Subject: Linux-Development Digest #32
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, 16 Aug 94 13:13:25 EDT

Linux-Development Digest #32, Volume #2          Tue, 16 Aug 94 13:13:25 EDT

Contents:
  rpc.nfsd growing without bound in Linux 1.0 Slackware (Yermo Manfred Lamers)
  Vanishing Parallel Port (Arun Katkere)
  Re: screensaver halts my machine (Linus Torvalds)
  Re: setting textmode from program (Maarten Boekhold (Who'd you expect??))
  CDU31A/33A version 1.2 beta ready (Corey Minyard)
  SEARCH: Transputer-devicedriver (Kai Dittmann)
  Adaptec AHA2940W PCI SCSI-3 (John Clark)
  Re: Suggestion for Linux (Roth Mark Daniel)
  Re: 1.1.45 - symlink missing?? (Richard Lindner)
  Re: Accessing Sound/Sampling under Linux (Jeff Tranter)
  NN: incomplete MASTER file eroor (lcvanveen@et.tudelft.nl)
  PPP disconnect after timeout? (Daniel Verreault)
  Re: Future of Linux (Riku Saikkonen)
  Suggestion for Linux (Riku Saikkonen)
  Re: Suggest:SCSI Tape File System (Matthias Urlichs)
  Re: Suggestion for Linux (Matthias Urlichs)
  Re: Future of Linux (Phil Hughes)

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

From: yml@wam.umd.edu (Yermo Manfred Lamers)
Subject: rpc.nfsd growing without bound in Linux 1.0 Slackware
Date: 16 Aug 1994 12:47:53 GMT

I am running the old version of Slackware based around the Linux 1.0 kernel.

I have set up my system to export a couple of directories. Over time, as
the remote hosts use the files on my system, /usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd grows in
size (according to top).

Under some (as yet to be determined) circumstances, it grows much more
quickly and causes the system to thrash due to excessive swapping.

Has anyone observed this behavior? Is there a fix?

Please send replies to yml@radixii.com. I will post a summary.

thank you,

Yermo Lamers
yml@radixii.com
Radix II, Inc.


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

From: katkere@vision.ucsd.edu (Arun Katkere)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Vanishing Parallel Port
Date: 16 Aug 1994 08:07:43 GMT
Reply-To: katkere@ucsd.edu

Hi:

I am using using ioperm() and outb to write to and read from parallel port
LPT1 (0x378). This used to work fine on my previous SLS 99pl15 Linux. I have
since upgraded to a Slackware 2.0.0 (kernel 1.1.18) Linux and a 3c509
ethernet card. Now, this stuff no longer works.

What is stranger is that if I reboot the machine, parallel port no longer
shows up during BIOS self test. And I can't even write to the port from
DOS. If the turn off the machine and turn it back on and boot DOS instead of
Linux, I can write to the parallel port: So the parallel port still works.

I cannot figure out why Linux is not writing to the parallel port (it
recognizes it during the first boot) and why the parallel port doesn't show
up on reboots. Could it be the address/IRQ selection on 3c509 card? Since I
didn't have any opinions, I let the installation software choose an IRQ for
me. It came up with address 0x230, IRQ 3.

-arun
--
--
katkere@ucsd.edu
Visual Computing Lab
Office: (619)534-5935
<A HREF="http://vision.ucsd.edu/~katkere">Arun Katkere</A>

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

From: torvalds@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: screensaver halts my machine
Date: 16 Aug 1994 15:45:27 +0300

In article <32ocaf$oor@news.doit.wisc.edu>,
vaz <vaz@becks.astro.wisc.edu> wrote:
>
>Since kernel 0.99.14 I have an annoying problem: the screensaver buildt
>in the kernel simply halts my machine solid. If I don't disable it
>(setterm -blank 0), the machine hangs in the same way as it does with
>any graphics application, as soon as the screensaver enters in action.
>Only a RESET can make it alive again. The wd90c33 chipset is going to
>be fully supported in the coming XFree86[TM]-3.1 (Article 10315 of
>comp.windows.x.i386unix :-), but I guess my problem is at an even lower level.
>
>Does anyone else have this experience? Is there any way to allow
>the screensaver to work properly?

