD.

: 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....)

I installed Linux on a machine of a friend of mine which is
386SX/20 with 2 MB RAM and 66 MB HD. When he compiles the
kernel, usually he starts in the morning before he leaves for
office, and it finishes when he comes home in the evening :-(.
BTW, xiafs is the best choice for 2 MB RAM.

H.J.

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

Subject: Re: Slackware Seyon faults with sig 11
From: volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)
Date: 15 Dec 93 00:10:49 -0500

In article <2em296$7ev@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au> els769p@fawlty10.eng.monash.edu.au (JJ Won) writes:
>Gday,
>
>I am having trouble getting seyon to dial anything. Everytime I click on the
>dial button, the seyon complains of sig fault 11 and says it's exiting when
>I press any button. Any idea? I have Slackware 1.1(or the latest one on ftp.
>cdrom.com) and seyon 2.14b. I thought there might be something wrong with the
>binary or something so I went off to compile 2.12(which I know works okay
>with older version of linux I had..which I had gotten rid of a while ago-I 
>reinstalled linux after two months absence from linux community ;-> ) but 
>that gave me the same error. 
>Is seyon not compatible with Xfree 2.0 or something??
>
>Okay, thanks a lot for any help....
>
>Jae

For some reason, compiling with optimization doesn't work with Seyon under
libc.4.4.4. If you don't use -O or -O2, it will work.

I've uploaded a fixed Seyon package to ftp.cdrom.com.

---
Patrick Volkerding
volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu


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

From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: Re: Linux counter: Usage growth of Linux
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 06:44:21 GMT

In article <1993Dec12.052504.31518@inex.com> carlb@inex.com (Carl Boernecke) writes:
>jcomyns@panix.com (John Comyns) writes:
>>In article <1993Dec11.193601.24256@truffula.sj.ca.us>,
>>Cameron L. Spitzer <cls@truffula.sj.ca.us> wrote:
>>>I've given away ... two SLS and three Slackware (to friends)
>>>None of the five was able to get the system working (most were stopped
>>>by XFree86), and all five gave up.
>
>>      I think you're exaggerating the difficulty in setting up X.
>I'd have to agree with that statement about X.  I've talked

Let me clarify.  The three times out of dozens of attempts that I
got X to *start* it worked fine for a long time.  My hardware is as
generic as it gets and runs a commercial X reliably.  *If* I can get
XFree *started*, it runs great forever, with the *stock* Xconfig.
But XF86_SVGA almost always hangs this machine solid on startup.

That's okay; it was free.  What was less than okay was the sneering
and condescension I got from the "XFree team" when I asked for
help, and the denial from almost everyone that there is any problem.
I still think there is some killer bug in the way XF86 gets started
on the et4000, perhaps some kind of race or more folks would see it,
could have to do with some obscure motherboard feature that XFree
uses.  *Progress messages* in the startup sequence would really help
isolate the fault, would help *lots* of people figure out *all kinds*
of X problems.  ("now I will reprogram your 6845."  "now I will try
to find the mouse."  "now I will try my first floating point operation."
"now I will access your frame buffer." is all I want!)
When I suggested that, I was treated like a child, like a fool.

Some of my friends got hung up starting X, others gave up
trying to sort out [m][uu]getty[_ps]/setserial/"serial patches"/uucp
and I don't blame them.  *Nobody* I know has been able to install
*any* Linux "release" "right out of the box."  How can we offer an
alternative to the commercial stuff, to people who *need* an
alternative, if we can't face that?  You can't fix a problem by
denying it.

This is not to say that Linux and the things we use with it aren't
well supported.  I've had great support from almost all of the big
contributors.  Better than I've ever had for almost any commercial
software.  But there are still *big* holes.
(What is elvis doing if you hit 'v' by mistake, and how do you make
it be normal again, anyway?)

Cameron in San Jose, using 80 x 25 console.

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

From: alexfan@hknet.hk.net (Alex Y.M. Fan (Online Education))
Subject: BusLogic BT747 not work
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 03:09:56 GMT

I am using a ESIA machine with two EISA board:
1. 3COM  3c579
2. Buslogic BT 747

I can boot up and install Linux (0.99.12 / 0.99.14) using my
Buslogic BT747 SCSI card, however, I have problem in compile the
kernel and Having occasional core dump.m

Linux can't recognize my 3C579 card if I use Buslogic BT 747 together.

