Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #199
From: Digestifier <Linux-Activists-Request@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Date:     Fri, 3 Sep 93 11:13:14 EDT

Linux-Activists Digest #199, Volume #6            Fri, 3 Sep 93 11:13:14 EDT

Contents:
  Re: What are the various PC bassed Unix box OS? (Christoph Maethner)
  Re: jaguar 486dlc (Erkki Ruohtula)
  Re: QIC-36 supported? (Remco Treffkorn)
  Small configuration problem on SLS 1.3 (Solution) (Damiano Bolla)
  [HELP-please] Kernel panic/swapper more info (Adrian Joseph)
  1280x1024 2Mb VGA drivers? (Pieter Kuppens)
  Re: What are the various PC bassed Unix box OS? (Alan Cox)
  Lilo Hangs on Boot (gregl@rchland.vnet.ibm.com)
  Re: Linux 'port to 16-bit machines?? (Larry Doolittle)
  Weird network problem with pl12 (John Fauerbach)
  'of' filter for HP laserjets (Bradford L. Barrett)
  POP Server on Linux. ?? (Alexander Lin)
  linux support for Diamond Viper VLB, etc (Jeffrey Scott Graham)
  Looking for hpof filter script (Bradford L. Barrett)
  Re: Installing SLS!?? (Net Ranger)

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.misc
From: chmae@guug.de (Christoph Maethner)
Subject: Re: What are the various PC bassed Unix box OS?
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 08:37:42 GMT

bdj@engr.uark.edu (Bryan D. Jones) writes:

>What are the different PC bassed Unix Operating Systems available?
>What do they cost?
>What hardware requirements do they have?
>How difficult are they to install?

>As you can see I'm considering installing a UNIX type OS on my
>home computer. If it helps I'm running a 386DX40 with 4MB

>-- 
>|Bryan D. Jones                             Computing Services      | 
>|Internet: bdj@engr.uark.edu                University of Arkansas  |
>|Internet: bdj@uafhp.uark.edu               Bitnet bdj@uafsysb      |      


From my personal private experience, with a 386DX40 with (only) 4MB
RAM you should only run unix-systems without X.
Any SystemVRel.4 should do . 
I used to use the Consensys V.4 on a 386SX20 with 4 MB and it worked, though 
it wasn't exactly a runner. Now on a 386DX25 with 8 MB I use a SysVR4.2
from Onsite a german  USL-licencee including X and it works fine. There 
is nothing else making a unix-system faster than RAM and fast disks.
I don't think I will ever need a 486 , I would perfer more RAM.


Installation never was much of a problem. But if you are unlucky, your
mainboard or the rs232 interface card or something else is not compatible
and the system will not boot.


I strongly recommend to order a tape or cdrom as installation media. Using
floppies will  be a pain. It can take up to 12 hours to install a complete 
system. If wyou use a qic-tape it will cost you the extra money for the 
tapedrive, but you have a backup-device then.  Believe me, you will stop
making backups on floppies soon. And even for a home-computer backups are
necessary, I can tell.

I don't know about the prices in the us - in germany it is considerable 
expensive to buy a commercial implementation. Nevertheless I recommend
those before linux, which is free, if you want to learn about the 
standards implemented in the commercial systems. 

As I mentioned before, this is my personal experience.


Chris

===============================================================================
Christoph Maethner                             voice +49 211 990 77 81
systems engineer                                fax   +49 211 990 75 70
Rank Xerox Germany              
e-mail     chmae@guug.de        
           mae.sbd@rxg:Xerox:com
===============================================================================



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

From: eru@tnso04.tele.nokia.fi (Erkki Ruohtula)
Subject: Re: jaguar 486dlc
Date: 3 Sep 93 11:36:42

In article <22507@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> t9314439@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au writes:
   I am considering installing linux on my Jaguar 486dlc, but have been told
   (by a sometimes unreliable source) that it wont run on this processor.

           although this doesn't sound right, is ti true ???

I have been running Linux on this board (althought not for very long yet).
8M of memory, ITT FP-co-processor, Adaptec SCSI card, EGA. I did get some
funny messages from the kernel when installing SLS 1.02, which went away
when I turned off the on-chip cache of the Cyrix 486DLC (via BIOS setup) and
reinstalled it successfully.  After this I have been running with all
caches enabled again with no problems, so I do not know what it was all
about. Random glitch? (I know, I should try to reproduce and diagnose the
situation...) Incidentally, Linux is not the only program that has not
liked the 486DLC on-chip cache of the Jaguar board: DJGPP also seems to
lock up. Fortunately disabling the small internal cache is not so fatal
for the performance, as the board also has an off-chip cache that has not
caused any trouble (and as I said, Linux now does not seem to worry any
more, so try it!).

