Subject: Linux-Development Digest #966
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:     Sat, 30 Jul 94 17:13:04 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #966, Volume #1         Sat, 30 Jul 94 17:13:04 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Wanted: The Application which can read *.DBF (dan@oea.hacktic.nl)
  Re: Parallel Port QIC-80 and FTAPE (Doug V Tran)
  Re: 1.1.36 make problem: 'NULL' undeclared (Mark Evans)
  Re: Interest in a new (up to date) LaTeX dist.? (Naresh Sharma)
  Linux backup of MSDOS? (Chris J. Lansley)
  Re: mounting DOS diskette fails under 1.1.36 (Ron Smits)
  Re: Debugger breakpoints don't work under 1.1.32 (David Fox)
  missing libs liby.a slackware 2.0 (Stephen Parkinson)
  Re: mounting DOS diskette fails under 1.1.36 (Thomas Weber)
  Re: Voice Mail cards. (Lars Marowsky-Bree)
  (none) (Alberto Vignani)
  panic: Unable to find empty mailbox for aha1542. (Keith Smith)
  Re: Wanted: The Application which can read *.DBF (Michael Dillon)
  Re: threads in kernel (Larry McVoy)
  kernel stupidity... (olav woelfelschneider)
  Re: mounting DOS diskette fails under 1.1.36 (Matthias Urlichs)
  Re: Fatal Signal 11  - reproduceable ! (olav woelfelschneider)

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

From: dan@oea.hacktic.nl
Subject: Re: Wanted: The Application which can read *.DBF
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 09:19:29 GMT

Dennis Heltzel (dheltzel@crl.com) wrote:

: : Better yet is C code to access dBase files. Sequiter Software sells
: : CodeBase 5.0 with full C source code and programs written using
: : their library can access Clipper and dBase and Fopro files with
: : full multi-user record locking abilities and can even co-exist on
: : the same network as Clipper/Foxpro apps accessing the same files.

: I wonder if they have tried porting the code to UNIX and if so, how well 
: it works ?

Yes, they have a multiplatform version that runs on UNIX. I have ported
the DOS/Windows version of Codebase 4.5 to Linux without much difficulty.
(The hardest thing was to find out how to pack structures under GCC :-)
I haven't stressed it real hard but it is working fine do far.

-- 
|< Dan Naas        dan@oea.hacktic.nl >|
+--------------------------------------+

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

From: digdug@iastate.edu (Doug V Tran)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: Parallel Port QIC-80 and FTAPE
Date: 27 Jul 94 17:32:27 GMT

In <brett.775259020@iitbarr.iit.com> brett@iit.com (Brett Coon) writes:

>habi@bauv.unibw-muenchen.de (Venant Habiyambere) writes:

>>Hi.

>Hi.

>>I' m trying to get my Parallel Port QIC 80 drive to run
>>with Linux. ( There is no problem with Dos )

>>Please let me know how i can Backups using FTAPE.

>This is a common question.  Currently there is NO Linux support for
>any parallel-port backup system.  The reason for this is that the
>various parallel port adapters use proprietary hardware, and their
>manufacturers aren't keen on releasing programming info.  If anyone
>could actually get detailed programming info for one of these devices,
>I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to help develop drivers.

If you don't want to wait for the new drivers and don't mind
tinkering, just do what I did with my CMS Trakker 250.
 
Following up on someone suggestion, I decided to take a lookse into
the hard of the unit.  What I found was a internal Jumbo 250 tape
drive mechanism, connected to a parallel conversion board, with a
power supply and fan.
 
I pulled out the tape drive unit and connected it to my floppy
controler and install my old CMS JUmbo tape drive program and
proceeded to backup/restore some files.  Works o.k.
 
There you go, you basically now have a internal Jumbo 250 drive.  When
you want to go somewhere, just put it together.  Doesn't take more
than 5 minutes. 
 
