Subject: Linux-Development Digest #308
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, 14 Dec 93 21:13:09 EST

Linux-Development Digest #308, Volume #1         Tue, 14 Dec 93 21:13:09 EST

Contents:
  Raw (unbuffered) Disk Partition I/O (Thomas L Keller)
  Re: Printer Problem? (Bruce Thompson)
  XFree86 driver for AGX-014 chips? (Andrew M Dyer)
  Re: Lots more stats in /proc aka /proc/loadavg (Donald J. Becker)
  Linux networking drivers for other than ethernet? (David Neal)
  can't build SVGA-S with PEX extension (hb)
  VT220 emulator (Simon Johnston)
  Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power? (Remco Treffkorn)
  Did core.mumble files get changed for pl14? (sefi04::volkman)
  Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power? (Dave Truckenmiller)
  Re: getting message -- MARK -- (Ruedi Kneubuehler)
  Re: Booten mit Adaptec 1542C (David Waddell)
  New version of Serial patches (Theodore Ts'o)
  Re: Booten mit Adaptec 1542C (Ronald Kuehn)
  Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power? (ha)

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

From: d3g636@snacker.pnl.gov (Thomas L Keller)
Subject: Raw (unbuffered) Disk Partition I/O
Date: 14 Dec 93 01:11:42 GMT

Has anyone made mods to any of the available file systems to remove
buffering to a raw partition?  I need unbuffered I/O for benchmarking
but all partitions are block files and appear to use a common
kernel buffer area.  Thanks for any help.

Tom Keller
Battelle - PNL
tl_keller@pnl.gov
d3g636@snacker.pnl.gov

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

From: bruce@mdavcr.mda.ca (Bruce Thompson)
Subject: Re: Printer Problem?
Date: 14 Dec 93 00:21:09 GMT

Maximilian Ibel (ibel@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de) wrote:
: Hello, Linuxers.

: Last Saturday, some strange thing happened to me:

: I plugged the printer cable out of my linux box (to test the
: printer with another computer). Since then, no mdir/mdel/mformat etc.
: did work. The shell hung, and with top I could`t see a mdir etc. process.
: The drive LED did not light, either.
:       [...]
:
: Now, is this a bug, or is it a feature?
:

I'd say it's neither. For the continued health of your system, _never_
unplug cables while the machine is running. Always power down the
system before you start connecting and disconnecting devices. 

The main reason for this recommendation is that you can do permanent
physical damage to your machine when you unplug things that have power
to them.  Even though your printer may have been powered down, there
are still wires in the cable that have power applied. When you
unplugged the cable, you caused a brief power spike on those lines.
Clearly this caused a glitch in your system. Be glad nothing worse
happened.

        Cheers,
        Bruce.

--
.sig under construction

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

From: amd@chinet.chinet.com (Andrew M Dyer)
Subject: XFree86 driver for AGX-014 chips?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 03:45:45 GMT

Is anyone working on a driver for the AGX-014 chip?  If so I would
be interested in helping out.  If not - does anyone know where I can
get programming information on this chip?

-- 
=============================
Andrew Dyer
amd@chinet.chi.il.us

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

From: becker@super.org (Donald J. Becker)
Subject: Re: Lots more stats in /proc aka /proc/loadavg
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 22:56:15 GMT

In article <1993Dec10.082525.20899@fix.kmk.rhein-main.de>,
Kai Kretschmann <kai@fix.kmk.rhein-main.de> wrote:
>Donald J. Becker (becker@super.org) wrote:
>: Check out /proc/net/dev, which contains the netcard device-level statistics.

>Oops, I saw it now the first time! But these values are 'only'
>the totals. I would like to see an average like number of packets
>sent/received during the last 1/5/15 min. The same like the result of
>the uptime command.

Mmmm, reporting a time-average starts looking more like "policy" as opposed to
"mechanism".  That's the sort of thing that a user-level program would be
better at integrating, analyzing and presenting.  Probably with 27 8"x10"
color glossy photographs, uhmm windows, with line and squiggels on the back of
each one...

BTW, has anyone considered using /proc/net/* to write a user-level SNMPd?
What other info do you think we would need?



-- 

Donald Becker                                          becker@super.org
IDA Supercomputing Research Center
17100 Science Drive, Bowie MD 20715                        301-805-7482

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

From: dneal@NeoSoft.com (David Neal)
Subject: Linux networking drivers for other than ethernet?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 04:39:28 GMT


Browsing through the networking stuff only turns up support
for ethernet cards. Anyone written a driver for an FDDI card
or a token ring card? I could really use both, in fact, I
could use an ISDN card driver too!

