Subject: Linux-Development Digest #974
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, 2 Aug 94 02:13:08 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #974, Volume #1          Tue, 2 Aug 94 02:13:08 EDT

Contents:
  Aztech CD-ROM and Linux? (Michael Sternberg)
  On qmagic binaries.. (Mike Jagdis)
  Re: Realtime? (Larry Doolittle)
  Need Restricted Shell for Linux: Where? (Bart Kindt)
  Re: Teletext adaptor driver? (Mark Turner)
  reconfiguring Slackware 2.0 (was Re: why does backspace...) (Richard L. Goerwitz)
  Secure filesystem development (BCL)
  Re: lint on linux? (Peter Henry Mander)
  Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base (Aris Stathakis)
  Re: panic: Unable to find empty mailbox for aha1542. (Michael O'Reilly)
  Re: Fatal Signal 11 - reproduceable ! (Andrew McGregor)
  Translating IDE drives.. (Steve Kann)
  Version 1.1.x Log (Jerry Ablan)
  Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base (Mark Bolzern)
  Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base (Mark Bolzern)
  Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base (Mark Bolzern)
  Re: 1.1.35 make problem: exhausted memory (Matthew Dillon)

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

From: stern@physik.tu-chemnitz.de (Michael Sternberg)
Subject: Aztech CD-ROM and Linux?
Date: 1 Aug 94 16:31:24 GMT

Hi Netters!

A friend of mine happend to buy a CD-ROM which now turned out
to be incompatible with Linux.  It works with Doze but this isn't
of much help for a CD designed as a linux working fs.
(No big linux partitions on his hard disk ...)

The mere leaflets say it is an "Aztech CDA 268-01A double speed CD-ROM".

Is there a kind soul out there who has experience with such a drive
and might even know a way to make it known to linux?  It would be a cool
way to finally include this in the Hardware-Compatibility-Howto to
widen the hardware spectrum linux supports.

With greetings,
--
Michael Sternberg       "If I stick my left arm in my right ear
                        I can electrocute myself" << Marvin >>
sternberg@physik.tu-chemnitz.de.  Lab fax: +49 (371) 531 3143

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

From: jaggy@purplet.demon.co.uk (Mike Jagdis)
Subject: On qmagic binaries..
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 13:49:00 +0000

* In message <jcgreen.775334347@las1.iastate.edu>, Jon Green said:

JG> I heard a Linux qmagic
JG> binary would run on a NetBSD system; is this true?

No, this is utter garbage. Both Linux and NetBSD have QMAGIC/ZMAGIC formats 
but they are incompatible due to a slight difference in the header format. 
FreeBSD uses the same header format as Linux but Linux and the BSD flavours 
use totally different mechanisms for accessing system calls so you're still 
stuffed.

  I put some initial, "proof of concept" support for BSD flavour binaries in 
to the latest releases of the iBCS emulator for Linux but there seems little 
point in spending much time on it :-).

                                Mike  
 

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

From: doolitt@recycle.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: Realtime?
Reply-To: doolittle@cebaf.gov
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 20:23:16 GMT

Rusty Trainham (trainham@penduick.saclay.cea.fr) wrote:
: Michael K. Johnson (johnsonm@calypso-2.oit.unc.edu) wrote:

: : There are apparantly patches for some sort of HPIB support floating
: : around somewhere but I know nothing about them, and that may not be
: : what you are looking for at all.  Best of luck!

: I would be interested in HPIB patches.  Real time is not really important
: to me since critical timing is handled at the measuring end, but I would
: love to get Linux running on the lab computer. 

Resources I know of are:

ftp.natinst.com  /support/gpib/sun/misc/atgpib_lynx_1.0b1.tar
  suggested by mielke@omega.physik.fu-berlin.de (Bernd Mielke)

corey@bbs.xnet.com (Corey Sweeney) has adapted code from natinst.com to Linux,
  but isn't ready to widely distribute the result.

A c++ user-mode "library" by spiekman@dutediz.et.tudelft.nl (Leo Spiekman)
(I have a copy, it was posted to one of these newsgroups, you can e-mail
me if you can't get it any other way).

