Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #813
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, 15 Mar 94 06:13:06 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #813, Volume #1                Tue, 15 Mar 94 06:13:06 EST

Contents:
  Re: Panasonic 562-B drivers? (Eberhard Moenkeberg)
  Re: Network support changes? (J.S. van Oosten)
  HELP: adding users in linux (Christian Sepulveda)
  Linux 1.0 comes out on same day Apple announces new machines (Gerard R. Lazo)
  Re: Installing Linux (Craig Sanders)
  Re: DOOM for X (Alan Cox)
  Re: SoftPC/Linux? (Marc Fraioli)
  Re: Linux and Hayes 28,800's - anyone have them working? (Jason Conrad Sokolosky)
  Re: BSD vs. Linux (Sakari Jalovaara)
  Re: *** DON'T READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (David Barr)
  Re: wanted: printer filter (Harald Milz)
  Re: Linux Journal (Maxim Spivak)
  test (Edmund Knowles)
  Re: "Reverse-engineering" (Charles Hedrick)
  stb powergraph problems (Chris McKay)
  Re: GOD SPEAKS ON LINUX! (Joshua Drake)
  Re: "ls" IN TECHNICOLOR!!!! (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)

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

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 94 22:57:22 +0100
From: Eberhard_Moenkeberg@p27.rollo.central.de (Eberhard Moenkeberg)
Subject: Re: Panasonic 562-B drivers?

Hello Pamela and all others,

on 09.03.94 Pamela Wood wrote to All in USENET.COMP.OS.LINUX.MISC:

PW> : I am just about to install Linux and was wondering if there are any
PW> drivers  for the Panasonic 562-B CD-ROM drive.  Any info on file name
PW> and/or FTP site would be appreciated.

PW> It takes a patched kernel. if you find one ftp'able, let me know! I can't
PW> install from CD because of it.

sbpcd.c is part of the standard kernel since 0.99.14x.

Most CD editors already included it long before that time (Yggdrasil,
Nascent, Trans-AmeriTech, SLS 1.04). Which CD do you have?

Greetings ... Eberhard


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

From: jvoosten@compiler.tdcnet.nl (J.S. van Oosten)
Subject: Re: Network support changes?
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 01:24:46 GMT

Deryk Barker (dbarker@turing.camosun.bc.ca) wrote:

: Somewhere between pl12 (which I am running now) and pl15 something
: seems to have changed with regard to ethernet support.

: I loaded the pl15(g?) kernel, compiled it and booted from floppy.
: Everything was fine until rc.net, when I got a 'network unreachable
: error'. By everything I include my ethercard's being correctly
: identified, IRQ and port address just as before.

[snip snip]

First, you probably need newer version of 'ifconfig' and 'route'.
Sunacm.swan.ac.uk has got a wide range of network utilites in
/pub/misc/Linux/Networking/Programs/System; check out ~/net032 .

Also, I think the order in which 'ifonfig' and 'route' are executed is more
or less significant now (well, that's the impression I got).

: So I got the pre-1.0 and guess what - same problem.

Hmm. Networking is unfortunately still the most unreliable, vague, and
errorphrone area in Linux... Despite a lot of HOWTO's and manuals it can
take hours to set things up properly... (how about a comp.os.linux.networks
?)

J. v. O.

--
I always cry when I have to reboot Linux to return to DOS... *sniff*
-- 
My PGP public key (you know when, why and how...) :

=====BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK=====
Version: 2.3
mQCNAi1lYqsAAAEEAMCgUKS7DxyGF8D7QIGYXxRuh2n9Q2+5gIrrb1n9iOl4Xlgo
cO8Y3DE71J5K6WhlpEGDqXZIwY/Xx8mxq80ZHJ3n0pHOUxOQGdxxMT1mrKotjE4Y
wmGqnQhMhpcCKgT/5+5xhuMEluyGQqjyud3PCDogJCC/Sia7eO9+56e/13btAAUR
tC1KLlMuIHZhbiBPb3N0ZW4gPGp2b29zdGVuQGNvbXBpbGVyLnRkY25ldC5ubD4=
=3brb
=====END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK=====

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

Subject: HELP: adding users in linux
From: csepulv@husc9.harvard.edu (Christian Sepulveda)
Date: 14 Mar 1994 17:04:15 GMT

I recently installed the SLS release of linux. As recommended, I tried to 
create an account for myself. Unfortunately, I can't. Adduser can't be used 
since the SLS release users /etc/shadow in addition to /etc/passwd. I must 
use useradd. I tried that, with the correct flags and it created the user 
entry in both the passwd and shadow file. In the passwd file, the password 
field had an *, which I removed so that the account would be active. 
Howvever, the system refuses to acknowledge the existence of the user. I 
tried using the passwd command to change the password of the user, but I get 
a response that "'username' user unknown". The home directory gets created, 
and entries are made into the passwd and shadow files but the user's account 
isn't created. I tried editting the actual passwd and shadow file, and it 
still won't recognize the existence of the user.

