Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #773
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:     Fri, 4 Mar 94 09:13:06 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #773, Volume #1                 Fri, 4 Mar 94 09:13:06 EST

Contents:
  Getting xdm to run in 1024x768??? (The Wanderer)
  Whereis/Whatis 'GREAT' (Maxim Spivak)
  What causes Comanche to hang? (Daniel Damon Roscigno)
  Re: "Reverse-engineering" (magnus@ii.uib.no)
  Re: Can I get Slackware 1.1.2 on CD-ROM?
  Re: Multitasking... (Alan Cox)
  PLEASE HELP with Diamond palette! (Oliver Brugger)
  Re: DOOM for X (Glen Harris)
  *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.07) (Ian Jackson)
  Re: "Reverse-engineering" (Alexander Bottema)
  Re: [Hardware] Convert VGA to NTSC/PAL Video Box (Alan Braggins)
  Re: Inode xxxxx not used with links_count ... (H.J. Lu)
  Re: Multitasking... (Aaron Clausen)
  Re: How to "nail down" a window across virtual screens in CTWM? (J.S. van Oosten)
  Re: Linux Journal (yuan%tyuan@mp.cs.niu.edu)
  Re: How to kill a SLIP connection? (Volkmar Eich)
  Re: RFD: comp.os.linux.* moderation by program (Jim Graham)
  Re: / vs /usr (David Barr)

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

From: f12009ai@unm.edu (The Wanderer)
Subject: Getting xdm to run in 1024x768???
Date: 4 Mar 1994 00:29:54 -0700

        Hi, I've had no problem getting xdm to work persay but It always
starts in 640x480 mode with the virtual screen. Anyone have any thoughts on
where the correct configuration file is?  Also How do I get it to run the
normal default X mode that comes up when you type startx ( the blue background
with the linux Window manager other than twm )??

Mike.
E-Mail:f12009ai@leo.unm.edu


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

From: maxims@uclink.berkeley.edu (Maxim Spivak)
Subject: Whereis/Whatis 'GREAT'
Date: 4 Mar 1994 08:55:06 GMT

Hello all,

I have a question, what is GREAT? It seems that I have heard somewhere
that it's a desktop manager-type program. Does anyone use it? Is it
good? What is it like? Is it buggy/problematic? And lastly, where 
can I get it?

Thanks,
Max
-- 

**************************************************************************
email:  maxims@uclink.berkeley.edu    snail-mail: 1477-38th Avenue
        maxims@soda.berkeley.edu                  San Francisco, CA 94122

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

From: ddr@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Daniel Damon Roscigno)
Subject: What causes Comanche to hang?
Date: 4 Mar 1994 09:15:04 GMT

Remember a year ago when Comanche came out some people had system hangups
during the into/demo or immediately afterward?  What was this, a chipset
problem?  Any patches out etc....

Thanks
Dan.


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

From: magnus@ii.uib.no
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: "Reverse-engineering"
Date: 4 Mar 1994 09:27:54 GMT
Reply-To: magnus@ii.uib.no

>>>>> "John" == John F Haugh <jfh@rpp386> writes:

John> In reality an "idea" has value just as a "process" or "hard"
John> object does.  And in a similar manner, that "idea" has a cost of

Yes, but while the value of a 'hard' object decreases when you
distribute it, the value of an 'idea' increases when you distribute
it.

As many people as possible should share ideas and information. When
capitalism and market economies prevent this they are working against
the good of the people.

John> The simple fact that the FSF has to rely so heavily on charity
John> proves the point -- there is no profit to be made in "hand

Proves what point? It proves that people are willing to pay for
software without getting the exclusive rights to it.

John> Stallman claims in his GNU [Communist] Manifesto.  But the real

Grow up.

John> world demands that we pay our mortgages, children's doctor
John> bills, and provide for our retirements.

Let me tell you again - the core of the FSF / GNU philosophy is not
that programmers shouldn't be paid. It's the non-exclusive use of
software. Let me show you two scenarios:

Scenario A.

