Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #573
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, 20 Jan 94 00:13:15 EST

Linux-Misc Digest #573, Volume #1                Thu, 20 Jan 94 00:13:15 EST

Contents:
  Re: Running Linux from CD-ROM? (J.J. Paijmans)
  Re: tape drives? (Mario Nascimento)
  Re: Re^2: PS/2 Mouse (neil j.cherry)
  Re: WUARCHIVE LOST :) ("Marcus W. Bainbridge")
  Re: Infomagic CD-ROM not so good ?? (Mitchell Buchman)
  Re: Linux Distributions and the Shadow Password Suite (Alan Cox)
  Re: Setuid scripts under pl14 kernels (Steve Yelvington)
  Open Interface libraries available? (Michiel v. Muiswinkel)
  Re: Mathematica for Linux (DAVID L. JOHNSON)
  Re: Any way to watch a tty port? (Shannon Nelson)
  Re: serious comment about satan in /dev/mem (Harald Milz)
  Re: SUN-OS floppies on Linux (Jeff Tranter)
  Need assistance with AHA-1522A SCSI card (Preston Beach)
  Re: fsck -A -a (Frohwalt Egerer)
  Re: CAS for Linux (was Re: Mathematica for Linux) (Cristopher J. Fearnley)
  Re: SpeedUp 4Mb -> 8Mb results (Neill Means)
  Re: Attach an X terminal *TO* a Linux box? (Kenneth L Mitchell)

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

From: paai@kub.nl (J.J. Paijmans)
Subject: Re: Running Linux from CD-ROM?
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 18:35:59 GMT

In article <2hjk3t$12hf@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> middleto@cps.msu.edu (Derek J. Middleton) writes:
>Does anyone know if Linux can be run from a CD-ROM?  I realize it would be
>slow but the person who wants to do this has lots of memory so eventually
>everything would get cached.  Also, it's obvious you would have to do
>some sort of minimal install on your harddrive to get it to boot (unless
>LILO would be modified to read directly from the CD-ROM).
...
>
>-Derek
>--
>Proud new upgrader:  286/12, 40MB -> 486DLC/40 (w/math co), 400MB

Linux *can* be booted from floppy and immediatly read from the CD-ROM.
I do that often when demonstrating. Obviously you can't write much to
a floppy and less to a CD-ROM. Also, after some messing with links,
you can e.g. use the Andrew WYSIWYG, reading it from CD-ROM and
writing data to your harddisk. I don't think it is necessary to 
collect these answers and make a digest, because not much more
can be said on the subject. (Unless I am very much mistaken).

BTW: why do you specify that your 486 comes with a math co?
I thought only the braindead 486SX had its mathco removed...?
Paai.



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

From: mario@seas.smu.edu (Mario Nascimento)
Subject: Re: tape drives?
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 16:24:06 GMT

In article jaewan@uful07.phys.ufl.edu (Jaewan Kim) writes:
>What type of tape drive is best for linux?
>jaewan

Well such a general questions deserves (no flaming) a kind of general answer.

If you looking for floppy controler based tape drives look in the ftape.HOWTO
(just released) in c.o.l.announce or sunsite docs directory.

If you looking for SCSI tape drives I've heard that Tandberg 3600 (250 Meg)
is a good one (no personal experience whatsoever, though). Get the HARDWARE
howto. 

Both docs will give you a compatibility guide, not which one is best. Good
luck.

Mario.


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

From: ncherry@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (neil j.cherry)
Subject: Re: Re^2: PS/2 Mouse
Date: 19 Jan 94 19:16:01 GMT

In article <5GxI-0xmjjB@aw27.aworld.aworld.de> CARSTEN@AWORLD.aworld.de writes:
>hello,
>
>in article <1994Jan14.173323.13435@Rapnet.Sanders.Lockheed.Com>,
>miner@Rapnet.Sanders.Lockheed.Com (Jonathan Miner)  write:
>> 
>> In article <2h6a5h$b55@dyggve.ifi.uio.no> huil@ifi.uio.no (Hui Li) writes:
>> >Is PS/2 Mouse supported in Linux ?
>> 
>> It is on my Packard Bell Legend 1166, running XFree86 v1.3
>
>i have a logitech mouse connectetd to my ps/2-port -- but it is NOT
>working (and i really tried hard, with the help of some of you here in
>the net).
>

I also have a Logitech mouse connected to my ps/2 port. I defined it as
PS/2 as opposed to Logitech and linked /dev/mouse /dev/ps2aux. I'm using
Linux 0.99.pl9 (I think) and XFree86 v1.2. I haven't been able to get
mouse_tst (or what ever its called) or selection to work with the PS/2
mouse.

