Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #137
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:     Fri, 20 May 94 00:13:17 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #137, Volume #2                Fri, 20 May 94 00:13:17 EDT

Contents:
  Linux Journal #2 in Australia? (Rick)
  Distributions (IMHO) (Disaster prone simpleton)
  SUMMARY: Database needed (Jorge Gustavo Rocha)
  Re: Standard Linux GUI (Jonathan A Buzzard)
  Re: shutdown problem (Thomas Quinot)
  Re: Why does GW2K P90 fail installation? (Rafael E Herrera-bendezu)
  Re: Standard Linux GUI (Byron A Jeff)
  Re: Standard Linux GUI (Edwin Ramirez)
  Re: COMAL language (was: Re: Streets named after programming languages) (Miguel Carrasquer)
  Bad experience with Storage USA (Michael Yip)
  Re: Why does GW2K P90 fail installation? (T.C. Zhao)
  Re: Wait'll you see the May 16th PCWEEK... (Peter Desnoyers)
  Re: URGENT: Linux Security Fixes (John Lellis)
  Re: Keeping data structures in memory (David Monro)

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

Crossposted-To: aus.computers.linux
From: pclink@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au (Rick)
Subject: Linux Journal #2 in Australia?
Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 00:50:45 GMT

Anybody in Oz got their LJ#2 yet?  The dissapointment at the end of the
day, racing home from work and checking the mailbox, is getting too
much to bear.  Yesterday, a sob escaped my lips when opening my mbox
revealed nothing save a Bankcard bill.  Have I been forsaken?  Have I
slipped from LJ's mailing list?  Or has it not yet reached our fair
shore?

Rick.

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

Subject: Distributions (IMHO)
From: m91dps@ecs.ox.ac.uk (Disaster prone simpleton)
Date: 17 May 94 22:35:03 BST

I would argue that Linux distributions are good for quite a lot of people.
Like me for example. Sure if I had 100s of discs I could download everything
and it would take me a rather long time to do it. Distributions on disc
(or packaged into seperate discs) save a lot of time and effort... I
am using a very old SLS (1.03 I think) massively upgraded. I am sure it
would have taken much longer to download everything and install it myself
. Upgrading and fixing a distribution to ones taste is easier and faster than
installing everything by hand...

BTW my software is mostly fairly up-to-date.

Duncan (-:



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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: jgr@di.uminho.pt (Jorge Gustavo Rocha)
Subject: SUMMARY: Database needed
Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 09:00:18 GMT

Hi,

Here is the SUMMARY about the existing databases running on Linux.

All (except INFORMIX, of $$$ course) are at  
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/apps/databases

1) Metalbase

2) Postgres

3) ingres

4) INFORMIX
Note: Linux supports in some degree executables from other Unixes running
in intel family. This is supported by the ibcs package founded at the usual
places. With ibcs, it is possible to run the INFORMIX distribution for SCO
on top of Linux! To obtain INFORMIX you have to ....

I can't post a summary with detailed information about them all, or this  
SUMMARY never be delivered.

Jorge.
--
Jorge Gustavo Rocha                   Email jgr@di.uminho.pt
============================================================
Departamento de Inform'atica              Tel +351 53 604461
Universidade do Minho                     Fax +351 53 612954
4700 Braga 
PORTUGAL                                    NeXTmail welcome
-- 


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

From: phyjab1@phyd2c1.caledonia.hw.ac.uk (Jonathan A Buzzard)
Subject: Re: Standard Linux GUI
Reply-To: phyjab1@phyd2c1.caledonia.hw.ac.uk (Jonathan A Buzzard)
Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 15:19:01 GMT


--

>If anyone is really interested in building a MOTIF compatable library, I
>suggest
>they start by looking at the FWF Widgets which have all the 3D effects, RowCol
>Widgets etc and only miss the Drag&Drop which however can be simply implemented
>from rdd.tar.Z. It provides very professional looking GUI's.
>
>See
>       a.cs.uiuc.edu /pub/FWF
>
>Mitch

Have you ever tried the Xw widget set? It bears a striking resembelance to Motif, in fact I believe that the 3D look used by Motif is in fact copyright Hewlett-Packard, the very people who originaly provided the Xw widget set which appears to pre-date Motif. The header files also bear a striking resemblance to those of Motif.