I have a NEC Microcomputer Products data book with reference material
on the NEC uPD7210 controller chip which forms the heart of almost
all GPIB interface cards.  I can loan this out by snail mail to anyone
who is interested but has no access to such reference material.

         - Larry Doolittle     doolittle@cebaf.gov


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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: bart@dunedin.es.co.nz (Bart Kindt)
Subject: Need Restricted Shell for Linux: Where?
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 16:29:37 GMT

Hello out there,

I need a "restricted shell" for my dial-in users, to prevent them to roam all 
about the system.  The RSH in Linux is actually the *remote* shell. And the 
KSH as ported for Linux, has the 'restricted' options not included!

Can anybody tell me where to get one?  Or, if there is none at this time, 
could somebody out there maybe Port / Compile one?  I would have no idea where 
to begin...

Greetings, Bart.
=================================================
Bart Kindt (ZL4FOX/PA2FOX), Dunedin, New Zealand.
=================================================

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

From: mark@kram.org (Mark Turner)
Crossposted-To: demon.ip.support.unix
Subject: Re: Teletext adaptor driver?
Date: 31 Jul 1994 14:53:01 +0100

Another approach may be to leave the card in the DOS box and somehow
access it from the Linux box. The card has a driver which creates a
device called "OPTIMUM3" which can be used to access the teletext
adaptor as if it was a file. Is there a way to access this file via
TCP/IP?

I'm running Microsoft TCP/IP on the DOS box and mount some network
drives from the Linux box using Samba. Is there a way to do the reverse,
either to share a DOS drive or maybe just the device? I've seen the
FTP-like Samba client but (unsurprisingly) can't see a way to use this
to access a remote device read-write.

Ideas?

Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Turner                       Note: mark@demon.* is no longer me
mark@kram.org, renrut@linux.phl.cursci.com, mark@renrut.dircon.co.uk

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

From: goer@quads.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: reconfiguring Slackware 2.0 (was Re: why does backspace...)
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 13:59:10 GMT

andre@borneo.dkfz-heidelberg.de (Andre Schroeter) writes:

>why is the default keymap configured not to send backspace when backspace
>is pressed?
>why are all loadable maps configured to send delete if backspace is pressed?
>why is the stty defaut for the erase key "^?" ?
>why is it right under X ?

One of the first things I did when I installed Slackware 2.0.0 was to
redefine my keymap so that *something* could output a backspace.  I sus-
pect that newbies will be taken aback when they fire up their new Slack-
ware distribution and then try vi, as per the directions - only to find
that vi, as configured, wants a backspace (and there is no way to send
it one except by hitting ctrl+H).

I change my default keymap so often that I now have loadkeys, or whatever
it's called, into my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file, and autoload a map on startup.
The default in the source tree is in the /usr/src/linux/drivers/char dir-
ectory.

Other strangenesses I encountered were things like the lack of complete
links from native fs-creation programs for each file system to mkfs.what-
ever in /sbin.  I believe I found a complete set of links somewhere in
/etc or /lib or the like.  But my mkfs program didn't find them.  I had
to create some links manually.

There are also lots of references to nonexistent manual pages in the ones
that exist.  This isn't the fault of the Slackware distribution, of
course, but merely a byproduct of Linux's heterogenous nature.  For exam-
ple, the sed man pages refer to re_format(7) and regexp man pages (which
were not installed).

And of course the sex(6) manual page from the emacs etc directory was
missing :-).

Final thing I noticed is that no cleanup is done on /tmp files, which can
grow a lot and never get removed.  I put a line in my rc.local file
that wipes out anything in /tmp and /var/tmp that is more than two days
old.  I suppose I could have been more sophisticated about this, but the
arrangement suits me fine.  Better than the default (accumulating files
in tmp until root logs in an manually cleans them up).

Slackware 2.0.0 is really a fine piece of work for free software.  Com-
mendable.  You have to be aware that this is a Unix system, though, and
that some minimal experience with system administration on other plat-
forms is almost a must.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer

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

From: cypress@connected.com (BCL)
Subject: Secure filesystem development
Date: 30 Jul 1994 21:00:50 -0700

  Is there any work being done on a secure filesystem in the kernel instead
of through the loopback device and nfs?  There was a system for DOS a while
back that was using IDEA with pretty good speed throughput I believe.
Anthing similar for Linux? 

