Subject: Linux-Development Digest #947
From: Digestifier <Linux-Development-Request@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Date:     Tue, 26 Jul 94 00:13:06 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #947, Volume #1         Tue, 26 Jul 94 00:13:06 EDT

Contents:
  Re: gcc 2.6.0 and aha152x.c error (Gary Schrock)
  Re: Why no true /proc? (Eric Youngdale)
  Re: IN2000, 1540cf support?? (Eric Youngdale)
  When will 1.1.?? become 1.2.0 (Phillip Stofberg)
  Re: GOTO haters ..Re: Linux Performance Enhance ? (David Fox)
  NFS development?? (Bill Heiser)
  Re: 1.1.34 swap cache ?! (Matthew Dillon)
  Re: Stacker driver? (H.C.W. Kwok)
  Re: DOES ANYONE KNOW ABOUT THE MAILINGLISTS? (hello, is anyone there?) (ken brookner)
  Re: what's this stuff? (pI[ITE PO-RU ...) (Claus-Dieter Bredl)
  Re: Dosemu won't work with >1.1.29 <1.1.35 and recompile won't help (Tim)
  Re: Panasonic CD-ROM broke under >1.1.31 (Tim)
  FDPATCHES (Tim)
  problem with LANGUAGES="c++" in gcc-2.6.0 (lembark@ug.eds.com)
  Gateway P5-60 only sees 16MB! (Kenneth Reinert)
  Re: IDE patch won't work w/new kernels? (Christian Holtje)
  Debugger breakpoints don't work under 1.1.32 (David Fox)
  Re: bad email: A.Cox@swansea.ac.uk (Arnt Gulbrandsen)
  Re: fact on linux vs sun (Marc Fraioli)
  Re: Anyone else lust for threads? (John Richardson)
  Re: fact on linux vs sun (Mark Evans)

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

From: piper@logrus.cl.msu.edu (Gary Schrock)
Subject: Re: gcc 2.6.0 and aha152x.c error
Date: 22 Jul 1994 04:02:09 GMT

In article <CtB0y2.22F@pe1chl.ampr.org>, Rob Janssen <pe1chl@rabo.nl> wrote:
>This is generally considered to be a problem with your memory or cache.
>
>When you know what you are doing, you can sometimes repair this by
>modification of memory timing in the CMOS SETUP.  Sometimes only replacement
>of the cache RAMs helps.

I seriously doubt it's a problem with the memory or cache that he's having.
People have been having trouble compiling the scsi drivers if they've
'upgraded' to gcc 2.6.0.  It's probably bad assembly being generated, or
gcc not liking some assembly directive in the source file.

(BTW, I can't compile the aha152x.c file either.  The error I actually
get is end of file occuring in a string)

Gary Schrock
schrock@student.msu.edu


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

From: ericy@cais.cais.com (Eric Youngdale)
Subject: Re: Why no true /proc?
Date: 22 Jul 1994 03:55:43 GMT

In article <30i5og$8aq@engnews1.Eng.Sun.COM>,
Ivan <ivan@djomolungma.Eng.Sun.COM> wrote:
>How come the Linux /proc is only of utility to things like 'ps',
>and debuggers still have to use ptrace()?

        Because no one really cares enough to take the trouble to convert
things. 

-Eric
 
-- 
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,
And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep."

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

From: ericy@cais.cais.com (Eric Youngdale)
Subject: Re: IN2000, 1540cf support??
Date: 22 Jul 1994 04:00:42 GMT

In article <30m3ur$g3e@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>,
Jerod Tufte <jet@b62528.student.cwru.edu> wrote:
>Scott Mckinsey (mckinsey@rmii.com) wrote:
>: I am getting an Always IN2000 and Adaptec 1540CF soon and was
>: wondering if they will work reliably.  I have seen a lot about about
>: the 1542CF but nothing on the 1540, what's the difference?
>
>: I got the IN2000 driver code from sunsite and integrated it into the 1.1.18
>: kernel, is this the latest, and does it work?
>
>: Any answers appreciated,
>: Scott
>
>I'm not sure which one you got, but there have been two unstable releases
>of the IN2000 driver since the last (slow) stable one.  I do not think that
>it will be fixed anytime soon, as noone seems to be playing with it anymore.

        Some people are of the opinion that the old slow release was more 
unstable.  Any attempt to use the in2000 for swapping would crash the 
system with the old driver.

