Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #881
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:     Sun, 27 Mar 94 13:13:07 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #881, Volume #1                Sun, 27 Mar 94 13:13:07 EST

Contents:
  Re: SCANNERS and Linux (Michael Bongartz)
  Re: *** DON'T READ THIS BEFORE POSTING *** (lilo)
  Re: Impressions: FreeBSD vs Linux (lilo)
  Stability of double (Ken Geis)
  Re: STRAW POLL RESULT: Linux groups automonitoring (Anthony J. Stuckey)
  Re: Linux (lilo)
  Re: "Hacker's Paradise?" (was Re: Linux-1.0-inline-asm uploaded) (lilo)
  Re: libc 4.5.24??? (lilo)
  How to convert a tgz file to zip ? (Johan Wideberg)
  Where to get CD ( tamu ) (Tom Walsh)
  Re: Cheap Linux box (Byron A Jeff)
  Re: Slackware 1.2.0/Linux 1.0 Problems (Bogdan Urma)
  proc filesystem (Thomas K. Otake)
  Bash/tcsh problem and Re: Stability of double (Bill C. Riemers)
  Re: "Hacker's Paradise?" (was Re: Linux-1.0-inline-asm uploaded) (Byron Thomas Faber)
  Re: STRAW POLL RESULT: Linux groups automonitoring (Byron A Jeff)

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

From: micha@mubo.saar.de (Michael Bongartz)
Subject: Re: SCANNERS and Linux
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 13:52:39 GMT

On 17 Mar 1994 16:02:15 GMT in comp.os.linux.misc, Thomas Faehnle (s_faehnl@deepsky.rz.uni-ulm.de) wrote:
: Thomas Sandlass (thomas@edgar.tynet.sub.org) wrote:

: [stuff deleted]

: : >1) There are patches for the GS4500 chipset. There are handhelds.
: : >   Check sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/kernel/misc-patches/scanner-1.0.tar.gz

: There are also patches for M-105 scanners 
: driven thru ISA-cards with the GI1904 chip.

Are there any patches available for the Logitech Scanman 256???

Micha

-- 
                      A bad ad can ruin your whole day!

EMail:  micha@mubo.saar.de     /\/\     University:      bongartz@cs.uni-sb.de
Voice:  0681/556-54           /    \    Fax + Modem (ZyX 19k2): +49 681 556-34
SnailMail: Michael Bongartz,    Hohe Wacht 18,     66119 Saarbruecken, Germany

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

From: lilo@slip-12-5.ots.utexas.edu (lilo)
Subject: Re: *** DON'T READ THIS BEFORE POSTING ***
Date: 25 Mar 1994 23:38:24 GMT

On 25 Mar 1994 03:56:30 -0800, Bill Hogan (bhogan@crl.com) wrote:

>  Some of the commentators who have posted in this thread seem to me to
> have a definite "we" versus "they" model in mind, as if the "we"'s were
> loyal, hard-working employees of Linux, Inc., while the "they"'s were lazy,
> good-for-nothing Linux users interested only in wasting the company's
> money.

>  I have a quite different model in mind when I think about c.o.l.h and
> that is the image of an elementary school in which all the teachers are
> also students.
. 
. 
. 

Bill,

Thank you for your comments!  I've noticed that the time I spend helping
people with Linux problems is usually repaid--they do often end up becoming
quite knowledgeable themselves.  No one is making me spend the time....I
would like to see more people either deciding to do that sort of thing
more, but I don't think it's a moral imperative.  It might be useful to
set up a set of moderated linux lists that cover all the topic areas people
might wish, and go back to an alt.os.linux.whatever track for those of us
who are more likely to be willing to answer new-user questions....


lilo

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

From: lilo@slip-12-5.ots.utexas.edu (lilo)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Impressions: FreeBSD vs Linux
Date: 25 Mar 1994 23:51:53 GMT