Company Gadgets Inc needs a program to manage their document database.
They have a big Unix box running a generix Unix variant. They hire a
programmer to do the programming. The programmer buys a proprietary
database engine and customizes it for keeping documents. He then
programs a user interface in C++ for Windows. It takes months, but
it's a satisfactory solution and the programmers gets paid. Well.

Company Widgets Inc also needs such a database. They hire the same
programmer. The programmer buys the same database engine. The
programmer does the same customizing. The programmer programs the same
user interface as in Gadgets Inc. He gets paid again. Well.

Scenario B.

Company Gagets Inc needs a program to manage their document database.
There is such a program available, free, but like much free software
it is not quite satisfactory. It is not terribly efficient, and the
user interface is text-only. Someone wrote it in his spare time. The
company hires a programmer. The programmer improves on the memory
allocation and builds a user interface for X-Windows. The improvements
are then sent back to the maintainer of the code and integrated in the
normal release. The programmer still gets paid well.

Company Widgets Inc also needs such a databaser. They hire the same
programmer. He grabs a copy of the program he made for Gadgets Inc and
configures it for the needs of Widgets Inc. Takes him five minutes.

John> a quite different matter.  Ever wonder why GCC or G++ oscillate
John> between "working" and "not working"?  There is no profit motive

Because FSF release it as they change it. If you wanted a stable GCC
you would use v1.x.x. As of now 2.5.8 is considered a stable release.
Ever wonder why GCC is better than all those commercial compilers?

John> to keep them working.  And there is no profit motive to make the
John> compilers compatible, reliable, etc. so you wind up with unique
John> behaviors all throughout GNUware.  Hell, I went to compile some

Tell me about a C compiler that has better ANSI compliance than GCC.

John> Linux program on my POSIX 1003.1 compliant, XPG/3 branded system
John> and guess what -- it didn't compile at all.  Such a deal ...  --

Oh. Well, you must be right then.

-Magnus

(Stupid git.)

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

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 01:28:29 EST
From: <3JJN3@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Subject: Re: Can I get Slackware 1.1.2 on CD-ROM?

Yes you can get it, but you have to wait for until middle of
next week. The CD has Slackware 1.1.2 and 1.1.1, can be directly
installed. E-Mail christina@jana.com for more info or call
1-416-538-2311.

Jay

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: iiitac@swan.pyr (Alan Cox)
Subject: Re: Multitasking...
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:19:32 GMT

In article <CM2By9.CKD@visix.com> david@visix.com (David Charlap) writes:
>And these task-switching OP codes aren't even used by OS/2.  Some IBM
>people (about a year ago) said that the overhead in using them is a
>waste, because they save information that the OS is already saving in
>the course of its normal operation.

This isn't uncommon a situation. Because you tend to save all registers
before calling an interrupt handler or on kernel syscall entry you often
don't need to save registers again when you switch tasks as a result
of this. 

Alan
iiitac@pyr.swan.ac.uk


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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.admin
From: dv077ag@ldvhp23.ldv.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de (Oliver Brugger)
Subject: PLEASE HELP with Diamond palette!
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:58:46 GMT

Hello there!

I have a BIG PROBLEM. Please is there anyone out there who could help me?

I run Linux and DOS/Windows on my system. I have a Speedstar HighColor
and program it with the freq program to 85 MHz.
Everything worked fine on both platforms till yesterday.
I rebootet from Linux to Windows and when invoking Win, I got
ugly colors. It seemed that the pallette is destroyed. So I 
turned power off and on, but the problem was still there.

I rebooted then the maschine to Linux again and got the same ugly 
colors. XFree 1.3 said:
VGA256: Cannot read colourmap from VGA. Will resore with default.
Hell, what's going on. Is my card damaged?

Thank you for any help in advance.
Please post AND mail (to o.brugger@ieee.org, not to dv077ag@ldv...)

