Subject: Linux-Development Digest #955
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:     Thu, 28 Jul 94 03:13:16 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #955, Volume #1         Thu, 28 Jul 94 03:13:16 EDT

Contents:
  Re: threads in kernel (Al Longyear)
  Using rs232 control lines from program? (David La Croix)
  Re: ARP broken ?! (Hans-Christoph Rohland)
  Re: what's this stuff? (pI[ITE PO-RU ...) (Andreas Vox)
  Subnet masks (Bob Minowicz)
  Re: IDE patch won't work w/new kernels? (Andrew R. Tefft)
  Realtime? (Lee J. Silverman)
  Re: Driver for Dialogic D4x ? (Joe Portman)
  Re: procps-0.95 broken -- problem is in linux/sched.h (Linus Torvalds)
  Re: 1.1.36 breaks compilation of iBCS2 (John R Terry)
  IPX kernel - client yet? (Bob Minowicz)
  Ext2 filesystem errors (Tomi Orava)
  Re: Subnet masks (Steve Kann)
  Re: Memory problems. (Matthias Urlichs)
  Re: Panasonic CD-ROM broke under >1.1.31 (Matthias Urlichs)
  Two nasty error messages  (Simon Johnston)

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

From: longyear@netcom.com (Al Longyear)
Subject: Re: threads in kernel
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 16:49:47 GMT

>>SGI has a model which is like the clone() stuff discussed here recently.
>>A "thread" is simply a new process that happens to share (part of) the 
>>parent's address space.  That is easy to implement, easy to scale, and
>>simple.

plm@sci.kun.nl (Peter Mutsaers) writes:

>There are two problem2 with these SGI 'threads' however:

>a) not POSIX compliant.

There is no __APPROVED__ POSIX standard for threads. Saying that
something is not POSIX complaint without an approved standard is
meaningless. The P1003.4 "standard" that you may be referring to
could, in all likelihood, take a hard right turn and make what you
feel is a good thing TOTALLY NON-STANDARD by the time that it is
approved.

(Recognize that SGI, Microsoft, and IBM are contributing members to
the committee. They all of vested interests in seeing that the concept
of threads is defined `properly'.)

>b) very slow context switches! Even a little bit slower than between normal
>   processes. Not strange, because these 'threads' (sproc's in SGI-speak)
>   are full-blown processes that have a process table entry. They are
>   *not* multiple (light-weight) threads within one process.

This makes no sense. If, as you claim, the thread is a separate
process element then switching between processes is exactly the same
as switching between threads. There is no difference. In theory, memory
utilization would be enhanced in that the pages used by the threads
would be resident more often.

Additionally, the scheduling of threads should be more uniform rather
than the cooperative method which is done in the pthreads stuff.

Where the concept of "kernel-based threads" or SGI's implementation of
threads will break down for the present time is the Linux run time
libraries. The libraries for Linux are not reentrant as they are for
other implementations of kernel-based threads.

Linus has already started to break up the process structure in the
kernel. This will make implementing threads there much easier in the
future. Gone is the concept of one monstrous structure with everything
in it. It how has pointers to various other component pieces.

Until the problem of a reentrant libc can be solved, the programs
which would be written to use kernel-based threads would not work.

-- 
Al Longyear           longyear@netcom.com

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

From: dlacroix@guilder.bevd.blacksburg.va.us (David La Croix)
Subject: Using rs232 control lines from program?
Date: 25 Jul 1994 08:04:20 GMT

I'd like to know how to program for the serial ports under LINUX.
Specifically I'd like to be able to use the flow control lines to 
send/detect a boolean case.

any RTFMs are welcomed, but I'd like to know which Ms.