These problem are solved when I change to a AHA1542B SCSI card



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

From: hta@uninett.no (Harald T. Alvestrand)
Crossposted-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.religion.kibology,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,alt.fan.mike-dahmus
Subject: Re: Windows emulation  was Re: Microsoft Invented Inferior Personal C
Date: 15 Dec 1993 07:27:36 GMT

In article <2elq6l$59o@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>, acb@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Andrew Bulhak) writes:

|> 
|> : Sorry to break into a serious mold, but since Wabi can't run worth crap, what
|> : makes you think Wine will either? Those Wacky Windoze Programs break more rules
|> : than you can imagine.
|> 
|> Only Microsoft applications, at most, will break it; Sun's Public
|> Windows Interface specification will (I hope!) be adhered to by others.
|> I'll be happy when all my programming tools and sound/MIDI programs work
|> under Linux. (All my 16-bit programming tools are from Borland, btw, and
|> they have no incentive to sabotage.)
|> 

There's a very nice book called "Undocumented Windows" that tells you
exactly how to find out *what* rules a given Windows program breaks.
Turns out that there are only a few hundred undocumented calls, and
most of them are clearly holdovers from "the old days" of Windows 2.1,
or have names (like PrestoChangoDescriptor or TabTextOutForWimps) that
indicate that they are really kind of internal.

And: Lots of Windows applications call *none* of them.
Windows is a tidier environment than DOS, any day, according to the book.

-- 
                   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.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.os.vms,comp.benchmarks
From: jc@sci.kun.nl (Jan Christiaan van Winkel)
Subject: Re: Yet another benchmark results..
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 09:03:56 GMT

In <CHqJn3.2qH@world.std.com> ParadoX@world.std.com (Ryan B Gran) writes:

>>>>486DX2-66 EISA/VL 16Mb RAM
>>>>running Linux (Slackware 1.1.0).
>>>>gcc compiler.
>>>>Single user                               27 sec.
>>>>
>>>>SUN Sparc-2 with >= 16 Mb RAM
>>>>running SunOS
>>>>Single user                               69 sec.

>486DX2-66 EISA/VL 32 MB RAM, 256k Cache (Gateway 2000)
>running SCO 3.2v4.2
>cc compiler (single user)                      45 sec.
>cc compiler (multi user)                       47 sec.
>gcc compiler (single & multi use)              44 sec.

Giving me the impression that the standard C library of Linux is very good
and that the library of SCO iiiisss sssllooww

JC
--
___  __  ____________________________________________________________________
   |/  \   Jan Christiaan van Winkel                        jc@sci.kun.nl
   |       Alternative e-mail addresses: jc@oreo.atcmp.nl and jc@atcmp.nl
__/ \__/ ____________________________________________________________________

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

From: ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Jackson)
Subject: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.07)
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 11:03:01 GMT

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

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: andy_bolton.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com (Andy Bolton)
Subject: Re: Linux counter: Usage growth of Linux
Reply-To: andy_bolton.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 10:48:13 GMT

In article 30482@truffula.sj.ca.us, cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) writes:

[Much whinging deleted]

It isn't easy, I'll grant you, but I had *NO* problems with XFree86 2.0. I
had to reference my ET4000 card against my monitor specs, and insert the
correct timings from the template into the correct place, and it worked fine.
I don't think this is any worse than other setups. I've installed X on SCO
and Interactive, and neither are a doddle.

>Cameron in San Jose, using 80 x 25 console.

Andy in Hertfordshire, UK, using 132 x 60 console *and* 1024i x 768 x 256.

Cheers,

Andy.

#include <std/disclaimer>       'Opinions are mine, not my Employers'
________________________________________________________________________________
                                        |
  Andrew_Bolton.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com      |       Rank Xerox Technical Centre
  abolton@jaguar.demon.co.uk            |       Welwyn Garden City, Herts.
  abolton@cix.compulink.co.uk           |       ENGLAND
________________________________________|_______________________________________
Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love. Woody Allen.



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

From: edmund@sevaxu.cica.es (Edmund Numenberger)
Subject: Linux meets COSE Standards
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 16:13:14 GMT

As Linux is a clone, I can understand that it doesnt meet
standards that are not -on the market-.