If anyone can help, please e-mail me instructions and on how to add users. I 
read the man page and all the documentation I can find, and still no luck. I 
even tried getting the source for adduser. I compiled it and when I tried 
running it, I get a message that adduser is obsolete and that I need to use 
useradd instead.

Thanks,
Chris Sepulveda
csepulv@husc.harvard.edu
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________

                        Christian Sepulveda
                        (csepulv@husc.harvard.edu)
        *******************************************************         

Let us live!!!
Let us love!!!
Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!

You first.
        *******************************************************         
                (I don't understand it either! It's just random!)
______________________________________________________________________________




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

From: grl6732@rigel.tamu.edu (Gerard R. Lazo)
Subject: Linux 1.0 comes out on same day Apple announces new machines
Date: 14 Mar 1994 17:50 CDT

I overheard on NPR that Apple announced their new line of PowerPC
computers today. It was touted that the prices/performance challenged
Intel's Pentium. I thought it was ironic, coincidental, interesting
that Linux 1.0 would make its debut on the same day. With all the
applications that can be ported to Linux, it will be interesting to
see how the different OS environments evolve.
                                              /
Gerard R. Lazo                   . %.        (=)   GLAZO@tamsun.tamu.edu
USDA-ARS                        (.(  .)       /     Off: 409-260-9533
Southern Crops Research Lab.   ( ( .) .) ->  (=)     Lab: 409-260-9522
Route 5, Box 805                %_( ._)       /       Fax: 409-260-9333
College Station, TX 77845        //\|        (=)   
                                ((            /

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

From: cas@muffin.apana.org.au (Craig Sanders)
Subject: Re: Installing Linux
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 11:25:49 GMT

wielinga@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au (Bruce Wielinga) writes:

>Steve Havelka,,, (shavelk@agora.rain.com) wrote:
>> Is it possible to install Linux on a machine with only 2 meg of
>> memory?  I've got a 386sx-16 with 2 meg of ram and a 40 meg HD,
>> and would like to use Linux.  Is it possible to do this without
>> upgrading?

>This is a question I would also be interested in. I know that all the
>fun and fancy stuff like X, etc would page horibly but could I get the
>basic system runnig? I have a small 2meg labtop. previous attempts
>useing UMSDOS have failed as I run out of memory on login, However I
>think I will try again attempting to cut my background stuff to the
>bone and setting up swap in my rc. Ill also have to prepare a speciel
>kernel. Any data on previous attempts would be appricated however I do
>intend to experiment with this.

I've got a friend who has a 386-sx-16 with 2MB of memory.

He installed Linux on his system recently.  Well, actually, *I*
installed Linux because he was having major problems getting it to work.

A couple of points:

 - It's really, really slow.  2MB systems actually have only 1.6MB of
   usable memory (the top 384K of the first megabyte is unusable by
   Linux).  About a third or more of that memory is used by the kernel
   itself. getty and login and background stuff like crond eats up more
   memory. leaving bugger-all real memory for running programs in.  8MB
   of swap space should be enough (you won't WANT to swap any more than
   that) to get things running, you just have to have a little patience.

 - Installation in 2MB is very difficult, time consuming, and
   frustrating.  The key is to make sure that the bootdisk is capable of
   running off the floppy rather than making a ramdisk first.  The root
   floppy must also be mounted read/write so that you can mount your
   hard disk.



Here's the tale of adventure as I remember it:

My friend got ftp-ed a copy of Slackware 1.1.1 - just the first four
disks to see if it would run.

Tried to install it but couldn't.  It wouldn't even boot.  Called me.  I
came over and made an attempt.

First thing was to make sure that we selected 'floppy' at the LILO
prompt rather than 'ramdisk'.  On a 1.6MB machine you can't afford to
waste 1.44MB on a ramdisk while installing.

It booted off the floppy OK.  We could login as root, run fdisk to
partition the hard disk, and then format it with mke2fs.  We could even
mkswap and swapon to a swap partition (great! we needed virtual memory
for the rest of the install...1.6MB just isn't enough).