Keep the fire burning,
the rest is silence
ojb

                                      ,,
                                     (oo)
   ------------------------------oOO--()--OOo-------------------------------
         Oliver J.  Brugger                          e-mail:
   Student of electrical engeneering      o.brugger@ieee.org (Internet)
      Technical Univ. Munich                100316,2246 (CompuServe)



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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.apps
From: glen@paladine.ece.jcu.edu.au (Glen Harris)
Subject: Re: DOOM for X
Date:  4 Mar 94 10:02:22 GMT

  id has DOOM running as beta under Linux/X11 at the moment.  The last I
heard (a week ago), was that the sound code needed ironing out to work
with the /dev/* interfaces to the sound h/ware of various cards.

  From what I've been told, we'll have to buy a whole new package.  I have
_NOT_ been told, but I _hope_ that we'll get a discount if we already
own the DOS version.....


--
*******************************************************************
*  Glen Harris     *  3D and Virtual Reality Groupie              *
*  Don't mail here *  Mail to: glen@wench.ece.jcu.edu.au          *
*******************************************************************

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

From: ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Jackson)
Subject: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (misc-2.07)
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 1994 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: d91a1bo@meryl.csd.uu.se (Alexander Bottema)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: "Reverse-engineering"
Date: 4 Mar 1994 11:51:49 GMT

John> a quite different matter.  Ever wonder why GCC or G++ oscillate
John> between "working" and "not working"?  There is no profit motive

Magnus> Because FSF release it as they change it. If you wanted a
Magnus> stable GCC you would use v1.x.x. As of now 2.5.8 is considered
Magnus> a stable release.  Ever wonder why GCC is better than all
Magnus> those commercial compilers?

Yes. The most commercial compilers I have seen produce bogus code, but
of course the stupid customer is happy with all these 3D-shaded fancy
buttons provided in its wimpy environment (e.g. Borland C++ v.x). Now,
everybody seem to forget the main issue of a compiler, namely
_compiling_; the essential thing is the _result_. So far, GNU-C has
one of the best front end optimizing compilers in the world. It has a
wonderful abstract machine, RTL, and perform wonderful semantic
optimizations such as eliminating tail recursion. Now, please tell me
the version of a Borland bogus compiler that can do that.

    / Alexander, and yes I am an academic

--
===============================================================
 Alexander Jean-Claude Bottema, Email: d91a1bo@meryl.csd.uu.se
 University of Uppsala, Computing Science Department.
 #include <stddisclam.h>   LINUX,GCC,LISP,ML,CAML-light,Prolog
===============================================================

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

From: armb@setanta.demon.co.uk (Alan Braggins)
Subject: Re: [Hardware] Convert VGA to NTSC/PAL Video Box
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 15:31:12 GMT

In article <nm.762578313@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> nm@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Neill Means) writes:
>   >>Hello, 
>   >>   I want to record computer screen in video tape. How can I do ?
>   >Ha! My Commodore Vic-20 could do this!   ;)
>   I want to see your Vic-20 run Unix and supprot multiusers while 
>   performing a task in Xwindows( example of nice graphical user interface)

My Commodore Amiga will run Linux, and X, but not both at once yet.
(Actually I haven't tried running DaggeX yet). And I do have a genlock for it.
--
Alan Braggins  armb@setanta.demon.co.uk  abraggins@cix.compulink.co.uk
"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced"

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

From: hjl@nynexst.com (H.J. Lu)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Inode xxxxx not used with links_count ...
Date: 3 Mar 1994 03:06:46 GMT

Ron Smits (ron@draconia.hacktic.nl) wrote:

: Are your filesystems unmounted in /etc/brc? It looks as if you never have a 
: clean shutdown. When you do a shutdown, you MUST wait till the machine
: tells YOU it is down (with -h it says `system halted'.


: Here is the /etc/brc of my system:

: ---snip---

: #!/bin/sh
: #
: # /etc/brc.. This script gets run just before the system is down.
: #
: echo Unmounting file systems.....
: /bin/killall syslogd 2>/dev/null
: /bin/umount -a
: echo Done.

That is not good enough. There should be also "swapoff". Think about
what if you have some swap files?

