Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #204
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:     Wed, 13 Oct 93 21:13:21 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #204, Volume #1                Wed, 13 Oct 93 21:13:21 EDT

Contents:
  Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology (Yves LACHANCE)
  Re: Questions Flamewar (Open letter to Ian Jackson) (Carl Schott)
  Re: IMPORTANT: Island Office Package for Linux (Mark A. Davis)
  Re: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING (Helmut Geyer)
  Re: The expert system idea (was Re: The %&#$@ speaks again ...) (Ed H. Chi)
  Re: Linux counter passes 2000 entries (Philippe Bonal)
  Re: Linux counter passes 2000 entries (Harald T. Alvestrand)
  Re: JANA-CD where is it? (Mark A. Horton)
  Re: Why only compressed kernels? (Davor Cubranic)
  Re: Would Linux run on PCI / Pentium based systems? (Michael Will)
  Can't configure communications parameters in DIP (Joe Panico)
  Compiling swm window manager... (Bryan Sparks)
  Re: emacs 19 DOC file? (Chris Flatters)
  Re: emacs 19 DOC file? (Chris Flatters)
  Pentium, or better: 586 (Kai Petzke)
  Comments wanted on Linux (Albert C H Ho)

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

From: yveslach@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca (Yves LACHANCE)
Crossposted-To: news.groups
Subject: Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology
Date: 13 Oct 1993 19:38:49 GMT

   As was said in the recent thread about the linux counter, not every linux
user has access to the net.  A considerable number probably access it only
through a UUCP link.  For these reasons, an online, interactive gopher type
of documentation source is not adequate.

   I was discussing with a fellow Linux user today about the following idea,
and I think it's worth being posted, although perhaps in the wrong linux
group.  (The main reason why I hadn't posted it before, while toying with the
idea, was to avoid the flames of posting in the wrong newsgroup.)

   An application-based mail server that could be maintained by a large number
of people.  Everyone with access to netmail (even those from other nets such
as CI$ and Fidonet) could send a mail with keywords in the body of the mail
such as:

help: getty
help: uucp
help: route

   Where each word after the help would be an application, file or whatever.
An experienced user (authenticated perhaps?) could send a mail such as:

append: getty getty_ps
{
  "Cannot open device" : You are probably using WAITFOR in your setup...
   blablabla
}

   You reach a large mass of users this way, in a format that doesn't
take a whole week to read (why would you need to have 200 pages worth of
documentation about X when you only want to fix your getty?)

   c.o.l.help could then be used if the mail server database doesn't have
an answer to your problem.  This might bring back experienced users to
c.o.l.help who gave up because too many newbies posted without reading
first or whatever...  (Of course, this is utopic, but it's simple enough
a setup that even the most basic user could learn how to use it quickly)

   As was suggested by the fellow Linux user, perhaps the folks at tsx-11
or sunsite would be willing to set this mail server up?


--
Yves Lachance    | THE GAMEMASTER * (514) 858-7777 * UUCP News/Mail * MajorNet
Montreal, Canada | Teleconference * Board/War/Role Playing Games * On MajorBBS

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

From: carl@news.cac.psu.edu (Carl Schott)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development
Subject: Re: Questions Flamewar (Open letter to Ian Jackson)
Date: 13 Oct 1993 20:30:58 GMT
Reply-To: cgs103@psu.edu


Well, I tried to stay out of this but this last attack was just too
much...

Ian, can't you see that your "solution" to the signal-to-noise problem
is worse than the original problem?  Your weekly posts are a service to the
group, but public name-calling only incites these flame wars!  If you can't 
be more polite than this in your posts, please don't post.

I don't condone what Mr. Peoples and Mr. Lukka did, but your last post
is equally offensive.  Mr. Peoples apologized, and you responded with
yet another round of insults and name-calling!  If you're half the man
he is you'll issue a public apology IMMEDIATELY and refrain from this activity
in the future.

Let's try to keep all of this in perspective--looking at traffic on my
news host, c.o.l.d has the second lowest number of postings in the Linux
hierarchy (second to .announce).  So it seems to me that for the most
part people ARE refraining from posting to this group.  There will
always be some signal-to-noise problem--let's all accept that and learn to live
and let live.  I have very much enjoyed reading the developers' posts in this
group--it's a great way to learn about Linux architecture and internals.
I'd hate to see that discussion end over something as silly as this.

