Subject: Linux-Development Digest #162
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:     Wed, 13 Oct 93 13:13:30 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #162, Volume #1         Wed, 13 Oct 93 13:13:30 EDT

Contents:
  Questions Flamewar (Ian Jackson)
  Re: RFD: Removal of group "comp.os.linux (Gareth Bult)
  NET2Debugged (Alan Cox)
  Re: books about [34]86 assembler programming? (Eyal Lebedinsky)
  Re: Loopback mounts ? (Byron A Jeff)
  Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology (Eric Youngdale)
  Re: >Re: CMS Jumbo (QIC 40/80) Driver Status (Lars Raeder)
  Re: Linux System Administration Tools (John E. Stump)
  Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology (Ed H. Chi)
  Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology (rich@mulvey.com)
  Xconfig! (JASON NAUGHTON)
  Re: Questions Flamewar (Stefan Lukka)

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

Crossposted-To: news.groups,comp.os.linux.misc
From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
Subject: Questions Flamewar
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 00:22:50 GMT

(Note: This flamewar definitely does not belong in col.development.
Trying to move it out of the col hierarchy probably won't work, so
I've set followups to col.misc.  However I'd much rather there weren't
any followups - pretend I said `Followup-To: poster'.)

I shan't try to respond item-by-item, since in the few days since I
last read col.* this issue has exploded.  I shall also not state my
agreement with those people like Lars Wirzenius, Matt Welsh and
Brandon Allbery (this list is inclusive, not exclusive!) whom I agree
with, except where it is particularly important.

Firstly, as many people have pointed out, col.development is for
*discussion* of the *development* *of* Linux.  It is not for questions
about the development of Linux (except those asked as part of the
development effort, or which are equivalent to informed suggestions).
It is not for discussion of development for Linux.  It is not for
discussion of the development of programs in general.

I posted my two postings because I had become fed up at the
nonexistant signal-to-noise ratio in col.development, which I had
hoped would be spared the idiots-influx.  Posting in the heat of my
anger was clearly a mistake, however I believe that everything I said
was justified.  My hope in posting rather than mailing would be that
it might deter people considering doing the same as Stefan Lukka.

My wording `no questions' would, if the flamewar had been avoided,
have conveyed exactly the right information to each and every reader.
The only person who should post a question to col.development is
someone who has been reading col.d for some time, and knows that their
posting isn't what I was talking about when I said `no questions.'
Nobody else should be posting questions to col.d.

However, I am not trying to make col.development an exclusive club.
One of the things that has gotten Linux where it is today is the open
development effort, which has enabled a large number of people to
contribute in a very short space of time.  I certainly wouldn't say
that you have to be a guru to post to col.d - but the rule that you
should read a group for a month or two before posting applies doubly
when you are addressing a technical audience on a subject you may not
be too familiar with.  Reading the FAQs and HOWTOs should be taken for
granted.

Tim Peoples's `RFD', which he now acknowledges he knew was bogus,
worked very well at inciting this flamewar.  I hope he's pleased with
himself.  I did agree with Matt's description of him as an idiot, as
this was more charitable than ascribing his posting to malice.
However since the malice has now been admitted I say that he is not an
idiot, but rather a net-sociopath, perhaps somewhat out of his depth.

I stand by my description of Stefan Lukka (the person who posted the
FAQ about -m486) as an `idiot with no netiquette' (this was in the
Keywords line of my followup).

Note that discussion of my opinions of Tim Peoples and Stefan Lukka
should be taken to email, as I don't read any groups which would be
appropriate for it.

When this furore has died down somewhat I shall post to col.misc so
that we may have a hopefully more fruitful and less personal
discussion about what to do with col.development's (and indeed
col.*'s) serious noise problems.

-- 
Ian Jackson, at home  <ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu> or <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
PGP2 public key available on server.  Urgent email: <iwj10@phx.cam.ac.uk>
2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England;  phone: +44 223 64238

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

From: gareth@gblinux.demon.co.uk (Gareth Bult)
Subject: Re: RFD: Removal of group "comp.os.linux
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 02:39:32 GMT

Mr Peoples,

I use comp.os.linux.development and as a 'developer' am happy with the 
facility. However, I download by modem onto my PC at regular intervals and  
pay for transmission out of my own pocket.                                  
I now have many messages all caused by your RFD. These are a complete waste 
of time and money. If you've nothing constructive to say would you kindly   
get off and let those of us who are interested get on with it.

