Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #454
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:     Mon, 20 Dec 93 15:13:26 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #454, Volume #1                Mon, 20 Dec 93 15:13:26 EST

Contents:
  Linux installation from CD (Vichharaks ROS)
  Re: Windows emulation was Re: Microsoft Invented Inferior Personal C (Jim Frost)
  Re: Windows emulation was Re: Microsoft Invented Inferior Personal C (Jim Frost)
  Re: Windows emulation was Re: Microsoft Invented Inferior Personal C (Jim Frost)
  Re: Xwindows Terminal (Woody Weaver)
  Re: DOS dying (Kendall Beaman)
  JANA:I just got a call (Christian Huebner)
  Help - slip and .99pl14 (dpjunk@mmm.com)
  Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites? (Lou Williams)
  Compile error and Xconfig Stealth Pro VLB (Norik Yaghoobian)
  Re: Linus's Secret Past, was: Linux in a hospital? (Shun-Chang Tsai)
  Re: Xwindows Terminal (Mark A. Davis)
  Re: Linux in a hospital? (Mark A. Davis)
  Re: BogoMips just leapt half a point (James C. Tsiao)
  Re: File manager for Linux? (DAVID L. JOHNSON)

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

From: vic@france.hp.com (Vichharaks ROS )
Subject: Linux installation from CD
Date: 20 Dec 1993 16:14:04 GMT

Hello everyone

I should like to bye Linux on CDROM, but i have some questions before:
a) Can i use it directly from the CDROM ?
b) Do i need to make a new partition on my disk ?
c) I should like to use X11R5, what is the partition size that i need ?
d) Is it possible to have Motif 1.2 ?

Thank you for your help.

vic@hpfrcu03.france.hp.com


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

From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
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: 17 Dec 1993 22:14:54 GMT

tso@cephalo.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu (Dan Ts'o) writes:
>The times that UNIX has crashed even once during a session,
>over a 15 year period, I could count on one hand.

You must not have used Solaris yet :-).

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com

[Opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect
those of my company.  You got a beef with 'em, complain to me.]

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

From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
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: 17 Dec 1993 22:27:06 GMT

mike@schleppo.bocaraton.ibm.com (Mike Dahmus) writes:
>In <2eqhb1$3mr@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, tso@cephalo.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu (Dan Ts'o) writes:
>>
>>       I guess it isn't obvious although it seems like it should be -- when I
>>mean session (and I assume the original poster also), I mean a user session,
>>that is, in the morning, I sit down at my desk and try to get some work done,
>>writing or drawing or whatever, for that day. I have had dozens of Windows
>>crashes per session. The times that UNIX has crashed even once during a session,
>>over a 15 year period, I could count on one hand.

>Yes, but (and I can't believe I'm defending Windows :+) I *often* locked up
>X-Windows on one system to the point where I had to telnet in from another
>box and kill it. Windows to X-Windows is at least a more accurate (but still
>not very accurate) comparison than Windows to UNIX.

I'm not certain I'd agree that it's at all accurate.  UNIX+SunView to
Windows is fairly close but the capabilities of your average X server
far outweigh those of Windows.  It's an apples-and-oranges comparison
in terms of functionality and complexity in either case -- Windows is
terribly primitive.

In all likelihood you locked up your X server by having an application
do a server grab and not relinquish it.  This was very common with
early Motif applications, and is still easy if you're debugging Motif
applications today.  Killing the application frees up the server.

Rarely have I had to kill an X server (with the exception of the
"server" IBM shipped with AIX for a long time) and I've been doing
hardcore X development for five years now -- animation, complex
diagram modelling, image processing, and GUI work.  Even with X11R1
crashes or unrecoverable failures were uncommon.  Since R2 they've
been rare even with terribly behaved programs.  Not bad for code you
can ftp and compile yourself.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com

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

From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
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: 17 Dec 1993 22:36:34 GMT

sillywiz@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (SillyWiz) writes:
>Hmm.. We've had an application for VLSI design running on an IPC which
>died and then vmunix while rebooting chucked out a couple of errors
>and died. Took three re-tries before the unix rebooted and the thing
>came back up.

Typically the first reboot -- maybe two depending on how your system
is configured -- checks the filesystem for validity.  If it's invalid
repairs are made and the system is rebooted rather than unmounting and
remounting the filesystem.  That's not a particularly clean solution
to the problem but you have to admit that it's simple.