JAB.

PS. Here is an old posting to c.o.l.a on the Xw widget set for interest.

|From: wpwood@darkwing.austin.ibm.com
|Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
|Subject: HP Widget source for Linux
|Date: 2 May 1993 10:53:38 +0300
|Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Lars Wirzenius)
|Message-ID: <1rvum2INNomm@hydra.Helsinki.FI>
|
|I just uploaded the source to the HP Widget set, compilable with gcc,
|to tsx-11.mit.edu.  Several people had asked me about it after I
|mentioned in a post that I had gotten it to compile and that it would
|be a good place to start creating a Motif-compatible free widget set.
|       It has several bugs that I have not gotten around to trying to
|track down.  For instance, selecting text in a TextEdit widget doesn't
|display a continuous highlight, rather there are unhighlighted vertical
|lines.  But all in all, it's pretty good.
|       Really, I've done nothing to the source except modified some
|of the header files that gcc chokes on.  It does compile, but I have
|*not* tested it to any degree.
|       Anyway, good luck !!!!
|
|--
|<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
|Bill Woodward        | wpwood@austin.ibm.com   <-- Try this first
|AIX Software Support | billw@aixwiz.austin.ibm.com  
|Graphics Group       | 512-838-2834
|I am the terror that flaps in the night.
|

===============================================================================
Jonathan A. Buzzard,              
Physics Department,           Email:-
Heriot-Watt University,            phyjab1@caledonia.hw.ac.uk   InterNet
Edinburgh. EH14 4AS                phyjab1@uk.ac.hw.clust       JANET
United Kingdom.

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

From: thomas@melchior.frmug.fr.net (Thomas Quinot)
Subject: Re: shutdown problem
Date: 18 May 1994 19:50:42 +0200

Paul Lew (paullew@crl.com) wrote:
: entering: shutdown -h 2
: response:  usage, etc.

: finally just powered off.  Is there a basic trick or some other thing
: I should do?  I was logoned as root but get the usage, etc no matter
: what switch is entered.

: gotta to be something simple!
RTFM :-((

And try "shutdown -h +2"

-- 
ThoThoThoThoTho
        Totolitoto !

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

From: raffo+@pitt.edu (Rafael E Herrera-bendezu)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Why does GW2K P90 fail installation?
Date: 19 May 94 15:33:12 GMT

In article <2re9h1$rlb@menudo.uh.edu>, svec5@menudo.uh.edu (T.C. Zhao) writes:
> In article <2qrjkc$gom@tuba.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Luke M Kaven <lmk6@crux1.cit.cornell.edu> wrote:
> >Further word on this is that the CMOS PROM reports the correct
> >geometry for the Conner 540MB IDE drive.  The problem is that
...
> I have a similar problem with G2K P5-66 system and haven't been
> able to make linux work. I was able to to pass the boot/root
...
> >2) Is there some way I can use a LILO command to respecify the 
> >geometry to the correct parameters during boot up?

I had a similar problem when I was trying to install LILO, it was getting the
wrong geometry an the kernel would panic. Some time ago someone asking the 
same question as you guys found a solution that worked for me (I hace a 
Gateway Pentium P5-66).

Go to the CMOS setup program and change the line the hard disk 
configuration:
If it says:

Drive C: Type   : AUTO-CONFIG   1048    16   63   516 MB

Change it to:

Drive C: Type   : USER TYPE 1   1048    16   63   516 MB

> >at a loss for where to go from here.  [I was smart enough to get
> >the ATI-GUP rather than the MATROX, but I didn't know what to do
> >about the disk controller and the disk.]