Later,
Doug

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

From: evansmp@mb52112.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans)
Subject: Re: 1.1.36 make problem: 'NULL' undeclared
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 20:40:53 GMT

Andreas Joppich (aj@z2-db11.ms.DeTeMobil.de) wrote:

: Today i got the new 1.1.36 version. After patching the 1.1.35 and
: running the various commands below I get the following error-message:

: make mrproper ; make config
: make dep ; make clean ; make

:  
: [..lots of stuff deleted..]

: /usr/src/linux/include/linux/timer.h: In function `init_timer':
: In file included from psaux.c:28:
: /usr/src/linux/include/linux/timer.h:85: `NULL' undeclared (first use this function)
: /usr/src/linux/include/linux/timer.h:85: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
: /usr/src/linux/include/linux/timer.h:85: for each function it appears in.)
: make[2]: *** [psaux.o] Error 1
: make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux/drivers/char'
: make[1]: *** [driversubdirs] Error 1
: make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux/drivers'
: make: *** [linuxsubdirs] Error 1

stick a #define NULL 0 anywhere in /usr/src/linux/include/linux/timer.h

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

From: nash@dutllu4.gmd.de (Naresh Sharma)
Subject: Re: Interest in a new (up to date) LaTeX dist.?
Reply-To: Naresh.Sharma@LR.TUDelft.NL
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 20:43:42 GMT

Michael Griffith (grif@tempest.ucr.edu) wrote:
: In article <318m8o$nf6@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
: Byron Faber <btf57346@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
: >I am curious whether there is enough interest in a new up to date LaTeX 
: >distribution?
: >
: >If enough people want one, I can put together a LaTeX distribution based
: >on the June release standard of LaTeX 2e.

: You might want to also include web2c 6.1 (w/TeX 3.1415), xdvik-1.8,
: and dvipsk 5.55a.  It is nice to have the newest of everything.
: -- 

You may also like to include that ps fonts option for the cmr like psfonts
on the uk tex archive. When manipulated by psutils the origial cmr fonts
look real bad, but I tried the ps distribution of the cmr fonts and it
improved the quality remarkably...

A small script that allows either fonts to be used may be a brilliant idea.


--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Naresh Sharma [N.Sharma@LR.TUDelft.NL]  Herenpad 28            __|__
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering        2628 AG Delft   \_______(_)_______/
T U Delft               Optimists designed the aeroplane,     !  !  !  
Ph(Work) (+31)15-783992 pessimists designed the parachute!
Ph(Home) (+31)15-569636 Plan:Design Airplanes on Linux the best OS on Earth!
==============================PGP=KEY=AVAILABLE================================

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

From: ssrlansl@reading.ac.uk (Chris J. Lansley)
Subject: Linux backup of MSDOS?
Reply-To: ssrlansl@reading.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 14:19:29 GMT

    Does anyone know of a way to backup the DOS drive from linux? I don't want
 to switch OS just to backup the two. I have tried using the msdos fs, but this
 seems to only preserve the READONLY attr (this means that the hidden/system/
 /volume attr are lost).
 
    Another problem is that some files in dos seem to be position dependent,
 (must be on the same area of the disc), I feel that this may mean that
 a normal backup would not be good enough.

    I am considering using "dd" to get a binary image of the disc, and then
 compressing it, then putting that on tape.  But this may have problems?

    I WILL BE GRATEFUL FOR ANY HELP.

    Please email, as our news service seems to lose postings....




