Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #205
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:     Thu, 14 Oct 93 04:26:49 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #205, Volume #1                Thu, 14 Oct 93 04:26:49 EDT

Contents:
  Yggdrasil LGX experiences (Phil Hughes)
  Re: Which UART for fast (14.4) modem? (rich@mulvey.com)
  Re: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING (rich@mulvey.com)
  Linux CD-ROM competitive upgrade (Roman Yanovsky  roman@btr.com)
  Did anyone connect an AmiTCP machine to Linux through SLIP ? (Paul Wouters)
  Re: Comments wanted on Linux (P. David Gardner)
  Re: Yggdrasil LGX experiences (Lenny Jacobs)
  Re: Which UART for fast (14.4) modem? (Vince Skahan)
  Re: NEW, faster version of e2fsck available (Markfried Fellensiek)
  Yggdrasil (da Musick Maka)
  Re: [ANSWER] Re: Why only compressed kernels? (Tim Smith)
  Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology (Kevin Brown)
  Re: Yggdrasil: pronunciation and ethymology (Wim van Dorst/Prof. Penninger)

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

From: fyl@fylz.com (Phil Hughes)
Subject: Yggdrasil LGX experiences
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 00:06:11 GMT

Although I wouldn't call this "extensive testing" I thought it was
worth posting.  I guess the punch line is I would like to "correspond"
with others working with the same stuff.

I got the Yggdrasil LGX Fall 93 CD-ROM.  It installed on one system
with no serious problems (other than it want's X to do most anything
and I don't want X on that system). When I get to the second system I
get some interesting installation problems.  Here is the
configuration:
  - 486/33, 8MB RAM
  - 3C503 Ethernet adapter at 310
  - Mitsumi CD-ROM at 300, IRQ 3
  - HP Scanner card at 278 (which can be removed with no difference)
  - Logitech bus mouse on IRQ 5
  - no serial or parallel ports
  - AH1542B SCSI controller
  - Seagate and Syquest SCSI drives
  - Booting from floppy

Here are the problems:
  - When I boot, all the devices are recognized.  The mouse 
    is specifically identified as on IRQ 5.  But any attempt
    to run X results in "Cannot open mouse: Device or resource busy".
    I can run X with a serial mouse (by removing the bus mouse, adding
    a serial card and connecting a serial mouse to it.

    Initially I thought this was a problem with the Mitsumi driver
    which looks for interrupt 5 (even though the manual indicates
    11).  I rebuilt the kernel with INQ 3 hard coded into the driver
    and the same thing happens.  Note that the CD-ROM works fine no
    matter what I do here.

    If I remove the Ethernet card, the bus mouse and X work fine. 

  - On the fsck of the Linux file system I almost always get a disk
    error in the form of a timeout on device 2 (which I assume is
    supposed to be the Syquest).  I get this (actually up to 5 of
    them) whether there is a disk in the Syquest or not.  And it
    shouldn't be accessed anyway.  Sometimes the system doesn't
    recover and I have to reboot.

Note that this system normally runs Messy-Dos.  It works fine (well,
as fine as you would expect Messy-Dos to work) including running
PC-NFS to talk to the other Linux system(s).  The built-in verify
diagnostics on the AH1542 find no problems with the Seagate disk.
-- 
Phil Hughes - FYL - 8315 Lk City Wy NE - Suite 207 - Seattle, WA 98115 
Phone: 206-526-2919      Fax: 526-0803
E-mail: fyl@fylz.com or <most_anywhere>!fylz!fyl 

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

From: rich@mulvey.com
Subject: Re: Which UART for fast (14.4) modem?
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 01:27:39 GMT

gast@cs.ucla.edu wrote:

: Is a 16550 UART recommended or is it not needed?

For > 9600bps operation, it can only help.  BTW - you want a 16550A,
as it fixes some bugs in the 16550.

- Rich
-- 
Rich Mulvey                 Amateur Radio: N2VDS              Rochester, NY
rich@mulvey.com         "Ignorance should be painful."

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

From: rich@mulvey.com
Subject: Re: *** PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 01:29:25 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....

Ummmm... where in the world did you ever get the idea that there's any
authority on the internet?

:-)

-- 
Rich Mulvey                 Amateur Radio: N2VDS              Rochester, NY
rich@mulvey.com         "Ignorance should be painful."

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

From: roman@public.btr.com (Roman Yanovsky  roman@btr.com)
Subject: Linux CD-ROM competitive upgrade
Date: 13 Oct 1993 23:39:05 GMT

Attention, users of the Linux operating system!

For those of you, who use a non Trans-Ameritech Linux CD-ROM, we announce

A $15 COMPETITIVE UPGRADE!

There are a lot of CDROMs with Linux from different sources now on the market.
However we at Trans-Ameritech beleive that our version is not only a very
reasonably priced product, but is also superior to others in many respects.