H.J.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Multitasking...
From: aaronc@taocow.hakatac.almanac.bc.ca (Aaron Clausen)
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 94 23:26:29 -0800

In <EhRIfgm00VR5QKNY8u@andrew.cmu.edu> "Brian E. Gallew" <geek+@CMU.EDU> writes:
>Well, I'm don't know anything about Linux-68k, but for my "Realtime
>and Concurrent Systems" class I had to write a task scheduler.
>Admittedly, this thing *barely* qualifies as a kernel (no vm, no
>exec'ing) however it *did* multitask AND was realtime.  (Hey, what do
>you expect for 60hours of assembly with no previouse 68K experience on
>a 32K-RAM "eduboard"?)

I used to run Xenix on a Tandy 6000 with 1mb of RAM and a 6mhz 68000,
and it did a pretty fantastic job (considering the hardware).

-- 
"Amnesia's fine, but everybody else still knows who you are."

Aaron Clausen of the Tao of Cow, Port Alberni, BC

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

From: jvoosten@compiler.tdcnet.nl (J.S. van Oosten)
Subject: Re: How to "nail down" a window across virtual screens in CTWM?
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 22:48:25 GMT

Divya Sundaram (sundaram@egr.msu.edu) wrote:
: I have just managed to install CTWM - a TWM look-alike Window Manager
: for X. It comes with a "WorkSpace Manager" that is "nailed-down" to
: the desktop - so no matter what screen I switch to, it is always on
: my desktop and always in the same spot. 

: How can I make it so that the IconManager behaves the same way?

Well, with 'olvwm' (Open Look Virtual Window Manager), all windows on the
screen get a "Stick" option in their menu that you can call by clicking the
right mouse button on the window-bar. I suppose CTWM has got something
similiar (else I don't think it's worthwhile manager if it can only stick
its own windows).

BTW, for those interested, you can have your xload, xlock etc. always
"sticky" with olvwm by putting this in your .Xdefaults file:

olvwm.VirtualSticky:    xload xclock xbiff

So no more manual "sticks" everytime you start X...

J. v. O.
-- 
My PGP public key:

=====BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK=====


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

From: yuan%tyuan@mp.cs.niu.edu
Subject: Re: Linux Journal
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 22:10:01 GMT

Randy Just (rjust@crl.com) wrote:
: Matt Welsh (mdw@cs.cornell.edu) wrote:
: : In article <2km6j2$3lo@crl2.crl.com> rjust@crl.com (Randy Just) writes:
: : >Manish Gupta (manish@ms.uky.edu) wrote:
: : >:   Hey, who is the publisher and how I can get a copy of it?
: : >:   Does this journal talk about implementation details too?
: : >
: : >I have sent mail to the publisher a few times.  It doesn't bounce, but I
: : >don't get replies either.  It seems to be a big black hole of data.
: : >So far it doesn't seem very promising if they can't spend the time to
: : >responsd to e-mail.

: and haven't received a reply to any of them.  They originally contacted us about
: advertising in the publication as we are resellers of LINUX on CD-ROM.  It

  Just want to report that I ever sent them 3 mails and got 3 replys.
I was impressed! By this I gave them my credit card number to make the 
subscription after the first reply.  --yuan

-- 

--   mp.cs.niu.edu!tyuan!yuan         Yuan  Tzeng
     yuan%tyuan@mp.cs.niu.edu   A Powerful Linux Workstation.
     tyuan!yuan@mp.cs.niu.edu         That I Build

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

From: ve@nils.rhein.de (Volkmar Eich)
Subject: Re: How to kill a SLIP connection?
Date: 3 Mar 1994 06:41:38 GMT

droberts@chip.cs.uiuc.edu wrote:
: Please forgive me if this is a faq, but how do you kill a SLIP connection? All
: the guides and HOWTO's I've looked at simply say kill the process that set up
: the slip connection, but I'm using the dip package included in the latest
: slackware release, and as far as I can tell, it sets up the connection and
: terminates. Thanx in advance.

