Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #782
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, 7 Mar 94 00:13:11 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #782, Volume #1                 Mon, 7 Mar 94 00:13:11 EST

Contents:
  Re: "Reverse-engineering" (David E. Fox)
  Re: DIP (Harald Milz)
  TEXT EDITOR (Tony Teague)
  [Q]Why 'perf' is not working, or how do I use it? ( James M. Zhu)
  Re: Linux on a Thinkpad (Marius Hancu)
  Re: Linux on a Thinkpad (Marius Hancu)
  Re: [q] Power PC and Linux? (Marius Hancu)
  "ls" IN TECHNICOLOR!!!! (Christopher Shamis)
  Re: FreeBSD and Linux (Charles Hedrick)
  Re: Mail Order Linux Workstation Vendors (Larry Doolittle)
  X386 and Diamond VIPER VLB (Darryl Burke - ACPS/F93)
  Re: Adaptec 6360 chip? (Cerberus)
  360k floppies not supported? (Alex Ramos)
  Re: "Reverse-engineering" (John F. Haugh II)
  Re: pronunciation of linux (Scott Mark)

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

From: root@belvedere.sbay.org (David E. Fox)
Subject: Re: "Reverse-engineering"
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 17:54:46 GMT

John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386) wrote:

: Programming might be "fun" or "easy", but =good= programming is a quite
: different matter.  Ever wonder why GCC or G++ oscillate between
: "working" and "not working"?  There is no profit motive to keep them
: working.  And there is no profit motive to make the compilers

There is a tremendous profit motive in Borland and Microsoft language
products and neither of these are as good as GNU is.  GNU is substantially
better at code generation and is freer of bugs than anything I've run
on DOS, itself only crippleware.
  
: -- 
: John F. Haugh II  [ NRA-ILA ] [ Kill Barney ] !'s: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
: Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151 [GOP][DoF #17][PADI][ENTJ]   @'s: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org
:  There are three documents that run my life: The King James Bible, the United
:  States Constitution, and the UNIX System V Release 4 Programmer's Reference.
-- 
David Fox                       root@belvedere.sbay.org
5479 Castle Manor Drive
San Jose, CA 95129              Thanks for letting me change
408/253-7992                    magnetic patterns on your hard disk.

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

From: hm@seneca.ix.de (Harald Milz)
Subject: Re: DIP
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 09:09:41 GMT
Reply-To: hm@seneca.ix.de

Young Charlie (young933@crow.csrv.uidaho.edu) wrote:
: >  (by NET-2-HOWTO) to type local <mylocaladdress> and remote <systems
: >  address> (BTW, our system is a Dynamic Type, where it changes the IP
: >  address) , but when i type remote or local for that matter, DIP says:
: >  command not found. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please remember that the script syntax changed with 337. It should read
        get $local <ip>

Ciao,
hm


-- 
Harald Milz (hm@seneca.ix.de)

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

From: tony@scisun.sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Tony Teague)
Subject: TEXT EDITOR
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 23:55:22 GMT

 Hi, 
  Are there any goof text editors out there out the net for 
 linux .. I would like something like wordperfect or something.
 Email me at tony@scisun.sci.ccny.cuny.edu or
             teag4971@css1s0.engr/ccny.cuny.edu

                                               thanks
                                                   tony

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

From: jaz@physics.ucf.edu ( James M. Zhu)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: [Q]Why 'perf' is not working, or how do I use it?
Date: 7 Mar 1994 00:24:26 GMT

every time I trying to run the 'perf' , it will return the 
message "lost connection" why is that? how do I use the 'perf'
correctly?

thanks

min zhu

-- 
**********************************$$*******************************************
*       James Zhu               $$$$$$             Finger me for sure         *
* jaz@phys.physics.ucf.edu    $$$ || $$$      If I'm the right guy for you!!  *
*******************************************************************************

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

From: hancu@crim.ca (Marius Hancu)
Subject: Re: Linux on a Thinkpad
Date: 7 Mar 94 00:18:53 GMT

>>>In article <2l08u1$ka8@mane.cgrg.ohio-state.edu>, coil@osc.edu (Stacy D. Coil) writes:
 >> NNTP-Posting-Host: calvin.osc.edu

 >> I too am trying to install linux on a Thinkpad 750c.  I haven't even
 >> been able to get past the initiall boot disk using any of the installation
 >> packages.  It seems unable to recognize the 2.8 Meg floppy drive.