Why the IPC died is a mystery but it's rare that it dies because an
application made a mistake.  In my experience it usually dies because
of some external event like a power flicker or someone making a
significant change to the network if the OS is loaded (or
substantially shared) across the net.

>yesterday I decided to FTP some stuff over and made the mistake of
>using FTPTOOL. Clicked (DISCONNECT) and the thing replied "Broken pipe.."
>"Broken pipe.."
>"Broken pipe.."
>"Broken pipe.."
>"Broken pipe.."
>"Login:"

>I don't think X is all that much stabler than Windoze, at least when
>it dies it dies a bit nicer than Windoze.

You're using OpenWindows.  Most of the OW tools aren't what I'd call
commercial-class.  It sounds like ftptool talks via a pipe to an ftp
process and disconnecting killed the ftp process and confused the hell
out of the ftptool GUI.  That's not an X problem, that's an
application problem.  It's been my experience that application
problems under Windows usually result in a total system crash.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com

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

From: woody@altair.stmarys-ca.edu (Woody Weaver)
Subject: Re: Xwindows Terminal
Reply-To: woody@altair.stmarys-ca.edu
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 16:36:14 GMT

Keith Smith (keith@ksmith.com) wrote:

>One of the Cheapest X-terminals you can buy is a 486/33 with a VLB
>Graphics accellerator card 8MB of RAM, and ethernet card, KB, mouse and
>nice monitor, running Linux <G>!

How about running DOS and Desqview/X?  Its ~$300US, but the constraints upon
the client are less, and some people would prefer running under DOS rather
than Un*x.  Sacrilegeous, I know, but...

--woody

Robert Weaver                         office: 510-631-4416
Department of Mathematical Sciences     home: 510-680-1986
St. Mary's College of California         fax: 510-376-4027
Moraga, CA 94575                        data: 510-376-1554

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

From: beaman@andrews.edu (Kendall Beaman)
Subject: Re: DOS dying
Date: 20 Dec 1993 17:07:31 GMT

In article <2f3c54$r4q@bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au> wielinga@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au (Bruce Wielinga) writes:
:
:This thread seems to be a good place to tell this tale.
:I have a 486/33 machine with what I think is a hardware fault.
:However it is intermittent and although sometimes it would kill dos every
:minute or so I would go away whenever I had I good look for it.
:
:Well I got done and installed Linux on it one day, expecting real trouble
:with is hanging all the time and ...guess what? I has not hung sine. This is
:since before mid year and so is a good six months. Any one have any ideas on
:whats going on? I would have though that a OS like linux would make a much
:bigger demand on a machine than dos and so crash more often.
:
:Bruce.

   There's really too little information to give you a complete answer.  It
could be your memory (hardware), or memory manager (software), or any number
of other things.  What version of DOS are you running?  What type of memory
manager do you have installed?  Are you running cache?  What type of Hard
Drive do you have?  Are you running any compression software (Stacker, DBLSPACE,etc.)?  What exactly is the error you are getting (description)?

-- 
==============================================================================
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

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

From: crh@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de (Christian Huebner)
Subject: JANA:I just got a call
Date: 20 Dec 1993 18:10:13 +0100

Hi!

Here comes an update on my posting I wrote some hours ago.
I just got a call from JANA. I didn't believe my ears, because
Germany isn't exactly chaep to call even from the USA. Seems
they really improved their customer service now.

Anyway I'm eagerly waiting for my disc, as stacks and stacks
of floppies don't exactly make working a fun thing to do.

Gotta make this one short as the telephone bill tends to make my
parents mad, but this was something I wanted to post immediately.

Anyway, a Merry Christmas to all the Linuxers out there and to
the folks at JANA.

Bye...


Chris

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

From: dpjunk@mmm.com
Subject: Help - slip and .99pl14
Date: 20 Dec 1993 13:19:44 -0500
Reply-To: dpjunk@mmm.com

I had slip working fairly well with .99pl11.  I just upgraded to
.99pl14 and now my slip is broken.  I keep getting the error message
that the network is unreachable.  Does anybody have any ideas?

Please reply by e-mail.