---
=======================================================================
| Chris Lansley                ||           C.J.Lansley@reading.ac.uk |
| Research Student             ||          Software Engineering Group |
| Formal methods used in       ||           Dept. of Computer Science |
|  security                    ||               University of Reading |
=======================================================================


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

From: ron@draconia.hacktic.nl (Ron Smits)
Subject: Re: mounting DOS diskette fails under 1.1.36
Date: 30 Jul 1994 11:35:24 GMT

>>>>> "Henning" == Henning Holtschneider <hh@hhdo.ping.de> writes:

    Henning> Hi!  I just tried to mount a dos formatted
    Henning> diskette. mount tries to access the drive (the drive lamp
    Henning> flashes up and the head seeks over the floppy disk) but
    Henning> then stops with:

    Henning>        mount: block device /dev/fd0 is not permitted on
    Henning> its filesystem

    Henning> I also tried kernel version 1.1.33, the problem is the
    Henning> same. I had no problems with earlier kernels and mounting
    Henning> hard drive partitions also works.

    Henning> What is wrong there?

Looks like the floppy you tried to mount is write-protected. the
kernel tests this nowadays
--



                Ron Smits
                ron@draconia.hacktic.nl
                Ron.Smits@Netherlands.NCR.COM

/*-( My opinions are my opinions, My boss's opinions are his opinions )-*/
/*-(                They might not be the same                        )-*/

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

From: fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David Fox)
Subject: Re: Debugger breakpoints don't work under 1.1.32
Date: 26 Jul 1994 19:04:10 GMT

In article <FOX.94Jul24105835@first.cs.nyu.edu> fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David Fox) writes:

] 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.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone besides me has experienced
this.  By the way, 1.1.23 works for me too, and 1.1.34 does
not, but I can't speak about the ones between 23 and 32.
--
David Fox                                               xoF divaD
NYU Media Research Lab                     baL hcraeseR aideM UYN

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc
From: Stephen@zmemw16.demon.co.uk (Stephen Parkinson)
Subject: missing libs liby.a slackware 2.0
Reply-To: Stephen@zmemw16.demon.co.uk
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 16:00:47 +0000

Anyone know where to find this library, I can't
find it on InfoMagic Slackware 2.0 even with
the sunsite/tsx-11 snapshots.

Is there one for lex - libl.a although everyone
seems to use flex - libfl.a ?

Many thanks

Stephen Parkinson

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

From: tom@pandemonium.saar.de (Thomas Weber)
Subject: Re: mounting DOS diskette fails under 1.1.36
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 18:54:04 GMT

In article <1994Jul28.111458.147@hhdo.ping.de>,
Henning Holtschneider <hh@hhdo.ping.de> wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I just tried to mount a dos formatted diskette. mount tries to access the
>drive (the drive lamp flashes up and the head seeks over the floppy disk)
>but then stops with:
>
>       mount: block device /dev/fd0 is not permitted on its filesystem

Seems that your disk is write protected. Try mounting the filesystem ro.
mount -t msdos -r /dev/fd0 /A

You can't mount ro devices rw in the newer kernels.

tschau,
  Thomas

-- 
Halt Wanderer, halt, geh langsam hier;  Wie du jetzt bist, so waren wir;
Wie wir jetzt sind musst du einst sein, Zu folgen uns, ruesst du dich fein!
                                                                 -atrocity-

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

From: lmb@pointer.han.de (Lars Marowsky-Bree)
Subject: Re: Voice Mail cards.
Date: 29 Jul 1994 21:21:00 +0200

Quoting ftlofaro@unlv.edu (Frank Lofaro) ,
topic 'Re: Voice Mail cards.', area /comp/os/linux/development, stardate 27.07.94:

>And it is our decision if we want to (and do) reverse-engineer anything.
>And then release source code ourselves. We would not be under
>non-disclosure.

This opinion will make companys  stay  away  from Linux as a serious
development platform. 
You can't take it as granted that anybody releases the sourcecode of
his work. It is a gift, nothing more. Never forget that.
Linus and the FSF, the GPL etc have done a lot good things  for  us,
but it has been their choice. 
I think we  all  will  win  if  there  will  be  a lot of commercial
development for Linux. 

All of the above is just my opinion on  this  matter.   Please  dump
your flames to /dev/null, if you don't do it, I will.