On 22 Mar 1994 23:28:30 +0100, Philippe Steindl (ilg@imp.ch) wrote:

> : Hehehe yes.  I never *subscribed* to them, and as a Linux enthusiast
> : I find
> : these postings on the Linux side to be highly amusing....I had thought
> : everyone on both sides got that "let's compare apples to oranges" stuff
> : out of their systems a long time ago.... ;)


> : lilo

> Well,

> I'm a linux user. Why reacting so hostile? BSD existed long before linux and
> BSD systems are for sure good systems. Comparisons maybe doubtful, that's
> true
> (because all the time there's yeeling "but we have that, too!"), but on the
> other side it's very informative. Don't laugh at others just because you
> *think* you are superior, you may fall into a pit :-)

Um, reread....I wasn't hostile, I don't think Linux is "superior" (I prefer
to use it, but the characteristics I like others might not).  I was simply
saying I thought "Linux vs. BSD" posts might more profitably be posted in
some other newsgroup....possibly comp.os.advocacy?  I'm interested in Linux;
if I were interested in BSD (which could certainly happen) I'd probably read
the BSD groups to find out more about it....



lilo

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

From: kgeis@ucsee.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Geis)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Stability of double
Date: 26 Mar 1994 00:06:53 GMT


        Hi.  I'd like to hear people's experiences with the double
disk-compression driver.  Is it safe?  Does anyone trust it?

Ken Geis

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

From: stuckey@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Anthony J. Stuckey)
Crossposted-To: news.groups
Subject: Re: STRAW POLL RESULT: Linux groups automonitoring
Date: 27 Mar 1994 15:32:09 GMT

byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) writes:
>But the difference is that the first is solicited mail by a human being.
>It usually has a response that helps my solve the problem that I originally
>posted.  The second is junk mail that is automatically generated that will
>most likely not solve my problem. Two different things.

        I don't see this.
        I voted against the proposal for other reasons, but a well-written note
should solve your problems.  Not directly, by telling you to type "df", but
indirectly by pointing to FAQ lists and other such things.  While the FAQ
lists don't include things they should, I have never seen one that was
complete.

        For those BBS users who don't have access to the FAQs or whatever, I
don't see a problem.  1) their original note is still posted.  They can
delete the email and wait for replies.  2) a polite disclaimer could
mention that their situation is recognized, but it might be more
effective to follow advice next time.  3) If this robot is stupid enough
to send the note to posted replies, Ian should be publicly whipped.

        It is possible to make this rather unobtrusive, yet still helpful.
--
Anthony J. Stuckey              stuckey@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
"And if you frisbee-throw a universe where does it go?" -- Steve Blunt.
GCS/S -d+@ p c(++) l u+ e+(-) m+(*) s+++/-- !n h(*) f+ g+ w+ t+@ r y?
KiboNumber == 1

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

From: lilo@slip-12-5.ots.utexas.edu (lilo)
Subject: Re: Linux
Date: 26 Mar 1994 00:10:03 GMT

On 21 Mar 94 12:59:00 -0500, Melvin Parrish
(Melvin.Parrish@f370.n109.z1.fidonet.org) wrote:

> I was woundering if anyone knows where I can get the "complete"
> Linux package? I would rather not get by ftp, because it takes too 
> long. Maybe someone has it, and I can Freq. it  Thanks for any help.

Melvin,

Unfortunately, where you are located out in the, um, boondocks of Linux, as
it were, sites tend not to have the latest material.  Stuff available via
f'req from FidoNet sites tends to be a little uneven.  If there's any way at
all you can ftp from ftp.cdrom.com or one of its mirror sites, I'd really
recommend doing so....the material will be a lot more consistent and
up-to-date....


lilo

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

From: lilo@slip-12-5.ots.utexas.edu (lilo)
Subject: Re: "Hacker's Paradise?" (was Re: Linux-1.0-inline-asm uploaded)
Date: 26 Mar 1994 00:15:25 GMT

On 22 Mar 1994 23:07:44 -0500, Paul Tomblin (ptomblin@gandalf.ca) wrote:

> Does this mean that separate bug-fix releases are going to continue on 1.0
> while the hackers go nuts on 1.1?  I'd like to see that - work continuing on
> making 1.0 as stable as possible while new enhancements are only done in
> 1.1.