        I would really like to see someone take care of these remaining 
problems.  Bill (who came up with the most recent versions) does not see 
these problems, so it is difficult for him to debug the problem.  If 
someone else would like a challenge, and would like to give this a shot,
it would be a good project.  Since the old driver was more "stable" in 
these circumstances, it may be possible to locate some critical difference.

-Eric
-- 
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,
And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep."

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

From: phil@lostris.up.ac.za (Phillip Stofberg)
Subject: When will 1.1.?? become 1.2.0
Date: 25 Jul 1994 13:35:19 GMT

The stable version of the linux kernel is currently at 1.0.9. A lot of us want 
the features and enhancements that is in 1.1.??, but don't want to experiment 
with a unstable kernal. 

What is involved in going to 1.2.0 and when can we start to expect this? 
Can't Linus call a code freeze on 1.1.35+ and let it stabelize into 1.2.0?

Cheers
Phillip


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

From: fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David Fox)
Subject: Re: GOTO haters ..Re: Linux Performance Enhance ?
Date: 25 Jul 1994 11:20:50 GMT

In article <1994Jul22.153029.26562@rosevax.rosemount.com> grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) writes:

] David Holland (dholland@husc7.harvard.edu) wrote:
] 
] : Sorry. Programming is still an art.
] 
] I like to think of it as a craft.  A subtle distinction, I admit.
] 
] : When somebody comes up with a real mathematical foundation for it,
] : maybe it will become a science.
] 
] Then it will be math.

And math is an art.
--
David Fox                                               xoF divaD
NYU Media Research Lab                     baL hcraeseR aideM UYN

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

From: heiser@TDWR.ED.RAY.COM (Bill Heiser)
Subject: NFS development??
Date: 25 Jul 1994 13:12:12 GMT

Hi - 

After running LINUX on a home machine for a year or so, I have recently
set up a machine at work running LINUX 1.1.x.  A number of other people
I know at work are either running it or are interested in it.  However
I have run into a major problem that will severely reduce the usefulness
of a LINUX box in a business network environment: 

 I am seeing severe NFS corruption.

For example I have my mail spool directory NFS-mounted from a SunOS 4.1.2
system.  Almost daily my mailbox is getting corrupted.  We use NFS-mounted
mail spools as a matter of routine on all kinds of platforms, without 
serious problems, so I can only assume the LINUX NFS has problems.

I'm wondering if NFS is something that is actively being worked on and
debugged in the new LINUX kernels.  I really (really really really) 
don't want to have to give up on LINUX now! :-)

Thanks in advance,
Bill

-- 
Bill Heiser
    work - heiser@tdwr.ed.ray.com        home - bill@bhhome.ci.net

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

From: dillon@apollo.west.oic.com (Matthew Dillon)
Subject: Re: 1.1.34 swap cache ?!
Date: 24 Jul 1994 16:38:21 -0700

In article <30u8qj$r29@news.csie.nctu.edu.tw> jdli@csie.nctu.edu.tw writes:
:
:       I am using 1.1.34 now without any error/problem.  Thanks.
:       
:       But I have a question, why it seems that my swap useage
:       
:       will only increase and won't decrease ?!  Won't the swap
:       
:       be released after it was swap-out from HD ?
:       
:       Thanks for your answer ........
:--
:
:       E-mail : jdli@csie.nctu.edu.tw      u8117084@cc.nctu.edu.tw

    Linus is experimenting with swap... at the moment the swap space for
    a page is not deallocated when the page is brought back into main memory
    and left unmodified, thus avoiding having to rewrite the page back to
    disk if it gets swapped out again.  This has resulted in significant
    run-time improvements on memory-starved systems. (it is deallocated if
    the program is killed, of course!)

    However, the side effect is that more swap space remains allocated and
    that swapable pages may reside both in swap AND in main-memory, reducing
    the total VM available to the system.  Still, I do not think it would
    take much work to fix the problem by invalidating cached swap blocks
    when swap space starts to get scarce, and if that were done the 
    accounting could also be fixed to not reflect cached swap blocks in the
    'used' column for the /usr/bin/free program.

    Note that this only effects swap, meaning it only effects the data
    portion of a program and does not effect read-only code segments
    such as program code or shared library code.  I think the absolute
    worst case would be around 1/2 of main memory with duplicate (cached)
    allocations in swap.

                                        -Matt

-- 

    Matthew Dillon              dillon@apollo.west.oic.com
    1005 Apollo Way             ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
    Incline Village, NV. 89451  Obvious Implementations Corporation
    USA                         Sandel-Avery Engineering
    [always include a portion of the original email in any response!]