--
dlacroix@guilder.bevd.blacksburg.va.us
dlacroix@vt.edu

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

From: hrohlan@gwdg.de (Hans-Christoph Rohland)
Subject: Re: ARP broken ?!
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 16:31:57 GMT

S.G. de Bruijn (debruijn@cs.utwente.nl) wrote:
: Hans-Christoph Rohland (hrohlan@gwdg.de) wrote:
: : David Marples (dmarples@voyager.comms.eee.strath.ac.uk) wrote:

: : : Thank god someone else has this problem - I thought it was just me!
: : : The prob. does not exist on the 1.0.* kernels, but certainly does to
: : : date on all 1.1.* kernels from 1.1.22 upwards (I didn't test before
: : : that, compilation takes a while, you know).  So, since I want to use
: : : bootp, I'm stuck with 1.0.9 for now!  I didn't go backwards through
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^        
: : : the 1.1's to find out when it did occour though, 'cos I was bored by
: : : then.

: : I am using bootpd with kernel 1.1.3 (the last with old networking code)
: : without probs.
: : Christoph

: You did not read the previous posts. The problem arose with
: 1.1.18.  My Xterminal broke with it too, using bootp (well.. not
: literally ;)  After some very long searching, I found at least a
: fix for me. My bootp clients (bootless Xterminal, ncsa) work
: again. (It took me weeks just to find it was an arp problem...:(

I should have done the emphazising in my first posting. I wanted to give a
practical hint...
Christoph

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

From: vox@asterix.uni-muenster.de (Andreas Vox)
Subject: Re: what's this stuff? (pI[ITE PO-RU ...)
Date: 25 Jul 1994 14:59:52 GMT

David Holland (dholland@husc7.harvard.edu) wrote:

[ stuff deleted ]

: IMO having a single-character control sequence is really dumb,
: especially for doing something that makes a mess of the entire screen.
: It gets set off by mistake far too often.

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 ... :^)

Ciao
Andreas

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

From: minowicz@eos.ncsu.edu (Bob Minowicz)
Subject: Subnet masks
Date: 26 Jul 1994 14:51:12 GMT
Reply-To: Bob_Minowicz@NCSU.edu


        In NET-2 there was mention at one point in the HOWTO that subnet
masks were broken for subnets not falling on eight-bit boudaries.  That
was then this is now.  I would imagine that by now, this has been fixed. 
However, since the only source for info is the old NET-2 HOWTO,and it
still says its broken... 

        Since the HOWTO is out of date on other subjects, I was thinking that
perhaps someone could tell me if this was ever fixed, or what we need to
do to get it working.

Thanks,
        Bob
        bob_minowicz@ncsu.edu

--
-- 
Bob Minowicz            "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe -
NCSU Computing Center   attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
Raleigh, NC 27607       I watched sea beams glitter in the dark beneath
(919)515-3035           Tanhouser Gate.  All those moments will be lost
Bob_Minowicz@ncsu.edu   in time like tears in the rain." 
                             -- Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Bladerunner
WWW: <A HREF="http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/minowicz/">My Page</A>

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

From: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com (Andrew R. Tefft)
Subject: Re: IDE patch won't work w/new kernels?
Reply-To: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 14:40:00 GMT

In article 3Ip@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au, c9219517@sage.newcastle.edu.au (Scott Howard) writes:
>Timo Kokkonen (tjko@tarzan.math.jyu.fi) wrote:
>
>: 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?
>
>There's a very simple reason for this - they are already in the kernel!!

I noticed this, when patch32 or so didn't patch cleanly into my
kernel. I repatched cleanly from pl13 -> patch33, and now hdparm
gives rc=-1, as if the patches are not in the kernel after all.
Yet all the chunks fail if I try to apply the hd.diffs. So what's the
secret?

---

Andy Tefft               - new, expanded .sig -     teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com



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

From: lee@netspace.students.brown.edu (Lee J. Silverman)
Subject: Realtime?
Date: 28 Jul 1994 02:09:34 GMT


        Just a quickie: does Linux 1.1.x have a realtime mode, say if
one wanted to use a Linux box in a lab to gather data?  If not, could
it?  I remember someone asking this way back when we were at 0.99pl14,
and there might have been some hardware restriction on why it couldn't
be done, but I can't remember now.

