Subject: Linux-Development Digest #310
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:     Thu, 16 Dec 93 03:13:07 EST

Linux-Development Digest #310, Volume #1         Thu, 16 Dec 93 03:13:07 EST

Contents:
  ftape-0.9.8a and IRWIN-floppystreamer (Andreas Joppich)
  Re: Merry $*!@ing Christmas! (Dave Sill)
  Has anyone ported STRN to linux? (Paul Arbogast)
  Re: Merry $*!@ing Christmas! (Andre Beck)
  Symbolic linking across a network... (Edward Baichtal)
  Re: ftape-0.9.8a and IRWIN-floppystreamer (Matthew D Porter)
  Re: XFree86 driver for AGX-014 chips? (Dirk Hohndel)
  Q: LINUX/PC COMMUNICATION PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS. HELP !! (Binglin Yang)
  Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power? (Brandon S. Allbery)
  Re: ISDN for Linux ??? (Eric Jeschke)
  Re: dld for Linux? (David Fox)
  Re: Joystick device for Linux (Dauphin)
  Re: Joystick device for Linux (Ken Pizzini)
  Re: Merry $*!@ing Christmas! (Peter J. Scott)
  Re: ISDN for Linux ??? (Donald J. Becker)
  New set of serial patches --- big bugfix!! (Theodore Ts'o)
  IDE block transfers?(was Re: 1542B and DSP3160 bad I/O Performance) (Keith Rohrer)

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

From: aj@Z2-DB21b.ms.DeTeMobil.de (Andreas Joppich)
Crossposted-To: de.comp.os.linux
Subject: ftape-0.9.8a and IRWIN-floppystreamer
Date: 15 Dec 1993 16:16:35 GMT
Reply-To: aj@ms.DeTeMobil.de

Hey folks,

I've go an IRWIN-tapestreamer AX250L and ftape-0.9.8a .

After patching the kernel ( 0.99pl14) I can do 'insmod drivers.o'.
My kernel-log then says:

<6>kernel-interface.c (init_module) - installing QIC-117 ftape driver....
<6>calibr.c (calibrate) - starting calibration of function: `udelay'.
<6>calibr.c (calibrate) - time = 51110 usec for count = 3200.
<6>calibr.c (calibrate) - `udelay' timer function might be not accurate enough (
<6>calibr.c (calibrate) - starting calibration of function: `fdc_wait'.
<6>calibr.c (calibrate) - time = 74025 usec for count = 25600.
<6>calibr.c (calibrate) - `fdc_wait' timer function might be not accurate enough

After 'mt -f /dev/ftape rewind' appears this:

<6>ftape-io.c (_ftape_open) - unknown drive type, no response.
<6>ftape-io.c (_ftape_open) - bad luck: unsupported drive !.
<6>kernel-interface.c (ftape_open) - _ftape_open failed.

/dev/ftape: No such device

Anybody out there having a patch or something else ?


-- 
_____________________________________________________
Andreas Joppich                      DeTeMobil GmbH
Phone +49-251-977-2943               Muenster
Fax   +49-251-977-2949               Germany
=====================================================

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

Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d
From: de5@de5.ctd.ornl.gov (Dave Sill)
Subject: Re: Merry $*!@ing Christmas!
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 17:05:05 GMT

In article <CI2Hsv.ArI@ibeam.intel.com>, knauer@ibeam.intel.com (Rob Knauerhase) writes:
>
>Jon is apparently unacquainted with just what the acronym "NCSA" stands for
>(National Center for _Supercomputing_ Applications).  So, unless you have a
>Paragon or a Cray on your desk, they in fact *don't* work for you.

Ah, so they *do* work for me.  :-)

-- 
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)             Computers should work the way beginners
Martin Marietta Energy Systems       expect them to, and one day they will.
Workstation Support                                            -- Ted Nelson
URL http://gatekeeper.dec.com/archive/pub/DEC/DECinfo/html/dsill.html

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

From: trl@clark.net (Paul Arbogast)
Subject: Has anyone ported STRN to linux?
Date: 15 Dec 1993 12:09:05 -0500


If this hasn't been done, does anyone know where one might find the 
source to STRN so i can attempt a port??   I use this on a sun and it is 
by far my favorate newsreader, unfortunately it doesn't come with Linux.