The usual reason why the screen blanking can fail is that the screen
blanking routines use long-word accesses when copying the screen memory
to kernel memory (and back) when doing the screen save and restore
operations.  And it should work perfectly ok on a good graphics card:
but there have been a few reports of it failing - mostly due to bad
hardware timings that make the bus confused when moving data that fast. 

Note that if you get this every time it blanks, you might get it when
scrolling too: the scrolling routines ordinarily just set the screen
origins to move the image on the screen, but they have to do a "hard
scroll" ever once in a while.  The memory accesses are different in this
case, though (scr->scr rather than scr->mem or mem->scr), so that may be
why it seems to work for you. 

Anyway, what you may test is to do the screen blank/unblank with a
slower routine that uses word-wide accesses for copying instead of the
current "memcpy()" (which will do the long-word copies).  Look in
linux/drivers/char/console.c, notably the get_scrmem() and set_scrmem()
functions.  You might want to change the "memcpy()" into "memcpy_video()",
and write your own memcpy_video() something like this:

        void memcpy_video(unsigned short * to, unsigned short * from, int count)
        {
                do {
                        *to = *from;
                        to++; from++;
                        count -= 2;
                } while (count > 0);
        }

That *might* help. 

If it does help, please mail me saying so (and include this article just
as a reminder of what I said - I try to keep as little state around in
my head as possible)

                Linus

PS.  The above is not tested, and you may have to work on it a bit.  It
should give you enough to go on, though. 


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

Subject: Re: setting textmode from program
From: boekhold@morra.et.tudelft.nl (Maarten Boekhold (Who'd you expect??))
Date: 16 Aug 94 14:21:58 +0200

Dominik Kubla (kubla@dagobert.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE) wrote:
> Nope! Currently this is not possible! all the kernel does at boot time
> is setting the req. video mode via BIOS call while still in real-mode.

> But be patient, i am working on this subject ...

But it must be easy to just save the old mode, set the new (in hardware 
registers), and, at vc-switch, set the appropriate parameters (ie. old 
mode on 'switch_from' and new mode on 'switch_to'). This is essentially 
what svgalib does too, am I right? Only the correct register-settings are 
not known to svgalib (btw. How's the story on svgalib-programs having to 
be setuid root? still true?)

Maarten
boekhold@morra.et.tudelft.nl

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

From: minyard@crchh7b9 (Corey Minyard)
Subject: CDU31A/33A version 1.2 beta ready
Date: 16 Aug 1994 13:54:48 GMT
Reply-To: minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

The version 1.2 of the CDU31A driver is ready.  The patch fixes some problems
with reading audio and raw data sectors.  Now, you can actually read audio
sectors.

The patch is on sunsite.unc.edu in pub/Linux/Incoming and is named
cdu31a-1.2.diff.gz.  It is relative to the 1.1 patch; you will need to get
that, too, if you haven't already.  The 1.1 patch is in the same place.

If you try this out, please send me mail telling me how it worked, even
if it works ok.  Note that this is beta code; use it at your own risk.

If everything works ok, I'll send the patches to Linux.  I don't know if
he will put it in the 1.2.0 release, but 1.3.1 shouldn't be a problem.

Corey
minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

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

Date: 15 Aug 1994 17:14:00 +0200
From: k.dittmann@wizzard.ping.de (Kai Dittmann)
Subject: SEARCH: Transputer-devicedriver

Hello ...

Is there any Devicedriver for Transputer outside ?
I want to use my TRAM-Network under Slackware 2.0.0

Please give me some FTP-Sites or any other solutions, whrer i can get this  
driver...


thanks in advance
---KAI

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Kai Dittmann, Bochum, Germany  -  e-Mail: k.dittmann@wizzard.ping.de  |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
## CrossPoint v3.0 ##

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

From: clarkjc@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (John Clark)
Subject: Adaptec AHA2940W PCI SCSI-3
Date: 16 Aug 1994 14:17:02 GMT

Is anyone working on a driver for the Adaptec AHA2940W PCI SCSI-3 controller?
If you haven't heard of it and don't think SCSI-3 is out yet, check the Zenon
ad in _Computer Shopper_....  I know 40 MB/sec makes my head spin...