The main feature of the Trans-Ameritech Linux Plus CDROM is versatility.
We offer the best of both worlds - SLS and Slackware installation packages that
let the user install to a hard disk only the needed programs and a convenient
way to delete a package if need be, and also the unpacked "live" filesystems,
so that a user can run less often needed space hungry applications directly
from the CDROM.

We supply 2 different releases on one disk for reference and as a
way to provide more than one version of most things in case bugs are found.

In addition we have 386BSD *NIX on the same disk as well as a collection of
pictures, sounds and DOS/WINDOWS programs.

To make it easier for you to compare our product to others, for a limited time
we offer a COMPETITIVE UPGRADE for half the price!

Send us ANY OLD CDROM with Linux or 386BSD in ANY condition, and we'll mail
you the Trans-Ameritech Linux Plus CDROM for ONLY $15 INCLUDING shipping.
That's right.  All you pay is $15.
(We accept major credit cards VISA/MasterCard/American Express).

Try it...

Our address: 2342A Walsh Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95051
Phone: 408-727-3883 (5 lines)
FAX: 408-727-3882
e-mail: roman@trans-ameritech.com


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

From: pwouters@sci.kun.nl (Paul Wouters)
Subject: Did anyone connect an AmiTCP machine to Linux through SLIP ?
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 01:47:30 GMT

I am setting up my machine (amiga with amitcp) to route packets to
a linux machine. Has anyone done that before?         

Paul

--
It is by caffiene alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed,
the hands aquire shaking, the shaking become a warning.
It is by caffiene alone I set my mind in motion.

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

From: dgardner@netcom.com (P. David Gardner)
Subject: Re: Comments wanted on Linux
Date: 13 Oct 93 23:36:31 GMT

Albert C H Ho (cheukho@aludra.usc.edu) wrote:
: 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?  

I use it at home on my 486/33 with 4 megs just fine.  X is stretching it a
bit in that kind of RAM, 8 or more is much better and doesn't grind the
swap partition.  You might get a better feel for Linux over on the
comp.os.linux.* groups, much more activity there.

Dave

-- 
--
Dave Gardner
dgardner@netcom.com

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

From: ljacobs@panix.com (Lenny Jacobs)
Subject: Re: Yggdrasil LGX experiences
Date: 14 Oct 1993 01:51:18 -0400

In <1993Oct12.000611.1519@fylz.com> fyl@fylz.com (Phil Hughes) writes:

>Although I wouldn't call this "extensive testing" I thought it was
>worth posting.  I guess the punch line is I would like to "correspond"
>with others working with the same stuff.

>I got the Yggdrasil LGX Fall 93 CD-ROM.  It installed on one system
>with no serious problems (other than it want's X to do most anything
>and I don't want X on that system). When I get to the second system I
>get some interesting installation problems.  Here is the
>configuration:
>  - 486/33, 8MB RAM
>  - 3C503 Ethernet adapter at 310
>  - Mitsumi CD-ROM at 300, IRQ 3
>  - HP Scanner card at 278 (which can be removed with no difference)
>  - Logitech bus mouse on IRQ 5
>  - no serial or parallel ports
>  - AH1542B SCSI controller
>  - Seagate and Syquest SCSI drives
>  - Booting from floppy

>Here are the problems:
>  - When I boot, all the devices are recognized.  The mouse 
>    is specifically identified as on IRQ 5.  But any attempt
>    to run X results in "Cannot open mouse: Device or resource busy".
>    I can run X with a serial mouse (by removing the bus mouse, adding
>    a serial card and connecting a serial mouse to it.

>    Initially I thought this was a problem with the Mitsumi driver
>    which looks for interrupt 5 (even though the manual indicates
>    11).  I rebuilt the kernel with INQ 3 hard coded into the driver
>    and the same thing happens.  Note that the CD-ROM works fine no
>    matter what I do here.

>    If I remove the Ethernet card, the bus mouse and X work fine. 

>  - On the fsck of the Linux file system I almost always get a disk
>    error in the form of a timeout on device 2 (which I assume is
>    supposed to be the Syquest).  I get this (actually up to 5 of
>    them) whether there is a disk in the Syquest or not.  And it
>    shouldn't be accessed anyway.  Sometimes the system doesn't
>    recover and I have to reboot.