--
Lars Marowsky-Bree   Voice: +49-571-63663  PGP-key via return receipt
VirNet: @9:492/7158 Fido: @2:2449/620.16 InterNet: lmb@pointer.han.de
PGP fingerprint:     CF FC 3A F0 86 F1 D3 EB  79 8A CF 75 4F 4C 81 DF
## CrossPoint v3.02 ##

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

From: Alberto Vignani <alberto.vignani@pmn.it>
Subject: (none)
Date: 30 Jul 1994 16:20:23 -0400
Reply-To: alberto.vignani@pmn.it

Subj:   Error message from MIDI driver at boot time

I have a SoundBlaster 16 card and a MPU-401 clone card. I run the latest
kernel (with the 2.90 sound driver).
Every time I reboot I see this message:

  snd5Unknown MPU mark fe
  MPU: No ACK to command (0xad)
  <MPU-401 MIDI Interface 15.14 > at 0x330 irq 9 drq 0

The MIDI card is an MD-401 from MIDI Land,Inc.
I have not yet checked if the driver works correctly (it does with
SoundBlaster, and /dev/sndstat shows MPU-401 installed).
What is the meaning of this message?

Thanks
Alberto Vignani         <alberto.vignani@pmn.it>

===========================================================================
"...recordo' que uno de los heresiarcas de Uqbar habia declarado que los
 espejos y la copula son abominables, porque multiplican el numero de los
 hombres..."
                JLB, 'Ficciones'
===========================================================================

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

From: keith@ksmith.com (Keith Smith)
Subject: panic: Unable to find empty mailbox for aha1542.
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 94 12:36:40 GMT

panic: Unable to find empty mailbox for aha1542.
in swapper task not syncing.

locks-up

Systems:

486/66 w/BT745S EISA Host Adaptor
        8MB RAM
        NE2000 clone
        1G SCSI HD

486SLC/40 w/BT545S ISA Host Adaptor
        8MB RAM
        WD Elite-16
        420MB IDE
        1G SCSI
        2 SCSI CD-ROM
        1 SCSI Tape

Both running Linux 1.1.27, no additional patches

Both die infrequently while spooling news, though the latter is "more
frequent" lately (nightly).

Any clues, help most appreciated.

Peeking into Kernel code reveals (That I'm a freaking clueless bastard
:() that this occurs while we are trying to queue a fresh SCSI command.

My guess is that somewhere in the swap routine a flawed assumption is
being made about the availability of an empty mailbox, but this doesn't
make any sense to me either.
-- 
Keith Smith aka Digital Designs                 keith@ksmith.com
5719 Archer Rd.                    Free Usenet News and Internet Mail Services
Hope Mills, NC 28348-2201         All 28K/14K Modems  (910) 423-4216/7389/7391
Somewhere in the Styx of North Carolina ...         14K-V.32/28K-V.34/28K-V.34

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

From: mpdillon@chinook.halcyon.com (Michael Dillon)
Subject: Re: Wanted: The Application which can read *.DBF
Date: 30 Jul 1994 16:26:48 GMT

>: Better yet is C code to access dBase files. Sequiter Software sells
>: CodeBase 5.0 with full C source code and programs written using
>: their library can access Clipper and dBase and Fopro files with
>: full multi-user record locking abilities and can even co-exist on
>: the same network as Clipper/Foxpro apps accessing the same files.
>
>I wonder if they have tried porting the code to UNIX and if so, how well 
>it works ?

Yes, they do sell a UNIX ported version of Codebase.
--
Michael Dillon                 Internet: mpdillon@halcyon.halcyon.com
C-4 Powerhouse                  Fidonet: 1:353/350
RR #2 Armstrong, BC  V0E 1B0      Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Canada                              BBS: +1-604-546-2705

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

From: lm@stanford.edu (Larry McVoy)
Subject: Re: threads in kernel
Date: 30 Jul 1994 20:11:03 GMT

Matthias Urlichs (urlichs@smurf.noris.de) wrote:
: In comp.os.linux.development, article <Ctno26.L5@wg.saar.de>,
:   bof@wg.saar.de (Patrick Schaaf) writes:
: > lm@stanford.edu (Larry McVoy) writes:
: > >The idea behind a clone() or tfork() system call is that the only thing
: > >that you get is a new stack (it would be nice, I think, if the new stack
: > >was at the same virtual address as the old stack; it saves you having to
: > >rethread it).
: 
: A new stack at the same location means that you can't put things on the
: stack if any other thread might need them. Ugly.