- John

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

From: roth@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Roth Mark Daniel)
Subject: Re: Suggestion for Linux
Date: 16 Aug 1994 14:35:12 GMT

datadec@corsa.ucr.edu (Kevin Marcus) writes:

>In article <32olv5$2r9@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu>,
>David A. Ranch <dranch@ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
>>In article <32nq3f$b8u@eccdb1.pms.ford.com>,
>>B Nivi (Babak)/9409 <bnivi@eth234.eld.ford.com> wrote:
>>
>>>the shell.  So if I type c-a-t j-ESCAPE, I will see
>>>
>>>cat junk.gs
>>
>>ksh - hit ESC twice
>>sh, csh, tcsh, bash - hit TAB

>tcsh also has escape twice, I've not tried TAB before.
>Be sure to type, "set filec" for filename completion before trying, that
>might be the problem you're experiencing... 

tcsh will complete with TAB regardless of any variables.  csh will not
complete with TAB, but ESC will work if "filec" is set.

-- 
roth@uiuc.edu | Mark D. Roth | http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~mr4342/mark.html
     (GEEK CODE 2.1) GCS d-- H+ s++:- g+ p1>4+ !au a-- w++@ v-(*)
        C++>$ UL+>++++ P--- L++>+++ 3 E(-) N++ K++ W--- M-- V-
   po Y+ t++@ 5+ !j R-- G tv b+ D+ B--- e+(*) u+@ h>++ f+ r@ n+@ y?

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

From: rjl@spectre.apana.org.au (Richard Lindner)
Subject: Re: 1.1.45 - symlink missing??
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 14:20:04 GMT

Richard Lindner (rjl@spectre.apana.org.au) wrote:
: there seems to be a symbolic link missing/misplaced from the 1.1.45 kernel
: tree to the /usr/include directories.

: the directory /usr/include/asm is linked to /usr/src/linux/include/asm - this
: results in files not found when 'make config-ing'. the correct symbolic link
: is from /usr/include/asm to /usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386 - resetting that
: link solves the problem. 

oops - make that 'make dep-ing' that gives the errors.

-- 
Richard Lindner - System Manager        Upper Murray Public Access Unix
rjl@spectre.apana.org.au                PO Box 1555, Wodonga, Vic. 3689, Oz
Data: 060 208773   Fax: 060 562105      Voice: 060 562072 (bh) 060 208813 (ah)

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

From: tranter@Software.Mitel.COM (Jeff Tranter)
Subject: Re: Accessing Sound/Sampling under Linux
Date: 16 Aug 1994 10:55:58 -0400

In article <32gj26$mm5@owl.csrv.uidaho.edu> hanks891@raven.csrv.uidaho.edu (Hanks Bryan) writes:
>
>       I am currently going to start a project that requires the
>use of the sound card.  Both for playback and sampling.  My question
>is how can I access these features for "C" code, and what is the
>proper way to access "/dev/audio" or what ever I am suppose to
>use for a device.

The best document is the Hacker's Guide to Voxware, available from
nic.funet.fi in /pub/OS/linux/ALPHA/sound. It's currently just a
draft, but it is quite useful.

Also check the Sound HOWTO (available on
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO); it has a number of
references to other documentation that might help you out.
-- 
Jeff Tranter                                      Jeff_Tranter@Mitel.COM
Software Technology, Mitel Corporation

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

From: lcvanveen@et.tudelft.nl
Subject: NN: incomplete MASTER file eroor
Date: 16 Aug 94 16:59:24 +0200

After hours of trying and trying I finally gave up on NN.
I've even installed ELM to get some scripts to run,
and tried to find something on how to let NN use a
remote newsserver, but still I get an 'incomple MASTER file'
every time I start NN.
Yes, I tried nnmaster -I 400 before I tried nn. That did'nt
help either. The nn I use comes from the slackware 2.xx dist.
Any help available out there?
Thanks a lot in advance.

Martijn.

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

From: verreaul@proeng.com (Daniel Verreault)
Subject: PPP disconnect after timeout?
Date: 16 Aug 1994 15:42:49 GMT

Greetings -

  A nice feature for Linux PPP would be to have the PPP link
disconnect itself after a certain inactivity period (for expensive
pay-per-minute links).  Is there any plans to add this in a future
version, or am I missing something?  (work-around, trick, rtfm, etc).

Daniel Verreault
verreaul@proeng.com


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

Subject: Re: Future of Linux
From: riku.saikkonen@compart.fi (Riku Saikkonen)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 94 18:49:00 +0200

>   What Linux needs are a better graphical interface and editing tools.
>Apart from this it has to have a better facility for printing so that
>more printer drivers can be supported. The main problem is that it is a

Huh? Ghostscript supports quite a lot of drivers (and can be made to
support others...), and almost any Unix printing program can print
PostScript. What's the problem?