Yes, I cross-posted! (so sue me!)  This has already gone on far too long,
and moving the discussion to another group won't help.  The best way to
end it is for you to apologize for your part of it, Ian.

Carl Schott







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

From: mark@taylor.wyvern.com (Mark A. Davis)
Subject: Re: IMPORTANT: Island Office Package for Linux
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 19:30:10 GMT

tul@tonga.heidelbg.ibm.com (Thomas Uhl) writes:

>As I wrote in my posting about two weeks ago, I want to convince the
>Island company to port their office software (word processor, drawing
>and painting tool) to Linux. 

>In the last moths many people have seem to be intereted in a commercial
>powerfull word processor for Linux. I asked all members of the Linux 
>Internet community to send me an e-mail if there is still an interest.

>I am _VERY_ disappointed: There were only about 30 answers. I don't think
>it would make any sense to continue if there is not much more interest.


>   IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN A WORDPROCESSOR FOR LINUX, PLEASE SEND ME A
>                      E-MAIL TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS:

>                        uhl@sun1.rz.fh-heilbronn.de

Island is not even porting their Island Presents to SCO (write/draw/paint IS
available for SCO).
I don't want to burst any bubbles, but there is almost NO chance Island
is going to port to the tiny, tiny market of Linux (compared to SCO).

COFF/Intel binary compatibility has to be the ONLY real hope.... then the
SCO version could be bought and run.  And as has been discussed in this
group very recently, there are wonderful souls working on this extremly
noble task as we speak (not available now).

If I thought it would do any good, I would have already talked to Island.
-- 
  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
  | Mark A. Davis    | Lake Taylor Hospital | Norfolk, VA (804)-461-5001x431 |
  | Sys.Administrator|  Computer Services   | mark@taylor.wyvern.com   .uucp |
  \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

From: geyer@polyhymnia.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Helmut Geyer)
Subject: Re: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 21:00:23 GMT

Gareth Bult (gareth@gblinux.demon.co.uk) wrote:
:>Mr Jackson,

:>Please could you tell us WHO exactly you are with regards these postings...
:>And what exactly is your authority with regards these postings....

:>Just curious....

:>Gareth.                                                                     

The authority comes from the charter of the c.o.l.* hierarchy and these
postings try to keep the signal-noise ratio at a reasonable ratio.
In the last weeks at least a quarter of the postings were not conform to 
the charter (i.e. cross posting or posting the article in every 
c.o.l.* group (of course with the exception of .announce) with identical
message or in the wrong groups, this including that XFree questions
should go to comp.windows.x.i386unix). I think that if this continues, we will 
soon have four newsgroups with the same amount of traffic (and much of 
of it due to not reading the documentation or the FAQ/HOWTOs)as c.o.l
had before the split. So I think a posting to that effort is needed.
If it has to be with these words, I'm not sure.
I do not, however, support public flaming of people not posting according 
to the charter.

        Helmut


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

From: ehhchi@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Ed H. Chi)
Subject: Re: The expert system idea (was Re: The %&#$@ speaks again ...)
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 21:16:07 GMT

In article <qXDDBc6w165w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> dnewcomb@cybernet.cse.fau.edu (Dan Newcombe) writes:
>ehhchi@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Ed H. Chi) writes:
>> >    Someone could develop a program which can be run interactively that
>> >will ask questions and take you through a series of menus.  This will in eff
>> >contain the information in the FAQ, and the FAQ could in fact be used as the
>> >database for this, but the idea is that there would be a sort of "expert
>> >system" that would guide you through the thing to the appropriate answers.
>> >Ideally there would be a way to cross-index different topics that on the
>> >surface may not seem related (and might be far from each other in the
>> >information tree), but in fact are relevant to each other.
>> 
>> Anyone is up to this??   I would be very interested in getting this going.
>>  Perhaps using it as my Honors Project for graduation.
>
>This sounds like a good idea.  DO NOT flame me for what I am about to say,
>but it should be done, or at least a version on DOS.    Why?  Because most
>people that are starting off don't already have linux installed and are
>still using DOS and this would be the easiest way for them to use it.


The eclisp program that is included with the textbook "Expert Systems" by
Giarratano and O'Reilly is DOS based.  And I have started doing some
research into where I would get sources to a UNIX based toolkit with
source.