Thanks in advance!

--
Lee Silverman, Brown class of '94, Brown GeoPhysics ScM '95
Email to: Lee_Silverman@brown.edu
Phish-Net Archivist: phish-archives@phish.net
"Nonsense - you only say it's impossible because nobody's ever done it."

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

From: baron@pbaron.connected.com (Joe Portman)
Subject: Re: Driver for Dialogic D4x ?
Date: 24 Jul 1994 22:45:48 -0700

In article <NELSON.94Jul21172259@crynwr.crynwr.com>,
Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.crynwr.com> wrote:
>In article <d7larsg.774724662@dtek.chalmers.se> d7larsg@dtek.chalmers.se (Lars Gustavsson) writes:
>
>   Does anybody know if there exist a Linux driver for Dialogic D4x ?
>
>   (Dialogic corp. doesn't support Linux and wants approx. $1200/year
>   & *NIX licence) 

Oh yes, there exist a driver. I have it. I "ported" it from SCO Xenix.

>They also don't document their hardware, so don't hold your breath
>waiting for a Dialogic driver.  Much better to find a vendor of voice
>hardware that sells open systems.

Au contraire, I have FULL documentation for most of their voice cards, 
except for the latest 32 port (yes 32 ports per slot) digital cards.
You do have to sign a non-disclosure to get the info, but it is available.

Incidentally, Linus has indicated to me that binary distribution of the 
loadable module version driver should be OK. I do not have permission from
my employer (they actually own the driver) to distribute it yet.

Also, if you find an open vendor for VM cards and other telephony equipment,
I sure want to hear about it. None of them have been as "helpful" as Dialogic,
and it took a YEAR of chivvying to get the info from them.
>
>--
>-russ <nelson@crynwr.com>    http://www.crynwr.com/crynwr/nelson.html
>Crynwr Software   | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key
>11 Grant St.      | +1 315 268 1925 (9201 FAX)  | What is thee doing about it?
>Potsdam, NY 13676 | LPF member - ask me about the harm software patents do.


-- 
=============================
Joe Portman - Senior Telecommunications Analyst
(Westin Hotels & Resorts)
NOTE: These opinions are my own and not those of my employer

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

From: torvalds@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: procps-0.95 broken -- problem is in linux/sched.h
Date: 25 Jul 1994 18:07:45 +0300

In article <jqbCtHqLA.IAw@netcom.com>, Jim Balter <jqb@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>As someone else pointed out, you need to defined __KERNEL__.  linux/wait.h
>is already included by linux/net.h .
>
>This suggests that the application of #ifdef __KERNEL__ has been inconsistent.
>Either all uses of select_table should also be within __KERNEL__, or the
>typedef should not be within __KERNEL__.

Indeed - the #ifdef __KERNEL__ had been added to <linux/wait.h> to
reduce name-space pollution, but other places hadn't been updated.  I
tried to fix most of them in 1.1.35, so if you still have similar
problems with that one, please mail me and I'll try to get them. 
(-D__KERNEL__ should be needed only for the actual kernel compile)

                Linus

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

From: jrt@gwd.dsto.gov.au (John R Terry)
Subject: Re: 1.1.36 breaks compilation of iBCS2
Date: 28 Jul 94 02:22:28 GMT

hm@seneca.ix.de (Harald Milz) writes:

>Due to changes in the process table, ibcs-950623 doesn't compile any longer. 
>Compilation breaks at line 573 of ibcs/binfmt_coff.c: 

>            current->executable  = bprm->inode; /* Store inode for file  */

>The part of patch36 which caused this is

The expression 'current->executable' is also used in fstat.c from the
kmem-ps package, which is thus also broken by patch36. Anyone suggest
a workaround?