>aiming at these needs. Imagine how one would create a word processing
>system like MSWord or Ami Pro?  There are brilliant programmers who
>created nice utilities falling short of an integrated package that will do
>a lot of things.

Emacs?

>   It owuld be nice if people create large long term projects to give
>Linux decent software that can be given out or sold for small profit to go
>back to the development of more software. A limited commercialism in this
>sense with the money to support programmers and the development of this

With even limited commercialism, there is the large problem of greed...
'Hey, I wrote this for 6 months, shouldn't I charge at least $200?!'

>   1- Companies selling Linux CDs and support. They should be asked to
>      donate a part of their income back into Linux development.

Which company would do such a thing? I.e. what is their gain? Linux is
free (and I sincerely hope that it will remain that way)...

>   2- Projects should be started and co-ordinated by talented people so
>      that programmers can contribute to this in an integrated manner.

This has been done many times on a smaller scale on the Net already...

>   3- Linux users should be encouraged to become members of a Global
>      Linux Club and membership fee will beused to support programmers
>      working on Linux Software Projects.

Hmm... This idea I might like. Just keep an option of a small membership
fee - for example, I think I would join the FSF if the fee wasn't so
high.

>for Linux is (1) a decent object-oriented filemanager for X windows and

Hmm... Never did like the MS-Windows file manager. I much prefer the
commandline - and in that any decent Unix shell wins over MS-DOS
anytime...

>(2) A powerful word processing with GUI interface for Linux. These two

Many would argue that the TeX/emacs combination is better than a GUI
word processor. It's just that the MS-Windows people are too used to
GUIs...

>This will make Linux a home UNIX system for many "better than average"
>computer user.

Hmm... What I think would be an important thing to get for Linux is a
bit better documentation. Now, the manpages aren't always applicable to
the current versions, some features aren't documented, ...

And, I think, a more simple setup facility than the current
edit-random_:)-files one.

-=- Rjs -=- riku.saikkonen@compart.fi - IRC: Rjs
"In every meal, and in every word and song they found delight. The very
breathing of the air became a joy no less sweet because the time of their
stay was short." - J.R.R. Tolkien

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

Subject: Suggestion for Linux
From: riku.saikkonen@compart.fi (Riku Saikkonen)
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 94 18:49:00 +0200

>Now, I don't know if this is a function of the shell, the OS

The shell.

>or what but if at any point in the shell I type in the letter
>j followed by an escape key, I will see the filename junk.gs in
>the shell.  So if I type c-a-t j-ESCAPE, I will see
>cat junk.gs

Try TAB... Most shells (at least bash and tcsh) work with it.

-=- Rjs -=- riku.saikkonen@compart.fi - IRC: Rjs
"In every meal, and in every word and song they found delight. The very
breathing of the air became a joy no less sweet because the time of their
stay was short." - J.R.R. Tolkien


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

From: urlichs@smurf.noris.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Suggest:SCSI Tape File System
Date: 16 Aug 1994 17:45:35 +0200

[ THERE IS NO SUCH NEWSGROUP AS COMP.OS.LINUX. ]

In comp.os.linux.development, article <32nmqi$dtm@styx.uwa.edu.au>,
  cjcason@yarrow.wt.uwa.edu.au (Christopher Cason) writes:
> Chris Burke (clb@prism.mindware.brisnet.org.au) wrote:
> : I have been pondering a bit and have worked out a reasonable way to allow
> : a mountable file system for high speed tapes. 
> 
> I think this is an excellent idea. Anyone else have any comments ???
> 
Yes.

Use an userfs (or NFS, if you must...) program to access the tape and to
cache the data. This avoids much kernel hacking, debugging is a lot easier,
and the speed is dominated by the tape anyway.

In fact, you could start with the existing userfs program which accesses
tar and/or tar.gz files; add a cache for files and directories; add a cache
for gzip state so you don't have to start at the beginning for every file
... that sort of thing.