-- 
******************************************************************************
Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom
to install your window blinds.    - John Perry Barlow

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

From: beck@irs.inf.tu-dresden.de (Andre Beck)
Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Merry $*!@ing Christmas!
Date: 15 Dec 1993 20:46:47 +0100
Reply-To: Andre_Beck@IRS.Inf.TU-Dresden.DE


In article <CHo5tu.18q@odb.rhein-main.de>, oli@odb.rhein-main.de (Oliver Boehmer) writes:
|>>>Wrongo!  Nice try though.  I'm funded by research grants from commercial
|>>>companies not your tax money.  So no, I don't work for you.
|>>>
|>
|>>I am curious is your Motif license also funded by grants from
|>>commercial companies or are you using the University's tax payer
|>>paid Motif license?
|>
|>Oh man, cut it out....
|>

Exactly. There are THOUSANDS of ways tax pays are wasted which are IMHO
more evil than this one.

--
+-o-+--------------------------------------------------------+-o-+
| o |               \\\- Brain Inside -///                   | o |
| o |                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                       | o |
| o | Andre' Beck (ABPSoft) Andre_Beck@IRS.Inf.TU-Dresden.de | o |
+-o-+--------------------------------------------------------+-o-+

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

From: edwardb@netcom.com (Edward Baichtal)
Subject: Symbolic linking across a network...
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 17:24:49 GMT


Can you symbolically link files across a network with Linux?  I am 
asking, only because I have found not a lot of network facilities matured 
in Linux yet.
-- 
Edward Baichtal
edwardb@netcom.com

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

From: mporter@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Matthew D Porter)
Crossposted-To: de.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: ftape-0.9.8a and IRWIN-floppystreamer
Date: 15 Dec 1993 18:31:54 GMT

In article <2end93INNrk3@kirk.ms.DeTeMobil.de> aj@ms.DeTeMobil.de writes:
>Hey folks,
>
>I've go an IRWIN-tapestreamer AX250L and ftape-0.9.8a .

You are WAY out of luck.  I imagine this is the Irwin Accutrak 250 drive.
This is a QIC-117 drive, but it does not read/write QIC-80 format.  It uses
Irwin's proprietary servoe (Rhomat) format.




-- 
Matt Porter                                porterm@camelot.eng.ohio-state.edu
Ask me about running Linux,                mporter@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
The fast, free *nix for 386/486/Pentium

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

From: hohndel@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de (Dirk Hohndel)
Subject: Re: XFree86 driver for AGX-014 chips?
Date: 15 Dec 1993 20:35:26 GMT

Andrew M Dyer (amd@chinet.chinet.com) wrote:
: 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?

as far as I know no one is working on it. I have no idea what this chipset
is all about or where to get docs from

        Dirk

--
 _     _           _            _   _     |  Lehrstuhl Informatik I
| | | |_) |/  |_| | | |_| |\ | | | |_ |   |  Universitaet Wuerzburg
|_/ | | \ |\  | | |_| | | | \| |_/ |_ |_  |  Am Hubland, D-97074 Wuerzburg

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

From: fnchzzx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Binglin Yang)
Subject: Q: LINUX/PC COMMUNICATION PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS. HELP !!
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 23:05:07 GMT


Hi, Netters:

My home PC(486) runs Linux. I would like to learn writing a telecommunication
program running under Linux/Unix environment. The program should be able to 
take dial-in calls from remote PC's through modems and comunicate with them.
On the remote PC sites, I do have some programs,such as Telix, to use. 
My following questions concern the Unix/Linux site.

(1)  Is there any public domain software with C/C++ source code to do this
kind of job? Or if you have some kind of experience and would kindly like
to share with me or refer me to a good reference book, please drop me an
e-mail.

(2) How does multi-calls(lines) work? How do I impliment that in the program?
Usually a PC has 2 serial ports. I heard about multi-port device, but don't
know how that works. Does the number of serial port interrupts limit the
number of serial ports that you can add to a PC? How does a regular unix
workstation,e.g. Sun Sparc, RS/6000, etc. take care of the multi-calls(lines)?

Any replies will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Binglin Yang
E-mail: fnchzzx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu

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

From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery)
Subject: Re: where should I tell ups to turn off power?
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 22:30:32 GMT

In article <aehallCI1J0D.Gr9@netcom.com>, aehall@netcom.com (ha) says:
+---------------
| 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.
+---------------

I thought that's what it does anyway.  You can't *truly* unmount / while
/etc/brc is running, or halt, or anything else...

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery         kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org          bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org
"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development."  ---dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca
Do not taunt Happy Fun Coder.   (seen on the Net...)