>Note that this system normally runs Messy-Dos.  It works fine (well,
>as fine as you would expect Messy-Dos to work) including running
>PC-NFS to talk to the other Linux system(s).  The built-in verify
>diagnostics on the AH1542 find no problems with the Seagate disk.
>-- 
>Phil Hughes - FYL - 8315 Lk City Wy NE - Suite 207 - Seattle, WA 98115 
>Phone: 206-526-2919      Fax: 526-0803
>E-mail: fyl@fylz.com or <most_anywhere>!fylz!fyl 

I also recently received the Fall LGX distribution and am having the
same problem that you are having with my Logitech Bus Mouse. I sent
email to Yggdrasil last week to seek a solution to the mouse problem
but I am still waiting for a reply. If you ever find a solution
would you let me know what it is via email?
-- 
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    <-> lenny <-> ljacobs@panix.com <-> ka2eyw@n2mdq.ampr.org <->     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

From: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan)
Subject: Re: Which UART for fast (14.4) modem?
Date: 13 Oct 1993 20:36:27 -0700

gast@cs.ucla.edu writes:
>Is a 16550 UART recommended or is it not needed?

[...semi-flame on...]

This question is typical of the absolutely non-linux-related
noise that floods the c.o.l. tree.  Your question should be
in one of the telecommunications groups.

[...answer mode on...]

the answer is 'yes'.  You do not want a 16450 at speeds
above 9600 baud and the 16550A is cheap and effective
under DOS and Linux.


-- 
     ---------- Vince Skahan --------- vince@victrola.wa.com -------------
         This your brain on Phillies baseball - get the picture ???

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

From: ins413j@mdw059.cc.monash.edu.au (Markfried Fellensiek)
Subject: Re: NEW, faster version of e2fsck available
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 04:53:45 GMT

: >I've uploaded a new, improved version of e2fsck to tsx-11.mit.edu.  It
: >can be found in /pub/linux/ALPHA/ext2fs/new-e2fsck.Oct-11.tar.gz.
: 
: I found it but I couldnt get it, the permissions seems to be set wrong.

actually, it's called "new-e2fsck.11-Oct.tar.gz"

Mark


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

From: jmadison@etsun.tech.iupui.edu (da Musick Maka)
Subject: Yggdrasil
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 04:54:46 GMT

how do you pronounce "Yggdrasil"? it couldn't possibly be an acronym.

-jonM<><


-- 
jmadison@etsun.tech.iupui.edu     <><
DJ.AllStar
get Linux OS, it's dope! it's free! it's UNIX! & it's got X!!!!!!

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

From: tzs@stein3.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: [ANSWER] Re: Why only compressed kernels?
Date: 14 Oct 1993 07:01:05 GMT

In article <1993Oct13.104924.11291@swan.pyr>, Alan Cox <iiitac@swan.pyr> wrote:
>Indeed. In fact all you have to do to get Linux to have this wonderful facility
>is download a copy and rewrite the boot loader code (which is in 8086). The
>8086 assembler/linker is included with Linux (as86,ld86) and then submit it
>to Linus. This is your chance..

It would certainly be fun to do.  However, I can't run Linux at all.  All
of the machines I've got access to have NCR 53C7x0 and NCR 53C96 host
adaptors that Linux doesn't support, so I'm stuck with operating systems
that can deal with INT 13h (DOS, OS/2, Windows) or that have a big
enough market share for drivers to have been developed (DOS, OS/2, Windows,
Netware, and SCO Unix).  Don't say that I can develop my own drivers,
because (1) all my x86 machines use these host adaptors, so I can't bootstrap,
unless I do something insane, like compile gcc on my Mac as a cross compiler
and do Linux builds under A/UX (I admit this is Rube Goldberg enough to
be tempting...), and (2) I wouldn't be able to distribute any such drivers
that I would write, because I'm contractually obligated to not do SCSI
initiator software for a while.

--Tim Smith

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development
From: kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 04:10:47 GMT

Followups to comp.os.linux.misc.

In article <1993Oct13.162636.8794@mulvey.com> rich@mulvey.com writes:
>Kevin Brown (kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com) wrote:
[...]
>: I can see why someone might not want to wade through the FAQ.  In all, the
>: FAQ is over 500k in size!!!  This is about the size of a paperback novel, I
>: think.  OF COURSE people aren't going to want to wade through the FAQ, and
>: for good reason: there's a lot of it to wade through.
>
>   So what if it's long?  Even the skimpy MS-DOS manuals that come with
>Our Favorite OS are longer.  

You should know better than this.  Most people don't learn DOS or any other
such thing from the manual.  They learn how to use the computer by asking
others who already know.  This is precisely why users like the Macintosh
so much: they don't *have* to pick up the manual, and they don't usually
have to ask someone else for the answers.  The Macintosh is "intuitive",
which is just another way of saying that it has enough similarities with
things that most people have experience with (e.g., the trashcan) that it
works the way people would *expect* it to work.

>Is it too much to ask that people make the
>*slightest* bit of effort?  What in the world is an index for, if not
>to help you look things up?