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

From: cwhk@ic.ac.uk (H.C.W. Kwok)
Subject: Re: Stacker driver?
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 94 16:47:45 BST

In article <30o8k2$q8n@ousrvr.oulu.fi> jtklehto@stekt.oulu.fi (Janne Kukonlehto) writes:
>> Just wounder whether it is possible to write a fs driver for
>> a stacked drive. 
>
>I have an idea about this.
>
>Dosemu can use Linux filesystems (by using emufs.sys-driver) and
>Stacker works under dosemu. It should therefore be possible to make
>Linux to be able to use dosemu filesystems including stacked drives.
>
>It could be as simple as a little program which runs under dosemu and
>copies files when requested from stacked drive to Linux filesystem and
>deletes them when no longer used. It only needs to made really
>transparent.
>

How about this:
  1) borrowing the idea from the wine porject to load the binaries
     of stackers.
  2) write a driver whenever a program tries to access the mounted
     stacker directory, the stacker binaries are activated.
     
This should save the troubles of running dosemu.
Any pointers to how these could be done?

Any further ideas?

Thanks
-- 
|==========================================================| 
|   Hansel Kwok < h.kwok@ic.ac.uk >                        |
|   Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine   |
|==========================================================|

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
From: kenb@qatrix.lonestar.org (ken brookner)
Subject: Re: DOES ANYONE KNOW ABOUT THE MAILINGLISTS? (hello, is anyone there?)
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 15:17:18 GMT

i'm having troubles also...  i subscribed to several, got the confirmations
back, but for several days have received nothing.  i used to be on the ml
from my work address and received many msgs daily...  

anyone else still having problems?

kenb@metronet.com
kenb@qatrix.lonestar.org


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

From: cdb@tph116.fkp.physik.th-darmstadt.de (Claus-Dieter Bredl)
Subject: Re: what's this stuff? (pI[ITE PO-RU ...)
Date: 25 Jul 1994 18:20:21 GMT

Andreas Vox (vox@asterix.uni-muenster.de) wrote:
[...]
: A friend of mine suggested this solution, in case you set it off by mistake:

: type (blindly): cat /dev/hda
:                 ============

: then interrupt with CTRL-C

: Chances are good your screen works ok after that, if not, try again ... :^)

on a well-configured installation, you need be root for this to work :-) :-)

(:couldn't resist:)
CDB

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

Subject: Re: Dosemu won't work with >1.1.29 <1.1.35 and recompile won't help
From: tims@kcbbs.gen.nz (Tim)
Date: 25 Jul 94 11:37:22 GMT

lcvanveen@et.tudelft.nl wrote:
: Last week I rebuild Linux to version 1.33 and noticed dosemu0.52 
: wouldn't work anymore. The screen went black and the only thing 
: I could do was shutdown with crtl-alt-del. This morning I went 
: over to Linux 1.1.35 and recompiled dosemu again. I still won't 

Phew...thought I had made a mistake when I recompiled the kernel. Oh well, 
it was worth it as I had to update to at least 1.1.31 to add the FDPATCHES 
floppy disk updates. 

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

Subject: Re: Panasonic CD-ROM broke under >1.1.31
From: tims@kcbbs.gen.nz (Tim)
Date: 25 Jul 94 18:20:11 GMT

lcvanveen@et.tudelft.nl wrote:
: When mounting my CD-ROM (panasonic cr-562b) under 1.1.35 I got
: this nice error:
: mount: block device /dev/sbpcd is not permitted on its filesystem
: It wasn't in at 1.1.30 so it came later (I presume at 1.1.32).
: Does anybody have a fix here.
: Audio cd's still work, as you would have guessed.
: Thank's a lot in advance.
: Martijn.

Argh..kernels have got too many problems after pl30.. Just noticed that 
error as well..back to pl30 I think.

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

Subject: FDPATCHES
From: tims@kcbbs.gen.nz (Tim)
Date: 25 Jul 94 18:22:54 GMT

I just ftp'ed FDPATCHES 3.0, compiled it up after patching pl30 kernel to 
pl31 and patching fdpatches in, then I patched up to pl35 ( all these 
patches! ). DOSEMU is broken, /dev/sbpcd mounting is broken, and now mdir 
gives me when I try mdir c:

/root # mdir c:
fat_read: Wrong FAT encoding 90 203?

ARGH..



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

From: lembark@ug.eds.com
Subject: problem with LANGUAGES="c++" in gcc-2.6.0
Date: 25 Jul 94 15:12:06 PDT

trying to compile gcc-2.6.0 on linux-1.1.

wierd:

make bootstrap LANGUAGES="c c++" # or "c,c++" or "c, c++" or just "c++"...

gives me a nastygram about no target "c++".  problem is that the INSTALL shows
"c++" as the language option for making g++.

anyone succeeded whence i have failed?
any suggestions?