Paul,

Let's be careful.  This is a very common approach to systems software taken
by people like, *ahem* IBM.  It tends to result in separate system tracks
and enhancements not getting merged together as they ought to.

I'd much rather see the bug fixes die down to virtually nothing on v1.0
before Linus starts up v1.1--which might be what he has in mind.... 8)



lilo

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

From: lilo@slip-12-5.ots.utexas.edu (lilo)
Subject: Re: libc 4.5.24???
Date: 26 Mar 1994 00:20:53 GMT

On Wed, 23 Mar 1994 00:25:32, Bogdan Urma (bogdan@cornell.edu) wrote:

>      I just(many hours of FTP'ing) got the SLACKWARE 1.2.0 distribution,
> and 
> I noticed that it says that it contains libc 4.5.24. However I can't find 
> this anywhere on sunsite!! Sunsite seems to have 4.5.21! Where did Patrick 
> Volkerding get these libraries?

They are H.J. Lu's latest (nominally "testing", but they seem to be very
solid) release, found in an appropriate, difficult to find directory on
tsx-11.mit.edu....the new releases and instructions for their acquisition
are announced on the GCC channel of the Linux Activists mailing list.  When
they are considered utterly clean, they are posted where people can find
them without going to any extra effort.... ;)


lilo


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

From: wideberg@obelix.cica.es (Johan Wideberg)
Subject: How to convert a tgz file to zip ?
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 11:21:45 GMT

Hi,

Sometimes I have the need to convert a tgz (.tar.gz ) to a zip file.
I would like to do this just using a pipe from the tar program but 
I have not been able to do this yet. What I have to do this is to 
extract the file with the command
gzip -cd foo.tar.gz | tar xvvof -
and then compress this using normal zip commands. But it would be much more
usefull to pipe it from gzip to tar and finally to zip. What flags do I have to 
use?


Johan 

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

From: tomw@kalpana.com (Tom Walsh)
Subject: Where to get CD ( tamu )
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 17:01:12

subject says it all!

where can I get the tamu disribution. preferably on CD

or another vendor/developers version on CD that supports the ATI mach32

tomw@kalpana.com

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

From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff)
Subject: Re: Cheap Linux box
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 16:48:54 GMT

In article <1994Mar22.175609.21353@cs.ucla.edu>,
Edwin Tisdale <edwin@maui.cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
>silly@shred.ugcs.caltech.edu writes:
>
>>I'm interested in building another Linux box, and I'm wondering what the
>>cheapest way to build a complete Linux system would be.
>
>>What I have in mind is a (possibly used) 386 system with 8 meg of ram and 
>>a 120 meg hard drive, since this seems to be the baseline necessary to 
>>run X comfortably.
>
>>However, the PC marketplace seems to be an absolute mess to wade through.
>>If I just buy something, I know I'll pay twice what I should have.
>
>>Am I best off buying a crappy used 286 and replacing the motherboard with a 
>>386?  Will the newer PC boards fit in an XT?  Is building a new system a
>>better option?
>
>>Any input from PC gurus is welcome.  If you have any hardware suppliers to
>>recommend, please do so by e-mail, to avoid "advertising" problems.
>
>Sorry Silly,
>
>There is almost nothing that you can scavange from an old 8088 XT or 80286 AT.
>The cheapest way to build a complete Linux system is to go down to your local
>computer store and buy the complete, assembled and tested system.  In fact,
>the "Mail Order Linux Workstation Vendors" will do this AND install Linux on
>the system for you for FREE!  This can save you a lot of time and money if
>you order the wrong parts and end up paying re-stocking charges while building
>your own system.  Good Luck, Bob Tisdale.