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

From: jeschke@cs.indiana.edu (Eric Jeschke)
Subject: Re: ISDN for Linux ???
Date: 15 Dec 93 23:39:21 GMT

linux@informatik.uni-koblenz.de (Systemkennung Linux (noalias)) writes:

:|> Is there anybody in Europe (maybe Germany) working with some
:|> kind of ISDN support for Linux.
:|> 
:|> We are about to get ISDN connections next year and I would just
:|> love to keep Linux on my machine....

:One very cheap solution for that problem is using a second PC running
:MSDOS and KA9Q. The performance and reliability isn't very high, but
:it's very cheap. But if someone could supply hardware docs for the
:Teles S0 ISDN card or even better Linux drivers, I'd appreciate that
:very much.

We did this at work (NOS running PPP) and it worked quite well.
Ran it on an old 286, kludged together from various parts.  Add a
second phone line, a 14.4k (or better) modem and you've got a viable
ISDN alternative for CHEAP.

:-- 
:Ralf Baechle

-- 
Eric Jeschke                      |          Indiana University
jeschke@cs.indiana.edu            |     Computer Science Department
eric%marmot@moose.cs.indiana.edu  |

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

From: fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David Fox)
Subject: Re: dld for Linux?
Date: 15 Dec 93 17:08:33 GMT

In article <CI20G9.ExL@csn.org> c4craig@csn.org (Craig Anderson) writes:

] Is the dynamic linking package dld available for Linux?

There is an announcement in comp.os.linux.announce.

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

From: root@Brindisi.rose-hulman.edu (Dauphin)
Subject: Re: Joystick device for Linux
Date: 16 Dec 1993 00:57:37 GMT

<previous post deleted>

There's been a joystick driver available for linux since before 0.99.6
And the devices are js0 & js1, btw. :)

tsx.mit.edu:/pub/linux/patches/joystick-0.5.tar.z

--
Christopher Seawood
root@seawoocl.student.rose-hulman.edu
seawoocl@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu

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

From: ken@halcyon.com (Ken Pizzini)
Subject: Re: Joystick device for Linux
Date: 15 Dec 1993 17:27:36 -0800

In article <1993Dec15.121144.7354@rz.uni-hildesheim.de>,
Arne Stoffregen <stoffre@uni-muenster.de> wrote:
>I wanted to know, if anyone has bothered to write a joy-
>stick device for Linux.

There is an oldish one:
        tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/patches/joystick-0.5.tar.z

I think this was relative to the 0.99p10 release of Linux,
so the patches won't install directly (changed file tree
structure, e.g.).  It'll get you started, anyway.

                --Ken Pizzini

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

From: pjs@euclid.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter J. Scott)
Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Merry $*!@ing Christmas!
Date: 16 Dec 1993 03:38:35 GMT
Reply-To: pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov

[Some people's assertions that Marc & Eric work for them because
they receive public funding deleted.]

Of course, the $1E-3 of your taxes that winds up in the pockets of
the NCSA Mosaic development team hardly pays for their spending
dozens of hours fulfilling your personal request, any more than
I would be justified in demanding a ride on a Navy F-14 because
my taxes helped pay for it (something for which there would be
a rather higher public demand, I would think).  Marc & Eric take their
orders from their boss, period, who receives about the same amount of
your money and is therefore answerable to you for about 1E-7 part
of the direction the work takes.

-- 
This is news.  This is your       |    Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech
brain on news.  Any questions?    |    (pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov)

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

From: becker@super.org (Donald J. Becker)
Subject: Re: ISDN for Linux ???
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 16:47:21 GMT

In article <2en9pvINNinh@mailhost.uni-koblenz.de>,
Systemkennung Linux (noalias) <linux@informatik.uni-koblenz.de> wrote:
>|> Is there anybody in Europe (maybe Germany) working with some
>|> kind of ISDN support for Linux.
>|> 
>|> We are about to get ISDN connections next year and I would just
>|> love to keep Linux on my machine....
...
>it's very cheap. But if someone could supply hardware docs for the
>Teles S0 ISDN card or even better Linux drivers, I'd appreciate that
>very much.

I've read comments that most ISDN boards available have proprietary
interfaces.  Combined with regional differences in the protocol, it's
just about impossible for a third party to write free software.

Can anyone comment on this?