TI
-- 
David Neal. <dneal@neosoft.com> 
``But as I said, it's speculation on my part, not "the truth".'' 
   -- David Sternlight  : Kill an abortion protester, save an MD.

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

From: lucy@p223.informatik.Uni-Bremen.DE (hb)
Subject: can't build SVGA-S with PEX extension
Date: 13 Dec 1993 15:54:54 GMT

hi,

I tried to use the link kit included in XFree2.0 to
build the SVGA Server with support for PEX. When i
run ./mkmf (after editing site.def) all the submakes
fail !? What have i to do if i _only_ want to link
the dafaultdrivers (vga256) i.e. compile the toplevel 
*.c and link (this need no submakes !!!!!).
Any hints on this are welcome !!!


hb

================================================
youghurt rules 
================================================

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

From: skj@oasis.icl.co.uk (Simon Johnston)
Subject: VT220 emulator
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 08:44:57 GMT

Can anyone tell me where I can get a good VT220 emulator (telnet-like) for
Linux which allows me to remap the keys. Our corporate office system likes 
to see a VT220 but uses F16-F20 for special keys. Most of us connect via
either a proprietry terminal emulator under MSDOS or PCTCPs telnet under OS/2
this telnet allows you to remap the keys so the PC's F12 becomes a VT220 F20
etc.

Thanks


MODULE Sig;
FROM ICL IMPORT StdDisclaimer;
FROM Interests IMPORT Modula2, Modula3, Linux, OS2;

BEGIN
(* ------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|Simon K. Johnston - Development Engineer              |ICL Retail Systems |
|------------------------------------------------------|3/4 Willoughby Road|
|Unix Mail : S.K.Johnston.bra0801@oasis.icl.co.uk      |Bracknell, Berks   |
|Telephone : +44 (0)344 476320   Fax: +44 (0)344 476084|United Kingdom     |
|Internal  : 7261 6320    OP Mail: S.K.Johnston@BRA0801|RG12 8TJ           |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------ *)
END Sig.

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

From: root@hip-hop.sbay.org (Remco Treffkorn)
Subject: Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power?
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 00:18:42 GMT
Reply-To: remco@hip-hop.sbay.org

Kevin Smolkowski (kevins@aragorn.ori.org) wrote:

: Maybe this is one of those questions that really has no "right"
: answer.  I have a older ups (not a new intelligent one) that
: drives a RS-232 line high when the power goes off.  I wrote
: my own little program (based on powerd but I use different 
: control lines) that shut down the system all right using
: shutdown when I lose power.

: Now I want to shut off my ups after my system is safely shutdown
: by driving another line high, easy to do, but where should I do it. 

: I was thinking of two places.  

: In its own program called by /etc/brc.  But then halt will never
: finish as the power will be shut off before /etc/brc returns.  
: I guess this would be ok.

: Or should I change halt so that it sends the signal?  This
: seems kinda ugly.

: -Kevins

I see...

I am in the same boat. I have not yet tried to solve this end of the
UPS story. Currently I am happy with a clean shutdown when the battery
gets low. I also started with powerd and am using different control 
lines. My powerd still sends the powerfail signal to init to take 
an appropriate action, currently shuting down the system.

I think it would be smarter to have init enter a special runlevel
reserved for the powerfail case. This runlevel would kill all processees
and unmount everything. Unmounting / should result in a r/o mounted fs.
Maybe you have to remount r/o explicitly?
It is now save to 'pull the plug' I think. I like r/o root. You
can run almost every program without risk.

Remco
-- 

Remco Treffkorn, DC2XT
remco@hip-hop.sbay.org   <<-- REAL reply address !!
(408) 685-1201

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

From: volkman@sefi04.enet.dec.com (sefi04::volkman)
Subject: Did core.mumble files get changed for pl14?
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 00:57:52 GMT

        I just installed pl14 over pl12a and have noticed that I nolonger
        get 'core.mumble' files. Anyone else see this? I'm porting some
        X widgets and the post mortem was very useful.

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

From: trucken@myria.cs.umn.edu (Dave Truckenmiller)
Subject: Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:43:26 GMT

>Remco Treffkorn wrote:
>:Kevin Smolkowski (kevins@aragorn.ori.org) wrote:

>: Maybe this is one of those questions that really has no "right"
>: answer.  I have a older ups (not a new intelligent one) that
>: drives a RS-232 line high when the power goes off.  I wrote
>: my own little program (based on powerd but I use different 
>: control lines) that shut down the system all right using
>: shutdown when I lose power.

>: Now I want to shut off my ups after my system is safely shutdown
>: by driving another line high, easy to do, but where should I do it. 