Have to disagree Bob. At least initially all of the following will work from
286/8088

- Case/PS (I upgraded to a 386/40 in an vintage 1986 case/PS box)
- Keyboard (The keyboard I'm typing on now is an original AT keyboard)
- Monitor and video card (for text only monochome/CGA/EGA all work)
- Hard disks and controllers. All are supported under Linux. Even the XT
   HD controller is.

Upgrading these items can take a significant amount of cash to do right.
I'm attacking the original problem: upgrading to Linux on the cheap when 
you don't have the serious cash to by a new machine.

Edwin (and everyone else out there) there are three things you'll probably
have to upgrade. Will give an optional list in a sec...:

- Motherboard
  Minimum is a 386SX. a 386SX40 with CPU can be found for $89 in most shops.
  it's enough to get you started and low cost enough that you won't feel
  too bad upgrading from it later on. Other possibilities:
  - Cyrix 486DLC40 - $175 with cache and CPU
  - Intel 486SX33  - $120 for the CPU + $80-$160 for a MB to put it in.
  - IBM 486SLC2-66 - $225 for a low end with no external cache to about
    $330 for a VLB + FPU + 128K of external cache. I have a source for the
    $225 low end boards. Send Email for details.
  - AMD 386DX40 - What I have now. Very comfortable. Should be able to
    pick up for around $119.

- Memory
  This is the killer. Gotta have it and it costs. Most 286 and 8088 MB
  took dips. Most 386 and up take SIMMS. They don't cross easily.
  You need at least 4 Meg. Look to get 4 1Mbyte 3 chip SIMMS. I've seen
  them in town (Atlanta) for as low as $37. Don't skimp. Your system's
  performance depends on it. You'll get better performance from a slower
  processor and more memory than the other way around.

- Floppy. I know it seems silly but you'll be dead without a 1.44M 3.5" floppy.
  Spend the $45. It'll save you a lot of grief. While you're at it go ahead
  an purchase one of the multi I/O boards for $20 or so. While your other
  cards will probably work, the current batch of MIO boards give excellent
  performance in high speed systems. I have one running at 12.5 Mhz with
  absolutely no problems.

So the minimum upgrade:
   386SX40 MB + 4 Mb RAM + floppy + MIO
That's about $315. Add $30 to upgrade to a 386DX40.

Optional stuff
==============
- HD. The first option to upgrade. 340 MB IDE will run you about $260 and will
  give you space to operate. Will be much faster than the MFM or RLL disks
  you have now
- Monitor/Card. You can run X on a hercules. That was my first X experience.
  really cramped. Really Slow but cost $20 for the card plus getting an
  old monochome monitor (you can literraly find them laying around most 
  places) When you do upgrade, don't skimp. You'll probably not get another
  shot at upgrading the monitor again. As for cards you can get Cirrus Logic
  VGA's in the $80 ballpark or S3-801 or S3-805's (for VLB) in the $130.
  The S3 cards are far superior and worth the extra cost.

Anyway good luck. I researched this a while ago because I was interested in
putting together sattelite workstations around my house all on a network.
I finally decided I'd go totally diskless. Check this out:

IBM486SLC2/66 - $300
NE2000 Enet   - $ 40
8 Meg memory  - $300
Mono VGA      - $115
VGA card      - $ 45
=====================
Total           $800

The machine would boot over the network and have a small ramdisk. Everything
else would be remotely mounted via NFS from the main machine.

Later,

BAJ
---
Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of...
Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel!
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332   Internet: byron@cc.gatech.edu

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

From: bau1@cornell.edu (Bogdan Urma)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Slackware 1.2.0/Linux 1.0 Problems
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 11:40:36


>That's not what's happening- it seems that emacs thinks that the font
>is twice as wide as it really is and is creating a window to suit.  I
>think it might have something to do with not specifying *exactly*
>which font I want it to use (ie, using the -*- convention in the font
>name rather than specifying all the numbers).