Unfortunately I did buy the MATROX card and now I'm only able to 
run the 16 color 800x600 X server. :-(
-- 
===============================================
Rafael E. Herrera      University of Pittsburgh
raffo@pitt.edu         Pittsburgh, PA
                       USA

Office:    (412)692-6193 (412)624-5801
FAX:       (412)692-5138
===============================================

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

From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff)
Subject: Re: Standard Linux GUI
Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 16:30:09 GMT

In article <1994May18.175007.16044@n5ial.mythical.com>,
Jim Graham <jim@n5ial.mythical.com> wrote:
>In article <2ravu1$8gm@panix.com> aappel@panix.com (Andrew Appel) writes:
>
>>Is it just me or does anybody else feel that what the Linux (UNIX) 
>>community needs is a SINGLE, STANDARD, ONLY ONE, Graphical User Interface 
>>(GUI)?
>
>Yeah, right....  People have different likes/dislikes, and right now, they
>have a choice.  That, IMHO, is how it should be.  Also, I seriously doubt
>that any of the standard-making bodies are going to form a committee to
>publish a standard GUI just for Linux...for UNIX in general, perhaps, but
>not just for Linux.

I though I was going to have to write this myself because no one seemed to
be interested in arguing the point. Standard GUI's limit the flexibility
of the system and its applications.

Matt Welsh and I have been having an ongoing discussion about how to
introduce new users to the power of Linux. His position is that new users
should learn Unix/Linux in all it's current complex glory. I favor adding
some type of online interface to ease the transisition. However I'm pretty
sure we both agree that limited and standardizing is not the way to go.

Linux is not for the average user. It's for users that are willing to take
the time to learn the system in order to use it effectively. Permanently
dropping a watered down so that it's easy to use interface will limit
the potential of the system (See Matt, I have been listening! ;-)

There's no need for a standard GUI. X plus the applications that run under
Linux now, plus 15 different window managers, plus TCL all add something to
the complex and very powerful mix that we call Linux. 

The problem with generalizing and standardizing is this:

"There are exceptions to every generalization, including this one!"

Might I suggest however that we hone a subset for people to start out with
just so they can get familiar with how things work. It should be powerful
enough so that the average user could use it for a lifetime, just enough
so that users can wade in the kiddie pool for awhile and get used to the
water. Then you provide enough documentation and applications that a user
can build an environment to suit their needs.

For some reason a lot of folks have picked up the old business mold when
it comes to using computers: "Conform to the system, or get out!" People
use computers, not the other way around. Not everyone uses a machine the
same way. We need the complexity and diversity we have now so that users can 
benefit by being able to customize things the way they see fit.

>
>Btw, there is a {de facto} standard interface for X11 under UNIX---Motif.
>I, personally, don't like Motif, and don't use it here, but it is a
>{de facto} standard, just the same.

And the worst part about it is that it costs real money.

>
>>Unfortunately, due to the lack of any real (FREE) standards,
>
>Are you suggesting that it has to be free to be a standard?  Or are you
>just wanting a standard that happens to be free?  If you're suggesting
>that it has to be free to be a standard, welcome to the real world...it
>doesn't always work that way.  :-(
>
>>the reality is that Microsoft Windows, 
>>Macintosh, and NextStep are all standard GUIs

The reality is that many of us power users can't stand Microsoft Windows,
Macintosh, and NextStep for exactly that reason: In an effort to simplify
and standardize they had to make compromises in the interface that I'm 
personally not willing to accept. I don't use them. I use Linux. 'nuff said.

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: Edwin Ramirez <ramirez@mchip00.med.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: Standard Linux GUI
Date: 17 May 1994 19:02:22 GMT

In article <2rb3e3$bbj@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> Highlander,
tabaer@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu writes:
>Well, OpenLook is freely available, but it's not too hot of an interface
IMHO.
>Maybe people can be convinced to standardize in Tcl/Tk, or the Notif
>project if anything comes of it (not intended as a slam, I just haven't
>heard if any progress has been made).

        Having used Tcl/Tk for a while, I would propose it as a standard.  There
is a large user base and many programs and utilities are available for
it.  There are also people working on ports for MS-Windows and Macintosh.
 Also, its creator Dr. Ousterhout has gone to work for Sun, (Tcl/Tk
related projects).  The software will remain in available freely and it
is also Motif compliant.

Thanks
Edwin Ramirez

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

Crossposted-To: alt.folklore.computers
From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: COMAL language (was: Re: Streets named after programming languages)
Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 22:52:34 GMT

In article <CpyopI.9ot@festival.ed.ac.uk>,
A Myles <ajmy@festival.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>Seemingly COMAL was one of, if not the, standard language that that course
>used. This may explain the BBC micro port. Many of the BBCs in our school
>certainly had COMAL interpreters. From what I ever saw of it, it reminded
>me of LOGO.