>: I was thinking of two places.  

>: In its own program called by /etc/brc.  But then halt will never
>: finish as the power will be shut off before /etc/brc returns.  
>: I guess this would be ok.

>: Or should I change halt so that it sends the signal?  This
>: seems kinda ugly.

>I am in the same boat. I have not yet tried to solve this end of the
>UPS story. Currently I am happy with a clean shutdown when the battery
>gets low. I also started with powerd and am using different control 
>lines. My powerd still sends the powerfail signal to init to take 
>an appropriate action, currently shuting down the system.

>I think it would be smarter to have init enter a special runlevel
>reserved for the powerfail case. This runlevel would kill all processees
>and unmount everything. Unmounting / should result in a r/o mounted fs.
>Maybe you have to remount r/o explicitly?
>It is now save to 'pull the plug' I think. I like r/o root. You
>can run almost every program without risk.

Hmm.  I solved this problem on a different OS (Interactive) by changing
the serial port to hold a line high when unix was running.  The UPS would
turn off power whenever this line went low, but only after it sensed that
the AC wall power had failed.  So, after the wall power fails, the UPS 
sends the appropriate signal, and shutdown runs a reboot.  Once Unix is
no longer running, the line formerly held high by unix drops and the UPS
shuts off the power.  This worked great.  (Of course, I probably have 
high and low mixed up, but the same priciple will work in either case.
Find a line and its "normal" level during the reboot phase of youur machine,
then hold that line in the opposite state while Linux is running.)

I hope something like this might work, if it does, I might be able to
gather enough $$$ after Christmas to spring for a UPS myself!  Let me
know how it turns out.

%Dave%
--
==== _.. ___ ... ====|~~--V   ___________________ ._.. .. _. .._ _.._ 
Dave Truckenmiller   |___II   Linux, Linux, Linux,  L   i  n  u    x 
trucken@cs.umn.edu or trucken@sebic.mn.org   *.tc.umn.edu is unsecure

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

From: pingu@chg.imp.com (Ruedi Kneubuehler)
Subject: Re: getting message -- MARK --
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:22:11 GMT

Bruce Thompson (bruce@mdavcr.mda.ca) wrote:

> : does mean.    

> :     -- MARK --


> That is produced by syslogd. I cannot remember the precise details,
> but the fact that you are seeing it has to do with your syslogd.conf
> file. Check the man page for syslogd for more info.

thanks a lot, i see the point now, i was having problem with sudden lockups
after installing the pl14 kernel and i enebled more verbose sysloging. but i
didn't remarked, that this one was redirected to /dev/console. 

since i chanched the motherboard, these lockups were gone as well.

thanks for your help.

ruedi...

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

From: waddell@sys14.posc.org (David Waddell)
Subject: Re: Booten mit Adaptec 1542C
Date: 14 Dec 1993 15:36:26 GMT
Reply-To: waddell@posc.org

In article <CHwHCD.Ap5@ra.nrl.navy.mil>, eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) writes:
I have a 1542C with a 2GB disk. Do I have to turn off >1GB disk support to boot
Linux or has anyone got a fix yet? If necessary I can spare some time to help.
Also booting with my SoundBlaster at IRQ 5 and I/O 220 is not recognized. Linux
thinks the card is at IRQ 7.
Trying to boot the 1542C produces the message described in the SCSI-HOWTO
aha1542_out failed(1):aha1542.c: interrupt received, but no mail
After the second message it just hangs.
Any help would be appreciated.
|> 
|>      Could someone who has a little bit of experince with the kernel
|> hacking, a 1542C, and perhaps a disk > 1Gb please send me an email message?
|> 
|> -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."

-- 
==========================================================================
|    Dave Waddell                  |                                     |
|    waddell@posc.org              |                                     |
|    kb5wxe@kb5wxe.ampr.org        | (713) 267-5103                      |
==========================================================================

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

From: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o)
Subject: New version of Serial patches
Date: 14 Dec 1993 14:51:46 -0500
Reply-To: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o)

I have a new version of serial patches available on tsx-11.mit.edu, in
/pub/linux/ALPHA/serial.  It fixes a very serious race condition bug
which was always present in the serial code, but (fortunately) the first
set of patches I set out a few days ago made the problem much worse.
(Fortunately becauase now I've been able to fix it once and for all.)

So if you run serial ports with a lot of incoming and/or outgoing
traffic, please try this patch out.  If you took the December 8th serial
patches, you should definitely back those changes out, and take this
one.

As always, please send bugs, comments, etc. to me (tytso@mit.edu).