My own experience indicates that the "index" (which is no such thing,
really, but is rather a table of contents) is a poor way of locating the
information I'm looking for when I'm searching for the answer to a question.
I get much better results searching the actual text for certain keywords
and then examining the text surrounding the keywords.

>: Someone who knows enough about grep, regular expressions, etc., could
>: easily find the answers themselves, of course, but such a person would
>: probably be the type least in need of the FAQ to begin with.  You can
>: safely assume that people who are new to Linux are likely to be new to
>: Unix as well, and thus won't be familiar with the facilities that would
>: make their search for information in the FAQ relatively painless.
>
>Not necessarily.  A person who has the ability to use an editor to post
>a stupid question is likely to know that you can search for text, as
>well.

I don't think so, given what I've seen of most users.  But since most users
I've seen don't even know what Unix is, I can't really comment on this.

But I will say this: even among the students in my own computer science
department, only a handful of them know how to use the search facilities
of the editor.  Most of them search by "hand".

>: So until such a facility comes into being, cut the newbies some slack, eh?
>
>No, we won't.  Being a newbie isn't a crime - there are lots of things
>that *I'm* a newbie at.  But I make a substantial effort to find the
>answers to my questions without bothering people.  

Independent of the ethical question involved here, I would say you're
unusual in this respect.  I'm the same as you are, to the extent that I
will search the source code to find what I'm looking for before asking
a question.  This is why I've asked so few questions.

Most people are not "self-starters" to the extent that computer experts
typically are, at least when it comes to technology.  When faced with a
computer or *any* other piece of technology they are unfamiliar with, most
people will stop dead in their tracks unless they have someone to ask about
the problem.  Many of them won't even *think* of reading the manual.  If
you don't believe me, take a look at how few people know how to program
their VCR, and of those who do know, take a look at how few of them found
out by reading the manual rather than having someone *show* them.

>And when I *do*
>encounter something that I'm lost about, then I post a *useful and
>complete* description of my problem, what I've tried, and what I think
>may be wrong.  

Yup.  But you, I, and most of us who tend to do this are essentially experts
at working with technology.  We know the ups and downs and know that the key
to understanding technology is learning about the principles behind the
technology.  We know what kinds of questions to ask and the level of detail
necessary because we've dealt with *answering* questions like that before.
How many can claim this?  Not many, given what I've seen.

I think that most computer types are first-principle oriented.  It's a
necessary qualification for doing a good job of working with technology.
But most people aren't first-principles oriented, they're *procedure*-
oriented.  If you need evidence for this, take a look at the mix of
books in the computer section of your local bookstore.  You will find
that it is heavily dominated by "how-to" books, and you will find that
these books are very heavily procedure-oriented in their approach.  There
is a reason for that.

>The morons who post things like "My smail doesn't work.
>What do I do?" have no place in any of these groups, or in society as
>a whole, for that matter, until they learn how to not waste other
>people's time.  

Welcome to the real world.  :-) :-)

Seriously, most people won't bother to learn more than they have to in
order to get the job done.  If they did, then *everyone* would be
technologically literate.

>Flaming the hell out of them is a useful memory-enhancing
>technique that makes them think twice before asking stupid
>questions again.

Wrong.  Flaming the hell out of them is a useful memory-enhancing technique
that makes them think twice before asking *any* question of the people they
asked before.  You're ignoring a very basic principle of education: a question
is *never* a stupid question from the point of view of the person asking the
question.  Very few people like to look stupid in front of other people.  If
they're asking a question, it's because they DON'T KNOW HOW to get the answer
for themselves, or at the very least are very uncomfortable and uncertain
about it.


-- 
Kevin Brown                                     kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com
This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end >
            This is your .signature virus on drugs: <>
                        Any questions?

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

From: tgcpwd@rwb.urc.tue.nl (Wim van Dorst/Prof. Penninger)
Subject: Re: Yggdrasil: pronunciation and ethymology
Date: 14 Oct 1993 09:06:23 +0100

da Musick Maka writes:
>how do you pronounce "Yggdrasil"? it couldn't possibly be an acronym.

Simply 'igdresil'.

It stems from Scandinavian mythology, and there means an ash-tree whose
[sic; Oxford term] roots and branches join heaven, earth, and hell.
Yggr is old-speak for Odin, one of the gods, and drasill means horse.
[source: memory and the Concise Oxford Dictionary].

I wonder why Adam chose Yggdrasil as name for his company. I can
understand heaven (Linux), Earth (the 386 hardware), but I can't
place the Hell (unless he also sells DOS-stuff) :-).

Met vriendelijke groeten, Wim van Dorst
-- 
=====================================================================
Blue Baron = Wim van Dorst, Voice (+31) 074-443937, (+31) 02152-42319
(-: baron@clifton.hobby.nl  tgcpwd@urc.tue.nl  WvD@Akzo.400net.nl :-)
=====================================================================

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


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