Erkki
--
Erkki Ruohtula     / Nokia Telecommunications Oy
eru@tele.nokia.fi / P.O. Box 33 SF-02601 Espoo, Finland
(My private opinions, of course.)

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

From: root@hip-hop.suvl.ca.us (Remco Treffkorn)
Subject: Re: QIC-36 supported?
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 01:24:14 GMT

bmc@cbnews.cb.att.com (bradley.j.mcniff) writes:
: In article <1993Aug31.235601.6637@hip-hop.suvl.ca.us> root@hip-hop.suvl.ca.us (Remco Treffkorn) writes:
: >bone@uncledad.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil (Mike Bone) writes:
: >: I have my eye on a tape drive (Wangtek 5150EN, I think) which has a
: >: QIC-36 interface. Does the Linux kernel support QIC-36? If so, will the
: >: tape drive work out of the box or does some work need to be done for
: >: Linux to support QIC-36?
: >: 
: >: Mike Bone  (bone@uncledad.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil)
: >
: >NO, LINUX WILL *NEVER* SUPPORT QIC36 !!!!!!
: >
: > ... stuif deleted ...
: >
: >So, buy the Wangtek (good drive if you get it cheap !) and get either
: >an external SCSI to QIC36 controller and use the setup with your
: >SCSI controller or get a (hopefully supported) QIC02 controller that
: >works with your drive. 
: >
: >In any case: YOU NEED A CONTROLLER with your drive.
: >
: >Cheers,
: >Remco             remco@hip-hop.suvl.ca.us <<<--- RAEL reply address !!!!
: 
:   This is inaccurate. On my system, (Gateway 486/33, ISA), the QIC-02
: driver works fine with a QIC-36 card and Wangtek 5150EN. No SCSI needed. 
: I don't understand the QIC interfaces well enough to explain why this is
: an expected result :^), but I was told by "people who know" that the
: combination should work. And it did.
: 
:                       Brad
: -- 
: Brad McNiff, Brad.McNiff@att.com, ...!att!cbsms1!bmc, 614-860-4219
:   AT&T Bell Laboratories, 6200 E Broad St, Columbus OH USA 43213
:               Any opinions expressed are my own.

Oh boy, here we go again...
I hope I will get it right in a few words.

Here the in a nutshell:

The driver talks to the SCSI controller. The SCSI controller talks to a
card that speaks SCSI on one end and QIC36 on the other. Result: Your
drive drives...

The next possibility:
The driver talks to a controller that looks like a QIC02 interface. QIC02
is a bit more intelligent then QIC36. It defines things like certain commands
and a protocoll. This controller has a QIC36 connector that you connect your
drive to. Voila, your dive drives!

As you can see, your "QIC36" card is really something that is QIC02 on one
end and QIC36 on the other.

It does not pay to cut corners :-) I should have elaborated in the original
post. Hope that is accurate enuff for you now...

Sorry,
Remco

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

Subject: Small configuration problem on SLS 1.3 (Solution)
From: damiano@erato.dei.unipd.it (Damiano Bolla)
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 09:23:30 GMT

First of all I would like to praise the work of everybody !!!
Linux is really great !

I installed SLS 1.3 on our university network. While doing so I found
a small configuration problem with SLS.

The problem is the broadcast setup.
We have a class B network 147.162.0.0.
The broadcast ends up to be 147.2.255.255, this is wrong since
or netmask is 255.255.255.0.
The right broadcast is 147.162.2.255.

With the wrong broadcast it is not possible to install from NFS.

I suggest that the SLS setup asks for :
hostname
IP-address of hostname
Network (Without netmask) I.e. 147.162.0.0 and not 147.162.2.0
Netmask

From this the broadcast should follow to be correct.

Damiano

P.S. The best place I found to set the right broadcast is the boot disk
in the file /etc/rc.net




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

From: ajoseph@is.morgan.com (Adrian Joseph)
Subject: [HELP-please] Kernel panic/swapper more info
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 09:43:37 GMT

Hi Folks, I posted this before and got a few useful comments, but I'm
now at the end of all my knowledge and help, and require assistance.
Basically the story is that I try to install SLS 1.03 (a1 disk dated
12 August). On booting the kernel correctly sees the memory (32 MBytes)
and SCSI controller (BusLogic 455s) and SCSI disk (DEC 1.05 GByte) and
sees the partitions. I run the install script (login as install) and I
can format partitions and set up a swap partition. When I start the
installation process things will proceed normally, then suddenly at
some point on the a2 (no I never get far) disk I get the following
message:

Unable to handle kernel paging request at address c0000000
Oops: 0000
EIP: 0010:0010C8B3
EFLAGS: 00010287
eax: ffffffff ebx: 001ac4b0 ecx: 000003d5 edx: 00000000
esi: 00379f0c edi: 00001000 ebp: 001b5d3c
ds: 0018 es: 0018 fs: 002b gs: 002b
Pid 0, process nr: 0
83 3a 01 75 f0 8b 42 10 f7 d0
task[0](swapper) killed: unable to recover
Kernel panic: Trying to free up swapper memory space
In swapper task - not syncing

There are a few minor variations on this including the apsence of the first
line, this being replaced with 

general protection: 0000

and occationally something like

NMI received - Dazed and confused trying to continue

I've tried everything!! Well maybe :-). I've reduced the amount of memory
and changed which simms were used. I've removed all boards except those
mentioned, I've played endless games with the CMOS configuration, I've changed
the base addresses and interrupts of the SCSI and graphics card (Orchid P9000)
and I always end up in the same state with very similar messages. If an 
address is given its always at or above c0000000. I REALLY need help
with this as I'm now way out of my depth. If you need more info let me know
I'll get whatever is needed to get this working. BTW the cpu is 486DX2. Okay
well thanks for helping, have fun
                                 Adrian


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

From: pwk@wswiop09.win.tue.nl (Pieter Kuppens)
Subject: 1280x1024 2Mb VGA drivers?
Date: 3 Sep 1993 14:45:45 +0200

I am thinking of buying a paperwhite 17" monitor (CHEAP)
it comes with 2Mb VGA, the monitor supports 1280x1024,
Are drivers available for Linux?
Other info is welcome too! Preferably by mail.

Pieter Kuppens  (pwk@win.tue.nl)

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.misc
From: iiitac@swan.pyr (Alan Cox)
Subject: Re: What are the various PC bassed Unix box OS?
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 12:04:25 GMT

In article <chmae.747045462@guug.de> chmae@guug.de (Christoph Maethner) writes:
>From my personal private experience, with a 386DX40 with (only) 4MB
>RAM you should only run unix-systems without X.
I've run Linux with X windows in 4Mb and while it's doable (especially in
mono) I'd not recommend it. Much better that you use the money you didnt
waste buying a commercial offering on buying 4Mb of memory (in fact for
typical prices probably more). Linux without X is fast in 4Mb, 386BSD is
pretty comparable but uses much more disk space.
>Any SystemVRel.4 should do . 
>I used to use the Consensys V.4 on a 386SX20 with 4 MB and it worked, though 
>it wasn't exactly a runner. Now on a 386DX25 with 8 MB I use a SysVR4.2
>from Onsite a german  USL-licencee including X and it works fine. There 
>is nothing else making a unix-system faster than RAM and fast disks.
>I don't think I will ever need a 486 , I would perfer more RAM.
I'd second this comment. With 8 users doing user like things you
tend to hit the IDE disk performance limit and memory limits way before
you hit CPU usage limits. I've found Linux is quite nippy on a 386SX16
certainly comparable to a SUN3/60.
>I don't know about the prices in the us - in germany it is considerable 
>expensive to buy a commercial implementation. Nevertheless I recommend
>those before linux, which is free, if you want to learn about the 
>standards implemented in the commercial systems. 
Linux is very very close to POSIX indeed, more so that some commercial
so called Posix compliant systems. There are thing that are different.
You don't get motif for free and motif is the new world order amongst
user interfaces (You do get X11, TCL/TK, Xaw, OpenLook tools). I happen
to think that Motif is dreadful so I've never worried about it, or paid
$200 to buy it.
You don't get to run shrink wrapped packages though this is suprisingly
close by the look of it. Where I work we threw the commercial system
out and installed Linux.
The Linux DOS emulator isn't as good in some areas as the dos/merge type
stuff provided with things like SCO (notable it doesn't run windows).

Another thing to ask is how much time do you have to play and learn
things. Linux is on the whole faster and smaller but you need to put
a little more effort into it. You don't get phone support either - though
I find usenet and the irc #linux channel better support than most phone
support groups.

Alan
iiitac@pyr.swan.ac.uk


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

From: gregl@rchland.vnet.ibm.com
Subject: Lilo Hangs on Boot
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1993 12:28:46 GMT
Reply-To: gregl@vnet.ibm.com


When I bootup the A1 disk from the latest Slackware distribution, I get
"LI   "  but then my floppy stops....w/ no hard disk activity going on either.
I've tried pressing SHIFT to no avail.  If anyone has any Ideas...please let me know.
I have a 486-50 w/ Future Domain 1680 SCSI adapter & 340 MG Maxtor HDD.