 >> Is there anyone that has been successful in install linux on a Thinkpad?

Yes, I was, on the cheapest model, the one with the black and white
display, I guess 320 (I do not have the machine here). Unfortunately,
as far as I know (correct me if I am wrong) the 700 series uses the
MCA bus architecture, which is not supported by linux (see FAQs).

Marius
-- 
SIG

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

From: hancu@crim.ca (Marius Hancu)
Subject: Re: Linux on a Thinkpad
Date: 7 Mar 94 00:23:58 GMT


From the linux FAQ:

=====
You need a 386 or 486, with at least 2Mb of RAM and a single floppy, to
try it out.  To do anything useful more RAM and a hard disk are required.

Linux doesn't currently work on machines using MCA (IBM's proprietary
bus), because of lack of available documentation.  You may be able to it
to work if you your hard disk is on certain kinds of controller (some SCSI
controllers work, I understand), but you're on your own.
=====

Seems like the 700 series use this architecture, so, sorry guys ...

Marius
-- 
SIG

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

From: hancu@crim.ca (Marius Hancu)
Subject: Re: [q] Power PC and Linux?
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 00:29:06 GMT



 >> However the best way to pulling off requires getting a PowerPC for the
 >> master - Linus. Who's game?

How about IBM and Apple. They have to sell their machines, isn't it.
How about making a donation to Linus?
This would be good advertising for them too. (Hope some IBM and Apple
marketing managers take this seriously).


Marius Hancu, Parallel Architectures Group 
Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal (CRIM)
1801, avenue McGill College, Bureau 800, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2N4, Canada 
phone: (514) 398-5561, fax: 514-398-1244, email:  hancu@crim.ca
-- 
SIG

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

From: stu1084@alpha.wright.edu (Christopher Shamis)
Subject: "ls" IN TECHNICOLOR!!!!
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 01:02:52 GMT


Recently a buddy of mine upgraded his kernal to a slackware version, and i
noticed soon after that his "ls" command was using different colors, for
different file extentions.  Where can I get the source for this version of
"ls" ????  I would *LOVE* to install it on all the machines I use.

If *you* know /anything/ about this program please E-Mail me at :
Stu1084@Discover.wright.edu 

And who-ever wrote the program... your a SAVIOR!!!  Could you port it to
MS-DOS Please?????

--bye


Chris
stu1084@discover.wright.edu

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

From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD and Linux
Date: 6 Mar 94 22:26:44 GMT

jerijian@hurricane.seas.ucla.edu (Arthur D. Jerijian) writes:


>  What is the difference between FreeBSD (386BSD) and Linux?  Are they both
>UNIX clones, and is one better than the other?
>  Thank you very much for your help.

There are four major differences:

1) the 386BSD family started with BSD, and Linux started with POSIX.
NetBSD/FreeBSD/386BSD have been adding POSIX and System V
compatibility, and Linux has been adding Berkeley and System V
compatibility.  So there's a good deal of overlap.  But ...BSD is
still a better choice if you want to program in a Berkeley environment
and Linux if you want a POSIX environment.

That's for the kernel and libc -- the utilities and other stuff users
see tends to be fairly similar.  In both cases the programs are what I
call "typical University Unix".  The main difference is that the base
Unix utilities tend to be Berkeley for ...BSD and Gnu for Linux.  Gnu
is fairly Berkeley-compatible, but its priority is POSIX, so it tends
to look slightly closer to System V, with massive Berkeley extension.
There are several sets of administrative utilities, but it's more
likely that init, getty, etc., are going to be System V style for
Linux and BSD for ...BSD.  