  This is really weird, since my Emacs has normal fonts. Only the window was 
big but I made it smaller.

>Other problems such as the segmentation violation may be related to
>kernel bugs or a bad compile of emacs in Slackware 1.2.0- I'm not
>sure, which is why I've posted here.  Does anyone know what options
>emacs 19.22 under Slackware 1.2.0 was compiled with?  It's over 1.3
>megs in size where the comparable 18.59 binary with X11 support was
>just over 600k.  Sort of gives credence to the errno joke: EMACS-
>editor too big..  or maybe that should be EMAX...

  You might have a bad Slackware. Where did you FTP it from? Also, you might 
directly ask Patrick Volkerding about this.



>type 'ls' in a large directory, /usr/bin for instance, it takes much
>longer before the file list starts with the color 'ls' than with the
>old monochrome 'ls'.  It might be fine for you, but I consider it
>annoying..  If you want to categorize your files, just use the '-F'
>option.  I find it's much more intuitive to see a '/' after a name to
>know it's a directory rather than see a name in red or whatever color
>and try to remember what that means.  The colors also tend to
>contribute to screen clutter and make searching for a particular file
>in a listing harder because the colored entries call too much
>attention to themselves- if the file you want happens to be one of the
>colored entries, great, otherwise it just makes it that much harder to
>find.  Each to his own though...

   I agree about the '/' notation, but for individual files, I think it's 
much easier to find something. If I'm trying to find a .gz file I know only 
to look among the red ones, etc.


  Anyway, these are minor problems. I still think Slackware 1.2.0 is a great 
distribution. Also, you weren't really going to go back to .99pl9, were you?

Bogdan

=============================================================================
E-mail: bau1@cornell.edu                     bog@server-gw.phy.cornell.edu

                          --**PHYSICS**--                   
                   ---***Cornell University***---
=============================================================================

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

From: totake@ho12.eng.ua.edu (Thomas K. Otake)
Subject: proc filesystem
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 16:11:16 GMT

Hi everyone.

Here's a rather dumb question, though since I don't know the answer it's
not so dumb to me.  What is the /proc filesystem for?  I looked in there
and it doesn't tell me anything and it's just taking up 20MB+ of space.
Is it something essential?  

Thanks,
Tom
-- 
===============================================================================
\ Anything that happens, happens.                                             /
\   Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes      /
\   something else to happen.                                                 /
\   Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again /
\   It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.              /
\                             _________________    -- Douglas Adams           /
\\\\\\\\_____________________/  Thomas  Otake  \______________________/////////
\\\\    totake@buster.eng.ua.edu    \\_//    72570.3031@compuserve.com     ////
===============================================================================

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

From: bcr@k9.via-term114 (Bill C. Riemers)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Bash/tcsh problem and Re: Stability of double
Date: 27 Mar 94 16:15:38 GMT
Reply-To: bcr@physics.purdue.edu

In article <2mvuat$fqr@agate.berkeley.edu> kgeis@ucsee.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Geis) writes:

           Hi.  I'd like to hear people's experiences with the double
   disk-compression driver.  Is it safe?  Does anyone trust it?

Its ok, but slow.  I don't trust it yet for things other than "/usr/spool"
and such...  If you want to free up some disk space, the easiest thing
to do is to install zlibc from ftp.imag.fr:/pub/ZLIBC/ALPHA...  Get the
latest version.  The 0.4 release had some real problems with its installation
scripts.  I'm currently using 0.4b with libc.so.4.5.21 with no problems,
other than I must "setenv ZLIB_UNCOMRESSOR /bin/zcat" in /etc/csh.cshrc
and "export ZLIB_UNCOMPRESSOR=/bin/zcat" in /etc/profile...