NJC

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

Crossposted-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc,demon.local,connect.chatter,connect.audit
From: marcus@guitar.demon.co.uk ("Marcus W. Bainbridge")
Subject: Re: WUARCHIVE LOST :)
Reply-To: marcus@guitar.demon.co.uk
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 19:01:45 +0000

In article <CJvt14.K4u@ibmpcug.co.uk> neilm@ibmpcug.co.uk "Neil McRae" writes:

> The entire archives were destroyed the afternoon of Thursday, January 13th
> due to a bug in the system crash dump routines.  There have been serious
> problems restoring backups due to a failed tape drive -- we have gotten a
> loaner drive, but there may not be any recent viable backups of the
> archives.

Someone send a copy of Norton Disk Doctor...  UNIX?  Serves you right.  Never
use an OS which won't let you hack the disk, or give you file undelete!  Just
think what would happen if DOS or OS/2 kindly formatted your HD every time you
ran Windows!  What do you mean "it does!"?

-- 
+-----------------------------------------------+
| Marcus Bainbridge | marcus@guitar.demon.co.uk |
+-----------------------------------------------+

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

From: mebuchm@afterlife.ncsc.mil (Mitchell Buchman)
Subject: Re: Infomagic CD-ROM not so good ??
Reply-To: mebuchm@afterlife.ncsc.mil
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 18:23:11 GMT

        I knocked InfoMagic when they messed up with their Linux CD-ROM and
now that they have fixed it, I have to give them credit for that as well.
I received my replacement CD-ROM and now all is well.


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

From: iiitac@swan.pyr (Alan Cox)
Subject: Re: Linux Distributions and the Shadow Password Suite
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 20:25:01 GMT

In article <2hhe2m$2am@klaava.Helsinki.FI> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>I just read Richard Stallman's article regarding the GPL and CD-ROM
>distributions and felt now was the time for a note of my own regarding
>the inclusion of the Shadow Password Suite code into Linux.
STOP RIGHT THERE: I don't see any shadow password code in Linux, only in
some distributions of software containing Linux. Thats a very very important
difference. Moan about the CD-ROM distributions or the sites not carrying
proper copyright messages if there are any.
>
>Numerous FAQ postings state that Linux is distributed under the terms
>of the GNU General Public License.  As most Linux distributions which

'Linux Distributions'. Difference

>I am aware of contain significant quantities of code for which I am
>the copyright owner, this is a false statement.  The copyright which
No it's not. There isn't a line of your code in Linux, only in some install
sets people have gathered together - ITS NOT THE SAME.

>Note that only non-commercial distribution is permitted.  Resellers of
>Linux who are charging above and beyond the actual cost of transmission
>are violating the copyright.  This is as stated in the README file for
>3.2.3.
This can't be argued with, and hopefully they will stop immediately. BUT
IT ISN'T LINUX - ITS A DISTRIBUTION CONTAINING LINUX!!!!
>
>Linux which I authored.  In the meantime, I'd like it if the FAQ's would
>be amended to remove any claims that Linux as a whole is covered by the
>GPL.  From all indications, none of the most popular distributions are.

And I'd like any that have been changed put back. Any that say xx distribution
of Linux is all GPL'd material yes - Linux is not a Linux distribution any
more than the sunsite ftp archive is Linux because it has a Linux kernel
in the filestore

Alan


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

From: steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington)
Subject: Re: Setuid scripts under pl14 kernels
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 20:07:49 GMT

Nick Holloway (alfie@dcs.warwick.ac.uk) wrote:

 > Linux quite rightly disables setuid scripts.  There are just too many holes
 > waiting to be exploited (even if you do use /proc/self/fd).