Again, these things aren't as significant as they might be because
...BSD is also concerned about POSIX compatibility and Gnu is
concerned about BSD compatibility.  So both sets of software are
approaching a similar sort of goal from opposite directions.  You
could probably use the systems for quite a while without noticing much
difference.  (I'd like to emphasize that there's no similarity in
overall feel between Linux and typical brain-dead PC System V ports.)

The ...BSD FAQ characterizes the difference as one of East Coast
vs. West Coast.  There's a lot to be said for that summary.  There's
more difference in Unix culture between New Jersey and California than
between New Jersey and Finland.

2) The nature of the development communities and distribution
mechanisms are different.  ...BSD has two or three different developer
communities that take code from each other, but appear to hate each
other's guts.  (Actually, even ...BSD and Linux take code from each
other.)  Thus there are several different ...BSD's, each of which has
an official distribution.  There's just one Linux kernel, and from a
practical point of view just one set of major utilities, but there's
no official distribution.  So several different groups put together
distributions, with their own choice of kernel and utility versions.
This means that it's easier to define what the One True Linux is than
what the One True BSD is, but harder to get it.  Once you've decided
which BSD is the right one, it's easier to find an authoritative
distribution of it.  Development of Linux tends to be more
distributed.  Lots of people are working on lots of projects: new
drivers for this and that, new versions of this utility and that.  If
you want to keep up with netBSD, you can sup netBSD-current from one
place.  If you want to keep up with Linux, you end up taking pieces
from lots of people (though they generally end up on one of two
archive machines -- tsx-11.mit.edu or sunsite.unc.edu).  If you don't
want to do this, of course the packaged distributions do it for you.

3) The BSD networking is more mature than the Linux networking.  This
is one area in which I don't think Linux has any countervailing
advantages, though in my opinion by release 1.0 Linux networking will
be acceptable.

4) There are specific things in each system that are likely to be
deciding factors for some people.  I don't know what unique things BSD
has, because I'm not part of that community, but for some people the
COFF and ELF compatiblity projects may be critical, as it will allow
Linux to run major commercial Unix software.  For typical end users
Windows compatibility is probably more useful, but that's being done
jointly by BSD and Linux.  (Neither of these things is finished, by
the way.)  It's not clear to me whether the existing Linux DOS
compatibility is a critical advantage.  BSD doesn't have it, but my
experience is that the Linux DOS emulator is slow enough and creaky
enough that it's not generally usable.  However it certainly does work
for many programs, and if one of those programs is critical to you, it
may be a big deal.  Differences in support of devices are not likely
to persist for long.  There's a history of taking device drivers in
both directions, so if there's enough interest in a device, and one
side implements it, you can bet it will show up on the other side.
Linux uses DOS partitions (including extended partitions).  BSD
creates its own partitions inside a single DOS partition.  This is a
difference, but it's unclear whether it's a critical one.  Linux can
mount DOS and OS/2 file systems (OS/2 is read-only).

For a lot of people, the best suggestion is to find out what your
friends are doing.  If there's a significant user community near you
of either kind, you're probably best off to go with it.  If not, flip
a coin (or look at a map and see whether you're nearer Berkeley or
Finland -- note that in this comparison portions of the distance that
are over an ocean don't count).

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: Mail Order Linux Workstation Vendors
Reply-To: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 16:41:46 GMT

In article <STEINBER.94Mar6125812@schoenfix.ert.rwth-aachen.de>,
steinber@schoenfix.ert.rwth-aachen.de (Dirk Steinberg) writes:
> >>>>> "Edwin" == Edwin Tisdale <edwin@maui.cs.ucla.edu> writes:
> In article <1994Mar04.203225.25070@cs.ucla.edu> edwin@maui.cs.ucla.edu
(Edwin Tisdale) writes:
> 
>     Edwin> A Linux workstation
>     Edwin> with a 60 MHz Pentium (P5 not P24) CPU is just a little
>     Edwin> faster than a Sun SuperSPARC Model 41.  In order to get a
> 
> Certainly not for floating point!