Now we struck the next major hurdle.  The root disk was mounted read
only.  This meant that we could not mount the hard disk partitions
because mount could not write the /etc/mtab file.

The mount program on the root disk was an old version which did not
support either the -n (don't write /etc/mtab) or the '-o rw,remount'
(remount read/write) options.

After many hours of trying lots of different things (including running
rdev to try to make the root disk read/write) we gave up in despair.  We
decided to try my copy of SLS 1.03...and to leave it for another day
since we were bloody exhausted and frustrated.

We think about it for a bit and decide to do it the easy way.  My friend
will bring his hard disk to my place, connect it to my linux box, and
we will restore one of my tape backups of just linux and binaries and
config files onto it.

A few days later, my friend arrives at my house with his hard disk
and IDE controller card.  His controller card is one of those crappy
Super-IO cards which doesn't work on my system.  I hunt around for my
old miniscribe IDE card.  Plug it in, it works so fdisk, format, and
start to install linux from tape.

That ran nicely for a while, until his disk ran out of free space.  80MB
less 8Mb swap partition, less 10MB he decides to waste on MS-DOS.  Small
disks...I hate them.

Rather than try to untar everything from the tape individually and
reorganise stuff to try and make it all fit, we decided to do a partial
install from my SLS 1.03 disks.  SLS isn't great, but I've learnt a lot
using it...learnt more than enough to know the reasons WHY I should be
running something better.  I'm waiting for Debian 1.0, but until then
SLS works well enough (after you fix a lot of stuff).

I reformatted everything, and started the install process.  At this
point, I let my friend take over the job of inserting disks one after
another :-). We installed everything except for t1-t3 TeX, s1 source
disk, and x1-x10 X windows.  Worked like a charm when we finally
connected his hard disk back onto his system.

The upshot of all this is that yes, we did manage to get Linux running
on a 2MB 386-sx-16.  We couldn't get Slackare to install, but had to use
SLS.  However we only did that by plugging the hard disk into my 8MB
486-SX-33 and installing from that.  I think that we could probably have
got it to install directly on the 2MB system if we had tried a few other
things, but we wanted to get the job done quickly.  It worked, but it
was not a pleasant experience.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend running it on a 2MB machine, except
as an interim measure...something to give you an object lesson in the
realities of why you need 8MB of RAM :-). Also, I would recommend having
a friend with a more capable machine to do stuff like compiling new
versions of the kernel for you etc...

I've recompiled a minimal version of the kernel for my friend which had
only 4 Virtual Consoles, and removed support for xiafs, nfs, iso-9660
fs, scsi, cd-rom, and everything else which wasn't absolutely needed.
This was a bit of an improvement, but the machine is still slow and has
a tendency to hang at times - I think this is the fault of his crappy
Super-IO card crapping out during a swap operation or it might be due
to various programs having 'memory leaks'.  I don't know, and i'm not
willing to spend too much time fixing problems which are caused by his
hardware being inadequate.  He doesn't mind too much either - he's just
impressed and happy that it runs at all on his system.  Of course, he is
saving up enough money to buy a new motherboard and more ram.


As for me, I'm very happy with Linux on my system.  The price of a new
486-SX-33 motherboard is almost trivial these days, especially if you
can sell of your old motherboard to help pay for it.  8MB of memory
is expensive for someone like me on a tight budget but well worth the
money.  Not bad at all for a machine which started out as a second-hand
286 four years ago, and has been upgraded with a random assortment of
free or cheap second-hand junk plus some new stuff I managed to buy
whenever I came into some extra cash.

-- 
Craig Sanders                                     cas@muffin.apana.org.au

Be compassionate: Don't say "straight", say "psychedelically challenged"!

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.apps
From: iiitac@uk.ac.swan.pyr (Alan Cox)
Subject: Re: DOOM for X
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 12:48:14 GMT

In article <2m0gii$2sg@u.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) writes:
>In article <2lrtvn$icf@daisy.cc.utexas.edu> ddt@daisy.cc.utexas.edu (David Taylor) writes:
>>The bad news: I hope y'all don't mind if I restrict the ports to
>>keyboard input.  I'm kinda wondering about the rudeness of yanking the
>>mouse into the window for mouse control.  Would rather not muck with
>>it.  Real men use keyboards only anyway.. (I'm an incurable vi loser).
>
>Well, from one "incurable vi loser" to another, I think not doing the
>mouse stuff is a big handicap.  With X, you should get focus notification
>events and/or enter/leave notify events and be able to deal with then as
>needed.