I spoke with Dr. James Slagle here at the University of Minnesota about
the idea.  A program that would process Natural language and also being a
expert system would be extremely complicated, unfortunately.

However, if I concentrate on the expert system side of it, it would be
doable in a 3 months project.  So, the program would probably require the
user to key in some keyword to the problem.  For example:

EXPERT: type in keywords.
how XFree386 install

[And then the expert system would then answer how to install the Xfree386
system.]

EXPERT: type in keywords.
compile kernel source how

[and the expert system would answer how to compile a the kernel.]


This, presumably, would be done with the current HOWTOs.  And I would like
to keep it so that I could easily take the HOWTOs and feed it into the
system.  So it would be modular enough to be changed easily.  [That's a
big part of Linux'ing, isn't it?  :)   ]

So, how does this sound to people??

This would probably be quite a large project, that would be easily
expanded into a large system.

I will try to start doing some reading, and see what I can find out.  Are
there anyone out here in the Linux community who is an "expert system"
expert?? 


--
  o/    \  /    \ /     /      \o    email: ehhchi@epx.cis.umn.edu
 /#      ##o     #     o##      #\          chi@mermaid.micro.umn.edu
 / \    /  \    /o\    / |\    / \   Dumping messy-dos, running Linux!

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

From: philb@blips.frmug.fr.net (Philippe Bonal)
Subject: Re: Linux counter passes 2000 entries
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 21:07:37 +0100
Reply-To: philb@frmug.fr.net

nite@phoenix.oulu.fi (Hannu Kotipalo) writes:
[..]
> : >had heard estimates that there are about 250,000 users of Linux!!
> :
> : I'm suprised that over 2000 people have bothered to respond.
>
> Well, if we (linux community) want some commercial support, we must have
> some numbers to show. Nobody will support an OS with 2000 users. SO YOU
> BETTER SEND YOUR MAIL!

Because there is so many people without email using Linux, the solution 
would be to write a post card to a specific surface adress with specifics 
limited contents (like 'I use Linux at home in France').

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 philb@frmug.fr.net  Philippe Bonal (France)  Please,Not email > 25k without
 philb@blips.frmug.fr.net  bonal_p@epita.fr          inform me, No NeXT mail
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

From: hta@uninett.no (Harald T. Alvestrand)
Subject: Re: Linux counter passes 2000 entries
Date: 13 Oct 1993 22:06:35 GMT

I do not volunteer to pick up the postcards.
It is enough to handle the bounce messages for people who have
unreplyable addresses (around 68 so far), the people who send their
votes to me instead of the counter (around 30 so far) and the people
with opinions (50 or so).

What I will suggest when I have time (don't hold your breath!) is that
the counter will accept messages of the format

//REGISTER
Joe Blockhead, Manchester, US: at home
Jim Muleback, Boston, GB: at work
//END

Any attempt to register the same name twice would be rejected, but there
is *no* way I can defend the system against multiple mis-spellings of
"Koritzinsky".

I might add a way to ask if the addresses could be put on public display
or not (//REGISTER PUBLIC or //REGISTER PRIVATE); at the moment I am not
publishing addresses from the registry.

Happy Linuxing - keep the votes coming, just 50 more will pass the 3000
mark!
-- 
                   Harald Tveit Alvestrand
                Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
      G=Harald;I=T;S=Alvestrand;O=uninett;P=uninett;C=no
                      +47 7 59 70 94
My son's name is Torbjxrn. The letter between "j" and "r" is o with a slash.

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

From: mahmha@crl.com (Mark A. Horton)
Subject: Re: JANA-CD where is it?
Date: 13 Oct 1993 15:01:26 -0700


---
Update on the JANA-CD situation.
        I was contacted by Jay at JANA who explained the reorganization
problems that had occurred at JANA with the buyout, etc.  and said that
everything is back to normal now and the CDs should ship by the first
of next week.  It sounds like a good product and should be worth the
money.  Let's hope that the problems with the reorganizing are over and
that we can all start enjoying this new product!  I'll post a follow-up
review of it here as soon as I've got my copies and have had a chance to
evaluate it.
-- Mark
========================================================================
Mark A. Horton                          mah@ka4ybr.com (or here) 
P.O.Box 747 Decatur GA US 30031-0747      ICBM: 33 45 N / 084 16 W
+1.404.371.0291                         Cruise: 33 45 30 N / 084 16 50 W
   "We may note that, for the purposes of these experiments, the symbol 
                "=" has the meaning "may be confused with."  