I haven't seen benchmarks, but initial reports on the Pentium "feel"
are that it is impressive, even for floating point.  One person I
talked to found it neck-and-neck with a mid-range RS6000, and for
a third the price!

>     Edwin> feel for the prices these vendors were charging, I asked
>     Edwin> each vendor to give me a quote for the following
>     Edwin> configuration:
> 
>     * Intel 586DX-60 MHz Pentium CPU with heat sink and fan
>     * 30 MHz PCI-586 mother board with 256 kB cache
>     * 16 MB 70 ns system memory
>     * 540 MB 12 ms IDE hard disk drive
>                      ^^^
>     * 1.4 MB 3.5"  floppy disk drive
>     * 1.2 MB 5.25" floppy disk drive
>     * PCI 1280 x 1024 1 MB Super VGA graphics card
>     * 15" 1024 x 768 0.28 mm dot pitch non-interlaced color monitor
>     * Mid-size tower case and power supply
>     * 101 enhanced soft touch keyboard
>     * 3 button serial high resolution mouse
>     * Linux operating system, X, C++, LaTeX, etc.
>     * two year warranty
> 
> This configuration is not well balanced. It's total nonsense to
> operate the lastest-and-greatest (and expensive) Pentium PCI
> workstation with a small IDE hard disk. Anyone buying such a
> configuration should be shot to death, even more so since most PCI
> mainboards already have an onboard SCSI controller. Drew Eckhard is
> working an a NCR 53c810 PCI driver for Linux, which I hope will be
> ready soon. A 1 GB SCSI-2 drive would fit the picture much better.
> I recently bought such a beast (3.5") for ~ $700.

Well, with 16Mb RAM, disk speeds should not be a big deal.
Point/counterpoint!

> Same for the graphics card, if you really want to run X. First of all,
> you cannot have 1280x1024 with 1 MB, at least not in 256 color, and
> that's all XFree supports. Second, it should *really* be some
> accelerated card, probably with the Mach 32 or S3 928 chipset. BTW:
> The 928 is currently *not* supported with video clocks above 80 MHz,
> wich you need for 1280x1024. The Mach 32 *is* in XFree 2.1. You should
> go for 2 MB.

Agreed on the 2MB.
The 928 itself works fine at arbitrary speeds.  It is the RAMDAC's which
have trouble at high speeds.  There is one RAMDAC from AT+T (found on
the ISA version of the Actix GE32 Ultra) that is good with XFree86 2.0
at up to 110 MHz.  Most people are living with 80 MHz until 2.1 comes
out, when all the popular RAMDAC's will work at full speed, typically
135 MHz (and up and up!).  Version 2.1 is in beta test now.

> FYI: The ATI Ultra Pro PCI 2 MB VRAM (1280x1024 @ 74 Hz, 135 MHz), OEM
>      version is about $450 in Germany.
> 
> If this sounds too expensive, then drop the Pentium and rather go for
> a 486DX2/66 PCI, and keep the fast disk and graphics card. You *will*
> certainly get more out of your Linux X workstation this way. Believe me.

I agree that the shift from 486DX2/66 to Pentium should take place *after*
you have gone to the high end on Graphics, Disk, and Memory.  Don't forget
the Monitor!  An exception *might* be made for people who want Floating
Point first, last and inbetween.

     - Larry Doolittle


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

From: dburke@acs.ryerson.ca (Darryl Burke - ACPS/F93)
Subject: X386 and Diamond VIPER VLB
Date: 7 Mar 1994 02:47:38 GMT

I'm trying to get Xfree to run with a Diamond Viper 2M card can anyone help?