Thanks.
--
Dean Junk                   "An ounce of perception, a pound of obscure"
Internet (dpjunk@mmm.com)                      --RUSH

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

From: nsyslaw@riogrande.acs.ncsu.edu (Lou Williams)
Subject: Re: Debate: Time to Remove SLS From archive sites?
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 16:24:34 GMT

Miguel Alvarez Blanco (miguel@pinon.ccu.uniovi.es) wrote:

:     Just my $0.02 thought: why don't tsx-11 mirror slackware, too?

I've asked myself this same question many times.  Slackware was slow
getting started, but seems to have become one of the more popular 
distributions, probably in part due to the fact the maintainer does
an excellent job of keeping up with new releases and listens to bug
reports sent to him.

: And yes, me too began with SLS, but I'm with Slackware since the
: begining: I just needed Xfree 1.3 when Slackware 1.0 came out, and found
: that what I really need was Xfree 2.0 when Slackware 1.1.0 came out, and
: now ... TeX! (well, in fact another machine to thrash SLS from).

Speaking as one who began with 0.12 (ahh, the good old days.  Back when
you had to build your own root/boot disks, build your disk partitions 
by hand, hand gather all the software you wanted and install it yourself
without the help of any utilities...  That'll teach you!)
I can say that the first two releases of SLS made a good effort, but
like "outcome-based education", effort just doesn't cut it.  SLS had an
excellent premise, but I found 0.96c more stable and my own hand-installs
more reliable than SLS 1.01.  

Unfortunately, SLS 1.03 isn't that much better.  I gathered and hand 
installed /bin and /usr/bin directories from tsx-11, the kernel I gathered
and re-installed, since the SLS distribution had problems with the libraries
and includes (hence making it *almost* impossible to rebuild the kernel),
and numerous other things that made me stick with my 0.96c system.  As for
networking - forget it with SLS1.03, I know of few people who have made it
work, without some re-installs.  

Actually, TeX did install and work fairly well with SLS.  That's about
it, however, from my experience with All 3 distributions put out by them.

Upon the discovery of Slackware (1.0.1 maybe, I can't recall the numbers)
I have completely dropped my SLS collection, except for the TeX disks
and have used it ever since.  

Further, if you bought a car from a salesperson, found out the car was 
seriously defective, went to the salesperson and asked to get the defects
fixed, and s/he 1st ignored you, then refused to answer your questions,
would you buy from them again?  If this is indeed what's happened with
the maintainer of SLS, do we have any reason to believe that SLS is/will
be a viable company, capable of producing updates?  And if we have little
reason to beleive they are going to produce updates - why keep it at all?
Getting mad, then running off to pout is no way to run a business and I
see little point in patronizing such behaviour.

Now that Slackware 1.1.1 has TeX as part of it's distribution, I think the
best course of action is to fix the Slackware mirrors (thus making it 
widely and correctly available) then drop SLS altogether.  Of course, 
tsx-11 would need to be mirroring Slackware first - (hint, hint, hint!!!). 

I haven't recently read the FAQ's, are they advocating the use of SLS?
Or have they been updated to point out the age/problems with SLS?

At any rate, I ignore SLS and advise those I speak with to do the same.
Linux is a far better system than any impression one could possibly get
from SLS.  I would hope the ftp admin's will at least drop the SLS 
advertisements, if not the entire package.

But, disclaimers must apply.  These ramblings are only my opinions!

--
 Lou Williams (nsyslaw@acs.ncsu.edu)     | Amatuer Radio: KE4ARM  
 Unix Systems Programmer                 | Phone: (919) 515-2794  
 NCSU Administrative Computing Services  | FAX:   (919) 515-3787 
----
December 20th, 1993, The Raw Deal Countdown continues:
     Day 335  for the poor & middle class.
     Day 354  for the rich & the dead. (due to retroactivity)
     1125  Days remaining for all of us.
----



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

From: yaghoob@unixg.ubc.ca (Norik Yaghoobian)
Subject: Compile error and Xconfig Stealth Pro VLB
Date: 20 Dec 1993 18:05:43 GMT

Hi,
 I 
 My system is
        Microscan 5A/ADI; Stealth Pro VLB Vers. 1.12, S3 VGA Colour
        (S3 86C928) 1 MEG
        the mouse is a Logitech First mouse.
        Linux Hyeg 0.99.12 #1 Tue Aug 17 17:57:22 GMT 1993 i486

 I went and got XF86_S3_2.0.tar (so I have a S3) server and installed it.
 I looked in the accelcards and diamond.faq and made an Xconfig file
 with the stanza accel.
 When I linked XF86_S3 to /usr/bin/X11/X and ran startx I got the 
 following error,
                Can't load dynamic linker /lib/ld.so  ?
 Can you tell me what ld.so are?
 