NB Most of kmem-ps-1.1.18 compiles with 1.1.36 with -D__KERNEL__ defined
in the Makefile (apart from a few warnings about redefined symbols) and
as far as I can tell ps, top, free, w, tload at least produce reasonable
results with no run-time errors.

Hope this helps someone.


>--- v1.1.35/linux/include/linux/sched.h Mon Jul 25 17:56:43 1994
>+++ linux/include/linux/sched.h Tue Jul 26 11:56:31 1994
>@@ -289,7 +289,7 @@
> /* file system info */
>        int link_count;
>        struct tty_struct *tty; /* NULL if no tty */
>-       struct inode * executable;
>+/* shm stuff */
>        struct shm_desc *shm;
>        struct sem_undo *semun;
> /* ldt for this task - used by Wine.  If NULL, default_ldt is used */


>-- 
>Harald Milz                             office: hm@ix.de
>iX Multiuser Multitasking Magazine      home:   hm@seneca.ix.de
>Opinions are mine, not my employer's -- the answer is Forty-two
>PS: I apologize for my bad return address - I hope this will be fixed soon.
-- 
John R Terry                                        jrt@gwd.dsto.gov.au
SPOB, Avionic Computer Systems,                     Ph:  +61 8 259 6982
Guided Weapons Division, DSTO Salisbury, S.Aust.    Fax: +61 8 259 5507

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

From: minowicz@eos.ncsu.edu (Bob Minowicz)
Subject: IPX kernel - client yet?
Date: 26 Jul 1994 14:31:59 GMT
Reply-To: Bob_Minowicz@NCSU.edu


Hi,
        It looks like the IPX portion of the kernel is complete.  It certainly
compiles without a hitch.  What I want to know is, where is the client? 
There doesn't seem to be much documentation.  In fact, the only reference
to IPX that I could find was in the NET-2 HOWTO.  There it mentions that
IPX isn't ready yet.  However, since this doc is a good bit out of date
regarding some things, I felt the need to ask here.

        Who's in charge of the project?  What is its current status?  Is there
any way that we can help?  Since it doesn't seem to be on the projects
list, the answers to these questions are hard to guess.  Can anyone shed
some light on the subject for me please?

Thanks,
        Bob
        bob_minowicz@ncsu.edu

--
-- 
Bob Minowicz            "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe -
NCSU Computing Center   attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
Raleigh, NC 27607       I watched sea beams glitter in the dark beneath
(919)515-3035           Tanhouser Gate.  All those moments will be lost
Bob_Minowicz@ncsu.edu   in time like tears in the rain." 
                             -- Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Bladerunner
WWW: <A HREF="http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/minowicz/">My Page</A>

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

From: tomimo@ncircle.nullnet.fi (Tomi Orava)
Subject: Ext2 filesystem errors
Date: 26 Jul 1994 21:59:22 +0200

I've got the following error messages for couple of weeks now
and now I'm asking does anyone else get these errors and if so are
they indicating something I should be reeally worried.

The following line is from "messages" file:
"ncircle kernel: offset=164, inode=852020, rec_len=11844, name_len=25449"

This happens quite often (at least once a week) on my /usr/spool partition.
I quess that's because of the news spooling etc.

Thanks,
Tomi Orava

-- 
Contact via email: tomimo@ncircle.nullnet.fi

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

From: stevek@panix.com (Steve Kann)
Subject: Re: Subnet masks
Date: 28 Jul 1994 01:43:26 -0400

Pete Kruckenberg (kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu) wrote:
: Bob Minowicz (minowicz@eos.ncsu.edu) wrote:

: :     In NET-2 there was mention at one point in the HOWTO that subnet
: : masks were broken for subnets not falling on eight-bit boudaries.  That
: : was then this is now.  I would imagine that by now, this has been fixed. 
: : However, since the only source for info is the old NET-2 HOWTO,and it
: : still says its broken... 