Use "dip -k" 

Volkmar
--
==============================================================================
Volkmar Eich                                        Internet: ve@nils.rhein.de
Attenberger Strasse 44                              Telefon: (02248) 4825
53773 Hennef
Germany
==============================================================================

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

Crossposted-To: news.groups
From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)
Subject: Re: RFD: comp.os.linux.* moderation by program
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 12:52:48 GMT

In article <1994Mar3.194339.18049@brtph560.bnr.ca> denebeim@bnr.ca
(Jay Denebeim P025) writes:

>This looks like all the linux groups.  I have just one problem with
>this.  If every group is moderated, how does someone with no E-Mail
>access (such as myself at this site) post to these newsgroups?

Simple....  Or at least, as simple as anything else this server is going to
need to be able to do.  :-)

To begin with, we have a server that is going to

   1) recognize any new poster to col.* (note:  new means they've never
      posted before under any userid...  I mention this, because someone
      might not be able to post from their normal site if it's down...that
      may well be why they're asking for help!)

   2) recognize *VALID* posts by new users and *NOT* reject them,
      particularly in the case where said user has a long path delay
      (such as is the case with me---there's normally a one-day delay
      on e-mail, most news, etc.)

   3) recognize invalid posts from any users (no matter how long they've
      been around) and reject them

   4) recognize the more subtle flame-bait (which can be difficult even
      for a human)

and so on....

#1 and #2 above deal with a very possible situation:  You're not new to
col.*, but your machine has died for some reason.  Whatever the reason is,
it isn't covered in the FAQ, etc., and you need to get help.  So you go
to another site where you have access and post.  This site just happens to
have a rather long UUCP delay, so you expect it to take a few days for
even the first response.  Naturally, the first response is a note saying
that your post has been rejected since the server thinks you're new (and
telling you where to get the FAQ, HOWTOs, etc.).  So now you have a few
more days to wait....  This obviously won't do, so #1 and #2 above are
pretty much essential.

Now, once all of the above has been done, it should be trivial to write
a moderation program that can handle posts that can't be sent to it in
the first place.

Oh well, I've been holding up a UUCP feed so this can go out today (instead
of tomorrow), so I'd better finish this and send it out.

Later,
   --jim

--
73 DE N5IAL (/4)                         < Running Linux 0.99 PL10 >
      jim@n5ial.mythical.com                 ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W
  ||  j.graham@ieee.org          Packet:  N5IAL@W4ZBB (Ft. Walton Beach, FL)
E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs).


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

From: barr@pop.psu.edu (David Barr)
Subject: Re: / vs /usr
Date: 3 Mar 1994 13:31:40 -0500

In article <QUINLAN.94Mar2154356@spectrum.cs.bucknell.edu>,
Daniel Quinlan <quinlan@spectrum.cs.bucknell.edu> wrote:
>If you actually read the standard, you would know that it clearly
>REDUCES the size of the root filesystem.

I agree, and I have never said otherwise.  (I said "it is bigger
than it should be")  It still remains that /bin contains dozens
of "REQUIRED" files that are totally unnecessary for a diskless
or dataless machine.  Some are placed there "because of their
traditional placement in /bin" which is is to me a not enough
of a justification.

The result still is a fatter root than is necessary.

The solution is easy.  Move all of /bin into /usr/bin.
Make /bin a symlink to /usr/bin.  Put static copies of
init, ifconfig, mount, bash, and any other bootstrapping
binaries in /sbin.  Have NO binaries in /etc.  Have symlinks
for traditional binaries found there to /usr/etc.  Leave the
root filesystem for host-specific configuration files and
enough binaries to get it to the point where it can mount /usr.

If for adminstrative reasons you want to be able to be more
self-sufficient in case /usr fails or is unavailable, then put
static copies of binaries like fsck, tar, mv and cp in /sbin.

That way those with diskless and dataless configurations
are happier, and backups of host-specific files are easier and
smaller since you just can back up the root filesystem without having
to manually include or exclude files.

Please don't take this critcism so personally.  The FSSTND is a
good step towards consistency.  Linux needs a lot more in that
area.  Personal attacks like "if you had actually read it" and
"you really don't know what the hell you're talking about" don't
reflect very well on your effort.

Yes, I wasn't careful in my reading of "static data", and
for that I apologize.

--Dave
-- 
"Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest
thieves.  They stole from everyone and everywhere." - Pablo Casals

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


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