Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #159
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:     Mon, 23 May 94 11:13:15 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #159, Volume #2                Mon, 23 May 94 11:13:15 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Who are you & what do you do w/ Linux? (william.c.brown)
  blah - kmem ps utils break under 1.1.13 (Simon Ferrett)
  Reply from Just Computers! (Randy Just)
  Re: software communists was Re: BRIEF/vi Compatible GUI Text Editor (Mike Suzio)
  LAN vs. linux (Serguei Iourine)
  Re: Linux for the masses? (WordProcessing again) (Ed Voermans)
  Re: Linux for the masses? (WordProcessing again) (Mike Suzio)
  Re: Virtual consoles > 12 (Andries Brouwer)
  Linux on PS/2 Model 90? (Matthew C. Brinkhoff)
  Re: A good NFS server ? (Martin Sohnius)
  BOOTP support (Mark Rafn)
  Re: Linux and Bernoulli? (Bob Perkins)
  Re: PCI or VL bus SCSI Host Adapters (James Soutter)

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

From: corey@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (william.c.brown)
Subject: Re: Who are you & what do you do w/ Linux?
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 12:19:11 GMT

In article <2rotf4$k80@nntp2.Stanford.EDU>, rna@leland.Stanford.EDU (Robert Ashcroft) writes:
> In article <Cq7IBz.8Ds@cbnewsm.cb.att.com>,
> william.c.brown <corey@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> wrote:
> >> I know there is some interest at the GSB to use Linux boxes as mail
> >> servers.  Right now they have a Sparc IPX (or maybe a Sparc 2, I'm not
> >> sure) handling all the MBA mail, of which there is tons.  All the benchmarks
> >> I have been able to run show 486DX2/66 clearly superior to Sparc 2 and
> >> IPX on integer problems, so I suspect that a 486 would do this job as
> >> well if not better (I'd be interested to hear what people say about this).
> >
> >     While I'll agree that a 486/66 or 586/[60,66] will out perform
> >     a Sparc II in some tests, but the Sparc still walks away from
> >     Intel in terms of floating point performance.
> 
> Yes, but not all that much better, considering difference in price, etc.

        Good point!!!

> Check out the benchmarks in /pub/aburto on ftp.nosc.mil.
> There are a few Pentium results there too, and they are very respectable
> vs Sparc II.  Wait till they have compilers optimized for Pentiums running
> at 100MHz and greater.

        I'm looking forward to running my own benchmarks when I have
        my pentium compiler running. I have it in an archive I just
        need to unpack and install. Pressed for time etc...
> 
> And, getting slightly further off the subject, Sparcs are well below
> Dec Alphas and HP PA-RISC machines.  Finally, the latest IBM PowerPC
> workstation (Powerstation 250) also blows away the Sparc family from
> what I've read.  And the Decs and the HPs and the IBMs don't cost all
> that much more.  I'd be interested, in fact, to know how the
> Apple PowerPC 8100 would do on some of those benchmarks running on
> some compilers optimized for the chip.

        These new chips are so exciting I can hardly stand it. I can't
        wait for some of these guys to become more main stream. The
        PowerPC holds so much promise for the future, the competition
        with Intel will be good for the entire industry. Intel will
        finally have to start lowering their prices.

        Its an exciting time to be in Computer Science right now,
        wouldn't you agree??
> 
> RNA



        --Corey

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

From: c9108932@sage.newcastle.edu.au (Simon Ferrett)
Subject: blah - kmem ps utils break under 1.1.13
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 11:50:21 GMT

I dunno - maybe Im the only in the world who still uses
and like the kmem ps utilites or something...

Up until 1.1.13 I was able to modify my kmem sources to
work with those kernels, but wthe the tty driver re write
in 1.1.13, a kmem tag tty_table has disappeared and Im a 
little out of my leage snooping aroung in the code trying to
fix it, so i was wondering if there was anyone else who
liked the kmem ps stuff enough for there to be a 1.1.13 
kmem ps utils release?

                        thanks...

-- 
Simon Ferrett - c9108932@cs.newcastle.edu.au
Floccinaucinihilipilification: the action or habit of estimating as
=============================  worthless.