: :     Since the HOWTO is out of date on other subjects, I was thinking that
: : perhaps someone could tell me if this was ever fixed, or what we need to
: : do to get it working.

: It has been fixed for a long time (since 1.1.0, at least, and probably
: even since some of the 1.0.x kernels). We are using 1.1.24 with a
: 2-bit subnet field, so it definitely is working now.

I've got 30 some odd linux machined running on a 255.255.240.0 (that's a
12 bit submask there) without a problem as well -- versns 1.0.9 - 1.1.34
or so.


--
- Steve

stevek@cooper.edu
stevek@midnite.roslyn.ny.us



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

From: urlichs@smurf.noris.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Subject: Re: Memory problems.
Date: 26 Jul 1994 08:19:51 +0200

In comp.os.linux.development, article <CtGrA2.1xt@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl>,
  afsta014@IS.TWI.TUDelft.NL (Rob Kooper) writes:
> 
> I'm using kernel 1.1.34 and it looks like I'm losing memory. After a couple

Use 1.1.35.

-- 
...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage
 from beginning to end.
                -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"
-- 
Matthias Urlichs        \ XLink-POP N|rnberg  | EMail: urlichs@smurf.noris.de
Schleiermacherstra_e 12  \  Unix+Linux+Mac    | Phone: ...please use email.
90491 N|rnberg (Germany)  \   Consulting+Networking+Programming+etc'ing     42

Click <A HREF="http://smurf.noris.de/~urlichs/finger">here</A>.

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

From: urlichs@smurf.noris.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Subject: Re: Panasonic CD-ROM broke under >1.1.31
Date: 26 Jul 1994 08:39:02 +0200

In comp.os.linux.development, article <1994Jul25.154010.4035@tudedv.et.tudelft.nl>,
  lcvanveen@et.tudelft.nl writes:
> 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.

It works perfectly if you happen to mount them read-only.

Of course, the error is misleading -- mount(2) should return -EROFS and not
-EACCESS.

-- 
When all else fails, read the instructions.
-- 
Matthias Urlichs        \ XLink-POP N|rnberg  | EMail: urlichs@smurf.noris.de
Schleiermacherstra_e 12  \  Unix+Linux+Mac    | Phone: ...please use email.
90491 N|rnberg (Germany)  \   Consulting+Networking+Programming+etc'ing     42

Click <A HREF="http://smurf.noris.de/~urlichs/finger">here</A>.

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

From: skj@oasis.icl.co.uk (Simon Johnston)
Subject: Two nasty error messages 
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 05:59:18 GMT

Hi, Im trying to upgrade my kernel from 1.1.0 to 1.1.35, I have upgraded
my environment to:
        GCC 2.5.8
        LIBC 4.5.26
        LIBG++ 2.5.3l.2
        linux-binutils 1.0
And everything compiles fine. I tried to boot using the new kernel and get 
the message 
        Warning: obsolete routing request
constantly during boot. Anyone know waht this is ????. I have now regressed
to my 1.1.0 kernel and now get the message 
        EXT2-fs warning: maximum mount count reached, running e2fsck is rec...
This appears for every partition I attempt to mount *even* the root. Again
any ideas (email is easier for me) gratefully received.


MODULE Sig;
FROM ICL IMPORT StdDisclaimer;
FROM Interests IMPORT Modula2, Modula3, Linux, OS2;

BEGIN
(* ------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|Simon K. Johnston - Development Engineer              |ICL Retail Systems |
|------------------------------------------------------|3/4 Willoughby Road|
|Unix Mail : S.K.Johnston.bra0801@oasis.icl.co.uk      |Bracknell, Berks   |
|Telephone : +44 (0)344 476320   Fax: +44 (0)344 476084|United Kingdom     |
|Internal  : 7261 6320    OP Mail: S.K.Johnston@BRA0801|RG12 8TJ           |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------ *)
END Sig.

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


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