[posting this here because this is where people who might've tried it read...]

thanx,
steve lembark
(lembark@wrkhors.la.ca.us)

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

From: kreinert@mason1.gmu.edu (Kenneth Reinert)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Gateway P5-60 only sees 16MB!
Date: 23 Jul 1994 04:07:45 GMT

Which wasn't a problem until today, as I only *had* 16 megs in the system...
but I've put in an additonal 8MB.  POST tests 24 megs, and DOG sees 24MB
(like it can really use it?), but Linux only sees 16MB :(

I have "Limit memory to low 16MB" set to NO in my config file - in fact, it's
been this way for a while (figuring that one of these days I'd get more 
memory).

I'm runnung a 1.1.33 kernel with EtherExpress/PPP/Sony CD/PAS16/usual stuff
configured.  The system is a Gateway 2000 P5-60 with (now) 24MB of memory.
Even with the kernel only seeing 16MB, it runs circles around my 386-25
with 8MB :)

Oh... I did try to hard-code (not a Good Thing) memory_end in init/main.c
to 24*1024*1024 - I got a panic when it tried to mount my root partition.
I stuck this in right after the #ifdef CONFIG_MAX_16M...#endif block.

Ideas from the peanut gallery?

     Ken
--
Ken Reinert          | Internet: kreinert@hq.si.net
Sprint International |           kenner@sprintf.merit.edu
Messaging Operations | X.400: /S=Reinert/G=Ken/O=SprintIntl/ADMD=Telemail/C=US/
Reston, VA  USA      | Phone: +1 (703) 689-5699        Fax: +1 (703) 689-6066


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

From: choltje@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Christian Holtje)
Subject: Re: IDE patch won't work w/new kernels?
Date: 24 Jul 1994 01:24:00 GMT

tjko@tarzan.math.jyu.fi (Timo Kokkonen) writes:


>IDE Performance Patch v2.0 [by Mark Lord] doesn't work with new 
>WD540 drives??? Or is it just my kernel 1.1.30 that causes the problem?


>Here's the drive info displayed by kernel during boot:
>+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
>hda:  Drive Identification Info:
> Model=WDC AC2540H, FwRev=12.08R30, SerialNo=WD-WT2610227659
> Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
> Default c/h/s=1048/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=4
> BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=128KB, MaxMultSect=16
> Features: DblWordIO=no, IORDY=on/off, LBA=yes, DMA=yes, tPIO=medium,
>tDMA=fast
> (valid): Current c/h/s=1048/16/63, TotSect=1056384, MaxLBAsect=1056384
> CurMultSect=0, DMA-1w=0001, DMA-mw=0003
>+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

>And here's what happens when I try to enable multi-sector mode:

>technocore:/root# hdparm /dev/hda
>MultModeCount=0, rc=0
>unmask=0, rc=0
>technocore:/root# hdparm /dev/hda 16 1
>MultModeCount=16, rc=0                  <-- mode change seems to be OK..
>unmask=1, rc=0
>technocore:/root# hdparm /dev/hda
>MultModeCount=0, rc=0                   <-- but NOT...
>unmask=1, rc=0
>technocore:/root# hdparm /dev/hda 16 1
>MultModeCount=16, rc=-1                         <-- mode change won't work anymore
>unmask=1, rc=0
>technocore:/root# hdparm /dev/hda
>MultModeCount=0, rc=0
>unmask=1, rc=0

This happens with my first HD (hda, which is mainly my dos parition and the
swap space), but not my second partition (which is all linux).
The HD are both WesternDigital HD's (340megs) Caviars...the second is
newer by about a year and a half.

        I can get HD info (like above) if it'll help anyone.
BTW: You do know that kernel 1.1.32 has these patches in it already, though
the little hdparm program isn't in there...I had to go hunt it out.
(Also, don't use 1.1.32...it has a nasty typo in it...patch up to 1.1.33)


>P.S. these IDE patches used to work in my machine with Seagate ST3390A 
>drive (kernel v1.1.0) with no problems...