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

From: cubranic@whale.st.usm.edu (Davor Cubranic)
Subject: Re: Why only compressed kernels?
Date: 13 Oct 1993 22:15:49 GMT

Kristian Ejvind (krej@electrum.kth.se) wrote:
:   The problem is with LILO, it can't load boot images larger than
: 512k. Thus, if your boot image is smaller than 0.5M uncompressed, you
: can go on running it uncompressed.

Maybe it's time to make Linux a microkernel OS ? ;-)
--
Davor Cubranic
cubranic@whale.st.usm.edu

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux
From: michaelw@desaster.hanse.de (Michael Will)
Subject: Re: Would Linux run on PCI / Pentium based systems?
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 09:10:21 GMT

chungn@liege.ICS.UCI.EDU (Chung Ng) writes:
>Would Linux run on PCI / Pentium systems?  Specifically the
>Gateway 2000 P5-60 with the PCI based ATI Graphics Ultra Pro?

I do not know about this very machine, but someone here mentioned
that he already had a PCI-board for testing, and linux ran well - 'xcept
its not realizing the onboard SCSI2-chip - but the IDE-thing worked
well and he could mount a dos-fs... the et4000 worked as well.

The PCI-devicedrivers must be written, who volunteers? :-)

Cheers, Michael Will
-- 
Michael Will <michaelw@desaster.hanse.de>     Linux - share and enjoy :-)
Life is not there if you can't share it... Hazel'O'Connor  Breaking Glass
Happily using Linux 0.99p12 with X11R5, \LaTeX, cnews/nn/uucp and:   PGP!
!!!  new mailadress:   will@peanuts.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de       !!!

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

From: joe@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu (Joe Panico)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Can't configure communications parameters in DIP
Date: 13 Oct 93 21:34:21 GMT


Hi,

When I dial our local SLIP server using the DIP app supplied with SLS 1.02
I get the following:

CONNECT 14400/ARQ


and then a stream of Greek. It's the same Greek I get when dialing into
the annex server using an 8 bit connection rather than a 7 bit connection
with other communications apps.. Our Annex server requires that connections
are initiated using 7E1, but I can't see where these params can be 
changed in dip. Grateful for any clues.

        Joe Panico
        joe@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu
 


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

From: bsparks@Novell.COM  (Bryan Sparks)
Subject: Compiling swm window manager...
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 23:02:01 GMT


I have downloaded the swm window manager source code and am trying to compile  
it.  I am having some pretty basic compile problems, which makes me think I am  
missing something.  

One of the errors I am getting is:
atoms.C:369: no non-hidden member function `wmQuark::olmenuName' defined

Now I admit that I am not a C++ guy, however I can't find a method called  
olmenuName anywhere (find . -exec fgrep olmenuName {} \; -print) let alone off  
of class wmQuark.

Has anyone been successful in compiling this thing?

Your thoughts would be appreciated...
--
Bryan Sparks     bsparks@Novell.COM     (801) 429-3853

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

From: cflatter@nrao.edu (Chris Flatters)
Subject: Re: emacs 19 DOC file?
Reply-To: cflatter@nrao.edu
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 23:52:51 GMT

In article 1@adcalc.fnal.gov, mantel@adcalc.fnal.gov () writes:
>Hello,
>  I have recently obtained the emacs19.19 release and have installed
>it on a 486 33Mhz 8meg machine with sls 1.03, kernel pl12 with xfree1.3.
>Everything seems to work okay but I have come across something I do have
>a question about.  I was looking through the distribution in the 
>/usr/lib/emacs/19.19/etc directory and came across files DOC and DOC-19.19.1.
>I went to look at these assuming they were Documentation files but was told by 
>my more command that they were binary files.  So I tried to execute one and
>it needed X. So I went into X windows using fvwm-97.  I then typed DOC
>at the xterm prompt and opened what appeared to be a rather nice looking
>, almost motif looking, editor window complete with menu bar that contained
>standard editor menu items such as Edit, File, View, etc.  I tried to open a
>C source file in another directory and it just opened another version of the
>the DOC editor window.  So I closed out the new window and tried again and
>got the same result. So I closed out the program and tried to start 
>DOC-19.19.1 but it would not start.  I changed the file protection assuming
>that was the problem but it still would not start. I then tried to start
>DOC and that would not open either.  I have not been able start the DOC file
>since that first time.  I have even reinstalled the files in the ../etc 
>directory.
>    My question is what are the DOC and DOC-19.19.1 files?  Is anyone else
>currently using these files on a system with similar setup? And how can I get
>DOC or DOC-19.19.1 to run again?