Yes, that is true, but I don't think that you should be putting stuff on the
stack and passing a pointer to it anyway.  That seems inherently dangerous
to me.

I like being able to keep programming the way that I do now.  I want to
be able to just say

        if (tfork()) {
                /* parent thread */
        } else {
                /* child thread */
        }

and have everything work.  I've actually implemented such a beast in 
user level a long, long time ago.  But I did not have OS support so
I had to copy the stack and then walk all the stack frames and 
rethread them.  Yuck.

--
--
Larry McVoy             lm@sun.com ==> lm@sgi.com                (415) 821-5758

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

From: wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (olav woelfelschneider)
Subject: kernel stupidity...
Date: 30 Jul 1994 17:47:18 GMT

I think this is really nasty...

Nowadays, if one tries to mount a write protected floppy without explicitely
specifying it to be mounted read-only, an error occurs.

I think this is really nasty, wouldn't it be possible to change the floppy
driver again, so that it automatically mounts the drive read only if its
protected?
It would be just enough to simply make all files write protected by setting
the protection bits appropriately. This won't stop root from trying to
write though, this should be handled in some way...

Im feeling very uncomfortable with the current operation.

Hey, linux coders: You did a _gooood_ job anyway! :)

--
/======================================\
| Olav "Mac" Woelfelschneider          |
| wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de |
+--------------------------------------+
| I refuse to grow up,                 |
| I don't want to lose my humor...     |
\======================================/

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

From: urlichs@smurf.noris.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Subject: Re: mounting DOS diskette fails under 1.1.36
Date: 30 Jul 1994 19:18:06 +0200

In comp.os.linux.development, article <1994Jul28.111458.147@hhdo.ping.de>,
  hh@hhdo.ping.de (Henning Holtschneider) writes:
> 
>        mount: block device /dev/fd0 is not permitted on its filesystem

Bah. Linus (plus whoever is responsible for mount), please fix that message,
if for no other reason than to stop all these questions rolling in..!

Henning: Un-write-protect the floppy or mount with -r.

-- 
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
                                        -- Shakespeare
-- 
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: wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (olav woelfelschneider)
Subject: Re: Fatal Signal 11  - reproduceable !
Date: 30 Jul 1994 17:50:31 GMT

Ian Jackson (iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
: In article <1994Jul7.193105.20509@kbbs.kiel.sub.org>,
: Holger Petersen <hp@kbbs.kiel.sub.org> wrote:
: >The following small C-program gives the Message "Fatal signal 11"
: >[ further description and listing deleted ]
: >
: >s11.c:4: parse error before `$'
: >s11.c: In function `main':
: >s11.c:13: parse error before `$'
: >s11.c:14: parse error before `$'
: >cc: Internal compiler error: program cc1 got fatal signal 11

: 1. This is answered in the FAQ.
: 2. You're posting to completely the wrong group.

[stuff deleted]

This is not neccessarily the wrong group, since I have lots of cases when I got
this signal 11 (SIGSEGV, btw.) under kernel 1.1.37 (my hackers paradise), while
everything runs fine with 1.1.9(which I think is very stable).

So you can not be absolutely sure wether this is a compiler bug or a linux bug.

Just my few words...
--
/======================================\
| Olav "Mac" Woelfelschneider          |
| wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de |
+--------------------------------------+
| I refuse to grow up,                 |
| I don't want to lose my humor...     |
\======================================/

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


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