But standards for the new UNIX enviroment as proposed 

X/Open Portability guide XPG3
System V Interface Definition SVID
Open Software Foundation Application Enviroment Specification AES

all these is unified under the banner of Spec 1170 Common API 1.Sept 93

Who of the Linux community cares about those standard?
Who is involved in working with this *standards*?
Can Linux meet this *standards* in the future?
Are the Standards public now?

ed


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

From: hta@uninett.no (Harald T. Alvestrand)
Subject: Linux Counter: 4352 registered Linux users
Date: 15 Dec 1993 12:38:57 GMT
Reply-To: linux-counter@uninett.no

I've lost track of when I last posted this.
If nobody minds, I think I'll do it near the beginning and middle
of each month.
Send E-mail to linux-counter@uninett.no to register!

               Harald Tveit Alvestrand

Status of the Linux counter, as of Wed Dec 15 14:01:17 MET 1993

There are 4352 registered Linux users


PLACES WHERE LINUX IS USED
==========================
 Self Other   Sum %Sum  Place
 3282    29  3311  75% home
 1119    17  1136  25% work
   28   508   536  12% school
  235    21   256   5% somewhere
   52     0    52   1% not used
==========================
 3832   572  4404 100% TOTAL

NOTE: Some people use Linux in multiple places, so the total is not
the sum of the columns.

COUNTRIES WHERE LINUX IS USED
=============================
      Country                    Self Other   Sum  MPop Linux/M
===============================================================
 1 fi Finland                     135     0   135     5.0  27.0
 2 is Iceland                       5     0     5     0.3  19.7
 3 no Norway                       73     0    73     4.3  17.0
 4 se Sweden                      109     0   109     8.6  12.7
 5 nl Netherlands                 170     0   170    14.9  11.4
 6 dk Denmark                      51     1    52     5.1  10.0
 7 au Australia                   147     1   148    17.1   8.6
 8 de Germany                     660     5   665    79.1   8.3
 9 at Austria                      61     0    61     7.6   8.0
10 ca Canada                      185    16   201    26.6   7.0
11 us USA                        1551    16  1567   249.6   6.2
12 ch Switzerland                  40     0    40     6.7   6.0
13 lu Luxembourg                    2     0     2     0.4   5.1
14 gb Great Britain               221     5   226    57.2   3.9
15 nz New Zealand                  11     2    13     3.4   3.2
16 be Belgium                      32   506   538     9.9   3.2
17 si Slovenia                      6     0     6     2.0   3.1
18 ie Ireland                      10     0    10     3.5   2.9
19 ee Estonia                       3     4     7     1.6   1.9
20 fr France                       86    14   100    56.2   1.5
21 hk Hong Kong                     9     0     9     5.9   1.5
22 il Israel                        8     0     8     6.3   1.3
23 sg Singapore                     3     0     3     2.7   1.1
24 gr Greece                        8     0     8    10.1   0.8
25 pt Portugal                      8     2    10    10.3   0.8
26 za South Africa                 23     0    23    30.2   0.8
27 na Namibia                       1     0     1     1.5   0.7
28 cl Chile                         8     0     8    13.5   0.6
29 hu Hungaria                      6     0     6    10.5   0.6
30 tw Taiwan                       11     0    11    20.3   0.5
31 it Italy                        27     0    27    57.7   0.5
32 cz Czech Rebublic                4     0     4    10.0   0.4
33 jp Japan                        42     0    42   123.3   0.3
34 es Spain                        13     0    13    39.5   0.3
35 cr Costa Rica                    1     0     1     3.1   0.3
36 pl Poland                        9     0     9    38.4   0.2
37 hr Croatia                       1     0     1     4.8   0.2
38 by Belarus                       1     0     1    10.4   0.1
39 co Colombia                      3     0     3    34.3   0.1
40 ro Romania                       2     0     2    23.2   0.1
41 cs Czechoslovakia (former)       1     0     1    15.7   0.1
42 my Malaysia                      1     0     1    18.0   0.1
43 kr Korea (South)                 2     0     2    43.1   0.0
44 br Brazil                        7     0     7   158.2   0.0
45 mx Mexico                        3     0     3    81.4   0.0
46 xe Europe (Somewhere in it)      9     0     9   320.0   0.0
47 su Soviet Union (former)         4     0     4   147.4   0.0
48 ua Ukraine                       1     0     1    51.9   0.0
49 th Thailand                      1     0     1    57.6   0.0
50 in India                         5     0     5   844.0   0.0


-- 
                   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.

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


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