  I have cfs that uses loopback, but cannot get it to compile(apparently
rpcgen is broken on my machine), and the des code.

   Brian

-- 
============================================+================================
 Linux: The choice of a GNU generation      |  cypress@connected.com
 sysop  of FreeZone datahaven (206)569-2911 |  finger for PGP key
============================================+================================

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

From: ssumnder@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk (Peter Henry Mander)
Subject: Re: lint on linux?
Reply-To: ssumnder@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 10:39:48 GMT

Hello all,

I wonder if using G++ could provide sufficient type checking to fill the holes in gcc -Wall -pedantic -ansi -Weverythingunderthesun.

Anyone care to comment?

Peter-Henry Mander (ssumnder@reading.ac.uk)




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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd
From: aris@unisup1.mpd.co.za (Aris Stathakis)
Subject: Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 1994 21:38:03 GMT

In <CtpoIA.JJH@newsserver.aggregate.com> rhealey@sirius.aggregate.com (Rob Healey) writes:

>In article <JOHNSONM.94Jul28233853@calypso-2.oit.unc.edu>,
>Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@calypso-2.oit.unc.edu> wrote:
>>   Really now! Those boxes use an RS-232 interface, right? What do they tell 
>>   the computer? If they only communicate one thing (power fail) then it
>>   is probably something as simple as shorting the RD and SD lines. Get a
>>   technician to check it out for you while you pull the plug.

The Smart-UPS's do more than just tell about power fail.  It tells
about battery status (charge, load, time before battery fails), and
temperature of the UCS among other things.
        
>       The Smart-UPS's use some sort of dongle RS232 cable if I remember
>       correctly, i.e. it's not a normal RS232 cable since it has extra
>       components in it. Once you have one of those cables its some sort
>       of 1 or 2 letter commands sort of thing to get info out of the
>       UPS.

>       It's the cables that hurt since they cost more than a simple 232
>       cable.

Ahem.. Well. umm.. the Smart-ups cable is just a 3 wire cable with pins
2 4 and 7 (I think ... could be wrong).  The PC doesn't communicate
with the UPS - only the UPS sends data to the PC (thus no receive
pin on the UPS) and a pin for power-fail detection, and a ground :-)

>       The UNIXware software is SCO version too, I don't think they have
>       a specific version for any other OS.

They have for DOS/NT/Netware too.  I believe they also have for some of
the larger UNIXes i.e. HP/UX and AIX.   I don't see why you couldn't
use the SCO version on Linux if you were using the iBCS2 code which
allows you to run SCO (COFF) binaries.

Aris

-- 
Aris Stathakis            Tel: +27 11 887 1040       Snail Mail:  
SCO ACE / Novell CNE      Fax: +27 11 887 5158       P.O. Box 781228
M&PD (Pty) Ltd.           Fax: +27 11 887 5158       Sandton, 2146
E-Mail: aris@mpd.co.za    Cell:+27 83 601 0206       R.S.A.

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

From: michael@iinet.com.au (Michael O'Reilly)
Subject: Re: panic: Unable to find empty mailbox for aha1542.
Date: 31 Jul 1994 13:55:41 +0800

Keith Smith (keith@ksmith.com) wrote:
: panic: Unable to find empty mailbox for aha1542.
: in swapper task not syncing.

ah hah! Thanks me too! :)

: locks-up

: Systems:

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

486/66 BT445S, localbus SCSI adaptor, 32 megs mem, 1.37 gig SCSI, 1.05
gig SCSI. no tap.

: 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

Happens variously under 1.1.x --> 1.1.34 (latest I've tried).

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

Hmm. We run innd to news is running continously. Happens at fairly
random intervals.