Many thanks - Gareth.                                                       

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

From: iiitac@swan.pyr (Alan Cox)
Subject: NET2Debugged
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 10:57:27 GMT

I have put version 1.16 BETA of Net2debugged onto sunacm.swan.ac.uk. This
is a test release featuring rewritten datagram handling code, a proper set
of buffer handlers and hopefully ARP fixes. Net2Debugged is a kit of pieces
that replace the .c .h and Makefile in the inet subdirectory with much
tweaked code to fix bugs in the Linux tcp/ip. If you have been having problems
with Linux TCP/IP kernel bugs (crashes and the like) then you make like
try this. If you had problems talking to very fast machines (notably the
DEC Alpha boxes) the new release should cure this problem. 

Alan
iiitac@pyr.swan.ac.uk

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

From: eyal@fir.canberra.edu.au (Eyal Lebedinsky)
Subject: Re: books about [34]86 assembler programming?
Date: 13 Oct 93 12:24:46 GMT

In <1993Oct11.194111.9708@utex.rni.sub.org> michael@utex.rni.sub.org (Michael Utech) writes:

>All i found was a book about MS-Assembler, not quite what i'm
>looking for.

There are many such books. One that I found informative is from PC
Magazine, Programmer's Techincal Reference: The Processor and
Coprocessor. The author is Robert L. Hummel, ISBN 1-56276-016-5.
It is NOT the cheapest book...

>Thank you!


>-- 
>Michael Utech, Max-Planck-Str.26, 69519 Viernheim, Germany
>email: michael@utex.rni.sub.org, fm04@rummelplatz.uni-mannheim.de
>phone: +49 6204 {4031 (home), 65929 (work), 740309 (data)}
--
Regards
        Eyal Lebedinsky         eyal@ise.canberra.edu.au

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

From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff)
Subject: Re: Loopback mounts ?
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 13:23:55 GMT

In article <1993Oct13.085812.775@cs.utwente.nl>,
Steef S.G. de Bruijn <debruijn@cs.utwente.nl> wrote:
>hm@ix.de wrote:
>: Subject says all -- is anybody working on the implementation
>: of loopback mounts?
>
>What are you talking about?  Loopback is standard in the network
>stuff (I thought). At least, I can telnet and FTP to myself.
>Am I missing the point now, or is your question answered?

You're missing the point. At one point in time there was a patch that
allowed you to mount a regular file as a filesystem. But I'm sure it
needs to be updated.

Any ideas?

BAJ
---
Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of...
Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel!
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332   Internet: byron@cc.gatech.edu

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

From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale)
Subject: Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 14:35:49 GMT

In article <dnebing-121093210959@m252-67.bgsu.edu> dnebing@andy.bgsu.edu (Dave Nebinger) writes:
>  Who is to decide when a poster should be flamed or not?  I don't
>want to start an argument (or get flamed myself), but there are
>cases where one would say "enough is enough" and flame someone for
>posting something which was ligitimate to them but dumb to anyone
>else.

        In my opinion, a poster should never be flamed for asking a stupid
question, or asking someting in the wrong newsgroup.  Even if they start to
flame themselves (i.e. they flame other people :-), a polite message asking
them to take it elsewhere would probably be more effective.  If you have a hard
time keeping a cool head when composing a response to these sorts of messages,
then I suggest that you either not respond, or write a polite canned post of
some kind that you send via email in these situations.  It will not only save
you time, but your whole day will be more enjoyable, and the rest of us would
be spared the ensuing flamewar.

        Frankly, I am a little surprised that people are concerned about the
bandwidth of c.o.l.d.  There are far fewer messages coming through here than
there were on c.o.l before the split, and I find it quite easy to skip over the
postings which I have no interest in.  Note that I do not have time to read any
of the other c.o.l.* groups any more because of the enormous volume  (I do
recognize that some people pay money for their newsfeed).