        -Doc
-- 
    ---     ---     ---   -      -  -  -   ---  -----  docwhat@uiuc.edu
   +   -  +    -  +      +      +  -  +  -   +   -    CS major at Illinois
  *   +  *    +  *      *  +   *  +*+*  +*+*+   *    --- finger me at ---
 ****     ***     ***   **  **   *  *  *   *   *    choltje@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

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

From: fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David Fox)
Subject: Debugger breakpoints don't work under 1.1.32
Date: 24 Jul 1994 14:58:34 GMT

I just noticed that gdb won't stop at breakpoints under version
1.1.32.  I rebooted into 1.0.9 and they worked fine.
--
David Fox                                               xoF divaD
NYU Media Research Lab                     baL hcraeseR aideM UYN

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

From: agulbra@tigern.nvg.unit.no (Arnt Gulbrandsen)
Subject: Re: bad email: A.Cox@swansea.ac.uk
Date: 25 Jul 1994 17:57:28 +0200

In article <30p03k$hjn@zeus.fasttax.com> phil@zeus.fasttax.com (Phil Howard) writes:
> Sorry for this being posted here, but it is obviously the only
> choice when one is sent a bad email address on a reply (which
> was to a posting here).  Please try replying again with a better
> email address.  Thanks.

These messages are intermittent, mail gets through once in a while.
It looks like an X.400 configuration problem at Swansea.

--Arnt

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

From: mjf@clark.net (Marc Fraioli)
Subject: Re: fact on linux vs sun
Date: 25 Jul 1994 23:24:43 GMT
Reply-To: mjf@clark.net

In article q9c@jake.esu.edu,  tbriggs@cutter.ship.edu (Tom Briggs) writes:
>P.S. Someone said before that a 486 is similar in speed to an IPC, I'd
>like to see the IPC running with say 12 or more users, and 6 of them running
>Xwindows controlled from the 486/33 platform (ie. XDMCP over ethernet - AND
>all of them going through the ethernet card (no serial terminals).  The
>machine that I am on is a Gopher server, an FTP server, and campus wide
>access point.  I've got over 120 user accounts on here, and on the
>average, I"ve got about 5 users, but sometimes up to about 10-15, and
>the system handles it just fine.....  My challenge is fecious, I know that
>an IPC will not handle that kind of load, we've got one, and it chokes
>on 3 or 4 users.
>
I'm a Linux-lover too, don't get me wrong, but I think you underestimate
the SPARC here.  I have been a user on a Sun IPC that served as a 
multi-user hosts, and which supported about a dozen users quite frequently.
The users were doing mostly Mail/News/ftp type of stuff, and were logged
in over the ethernet (as per your criteria) from a terminal server.  
Performance was fine, with a load average usually around 0.8.  This IPC
had 48MB of RAM, which was probably the critical factor.  No one was
running X stuff that I know of, but it was running Cnews and nntpd and
handling a full newsfeed in the background.  None of this is to say that
Linux on a fast 486 couldn't do likewise, but I am merely trying to 
point out that this latest round of SPARC-bashing is somewhat misguided.

---
Marc Fraioli          | "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist- " 
mjf@clark.net         |    - Last words of Union General John Sedgwick,
                      |    Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, U.S. Civil War



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

From: jrichard@charon.uml.edu (John Richardson)
Subject: Re: Anyone else lust for threads?
Date: 26 Jul 1994 01:34:42 GMT

   >
   There are apparently two pthreads libraries for Linux, both user-level.  I
   have only used one of them.  Some ftp sites:

    sipb.mit.edu (directory unknown (to me))
    ftp.ibp.fr:/pub/unix/threads/pthreads

the directory is pub/pthreads

I've tried it.  it works well.  I'd like kernel support just the
same. :)

John Richardson
jrichard@cs.uml.edu

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

From: evansmp@mb52112.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans)
Subject: Re: fact on linux vs sun
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 16:18:37 GMT

Tom Briggs (tbriggs@cutter.ship.edu) wrote:
: Supat Faarungsang (supat@nuntana.animal.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: : I test sun4.1.1 on sparcII vs linux1.1.29 on 486dx-50 and found that
: : in all features linux has greater performance
: : speed is about 10% faster on linux in all kind of programs.

: : My friends say this should not possible and run floating point
: : on sun should be much faster but I test several times
: : linux always 10% faster than sun.

: : Is anyone has the same experiance?

: Well Supat, I've read a bunch of replies to your message, and I can offer
: the following:

: I just installed a Gateway Pentium 66mhz machine.  Its got 16Mb of memory,
: a PCI bus with PCI ET4000 vidoe card and PCI IDE controller.  Its got an ISA
: 16-bit ethernet card, nothing too out of the ordinary.  This machine is
: for a new physics professor here on campus.  

The ethernet card would most likely be the bottleneck if you were to run
networked applications. e.g. NFS client, remote X clients, etc. 

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


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