Michael.
-- 
Michael O'Reilly @ iiNet Technologies, Internet Service providers.
Voice (09) 307 1183, Fax (09) 307 8414. Email michael@iinet.com.au
GCS d? au- a- v* c++ UL++++ L+++ E po--(+) b+++ D++ h* r++ u+
         e+ m+ s+++/--- !n h-- f? g+ w t-- y+ 

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

From: physadm@phys.canterbury.ac.nz (Andrew McGregor)
Subject: Re: Fatal Signal 11 - reproduceable !
Date: 02 Aug 1994 01:07:48 GMT

In article <31foqf$osh@gap.cco.caltech.edu> nyet@linuxftp.caltech.edu (nye) writes:

> From: nyet@linuxftp.caltech.edu (nye)
> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development
> Date: 31 Jul 1994 08:53:35 GMT
> Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
 
> On another note, it looks like AMD dx2/66's don't like ghostscript - anybody
> else see this?

I see it with AMD DX-40's, but it might be the SVGAlib support in my
ghostscript binary, since the graphics goes strange at the same time.
-- 
Andrew McGregor,
Physics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
adm@phys.canterbury.ac.nz

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

From: stevek@panix.com (Steve Kann)
Subject: Translating IDE drives..
Date: 2 Aug 1994 00:18:53 -0400

Okay, I give up...

What's the trick to getting around the translating IDE drive problem...

specifically this:
                if (hd_info[i].head > 16) {
                        printk("hd.c: ST-506 interface disk with more
than 16 he
ads detected,\n");
                        printk("  probably due to non-standard sector
translatio
n. Giving up.\n");
                        printk("  (disk %d: cyl=%d, sect=%d,
head=%d)\n", i,
                                hd_info[i].cyl,
                                hd_info[i].sect,
                                hd_info[i].head);
                        if (i+1 == NR_HD)
                                NR_HD--;
                        continue;
                }

I have a 1 gig drive (in a new Dell P-90 I have to set up), and it comes
out with 5xx Cyls, 64 hds, and 63 sectors. (about).

Is the solution that I have to somehow discover the true (untranslated)
geometry, or am I just screwed...

If I can get this working, any pointers to what I have to do would be
highly appreciated!

Thanks!


--
- Steve

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



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

From: munster@MCS.COM (Jerry Ablan)
Subject: Version 1.1.x Log
Date: 1 Aug 1994 22:53:10 -0500

Is there some sort of feature list that is released with each version? I
hate to keep upgrading and not knowing what I'm adding other than reading
the diffs. The README is never updated and CHANGES hasn't been updated since
v0.99.x.

Is there somewhere I can find this?


-- Jerry

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd
From: mark@gcs.com (Mark Bolzern)
Subject: Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 04:37:01 GMT

In article <316bjc$hlh@thor.tjhsst.edu>,
Craig Metz <cmetz@thor.tjhsst.edu> wrote:
>       I had a talk today with Debbie Gray (sp?) of American Power Conversion
>regarding trying to get information on how to communicate with their Smart
>UPS products' onboard controllers in order to write a Linux driver. APC is
>one of the *many* manufacturers that plays the old NDA game, i.e., ``we
>consider that to be proprietary information that we have to protect''. However,
>she seemed to at least not be a brick wall to the idea of trying to change
>this policy so that a freely redistributable in source form Linux driver could
>be done. She told me that she will be talking to her supervisor when he's
>back from Interop next week about this. 

Try Best.... They have a better product (Rare that someone named that would)
and don't mind talking....  I got a Best UPS not too long ago with a full
programming manual, and source code in C for several different Unix versions.

-- 
Mark Bolzern :  mark@gcs.com    USA Tel: (303) 699-7470  Fax: (303) 699-2793 
WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.       The FlagShip "Clipper and XBase on Unix" People
  FlagShip is a 4GL Database Development System & Xbase Porting Tool for Unix
No Runtime Fees   Info at ftp.wgs.com : /pub2/wgs/Filelist OR mail: info@wgs.com

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd
From: mark@gcs.com (Mark Bolzern)
Subject: Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 04:38:57 GMT