-- 
Judgment Day is not a thing that can be delayed overlong.
                                        -- Roger Zelazny
-- 
Matthias Urlichs        \ XLink-POP N|rnberg  | EMail: urlichs@smurf.noris.de
Schleiermacherstra_e 12  \  Unix+Linux+Mac    | Phone: ...please use email.
90491 N|rnberg (Germany)  \   Consulting+Networking+Programming+etc'ing     42

Click <A HREF="http://smurf.noris.de/~urlichs/finger">here</A>.

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

From: urlichs@smurf.noris.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Suggestion for Linux
Date: 16 Aug 1994 17:58:46 +0200

In comp.os.linux.development, article <32nq3f$b8u@eccdb1.pms.ford.com>,
  bnivi@eth234.eld.ford.com (B Nivi (Babak)/9409) writes:
> 
> [ shell filename completion with ESC on HPs ]
> 
> Just a suggestion for something that can be
> implemented in Linux:  let me know what you think.
> 
You're in the wrong newsgroup; try comp.unix.shells.
Followups are redirected there.

ESC is a stupid character to use for this; use TAB instead.

Surprise: bash already does this. So does ksh and tcsh if you
manage to configure them correctly.

Your username may cause problems -- nested comments are ugly.
Tell your mailer to use "B Nivi (Babak)/9409 <bnivi@eth234.eld.ford.com>"
(without the quotes (of course)) instead.

-- 
A friend of a friend was horrified to find out, at the age of twenty-five,
that his life line was extremely short.  When he tried to lengthen it (with
his trusty Victorinox) he bled to death.
-- 
Matthias Urlichs        \ XLink-POP N|rnberg  | EMail: urlichs@smurf.noris.de
Schleiermacherstra_e 12  \  Unix+Linux+Mac    | Phone: ...please use email.
90491 N|rnberg (Germany)  \   Consulting+Networking+Programming+etc'ing     42

Click <A HREF="http://smurf.noris.de/~urlichs/finger">here</A>.

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

From: fyl@eskimo.com (Phil Hughes)
Subject: Re: Future of Linux
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 14:46:17 GMT

Robert A. Hayden (hayden@vorlon.mankato.msus.edu) wrote:
: Russell Nelson mumbled something like:
: >       3- Linux users should be encouraged to become members of a Global 
: >      Linux Club and membership fee will beused to support programmers
: >      working on Linux Software Projects.

: > These are excellent ideas, but don't you think you're biting off a
: > little bit much?  Any one of these ideas is going to take you quite a
: > effort to implement.  Maybe you should just pick one of them and run
: > with it?

: Actually, #3 seems like it is about time.  If there was a GOOD gloabl
: registry of people, closely coordinated with Linux Journal, CD
: Distributors, and the kernel developers, it would go a long way to showing
: the numbers of people.  This is important because numbers is what big
: companies like Word Perfect or Micro$oft look at to determine whether they
: want to develop for that platform. 

: In addition, buy charging a small fee (say $10-$20 US), one could build up
: a small slush-fund to do two things

: A)    offset any costs for running the organization (connection costs,
:       snail-mailing, equipment if necessary, etc)
: B)    Distribute remaining funds to utility developers as a sort of 
:       pay-back for all the thankless work they've done.  Very likely, 
:       the rate wouldn't be much, and it would have to be based on some
:       kind of popular voting mechanism of what the users find useful, so
:       that very useful programs get a larger payback than worthless ones. 

: Because all funds are dispersed, it could operate as a non-profit 
: organization.  The only real operating costs would be for connectivity 
: (schools get cranky if you run a business on their networks :-) but some 
: additional for manpower and equipment if needed.

: Hell, I'd be more than willing to look into this if people are 
: interested.  I'm not sure offhand the BEST way to start, but if people 
: are interested I can let you know...

I just want everyone to know that Linux Journal is willing to help in any
way we can.  The most obvious and probably most important is to document
what is happening so others can find out.  Whoever is doing something,
whatever you are doing, just keep us informed.  We are always looking for
events, press releases and articles.

If you have an article idea or want an author's guide, send e-mail to
ljeditor@sunsite.unc.edu.  If you have an event you want published, send
the info to linux@ssc.com.  Remember, we are a magazine.  Allow for lead
time.  But, the benefit is that 20,000 copies of the article (25,000 for
the October issue) will end up in the hands of people interested in Linux
 -- many of whom do not (yet) have Internet access.

--
Phil Hughes, Publisher, Linux Journal (206) 527-3385
usually phil@fylz.com, sometimes fyl@eskimo.com

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


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