Darryl Burke
dburke@turing.acs.ryerson.ca

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

From: dpaper@nyx.cs.du.edu (Cerberus)
Subject: Re: Adaptec 6360 chip?
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 22:47:58 GMT

In article <2l7sas$7ea@paperboy.osf.org>,
Dan Swartzendruber <dswartz@pugsley.osf.org> wrote:
>I just purchased a Zeos system.  Among other things, the motherboard
>provides a socket for builtin Fast SCSI-2 support.  According to Zeos,
>this is an Adaptec 6360 chip.  Is this supported by Linux?  If not,
>is it similar enough to anything else by Adaptec to make a reasonably
>quick port possible?
>
>-- 
>
>#include <std_disclaimer.h>
>
>Dan S.

Well Dan, you may get other responses from other people, but I too have a Zeos
 system,I have a 6360 SCSI chip in it, and Linux doen'st like it, plain and
 simmple.

I talked to Zeos, there is no way to patch it, althjo it comes with drivers
for 154x emulation in dos, it's worthless in Linux.  I bought a Adaptec
1542C card, installed it, and had to change my bios to umm version 18
revision 10 (or something) that totally didn't support SCSI, because
linux woudl boot up and panic when it saw two carrds, plus it used up an
IRQ i needed, and a DMA channel.

After I changed the BIOS, it worked fine.

Now, I'm running BSDI, and well i dont worry about linux right now, altho
I am goign to change back pretty soon.

Also, I wasn't able to get the chip out of the motherboard
so i just left it in.

-dave






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

From: ramos@engr.latech.edu (Alex Ramos)
Subject: 360k floppies not supported?
Date: 6 Mar 1994 23:38:57 GMT


I've been unable to mount or to use mtools on /dev/fd1, an
old 360k drive. Is there anything I'm overlooking?

Thanks,

--
Alex Ramos <ramos@engr.latech.edu> * This message is copyrighted material!
Louisiana Tech University BSEE/Sr  * All rights reserved. No warranty, etc

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

Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
From: jfh@rpp386 (John F. Haugh II)
Subject: Re: "Reverse-engineering"
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 03:18:21 GMT

In article <2l9p7i$re@draconia.hacktic.nl> ron@draconia.hacktic.nl (Ron Smits) writes:
>: 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.

This morning I tried to compile GNUPLOT with GCC.  It blew up.  I changed
the auto-configured Makefile to be "cc".  It compiled just fine with the
stock compiler in Dell's SVR4.

>: 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.

Glad you see things my way.

>I use Linux and GCC 2.5.8 and XFree86 to write programs and applications
>that run on NCR 3000 systems. It takes one (1) xmkmf and one (1) make install
>I call this compliant enough. The Gcc compiler is good, sturdy and smarter
>then other compilers I've worked with!!

Then you've never used XLC from IBM.  It is fully ANSI compliant, the
OS is XPG/3 branded, and it produces code that is significantly faster
than that produced by GCC.

But you say, "How can this possibly be?"  It "be" because IBM holds most
of the interesting compiler patents.  IBM also employs quite a few really
slick compiler writers.  And IBM can afford to employ all those Canadians
because there is a profit motive.  The state of the art in commercial
software will always be vastly better than the state of the art in free
software.  There is only so much "research and development" you can do
in your spare time.
-- 
John F. Haugh II  [ NRA-ILA ] [ Kill Barney ] !'s: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151 [GOP][DoF #17][PADI][ENTJ]   @'s: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org
 There are three documents that run my life: The King James Bible, the United
 States Constitution, and the UNIX System V Release 4 Programmer's Reference.

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

From: sjm@se01.elk.miles.com (Scott Mark)
Subject: Re: pronunciation of linux
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 03:01:08 GMT

Oh, for pity's sake.

Why not have Linus make available a little .au file that we can all cat
to /dev/dsp?  Then we can all get it right.  Better say it three times,
fast and slow, for good redundancy.

Scott
-- 
--
Scott Mark              (219) 262-7452          7:30 - 4:00 EST
sjm@se01.elk.miles.com

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


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