That explains why I couldn't get 'em to work, either.

I have some stuff that has to be done suid root. I'd be perfectly happy to
write in C (actually, I'd prefer it to shell scripts, since I know C). I'd
prefer it a WHOLE lot over having to learn Perl.

What I don't have is any info about suid in general. It's not the sort of
thing that's covered in the basic Unix administration books you find in the
public library.

Is there a good reference you can recommend? Or is it just as simple as
chmod'ing the binary?

-- 
Steve Yelvington in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota USA <steve@thelake.mn.org>

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

From: michiel@fwi.uva.nl (Michiel v. Muiswinkel)
Subject: Open Interface libraries available?
Date: 19 Jan 1994 22:51:25 GMT
Reply-To: michiel@isytec.uucp, rkoopman@inter.nl.net

We are planning to develop an application using the Open Interface tool
of Neuron Data. It would be great to use Linux as the development platform.
This means we need the runtime libraries of Open Interface.
Are they available for Linux?
Please reply by email, we will summarize.
Thanx,

Michiel

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

From: dlj0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DAVID L. JOHNSON)
Subject: Re: Mathematica for Linux
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 20:31:52 GMT

In article <1994Jan18.012910.843@cathy.ijs.si>, Andrej.Bauer@ijs.si (Andrej Bauer) writes:
>Recently I have writen to WRI and enquired about their plans to
>port Mathematica to Linux. I got a reply (only a day afterwards)
>in which they explain that at present they do not intend to do that.
>
>However, the letter also said that my message will be forwarded
>to people who keep count of them. Perhaps we could increase
>the count for Linux. If you are interested in having Mathematica
>for Linux, you might write a fan-letter to info@wri.com, saying
>how nice it would be if they ported Mathematica to Linux.

On the other hand, I have been told that Maple Waterloo Software IS 
considering a port of Maple to linux.  It might also be helpful to send
fan-mail to them as well, so that they can see the size of the market.

Seeing as how Mma doesn't even yet have an OS/2 version (and the DOS version
will not run), we might have much better luck with Maple.

-- 

David L. Johnson                             ID:  dlj0@lehigh.edu
Department of Mathematics
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015       Telephone: 215-758-3759 (office)
                                                        215-828-3708 (home)
Linux, the people's unix.

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

From: snelson@ptdca2.intel.com (Shannon Nelson)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: Any way to watch a tty port?
Date: 19 Jan 1994 20:44:03 GMT

In article <CJvnF6.DDs@encore.com> tma@encore.com (Thanh Ma) writes:
>
>What is UPS, please ?
>

A UPS is an Uninterruptible Power Supply.  It is a device that has
batteries that can continue supplying power to delicate and/or mission
critical devices for a period of time during a general power blackout.  It
usually plugs into the regular power and keeps its own batteries charged
from that power.  It will notice a blackout and switchover to the batteries
to continue running.

Some important aspects to look for in a UPS are available load supply
versus battery time, recharge time, switching time, and sensitivity.
-- 
==============================================================================
Shannon Nelson              Portland Technology Development, Intel Corp.
snelson@ptd.intel.com       (503) 642-8149      I don't speak for Intel
                  Parents can't afford to be squeemish.
-- 
==============================================================================
Shannon Nelson              Portland Technology Development, Intel Corp.
snelson@ptd.intel.com       (503) 642-8149      I don't speak for Intel
                  Parents can't afford to be squeemish.

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

From: hm@seneca.ix.de (Harald Milz)
Subject: Re: serious comment about satan in /dev/mem
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 17:57:45 GMT
Reply-To: hm@seneca.ix.de

Jon Tombs (jon@robots.ox.ac.uk) wrote:
: > In article <2h62o4$j9t@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> derek@aivru.shef.ac.uk (Derek Jones) writes:
: > >
: > >I have done a strings /dev/mem | grep -i satan and as mentioned
: > >discovered a number of occurences. (not as many as the several hundred
: > >mentioned by a previous poster.) However, a couple that particularly made me
: > >sit up and look were the following (from a purely technical point of view):

: > Now what was it again that you typed in order to search for the string
: > "satan". Can you see any command that is now running with the string
: > satan in it? I can name two straight of, not counting how many times your
: > shell will hold the command line.