[[ Here in the U.S. you can make a strong argument that ISDN and ATM are only
marketing weapons used by The Phone Companies to slow implementation of usable
wide area networking.  It's difficult to justify investment in alternatives
when The Phone Company will have make cheap, ubiquitous digital services
available "in just a few months". ]]
-- 

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

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

From: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o)
Subject: New set of serial patches --- big bugfix!!
Date: 16 Dec 1993 02:12:41 -0500
Reply-To: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o)

I have a yet another set of serial patches available on tsx-11.mit.edu,
in /pub/linux/ALPHA/serial, dated December 16, 1993.   If you took my
December 14, 1993 serial patches, then you must either get a fresh set
of serial patches from tsx-11, in the ALPHA/serial directory, or you
need to apply the following patch to your December 14th patched kernel:

--- serial.c.old        Tue Dec 14 11:43:25 1993
+++ serial.c    Thu Dec 16 01:57:36 1993
@@ -1142,7 +1142,6 @@
                info->flags = ((info->flags & ~ASYNC_USR_MASK) |
                               (new_serial.flags & ASYNC_USR_MASK));
                info->custom_divisor = new_serial.custom_divisor;
-               new_serial.port = 0;    /* Prevent initialization below */
                goto check_and_exit;
        }
 
@@ -1198,15 +1197,16 @@
                 * We need to shutdown the serial port at the old
                 * port/irq combination.
                 */
-               shutdown(info, 0);
+               shutdown(info, change_irq);
                info->irq = new_serial.irq;
                info->port = new_serial.port;
                info->hub6 = new_serial.hub6;
        }
        
 check_and_exit:
-       if (info->port && info->type &&
-           (info->flags & ASYNC_INITIALIZED)) {
+       if (!info->port || !info->type)
+               return 0;
+       if (info->flags & ASYNC_INITIALIZED) {
                if (((old_info.flags & ASYNC_SPD_MASK) !=
                     (info->flags & ASYNC_SPD_MASK)) ||
                    (old_info.custom_divisor != info->custom_divisor))

This fixes a bug in set_serial_info() which was preventing people from
accessing /dev/ttys0 after redefining /dev/ttys2 to use a different
interrupt, because irq 4 (which is used by default by both ttys0 and
ttys2) didn't get freed after /dev/ttys2 was configured.

                                        - Ted

P.S.  The new README file follows below:

This is the third set of patches to the serial driver in 0.99pl14,
dated December 16, 1993.  (Actually, these patches were made to
0.99pl14d, but they should patch cleanly into 0.99pl14 and other pl14
ALPHA releases.)

This patch contains one major bugfix over the previous set of patches
dated December 14, 1993:

        * Fixed a bug in set_serial_info where the old irq was not
                being freed properly.  This was causing people to lose
                when they redefined COM3 to use a different IRQ using
                /etc/setserial, and ended up causing the COM1 port to
                become permanently busy.

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

        * Fixed 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.)

        * 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: rohrer@fncrd6.fnal.gov (Keith Rohrer)
Subject: IDE block transfers?(was Re: 1542B and DSP3160 bad I/O Performance)
Date: 16 Dec 1993 05:20:41 GMT

In article <1993Nov23.154520.1203@pe1chl.ampr.org> rob@pe1chl.ampr.org (Rob Janssen) writes:
>>I remember some discussions on the SCSI/KERNEL channel about improving
>>SCSI performance in Linux. I don't know what the current status is.
>Look in the .../BETA/scsi directory on most mirrors to find recent things.
>Eric Youngdale has, after I started the discussion for what was probably
>the 25th time, done some real research on this and has constructed some
>patches to improve the transfer block size by clustering.
Is there any work underway to get linux to be able to do block-transfer mode
on IDE drives capable of it?  I peeked at the block devices code of 0.99.14,
and it seems to absolutely not do anything of the sort... (1) how hard would
it be to do, (2) would it be actually worthwhile under linux?, and (3) if
I were to be so adventurous as to try to write such functionality into
the kernel, where would I get the spec on it?  I guess I'll call Maxtor's tech 
support and see what they can send me...  This came to me when I ran across
a shareware program to do this, then saw an ad for a payware program to
do the same...(both under dos, of course...and not being able to do something
you can do under dos ought to be frightening enough to goad someone into
at least answering this...)

        Keith

-- 
Disclaimer: None of Grinnell College, URA, Fermilab, and any other affiliated
persons or orginizations have licensed my ideas or opinions, and thus are
not entitled to any which may appear above.
GCS d* -p+ c+++ l++ m* s/* g+ w++ t++ r++ x/-- 

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


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