In article <317k55$kq3@news.halcyon.com>,
Michael Dillon <mpdillon@coho.halcyon.com> wrote:
>In article <316bjc$hlh@thor.tjhsst.edu>,
>Craig Metz <cmetz@thor.tjhsst.edu> wrote:
>>      I had a talk today with Debbie Gray (sp?) of American Power Conversion
>>regarding trying to get information on how to communicate with their Smart
>>UPS products' onboard controllers in order to write a Linux driver. APC is
>>one of the *many* manufacturers that plays the old NDA game, i.e., ``we
>>consider that to be proprietary information that we have to protect''. H
>
>Really now! Those boxes use an RS-232 interface, right? What do they tell 
>the computer? If they only communicate one thing (power fail) then it
>is probably something as simple as shorting the RD and SD lines. Get a
>technician to check it out for you while you pull the plug.
>
>If they are giving more info than that, then it probably can be 
>reverse engineered with simple program to monitor the incoming 
>serial port.

Older UPS were that way.... but the Best, and APC do a lot more talking than
that.  They communicate status, load, testing, and tons more.  They literally
have dedicated computers inside, fully capable of conversing.

-- 
Mark Bolzern :  mark@gcs.com    USA Tel: (303) 699-7470  Fax: (303) 699-2793 
WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.       The FlagShip "Clipper and XBase on Unix" People
  FlagShip is a 4GL Database Development System & Xbase Porting Tool for Unix
No Runtime Fees   Info at ftp.wgs.com : /pub2/wgs/Filelist OR mail: info@wgs.com

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd
From: mark@gcs.com (Mark Bolzern)
Subject: Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 04:42:22 GMT

In article <CttA8L.LBy@newsserver.aggregate.com>,
Rob Healey <rhealey@sirius.aggregate.com> wrote:
>In article <31ffcm$9l6@sndsu1.sinet.slb.com>,
> <michael@starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
>>
>>In article <CtpoIA.JJH@newsserver.aggregate.com>, 
>>>     The Smart-UPS's use some sort of dongle RS232 cable if I remember
>>>     correctly, i.e. it's not a normal RS232 cable since it has extra
>>>     components in it. Once you have one of those cables its some sort
>>>     of 1 or 2 letter commands sort of thing to get info out of the
>>>     UPS.
>>
>>Even if the pinouts are radically different from RS232 - making a new 
>>cable is a trivial task -- you don't have to pay the vendor if you can
>>roll your own.  
>>
>       The emphasis is on the word DONGLE above. I just spoke with an
>       old friend and there is a circuit board that is housed in one
>       end of the cable that has misc. micro electronic parts on it. This
>       could be RS232<->???? converters or some sort of dongle thing. In
>       other words, it's more than just pin x to pin y sort of thing
>       for the Smart UPS from APC.

True, and I blew the brains out of a serial card and a UPS messing with 
this on an APC, and an SCO box not too long ago.

-- 
Mark Bolzern :  mark@gcs.com    USA Tel: (303) 699-7470  Fax: (303) 699-2793 
WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.       The FlagShip "Clipper and XBase on Unix" People
  FlagShip is a 4GL Database Development System & Xbase Porting Tool for Unix
No Runtime Fees   Info at ftp.wgs.com : /pub2/wgs/Filelist OR mail: info@wgs.com

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

From: dillon@apollo.west.oic.com (Matthew Dillon)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
Subject: Re: 1.1.35 make problem: exhausted memory
Date: 28 Jul 1994 23:53:26 -0700

In article <3184k5$k9f@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> pete@geminga.dartmouth.edu (Peter Schmitt) writes:
:danw@connected.com (Dan Wilder) writes:
:
:I solved this from a tip from a previous posting to my problem.  I
:went back and rebooted a 1.0.9 kernel and then was able to make 1.1.35
:and 1.1.36 successfully.
:
:-pete
:--
:peter.schmitt@dartmouth.edu            Computing Services
:UNIX Systems Specialist                        Dartmouth College
:Phn: 603-646-2085                      6028 Kiewit Computation Center
:postmaster@dartmouth.edu               Hanover, NH  03755

    1.1.36 has worked flawlessly for me so far (up 2 days and counting).  It
    does not appear to have any of the swap problems 1.1.34 had.

                                                -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!]


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


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