: > Try this

: > strings /dev/mem | grep -i "ThisIsAStupidExecise"

: > and see how many you get for that. 

: > The lack of :-)s in your post worries me that you might have been serious!

Yup, and the next thing those folks are gonna do is eliminate all files
with 666 perms ;-)

Ciao,
hm

-- 
Harald Milz (hm@seneca.ix.de)

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

From: tranter@Software.Mitel.COM (Jeff Tranter)
Subject: Re: SUN-OS floppies on Linux
Date: 19 Jan 94 14:18:56 GMT

In article <1994Jan17.075000.13563@surfcty.surfcty.com> chris@surfcty.surfcty.com (Chris D. Johnston) writes:

   Has anyone tried reading SUNOS floppies on Linux?
   I don't think there's a driver for it in the kernel.
   And to make matters worse, I am not enough of a programmer
   to write a device driver to do it.  This is why I ask the
   net :-)

   Anyone know of said drivers?

If you mean the 3.5" floppy drives on most Sun SPARC workstations,
then no device driver should be needed. They are compatible with
standard PC drives. I have had no problems transferring data on
floppies either using MS-DOS filesystems or tar. Using "mtools" on the
Sun is recommended is you use the DOS format.

If you want support for SunOS filesystem-formatted floppies under
Linux, that would be a different issue and would require kernel
changes.

Jeff
--
Jeff Tranter / Software Technology
Mitel Corporation, Kanata, Ontario, CANADA

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

From: locutus@hebron.connected.com (Preston Beach)
Subject: Need assistance with AHA-1522A SCSI card
Date: 19 Jan 1994 16:31:49 -0800

Dear Netland,
  I have a desire to run Linux SLS on my machine. Everything 'seems' to
be going alright except for one small problem.  Linux does not recognize
my SCSI card.  My card does work under DOS but that is not what I want.
If anyone has any idea what I can do short of buying another SCSI card,
to get my Adaptec AHA-1522A card to work, please let me know.  I would
prefer not to have to get another card but the option is there.
I have looked through alot of docs about hardware usable with Linux and
some of the Adaptec cards are listed, unfortunately, not this one.
I read in one doc that Adaptec 1522 IS supported but when I boot it says
there is no SCSI card.  If someone knows what configuration the card
needs to be (jumpers) let me know.
Please assist. Thanks in advance.
     -Preston

locutus@nightmare.connected.com

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

From: froh@devnull.adsp.sub.org (Frohwalt Egerer)
Subject: Re: fsck -A -a
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 1994 22:56:26 GMT

cemeier@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Meier) writes:

>In article <1994Jan9.190430.14161@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>,
>Adam Karpowicz <akarpowicz@mta.ca> wrote:
>>
>>I have a line in my rc "fsck -A -a" and fsck checks and repairs the fs
>>every time I boot Linux. It actually came like that with Slackware 1.1.0.
>>What worries me is that fsck always finds something to do on the drive
>>giving from a few to two screenfuls lines, such as:
>>Inode xxxx not used with links_count not null. Repair? Yes.
>>
>>Does that indicate a problem with hardware? partition? I do not want
>>to disable this, but it makes the booting time so much longer.
>>
>>Thanks for advice
>>
>>Adam Karpowicz   akarpowicz@mta.ca
>>

>Never trust a file checker to "fix" your file systems automatically.
>The -A option says to check all file systems, but the -a says go ahead
>and repair them if there is a problem.  Change the -a to -r for interactive
>repair.  The -a option is used in an example in the bootutils package.
>It should be changed to a -r there as well.

That won't solve his problem - fsck always find something to repair :-)

I have this behavior when I boot a kernel which contains an old e2fs. The
e2fs version of the kernel and the version of the e2fs-tools (as e2fsck) 
should match. The version numbers are displayed when e2fsck is starting and
when an e2fs partion is mounted. e2fsck 0.4 will repair partitions written by
e2fs 0.3 since some structures on the disk changed since then.