The DOC and DOC-19.19.1 files contain the internal documentation for
emacs LISP variables and functions.  They are in fact ASCII files and
more will display them perfectly well.  The SLS Linux distribution
links or aliases more to the less command (somebody's idea of being
helpful) that suffers from brain damage and thinks that the DOC files
might be binary because they begin with the ASCII US (Unit Separator =
octal 037) character.  This character is used to denote the beginning
of each entry in the file.

Under normal circumstances DOC and DOC-19.19.1 will be identical.  They will
differ if you set up a site-lisp.el file at build time, however (so the
build procedure should not link them together, David Fox).  I believe that
DOC is needed when dumping a DOC file and perhaps in other rare circumstances.

The "DOC" program that was run appears to be the InterViews doc application.
This is a documentation editor that stores its output in a format that is
similar to LaTeX.  It's user interface could do with a little work to make
it more intuitive.

        Chris Flatters
        cflatter@nrao.edu


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

From: cflatter@nrao.edu (Chris Flatters)
Subject: Re: emacs 19 DOC file?
Reply-To: cflatter@nrao.edu
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 00:04:53 GMT

In article 93Oct13141443@defiant.ee.mcgill.ca, mark@macs.ee.mcgill.ca (Mark Kassab) writes:
>
>>>> On 11 Oct 1993 15:17:47 GMT, fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David S. Fox) said:
>
> David> In article <MARK.93Oct11031433@defiant.ee.mcgill.ca> mark@macs.ee.mcgill.ca (Mark Kassab) writes:
>
> David> They should be hard linked together.  Are you sure they're not?
> David> If not, it is probably a problem with the build script.
>
>They're not:
>
>mark@defiant:[mark] 17> ls -il /usr/local/gnu/lib/emacs/etc/DOC*
>891385 -rw-r--r--  1 local      532600 Sep 29 17:34 /usr/local/gnu/lib/emacs/etc/DOC
>891386 -rw-r--r--  1 local      532600 Sep 29 17:26 /usr/local/gnu/lib/emacs/etc/DOC-19.19.14
>891387 -rw-r--r--  1 local      532600 Sep 29 17:34 /usr/local/gnu/lib/emacs/etc/DOC-19.19.15

I hope this isn't where the Linux binary distribution puts the etc stuff.
It should be /usr/local/gnu/lib/emacs/19.19/etc/DOC*
                                      ^^^^^

Some things in there are version dependent.  DOC is one of them.  Installing new
versions over an older version might prevent you from using the older emacs
version again (should it be necessary) if the versions don't have separate
etc directories.

        Chris Flatters
        cflatter@nrao.edu




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

From: wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke)
Subject: Pentium, or better: 586
Date: 14 Oct 1993 00:33:19 GMT

Quite regularly, people ask questions about Linux on 586, or Pentium.
This is quite natural, the 586 is probably the most powerfull chip,
on which Linux runs on at the moment (this may change with an
ALPHA port :-)

Even more, we all would like a cheap 586 chip.  Intel has a trademark
on the name Pentium.  And they have a history of trying to stop
competitors like AMD by legal issues.  They might forbid others to
use words like "Pentium-compatible" in their announcements.

How do you sell a pentium-compatible chip, if you must not call it
pentium-compatible?

Intel also tried to get trademarks on the numbers 486, 586, etc.  These
were denied.

In other words:

        We can break one of Intel's attempts to monopolize
        the chip market by not using the name Pentium.

Remember:

Gnu and Linux and others try their best to break the monopols of software
companies.
--
Kai
wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de
Advertisement by Microsoft in a well-known German magazine:
        If you don't like our programmes, than make your own ones.
However, they expect you to use Microsoft products for this -:)

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

From: cheukho@aludra.usc.edu (Albert C H Ho)
Subject: Comments wanted on Linux
Date: 13 Oct 93 20:37:52 GMT

Anyone has used Linux before?   I am interested in getting a copy of it.
Does it perform well on a 486DX-33 with 8M ram?  How compatible it is 
comparing to SunOS?  

Thanks

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


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