 I also get the error that accel is not recognized?

 Does anyone out there have the same video card and monitor
 as above and have an
 Xconfig file I can use?

 Any help is appreciated.

 yaghoob@unixg.ubc.ca


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

Subject: Re: Linus's Secret Past, was: Linux in a hospital?
From: stsai@husc8.harvard.edu (Shun-Chang Tsai)
Date: 20 Dec 93 17:05:48 GMT

wb8foz@netcom.com (David Lesher) writes:

>>(Linus started studying in 1988, and has been absent for one year to
>>serve in the army.)

>Who won, the army or Linus ;-?

>{The US Army never quite recovered from drafting Elvis many years
>ago....}

Did the whole Finnish army end up hackin' Linux? Perhaps that explains
why Linux developed so much faster than, say OS/2 or Windoze. ;)



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

From: mark@taylor.wyvern.com (Mark A. Davis)
Subject: Re: Xwindows Terminal
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 18:05:32 GMT

me@tartufo.pcs.com (Michael Elbel) writes:

>In <1993Dec15.135252.10532@taylor.wyvern.com> mark@taylor.wyvern.com (Mark A. Davis) writes:

>I don't argue the usefulness of X-terminals - in fact I'm using a NCD 19
>with my linux box - the big b/w screen is just so much nicer for
>development.

>>You are done, the thing boots, uses xdmcp and start working.  Steps 1 & 2 have
>>to be done only once.  Everything else takes about 5 minutes or less.  You
>>are computing on a display with very fast Xperformance and net response.

>However, you're making the assumption that there already exists a
>working configuration for that class of X-terminals. This, at least in
>my case here wasn't true. 

?? The default one normally works just fine. 

>It's not easier to set up an X-terminal's networking (subnet mask,
>routers, static routes, name servers, etc.)  than it is for a
>workstation, be it HP, SUN, DEC, linux, freebsd, whatever. With Unix
>derivates it's at least always similar - I still have to discover a
>system that doesn't have ifconfig and route, if you have different
>brands of X-terminals, this gets interesting ;-)

Well, we are not talking about network configuration :)  That has to be
done whether it is a workstation or an Xterminal.  In either case, it is
unnecessary to set up NFS/RFS/NIS/YP/etc for Xterminals....

>Once you've done it, the next installation will take you almost no
>time, but this first setup has to be done. In my experience, the
>maintenance for X-terminals is only relatively cheap if you have a lot
>of them and all are of the same kind (ever tried to maintain NCD *and*
>DEC *and* HP X-terminals?)

If you mean maintenance for the HARDWARE only, then I agree with you- but
that applies to any hardware, such as printers, computers, drives, etc....
consistancy is good.  As for the OS and software, there is really nothing
to maintain on Xterminals, you plug it in and go to work :)

>Come to think, if I were to need 20 higher end color X-terminals, I'd
>probably calculate if the price for 20 identical clones with decent
>graphics cards, monitors, ethernet, some disk and memory weren't
>cheaper than comparable 'real' X-terminals. Then one could go ahead,
>configure a freebsd or linux system once and just load it onto the
>machines with almost as little effort as maintaining the X-terminals -
>until the users try to modify their configuration themselves.

Very true, of course that still ignores maintenance issues which do not
exist for Xterminals, such as the media, filesystem, etc.  Plus there is
a temptation to USE local resources rather than remote, meaning things
are not consistant, and not backed up... then security issues for that, etc...
It is a definately valid alternative for many sites; especially if local
resources are needed also.

>>>So it isn't correct to say ``Linux completely obsoletes X terminals''. But
>>>it also isn't always correct to say ``Linux as an X terminal is a dumb idea;
>>>buy a real X terminal instead.''

>>Both very true.  There are times when the extreme simplicity and performance
>>of an Xterminal is the best idea.  There are also times when the flexibility
>>of a Linux box is the best idea, especially when local processing is
>>needed or when one wants to utilize existing equipment.

>Amen.