LOGO? Wasn't COMAL supposed to be a cross of BASIC and PASCAL?
Just curious...


-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 

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

From: myip@wellfleet.com (Michael Yip)
Subject: Bad experience with Storage USA
Date: 19 May 1994 15:33:55 GMT
Reply-To: myip@wellfleet.com



Hi there,

I just want to warn those of you who are shopping around for a hard drive.
I just had an extremely bad experience with a salesman named John (salesperson
number 100012) from a company called Storage USA which I pick out from Computer
Shopper.

I started my inquiry about the availability of any Seagate 200MB SCSI hard drive.
He indicated that they only have SCSI-2 and that the smallest Seagate SCSI-2 drive
they have available is 3.5" 343MB 12ms for $359 and the next higher up is a 
3.5" 456MB 12ms for $459.  I specifically asked if a SCSI-2 drive will work 
with my Adaptec 1542 SCSI controller.   He said yes, but slower.  Since I already
have a Maxtor drive on my 386, I asked for a comparable Maxtor drive.  He indicated
that they have one 3.5" 540MB 12ms Maxtor drive for $375.  Naturally, I was very
surprised.  It seemed like a deal I cannot refuse.  I asked him to repeat the 
Maxtor specification twice.  And twice he mentioned that it is a 
3.5" 540MB 12ms Maxtor drive for $375.  So I ordered it.

Just a moment ago I received my drive. Guess what?  It was an IDE drive.  My blood
presure went through the roof and I called them right back and good old John answered the
phone.  He denied ever made any mistake and that was THE drive I had ordered yesterday.
He denied ever engage in any SCSI type conversation and SCSI controller conversation.
What?  Am I stupid enough to order an IDE drive for my Adaptec 1542 SCSI controller?
He said they have one available with 8.5ms for around $100 bucks more and said that
he can ship it out today.  He asked that I ship the existing drive back to him at my
expense.  Why the hell should I do that?  At someone else mistakes?  I left a voice mail
at his manager office and so far no response.

So if you are buying a hard drive from this company, make sure you record you conversation
or ask for another person.  Think about it, you should record the conversation in any case.

---
Michael Yip
Wellfleet Communications, Inc.                  Email: myip@wellfleet.com
2 Federal Street                                Voice: (508)436-3847
Billerica, MA 01821                             FAX:   (508)670-8760


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

From: svec5@menudo.uh.edu (T.C. Zhao)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Why does GW2K P90 fail installation?
Date: 18 May 1994 18:48:49 -0500

In article <2qrjkc$gom@tuba.cit.cornell.edu>,
Luke M Kaven <lmk6@crux1.cit.cornell.edu> wrote:
>Further word on this is that the CMOS PROM reports the correct
>geometry for the Conner 540MB IDE drive.  The problem is that
>(hd.c) reports incorrectly that the drive has 32 heads and
>then gives up on it.  
>

I have a similar problem with G2K P5-66 system and haven't been
able to make linux work. I was able to to pass the boot/root
and installation by specifying the disk parameters at the
boot: prompt. But when booting generated kernel image after
installation, the same message appears, ie., 32 heads etc
and causes a kernel panic. This time there is no place to specify
the correct geometry of the disk.


>1) Is there a problem with the PCI IDE controller in the Gateway 2000?
>Pentium system?
>
From what I can gather,  hd.c failed to detect the hard geometry
and it must be attributed to the PCI IDE controller.

>2) Is there some way I can use a LILO command to respecify the 
>geometry to the correct parameters during boot up?
>
I surely hope so, but not aware of any. If you are able to
make your system work under Linux, Please let me know.