I'd much rather have Linux joystick support to be honest, that way I can
read news with one hand and play doom with the other.

Alan


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

From: mjf@clark.net (Marc Fraioli)
Subject: Re: SoftPC/Linux?
Date: 15 Mar 1994 00:32:41 GMT
Reply-To: mjf@clark.net

In article 1210@geneva.rutgers.edu, hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:
>jfh@rpp386 (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>
>>Have you ever tried selling commercial software in the Linux environment?
>>Even a hint of the word "commercial" or "proprietary" sets Linux users on
>>a wild rampage.
>
>Only a few idiots.  The motif versions seem to be doing OK.

Is it?  I'd be curious to know about how many copies had been sold...I've
though of getting it myself, but the price is kind of steep to justify just
for home hacking.

---
Marc Fraioli          |         HAIL ANTS!
mjf@clark.net         | 


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

From: jcsokolo@acs.ucalgary.ca (Jason Conrad Sokolosky)
Subject: Re: Linux and Hayes 28,800's - anyone have them working?
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 22:06:05 GMT

Brian Kramer (bjkramer@remus.rutgers.edu) wrote:
: Does anyone have linux working with hayes 28.8's?  I may try
: it for a slip connection if possible.

I didn't know they had 28.8's out yet.  Who sells them besides Hayes????

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

From: sja@snakemail.hut.fi (Sakari Jalovaara)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: BSD vs. Linux
Date: 14 Mar 94 14:43:32 GMT

> Yes, it does. The Ultrix kernel (for example) has all sorts of cruft
> in it associated with supporting obsolete terminal hardware and stuff
> like that. Just for example.

Unused hardware can be usually configured out of the kernel.
I seriously doubt that whatever unused hardware support remains
is going to make a big difference.  (The most obvious way support
for exotic hardware is going to affect you is the reverse: you
_do_ have the hardware but your kernel doesn't grok it.)

Let's see:

$ ls -l /linux
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       502276 Apr 25  1993 /linux

# ls -l /netbsd
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  491594 Feb 28 16:23 /netbsd

As long as kernel sizes are the same within a few hundred kB,
the "lots of kernel code for exotic hardware" theory has a
definite problem.

(Your numbers will depend on your hardware configuration.)
(Hmm, "size /linux" bombs.)

> Are you going to convince me that BSD
> doesn't suffer from the same sorts of problems?

Probably not.
                                                                        ++sja

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

From: barr@pop.psu.edu (David Barr)
Subject: Re: *** DON'T READ THIS BEFORE POSTING ***
Date: 14 Mar 1994 10:14:04 -0500

It's a joke, folks.  Laugh.  Ha ha.

--Dave
-- 
"A man is a person who will pay two dollars for a one-dollar item he wants.
A womain will pay one dollar for a two-dollar item she doesn't want."
- William Binger

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

From: hm@seneca.ix.de (Harald Milz)
Subject: Re: wanted: printer filter
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 08:19:38 GMT
Reply-To: hm@seneca.ix.de

Mark Fernyhough (ferny@pc64.maths.bris.ac.uk) wrote:

: > Does anyone out there know if i could get hold of a filter which strips out
: > control characters and alike from ascii files. The main reason for this
: > is when i try and print man pages( man *** | lpr) on my machine i get stuff 
: > like:-  N NA AM ME E instead of NAME etc. I have tried to convert to 
: > postscript but still can't get rid of control characters.

Try "man <command> | col -b | lpr" instead.

This question is not at all Linux-specific. 

Ciao,
hm

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

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

From: maxims@uclink.berkeley.edu (Maxim Spivak)
Subject: Re: Linux Journal
Date: 14 Mar 1994 02:53:26 GMT

I haven't received mine yet.

Max (San Francisco, CA)

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: d0zawjh@server4.bell-atl.com (Edmund Knowles)
Subject: test
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 17:38:50 GMT

test


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

From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Subject: Re: "Reverse-engineering"
Date: 14 Mar 94 02:40:00 GMT

iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) writes:

>The reason Linux doesn't run support MCA or NetWare is in each case
>difficulty in obtaining relevant information.  I expect that the same
>is true of AppleTalk, though a lack of people wanting the facility may
>well have some impact there.

Appletalk is well documented.  There's a free implementation that runs
under Unix.  Linux now has the necessary capabilities to implement it
(though not very efficiently).  I assume it will just be a matter of
time before someone ports it.

>>So when can we expect Linux v1.0?
>No more than two months.
I believe it's a few hours.