Believe it or not, we [here] want users to use only remote resources, meaning
the ultimate simplicity of maintenance, highest security, and often (as is here)
lower cost.  If this is not your [reader's] goal, then Xterminals are not
for you :)
-- 
  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
  | Mark A. Davis    | Lake Taylor Hospital | Norfolk, VA (804)-461-5001x431 |
  | Sys.Administrator|  Computer Services   | mark@taylor.wyvern.com   .uucp |
  \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

From: mark@taylor.wyvern.com (Mark A. Davis)
Subject: Re: Linux in a hospital?
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 18:10:10 GMT

s.telford@ed.ac.uk (Scott Telford) writes:

>In article <1993Dec18.232221.16910@taylor.wyvern.com>,
>mark@taylor.wyvern.com (Mark A. Davis) writes:

>> You see Linux running commercial applications?  You see strategic support
>> environments for Linux?  You see consistant and complete documentation on
>> Linux?  You see company liability on Linux? 
>          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>You see *any* PC software vendor claiming liability for their
>software?

Define "PC", do you mean Personal Computer or do you mean IBM PC arch clone....

> I'd be very surprised if SCO's user licence says "If our
>Unix screws up your application big time feel free to sue us".

This could happen.....  but I am not talking about legalities as much as I
am talking about company responsiveness due to the threat of retaliation by
the users of the product.  Sales of SCO would cease and SCO would go under
if the customers were not happy- that is a REAL motivator for keeping their
nose straight.

> Most
>licences I've seen (OK, Microsoft ones are the ones I'm thinking of)
>disclaim liabilty for absolutely anything the software might do.

Still not exactly what I meant; but, anyway, in the US you really never can
release yourself totally from liability from anything.

-- 
  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
  | Mark A. Davis    | Lake Taylor Hospital | Norfolk, VA (804)-461-5001x431 |
  | Sys.Administrator|  Computer Services   | mark@taylor.wyvern.com   .uucp |
  \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

From: jjctc@lhdsy1.lahabra.chevron.com (James C. Tsiao)
Subject: Re: BogoMips just leapt half a point
Date: 20 Dec 93 18:31:40 GMT

In article <CIC7CI.1o7@turnbull.wariat.org> turnbull@turnbull.wariat.org (John Turnbull) writes:
>In article <1993Dec20.112603.9913@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> zevans@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Zack Evans) writes:
>>A quick puzzle for kernel hackers...
>>
>>I just upgraded the kernel from PL13<somethingZ to PL14f and suddenly I get
>>2.odd BogoMips rather than the 1.96 I have been getting previously.
>>
>>Why?
>
>I noticed the same thing, and looking at the code it seems that in pl14b
>Linus decided to align the code calculating the delay loop, which appears
>to cut about 1 cycle per loop from the time on my 386sx.  Not sure how it
>will affect other machines.

The image of Linus smirking over the BogoMips thread over the last few
months led me to this hypothesis:

  One day, having had one too many virtual beers, Linus sat down in
  front of his computer, called up the pl14 kernel, and added something
  like

       REPORTED_BOGOMIPS = CALCULATED_BOGOMIPS + 0.5;
  
  He's now sitting back and watching the havoc this will cause in the
  time-space continuum.

Just a thought.

James.

-- 
jjctc@chevron.com                    |          Addicted to the KOR.
jtsiao@netcom.com                    |
=============================================================================
Try Linux, the freely distributable Unix clone for the 386/486.

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

From: dlj0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DAVID L. JOHNSON)
Subject: Re: File manager for Linux?
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 17:05:35 GMT

In article <CI4oKr.G0H@actcom.co.il>, yuri@actcom.co.il writes:
>In article <CHq78z.E5v@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil> dsc3jfs@imc10 (John F Skoda) writes:
>>
>>  Hi folks,
>>      I have a dumb question, I've looked through the FAQ's for linux
>> and X and I can't seem to find a file manager application like Filemgr
>> on a Sun....  Is there such an animal?
>>
I use xfm-1.2, and am very pleased with the performance.  It has D&D, you can
view directory listings as either icons or text (configurable as to what is
displayed), it is easy to set up applications and otherwise customize.  It 
also doesn't take up too much RAM.  The only downside (esthetically) is the
lack of pixmap icons -- only X11 bitmaps.  But the functionality should be the
point, and this does what you need.

-- 

David L. Johnson                             ID:  dlj0@lehigh.edu
Department of Mathematics
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015       Telephone: 215-758-3759 (office)
                                                        215-828-3708 (home)
Linux, the people's unix.

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


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