Thanks for any input


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

From: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: Linux 'port to 16-bit machines??
Reply-To: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 13:19:14 GMT

8088's are too slow to be useful for anything anymore. *

I use my 10 MHz 80286 for a terminal into my '486 Linux
box using DOS kermit at 19200 baud.  This is what used to
be my mainstream development station!  Except that
the "big computer in the sky" ten years ago was a
$250,000 Prime superminicomputer, not a $2500 '486.
Guess which one is faster!  (Right, the '486, by
quite a bit; about the same disk space, though.)

There is a program called "screen" that runs on the
Linux end (actually any *nix host) which is supposed
to give you virtual consoles, cut and paste, and lots
of other useful tricks in an environment like this.
I haven't tried it, though.  Try sunsite.unc.edu,
file /pub/Linux/apps/comm/screen-3.2b.linux.tar.z

With 386 motherboards available for $100, nobody thinks
that the extreme effort and lousy performance of Linux for
a '286 would be worth it.  Does gcc even support the '286?
You could check out Coherent or Minix, though.

               - Larry Doolittle   doolittle@cebaf.gov

* I can see the flames now: "I still use my 8088 with
256K RAM to balance my checkbook and write letters ...
I wish I could afford a color monitor for my CGA
graphics board ... you tech weenies are so spoiled ...
when I was your age we walked 10 miles through the snow ..."

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

From: fauerbac@clyde.cs.unca.edu (John Fauerbach)
Subject: Weird network problem with pl12
Date: 3 Sep 1993 12:55:22 GMT

I installed pl12 and got pinging to work to one machine, aurora, but I can't
ping to any onther machine on the same network cable.  There is nothing in the
hosts, network, or any other file that would distgunish aurora over any other
machine.  I was able to get nfs working to aurora also.  Anyone has any ideas?
There are several other machines in my hosts file before aurora.  Only the
hosts file has aurora in it.


Thanks,

John Fauerbach


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

From: if438819@solix.fiu.edu (Bradford L. Barrett)
Subject: 'of' filter for HP laserjets
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 13:49:45 GMT



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

From: alec@linux1.net.ncu.edu.tw (Alexander Lin)
Subject: POP Server on Linux. ??
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 13:59:02 GMT

  
aaa    I try to install pop server on my linux. I got net-2 popd source
  and compiled it. but when I use pop mail, thoght I input correct
  username and password it tells me -ERR invalid usercode or pass-
  word, please try again. What should I do? Thanks for your help.






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

From: jgraham@source.asset.com (Jeffrey Scott Graham)
Subject: linux support for Diamond Viper VLB, etc
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1993 14:39:41 GMT

Want to load Linux on my pc, but cannot determine if my Diamond Viper
card is supported.  Anyone out there know?

Also, I have a Practical Peripherals 14400 FXMT modem. I know it is
supported by Linux,and that comm software exists, but does this software
know how to send/receive FAXes?

Thanks.
Jeffrey Graham
jgraham@unode2.nswc.navy.mil




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

From: if438819@solix.fiu.edu (Bradford L. Barrett)
Subject: Looking for hpof filter script
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 14:49:24 GMT

Sorry about the last post, my modem line dropped in the middle of the
post!... anyway, I am using Slackware's version of Linux (0.99.pl12) and
in the printing FAQ section it states: 'Ross Biro's new release includes...
filter script called /usr/lib/hpof' for HP laser printers.  I have a
Epson Action Laser II that emulates an HPLJ IIp and am looking for the
filter and cant seem to track it down anywhere.  The slackware distribution
does not include it, and I havnt been able to find it on the net.  Anyone
know where it can be found??

Thanks in advance
Brad Barrett
26247733z@servax.fiu.edu || if438819@fiu.edu


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

From: ranger@twain.ucs.umass.edu (Net Ranger)
Subject: Re: Installing SLS!??
Date: 3 Sep 1993 14:52:03 GMT

crazy lion (rlion@access.digex.net) wrote:



: this is the easiest problem to fix. open up your box and switch the cables
: on the 3.5" and 5 1/4" drives. presto.

: rl

Heh I thought about doing that decided against it as It isnt bothering me 
too much and I found out that you can install from a different disk than you
booted from...  And the big one my tower case takes a half hour of wrestling
to get the darn thing lined up right when I am trying to close the damn thing
(at one point I concidered leaving it open because I opened it so many times..
decided against it because of animals and small children who like to stick
extremeties into strange looking boxes.....

-- NR
--
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`-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'


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


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End of Linux-Activists Digest
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