>We are using a Slackware release (current as of last week).
>PLEASE help...people around here really don't think Linux will
>work, and I don't want to prove them correct.  But I am completely
>at a loss for where to go from here.  [I was smart enough to get
>the ATI-GUP rather than the MATROX, but I didn't know what to do
>about the disk controller and the disk.]
>
>Signed, Desperate Linux Supporter
>
-- 
T.C. - Starving Physicist

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

From: peterd@pjd.dev.cdx.mot.com (Peter Desnoyers)
Subject: Re: Wait'll you see the May 16th PCWEEK...
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 12:57:06 GMT

ps@kis.uni-freiburg.de (Peter Suetterlin) writes:

>Ok, I have (had?) a big hope that the work Novell puts into Linux will
>spread it to more and more people and help all of us. But if they are
>*really* trying to do what many people seem to fear, namely violating
>the GPL, we will have to show that we are a community and collect the
>$$'s to pay the lawyers to defend our rights.

I just wanted to point out that the GPL has come head-to-head with
corporate lawyers at least once before (NeXT's Objective-C compiler)
and the GPL won. (I don't know whether it was a sudden fit of ethics,
or they were afraid that a competitor might pay the FSF's legal bill,
or what...)

Also, as someone has pointed out, Novell has little interest in
breaking the "shrink-wrap" part of the GPL - they depend on this sort
of license for their own proprietary software.

                                Peter Desnoyers
-- 

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

From: lellis@igate.com (John Lellis)
Subject: Re: URGENT: Linux Security Fixes
Date: 19 May 1994 20:57:15 GMT

Alan Cox (A.Cox@swansea.ac.uk) wrote:
: Linux security warning
: ----------------------

: Almost all Linux machines are vulnerable to an old BSD trick giving
: telnet/rlogin access as any user with no password. A fixed telnetd/rlogind
: pair along with an lpr/lpc/lpd set of utilities with other smaller but vital
: security fixes is now on

:       sunacm.swan.ac.uk:/pub/Linux/Networking/URGENT/security.tgz

: This tar contains both source and binaries built for libc 4.5.21 without
: shadow passwords. The source can build for shadow passwords.

Unfortunately, the binaries supplied give a library mismatch error on my
system (SLS 1.03 running 1.0.0 kernel) and telnetd.c does not compile when
I try to make:

In file included from telnetd.h:39, from telnetd.c:45:
ext.h:67: `NSLC' undeclared here (not in a function)
ext.h:67: size of array `slctab' has non-integer type
telnetd.c: In function `getterminaltype':
telnetd.c:438: `TELOPT_TSPEED' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c:438: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
telnetd.c:438: for each function it appears in.)
telnetd.c:439: `TELOPT_XDISPLOC' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c:440: `TELOPT_ENVIRON' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c: In function `telnet':
telnetd.c:747: `TELOPT_NAWS' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c:750: `TELOPT_LFLOW' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c: In function `interrupt':
telnetd.c:1182: `SLC_IP' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c: In function `sendbrk':
telnetd.c:1200: `SLC_ABORT' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c: In function `sendsusp':
telnetd.c:1213: `SLC_SUSP' undeclared (first use this function)
telnetd.c: In function `doeof':
telnetd.c:1248: `SLC_EOF' undeclared (first use this function)
make: *** [telnetd.o] Error 1

Any ideas what I might be missing?

--

John Lellis (lellis@dmccorp.com)

--
... Our continuing mission: To seek out knowledge of C, to explore
strange UNIX commands, and to boldly code where no one has man page 4.




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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development
From: davem@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (David Monro)
Subject: Re: Keeping data structures in memory
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 15:54:17 GMT

terence@soldev.tti.com (Terence Davis) writes:


>Hi,

>  A student in a class of mine wants to be able to keep large data structures, 
>i.e. 10 or more megabytes, in RAM.  He wants to force the objects into RAM and 
>doesn't want them paged out.  Assuming he has enough real RAM, what's the 
>algorithm Linux uses to page stuff out.  Is there a way to lock the memory for 
>particular data structures in RAM?

I wanted to do this and found a way - note that this is a bit kludgy
but suited my particular app...
1) Allocate the buffer as a shared memory area, using shmget and
shmat.
2) Use shmctl(<memid> SHM_LOCK, NULL) to lock the structure down. Note
this only succeeds as root, so run the program setuid root - I think
this is true of most syscalls to lock down memory anyway.

(I wanted shared memory anyway, so this suited me).

        David

>Thanks,

>Terry (terence@soldev.tti.com)


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


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