As a general response to comments about Linux being a "toy": For some
people yes, for others no.  There are certainly companies doing real
work.  What is obvious is that it's a different kind of beast than
SCO.  My view is that different organizations and projects need
different types of product.  For all kinds of reasons, huge
bureacratic organizations like to buy software from other huge
bureacratic organizations.  This isn't just inertia.  There are issues
of support style and organizational stability.  I've also seen large
software vendors put massive resources into fixing problems for major
clients.

But the other side of that is that individuals and smaller companies
may do better off dealing with individuals and smaller companies.
It's likely to be easier for an individual to get attention from
people on the net or a small company.  And the kinds of things the
huge organizations supply may not be needed for them.  It's true that
Linux doesn't support Novell and other things that are commonly
considered critical in large installations.  It may still find niches
in a large organization, but it's probably never going to be an
organization-wide enterprise strategic product.  But the kinds of
stuff I work with at Rutgers that are of that kind I wouldn't touch
with a 10 foot pole at home.  And smaller companies, or small teams
doing high-tech applications in large organizations, may find that
they have similar requirements.

Current efforts to make commercial software accessible from Linux seem
like a realistic approach to this problem.  There will probably never
be a large commercial software base for Linux.  But if we can run
Windows, SCO, and SVr4 software, that will be a big help.  That
*doesn't* mean that I think Linux is going to be a serious threat to
sales of the next Windows release.  But it will make things easier for
people who need what Linux has, and still want some access to
commercial software.

Frankly, I don't even *want* Linux to displace Windows.  I've seen a
number of small companies succeed and grow.  Generally I found them
get harder and harder to deal with.  By the time you had the same kind
of customer base as Windows, you'd have to have an organization quite
similar to Microsoft.  That's not what I want to deal with.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: cmckay@sbu.edu (Chris McKay)
Subject: stb powergraph problems
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 01:35:04 GMT

Greetings, I am having the worst luck trying to get x to run in
anything but the generic monochrome mode with the yggdrasil fall
1993 cdrom with XFree 1.3. I have spent hours trying different
combinations and servers and I am not having any luck. Could 
some of you out there (if there are any that have gotten everything
to work) mail me your xconfig file, the name of the X server you got
everything to work with and if possible what exactly to do? I would
really appreciate it. 
                                Thanks a lot
                                                Chris
                                                cmckay@sbu.edu



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

From: drake@teleport.com (Joshua Drake)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: GOD SPEAKS ON LINUX!
Date: 13 Mar 1994 18:45:32 -0800

What the hell is god to linux....
Lewis (ljt3@PL122b.lehigh.edu) wrote:
: In article <2lklvr$h2v@nermal.cs.uoguelph.ca> gbuhlman@uoguelph.ca (Glen Buhlmann) writes:
: >someone else writes:
: >: I'll have you know I'm sitting right here in front of god, and god is
: >: running Linux.
: >I am God......and I use an Amiga......

: Running Amiga Linux, I assume. :-)
: --
: Lewis Tanzos - ljt3@[cs1.cc/pl122.eecs].lehigh.edu  - ljt3@Lehigh.edu
: "By the common conception, humankind doesn't consider something 'worth
:  it' unless they get their investment back -- preferrably with profit.
:          ...By this criterion, most of the Universe is 'not worth it'"
-- 
drake@teleport.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-1016 (1200/2400, N81)

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

From: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
Subject: Re: "ls" IN TECHNICOLOR!!!!
Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 02:38:44 GMT

In article <1994Mar9.182604.12116@schbbs.mot.com> of comp.os.linux.misc,
  epgm46@email.mot.com (Gary Barth) writes:
> It's also a feature of the Norton Utilities DOS replacement command
> processor, NDOS. Just how much like DOS are you trying to make
> Linux...isn't the opposite supposed to be the goal?

... which is a licensed version of 4DOS, which in turn was written to
make DOS command lines a little more palatable (since Microsoft has no
interest in doing so... the want DOS to be hard to use in order to
push Windrugs...); it contains a LOT of UNIX-isms.  Yes, I'm
biased (since I'm the maintainer of color-ls, but color-ls has
*nothing* to do with DOS.  It is, in fact, very similar to ls -F,
except that it uses colors instead of funny little symbols.  At least
*I* find colors to be nicer, but it is a matter of taste, and if you
leave out the -o option, you don't need to see them, either.

        /hpa

-- 
INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu               FINGER/TALK: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
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Credo Elvem ipsum etian vivere.

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


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