On the other hand, if the version numbers are the same, you might have some
serios problem. Are any errors displayed when Linux is running? Does MS-DOG
work fine? (for small amounts of 'work fine' ;-))

Froh
-- 
Frohwalt Egerer   Drausnickstr. 36   91052 Erlangen   Germany
froh@devnull.nbg.sub.org    (preferred)                               ///
ftegerer@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de                              ///
                                                                 \\\///
 Call by Reference: Throwing encylopedias at your kids until      \XX/ ECG 210
 they come to dinner.        -- L.W., R.S.: Programming Perl       Use Linux!

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

Crossposted-To: sci.math.symbolic
From: cfearnl@cpp.PHA.PA.US (Cristopher J. Fearnley)
Subject: Re: CAS for Linux (was Re: Mathematica for Linux)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 06:11:20 GMT

question about the best one for graphics.
Expires: 
References: <1994Jan18.012910.843@cathy.ijs.si> <2hgk7n$ona@info2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> <ARA.94Jan18150531@camelot.ai.mit.edu>
Sender: cfearnl@cpp.pha.pa.us <Chris Fearnley>
Followup-To: 
Distribution: world
Organization: Critical Path Project, Philadelphia
Keywords: 

In article <ARA.94Jan18150531@camelot.ai.mit.edu> ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
>
>You can use GAP, Macaulay and Jacal on Linux. They are all free.

I got the PARI/gp calculator from megrez.ceremab.u-bordeaux.fr.  It is a very
nice high precision calculator.  It has more functions than I'll ever need.
But I haven't used it under X yet, and I'm not sure it can do the graphics
I need.  I haven't got GAP yet (samson.math.rwth-aachen.de).  Nor MuPAD
(ftp.uni-paderborn.de:/pub/local/MuPAD).  But what are Macauley and Jacal and
where are they?  I also hearn of Maxima (supposedly available on sunsite and
mirrors.  Anyone know which is the best free one in terms of graphics
capabilities?

>
>Allan Adler
>ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu

Chris Fearnley
cpp.pha.pa.us


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

From: nm@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Neill Means)
Subject: Re: SpeedUp 4Mb -> 8Mb results
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 02:04:21 GMT

ucjtrjf@ucl.ac.uk (Jonny Farringdon) writes:

>Well, our machines came with 4MB, and 6 weeks later Acer sent us the extra
>4Mb we'd ordered.  The speedup was amazing. ..

>Linux (slackware Dec 93, 1.1.1?) AcerPower486SX-25

Ya, I upgraded from 4 meg to 8 recenttly too.
The performance boost was well worth it.  

SLS 1.x.x

Time to build complete kernel without network drivers:

4 meg            8 meg
=====            =====
90 mins           <30 mins

system   386/40 128k cache.  345 maxtor IDE drive.

For all of those out there who are not really sure...  You will be
amazed and wondered at the speedup in most things...





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

From: klm10@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Kenneth L Mitchell)
Subject: Re: Attach an X terminal *TO* a Linux box?
Date: 18 Jan 94 02:57:23 GMT
Reply-To: klm10@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Kenneth L Mitchell)

In article <boutellCJL042.26A@netcom.com> boutell@netcom.com (Thomas Boutell) writes:
>X-Original-Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
>
>In article <11594@blue.cis.pitt.edu>,
>Filip Gieszczykiewicz <filip@alpha.smi.med.pitt.edu> wrote:
>
>All this about cheap X-terminals raises an interesting question. Has
>anybody successfully connected an X-terminal to their Linux
>machine?

I have a 19" Mono NCD X Terminal connected to my Linux box.  I have it
connected via ethernet to a 3c503 in the PC.   NCD has an option called
Xremote which is supposed to help speed up X across a serial line. I think
this is similar to PPP, but I haven't played with it because my X-Terminal
doesn't have the Xremote PROMs installed.  I know it requires code
running on the Linux Box and code running via ROM on the X-terminal.


Ken

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


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