        Finally, some people have talked about the size of the FAQ and the
difficulty in parsing it and so forth.  I guess I am somewhat sympathetic -
given it's size, it would take quite a bit of paper to print out, and then the
whole thing would have to be studied to locate the relevant section. I have the
following suggestion to make:

        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 effect
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.

        An info reader could in fact be a prototype for what I am suggesting -
the information in the FAQ would just need to be rearranged to be used in this
way, of course, but it is pretty close in principle to what would be needed.

        This program could be set up to run in a captive anonymous telnet on
some machines, or it could be set up to run on BBS systems.  It could be
supplied with cdrom distributions, and depending upon the size of the database,
it could be supplied with some floppy distributions.  It could even be
downloaded and run on local systems (and even ported to DOS).  If done
properly, this could become the first line of defense for the new-user types of
questions.  The users would know that they can get instant, authoritative
answers 24 hours a day from the expert system instead of waiting for the
posting (and any subsequent responses) to filter through the various newsfeeds.

-Eric

-- 
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,
And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep."

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

From: raeder@kirk.fmi.uni-passau.de (Lars Raeder)
Subject: Re: >Re: CMS Jumbo (QIC 40/80) Driver Status
Date: 13 Oct 1993 14:37:28 GMT

In article <361@gblinux.demon.co.uk> gareth@gblinux.demon.co.uk (Gareth Bult) writes:
>On Mon, 11 Oct 93 12:18:55 GMT;                                             
>----Patrick Sweeney (sweeney@$TIN_DOMAIN) said:                             
>>                                                                           
>>There is currently a driver written by Bas Laarhoven on tsx-11.mit.edu     
>>[18.172.1.2]. The driver is in /pub/linux/ALPHA/QIC-80/ftape-0.9.6.tar.gz. 
I uploaded it a few days ago. As it depends on the `modules' package, it was
not easy to get it going. Forget about the SLS distribution of the Linux
kernel and the modules package! It is easier to get the original sources.

>>I dont have a Colorado drive but supposedly it works. I do have an Archive 
>>drive and it seems to work fine for it. You might also want to join the    
>>QIC-80 tape mailing list. To join any of the mailing lists, send mail to   
>>linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi. It will auto reply with help       
>>on using the mail-server.                                                  
>>                                                                           
>This driver is for Linux?                                                   
>I downloaded it and it didn't come close to compiling.                      
>It was indicated that this source was for a MACH system and COULD be        
>adapted for Linux. Indeed someone else has attempted it, you will see an    
>lftape.... floating around as well.                                         
>                                                                            
>This driver is documented to support COLORADO and MOUNTAIN, not archive...  
>Which of us is going wrong...?
>I tried ftape 0.96 and now 1.02, I'm looking at the 1.02 source now...
I have an archive drive, too. Perhaps you both are talking about different
packages or old versions...

>Confused.
>Gareth.
>PS. My driver SHOULD be finished by the weekend.                            
Well, I hope it will work! Especially the handling of bad segments seems to
be a problem for the other driver... :-(
-- 
  Lars Raeder                     "...it will sure work next week!"


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

From: jstump@mstu41.intel.com (John E. Stump)
Subject: Re: Linux System Administration Tools
Date: 13 Oct 1993 15:03:38 GMT

In article <1993Oct12.163429.656@cathy.ijs.si> Andrej.Bauer@ijs.si (Andrej Bauer) writes:
>Dear Developers,
>
>is there anybody working on System Administration Tools for Linux?
>I think it would be nice to have an intelligent and easy-to-use
>program for Linux's System Administration (something like SAM for HP-UX,
>only more intelligent -- it should be very very smart).

I am working on such a beast. It uses my character mode windowing
package and it may not be ready for a few more months.

>Andrej
>
>-------------------
>Andrej.Bauer@IJS.si
>-------------------

john
-- 
--
john stump (jstump@mstu41.intel.com)
            "Is it too much to ask for perfection?"