                                                        - Ted

This is the second set of patches to the serial drive in 0.99pl14,
dated December 14, 1993.  It contains the following improvements over
the last set of patches:

        * Fix a nasty race condition in rs_close() and tty_hangup()
                which caused kernel hangs or outright panics in
                rs_interrupt().  This would tend to happen only on
                machines which serial ports serving as both as callout
                and dialup devices.

        * Line disciplines are now reset when a terminal is completely
                freed.  This allows a Linux box which is working as a
                SLIP or PPP server to do the right thing when user
                hangs up.

        * Fix security hole in TIOCSTTY handling; if a root process
                forcibly takes over a tty as its controlling tty while
                another session group still has that tty, the tty is
                disassociated from the old session group before it is
                given to the calling process as the controlling tty.

                (NOTE: getty's really shouldn't be using TIOCSTTY
                anyway, since processes which have the tty open can
                still read/write to it.  getty/login should be using
                vhangup instead.)

It also contains the following improves over the serial driver in
0.99pl14:

        * Set FIFO trigger level to 1 if baud rate is under 2400.
                This will improve response time on 16550A's when they
                are operating at slow speeds; specifically when you're 
                using them with a mouse. 

        * Overrun conditions are now passed up to tty_io.c, and an
                appropriate warning message is printed.  (Previously,
                tty_io.c would handle it as a randomly as either a
                frame error, a parity error, or a break.)

        * Use a separate flag for hardware flow control, so that
                the right thing happens when both XON/XOFF and RTS/CTS
                flow control are enabled.

        * Allow the callout devices to be a controlling tty.

        * Hangup handling fixed; some race conditions removed.  The
                device specific close now happens at the instant when
                the hangup is signaled, instead of waiting until the
                the process closed the file descriptor.  This should
                fix the problems with background processes that still
                have the tty opened when the modem hangs up.  Linux
                will now deal correctly with this case.

Please try these changes out, especially if you support dialup via
modems.  There are a bunch of tricky race conditions with the hangup
code, which I *think* that I've resolved.  I want to make sure that
they work, though, before submitting them to Linux for inclusion in
the mainline kernel.  Please try them out and let me know how they
work on your system.  

                                        Ted Ts'o
                                        tytso@mit.edu
                                        12/14/93


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

From: inrk@helios.rz.tu-clausthal.de (Ronald Kuehn)
Subject: Re: Booten mit Adaptec 1542C
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 20:43:01 GMT

Arnd (arnd@BOELKSTOFF.cilnet) wrote:
: I'm using an Adaptec 1542C with a Toshiba 1 GB Drive and an 250 MB Quantum IDE drive as bootdrive.
: I've just problems booting the SLS bootdisk with the adapter BIOS enabled. Is it possible to boot from flopy with the BIOS enabled ?
: Any help would be very nice.


: A. Hekermans

Sorry, but I can't help You.
I want to buy a Toshiba 1GB Drive in the near future.
Can You mail me some informations about the speed,
exact name (I think it is MK 537 ?) and tranf. rate with
Adaptec 1542C ?

It would be very nice.
                       Ronald.
--

PS: I tried to mail this direct to You, but this was not possible.

<inrk@asterix.rz.tu-clausthal.de>


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

From: aehall@netcom.com (ha)
Subject: Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 19:48:13 GMT

In article <1993Dec12.001842.8880@hip-hop.sbay.org> remco@hip-hop.sbay.org writes:
>Kevin Smolkowski (kevins@aragorn.ori.org) wrote:
[snip]
>: Now I want to shut off my ups after my system is safely shutdown
>: by driving another line high, easy to do, but where should I do it. 
>
>: I was thinking of two places.  
>
>: In its own program called by /etc/brc.  But then halt will never
>: finish as the power will be shut off before /etc/brc returns.  
>: I guess this would be ok.
>
>: Or should I change halt so that it sends the signal?  This
>: seems kinda ugly.

I haven't looked at the code, but what, if anything, does halt do
after executing /etc/brc?  If anything?

I don't think it'd be a big deal to have /etc/brc turn off your
ups AFTER unmounting all your filesystems (including /).  Your filesystems
would then be unmounted and when the power goes off there wouldn't
be any filesystem damage because they're unmounted.

Now / would be different because you need to unmount root to run
the program that turns off the ups, but you need root mounted to run
the program:  You could use the bootutils programs and remount /
read-only.  That way, you could unmount your filesystems,
remount root read-only, and turn off your ups without danger of
messing up your filesystems.

-A


-- 
========================================================================
  Anthony Hall                             "...the whole alphabet soup
   aehall@netcom.com                         of spookdom." -Marcinko
========================================================================

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


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******************************