Incidently this reminds me, has anyone else had problems with bash not
recognizing tcsh environmental variables?  i.e.

tcsh
% setenv SHELL /bin/sh
% sh
bash: echo $SHELL
/bin/sh=

The trailing equal sign is causing me lots of problems...

                    Bill


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

From: bf11620@ehsn3.cen.uiuc.edu (Byron Thomas Faber)
Subject: Re: "Hacker's Paradise?" (was Re: Linux-1.0-inline-asm uploaded)
Date: 27 Mar 1994 17:18:54 GMT

Good point.  As for Qmagic.. I don't pretend to understand it.  I just
read about it.

I was under the impression that it was going to be made the default
format in the future.  (I thought it wasn't now.)   Please clear me up....

As for using 'old' stable versions.  To be honest some people can't do that
because they want this patch or that patch, and they only work with the
latest kernel version.

I guess there will always be problems.

Byron
-- 
PGP 2.3 key available (in plan file) at:        Support public code:
b-faber@uiuc.edu                                Use GNU software and others.
other accts at:  btf57346@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu & bf11620@coewl.cen.uiuc.edu 

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

Crossposted-To: news.groups
From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff)
Subject: Re: STRAW POLL RESULT: Linux groups automonitoring
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:18:05 GMT

In article <1994Mar27.051510.538@terrabit.uucp>,
David Dyer-Bennet <ddb@terrabit.uucp> wrote:
>byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) writes:
>>Look. It's an unmoderated newsgroup. That means there should be no 
>>repercussions to what I post other than folks ignoring it. 
>
>This has never been true in the history of usenet.  Your post always
>has repercussions.  People read it and respond.  Most of the responses
>come via email.  What's the big deal?

The big deal is that the first is from actual human beings whose responses
are solicited. In addition the human people respond about the content
of the message and not its structure. The auto mail is unsolicited, automatic
and gives no info about the content of what I'm posting. So why exactly
am I supposed to like this?

>
>>Putting an automatic program that tells act like Miss Manners
>>infringes on my ability to post to an unmoderated, unrestricted
>>newsgroup.
>
>I certainly hope so.  That's the whole point -- to influence people's
>behavior by a mechanism less heavy-handed than moderation.

I say it's more heavyhanded than moderation because a) posters to an
unmoderated newsgroup certainly do not expect unsolicited auto posts.
b) the poster does not get any choice about the form of their posting.

>
>>I'll keep shouting: CREATE A MODERATED NEWSGROUP WITH ALL THE
>>KEYWORD, TAGS WHATEVER RESTRICTIONS YOU WANT IN THE CHARTER! LET
>>PEOPLE CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES WHERE AND HOW THEY WANT TO POST! STOP
>>TREATING US LIKE 3 YEAR-OLD!
>
>Stop behaving like a three-year old.  You're clearly having a tantrum.

Yes. It was about 4 in the morning and I was clearly tired when I wrote it.
My apologies. However I must point out that you're acting just like the
autodaemon that Ian's proposing: you commented on the form of my "tantrum"
and not it's content.

Let me again say for the record that heavyhanded moderation will certainly
accomplish a lot. However I still think it's unfair to do it at the expense
of other's posting priveledges. So if you wish to prove that your system
is better, then please place it alongside, in another newsgroup, and let
the posters chose. We all agree that structure is the way to go. We're
just quibbling about how it should be implemented. A moderated newsgroup whose
charter included the restrictions would pass without comment. It would be
an official vote. And after it's created people who want to complain can't
even do so without putting in the proper form. But it still the poster choice
to submit to any type of moderation, not the systems heavyhanded mission.
It's the difference between night and day. Prefer the night myself.

"CyberSpace is infinite. Cut out your own niche!"

BAJ
---
Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of...
Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel!
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332   Internet: byron@cc.gatech.edu

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


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