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

From: ehhchi@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Ed H. Chi)
Subject: Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:27:13 GMT

In article <CEuB7p.7pF@ra.nrl.navy.mil> eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) writes:
>       In my opinion, a poster should never be flamed for asking a stupid
>question, or asking someting in the wrong newsgroup.  Even if they start to
>flame themselves (i.e. they flame other people :-), a polite message asking
>them to take it elsewhere would probably be more effective.

Yes, but even a polite message doesn't work anymore.  I have been flamed
by saying "I think you would get better answers if you post this to
comp.os.linux.help or comp.os.linux.misc."  (In exact wording!)  And still
get flamed.

The general attitude of the comp.os.linux.* has gotten to be quite bad.

>       Frankly, I am a little surprised that people are concerned about the
>bandwidth of c.o.l.d.  There are far fewer messages coming through here than
>there were on c.o.l before the split, and I find it quite easy to skip over the
>postings which I have no interest in.

I agree.

>       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 effect
>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.


** I've set the follow ups to comp.os.linux.misc, as the discussion is not
quite the comp.os.linux.development kind of traffic.
(unless you will be following up to the Expert System idea, of course :)

Happy Linux'ing.

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

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

Crossposted-To: news.groups
From: rich@mulvey.com
Subject: Re: The %&#$@ speaks again -or- An apology
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:26:36 GMT

Kevin Brown (kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com) wrote:
: In article <CEt71s.CDI@news2.cis.umn.edu> ehhchi@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Ed H. Chi) writes:
: >
: >I've been flamed when I ask people to post the article to the correct
: >group(s).  I've been flamed when I say what I know about the subject and
: >then refer them to the FAQ (the HOWTOs).  The usual response is
: >"I'm sicking tired of people telling me to read the FAQ."
: >
: >If people ask you to read the FAQ, don't take it as an insult.  Maybe the
: >amount of people asking you to read the FAQ has something to do with the
: >fact that you haven't read it thouroughly.

: 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.  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?

: Indeed, it's enough to make one think that one needs to have Linux up (to
: have access to good text manipulation tools) in order to use the FAQ.  :-)

: What we need is a mail-based FAQ server.  :-)

: Seriously, a facility that "knows" about the FAQ (or some other appropriate
: document) and can answer simple questions by yanking out sections of the
: document that match keywords in the question and mailing them to the person
: asking might be quite useful.

: 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.

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

- Rich

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

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

From: jnaughto@ee.ryerson.ca (JASON NAUGHTON)
Subject: Xconfig!
Date: 13 Oct 1993 16:32:51 GMT

                If anyone has Linux configured with the trident 8900c 1meg 
and they have a Microsoft Busmouse working could you please post your
xconfig.
                Even if you've just got a trident svga 8900c 1meg configured
properly and have a mouse (any mouse) could you post your xconfig. 


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

From: slukka@nyx.cs.du.edu (Stefan Lukka)
Subject: Re: Questions Flamewar
Reply-To: Do not reply </dev/null@nyx.cs.du.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 93 16:38:52 GMT

>>>>> On Wed, 13 Oct 1993 00:22:50 GMT, iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) said:

IJ> I stand by my description of Stefan Lukka (the person who posted
IJ> the FAQ about -m486) as an `idiot with no netiquette' (this was in
IJ> the Keywords line of my followup).

For crying out loud, you could not even get THIS right? You're not
very smart, are you? The person who posted the question, and to whom
you were rude, uncivil, and blatantly insulting, was NOT me. Go back
to his post (which apparently you did not read) and find out.

I was merely fed up with your loud and noisy hourly automatic posts
that you fill the linux groups with, and after putting that in my kill
file and putting up with the news reader slowness caused by that (I
have no need for a kill file otherwise), there you go again insulting
one linux user after another and calling them names (idiot, crab,
..etc.).  Who do you think you are anyway? I simply could not let that
pass, and I knew it would increase if I don't put a stop to it, and
that you would get even worse.

Please, be *polite*. People are not going to treat you nicely if you
do not treat *them* nicely, and you're bound to get flamed, if you
flame others. You and others of your ilk are giving linux a bad name.

Stefan J Lukka


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


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