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

From: rjust@crl.com (Randy Just)
Subject: Reply from Just Computers!
Date: 23 May 1994 06:22:35 -0700

We have started receiving e-mail from many individuals regarding the
posting of the message from Chang-Hsun Jon Huang.  It is very regrettable
that a message such as his was posted without knowing the facts.
Obviously our name has been tarnished in the eyes of some.  Others have
been able to read between the lines and deduce what is going on.

In a nutshell, we offer free internet e-mail access to our local community.
This particular individual took advantage of this free internet e-mail
access to post his message.  Just Computers! in no way agrees with
these viewpoints or opinions.

We have tried to contact Chang-Hsun Jon Huang via phone, but are 
currently being met with busy signals or no answers.  At this point I
am assuming the number given to us is probably a modem line.

If anyone knows Chang-Hsun, you might tell him the damage he is doing to
a company by posting a message such as his without first finding out the
facts.  We have received e-mail to root and postmaster as should have been
done by Chang-Hsun.

Policies have been implemented where a registration procedure is now
required to access the Just Computers! system.  But realistically, even
someone that is registered can exhibit the same sort of behavior.  Just
as they can on a system offered by an internet provider, a university
system or a work system.  It is just more unlikely.

We are still very much in business providing great products at
reasonable prices!

Randy Just owner of Just Computers!
P.O. Box 751414
Petaluma, CA 94975-1414
U.S.A.
707/769-1648 Voice
707/765-2447 FAX
rjust@justcomp.com OR rjust@crl.com
info@justcomp.com  Mailserver account.  Send e-mail to, include word "help"
in message.

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

From: msuzio@tiamat.umd.umich.edu (Mike Suzio)
Subject: Re: software communists was Re: BRIEF/vi Compatible GUI Text Editor
Date: 23 May 1994 09:21:14 -0400

bhogan@crl.com (Bill Hogan) writes:

>  As far as I am concerned, it is up to c.o.l.a. to announce anything 
>they feel like announcing, but I do not think commercial software 
>developers have any more _right_ to be announced in c.o.l.a. than they 
>have to be announced in PC Week.

        Well, I think this is a sticky point.  I hate the commercialization of 
the Net as much as anyone.  I also respect the spirit Linux was written 
under - free software, with everyone having a right to get the source code.

        However... I think Linux is still very much in it's infancy, and 
fighting an uphill battle to become a mature, widely-used OS.  One of the 
big things standing in the way is lack of software.  Even with the 
thousands upon thousands of great *free* apps out there, Linux lacks 
"killer" software.  One of the big things it lacks is a good editor (sorry, 
Emacs fails the tests - if I can't sit my Windoze pals in front of it and 
have them like it, it's not a "killer-app").  This is why I want to see 
more quality software for Linux, commercial or not.  I just feel that in
cases like this, it best serves the community to relax the standards and
try to publicize *any* effort to make Linux a more appealing OS to the
masses of people who are savvy enough to want to leave DOS/Windoze, but
still need access to the apps they like.  I mean, this is like shooting
down the effort to run SCO binaries because then people would run
*commercial* software on our wonderful *free* OS!

So, well I agree that free software is peachy-keen, and *I* certainly like
it, I think we need to make a place for commercial efforts also. One of the
ways to do this is to continue to allow c.o.l.a to accept announcements
like this.  I also think people need to look at the other os.*.announce
groups - I see commercial ads all the time in those.  So long as they are
simply announcements along the lines of "Product X is here, email
foo@bar.com for more info", I see no problem.

BTW - $300 is *way* too much for Crisp.  Someone might point out that if
it were $30, he might get 10x the number of people buying it.


************************************************************************
Michael J. Suzio                    | "For the love of money is the root
msuzio@tiamat.umd.umich.edu         | of all evil"
************************************************************************

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

From: iourine@che.und.ac.za (Serguei Iourine)
Subject: LAN vs. linux
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 13:42:32 GMT

Hi!
I've just installed linux on my computer but I have some problems with
connecting it to lan which runs novell software.
Could anybody tell me if there is:
LINUX EQUIVALENT of IPXPKT (which will wrap up a tcp/ip packet with Novell 
stuff that gets stripped off at the server).

Regards,
s.i.

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

From: wsinedv@wsinwp04.win.tue.nl (Ed Voermans)
Subject: Re: Linux for the masses? (WordProcessing again)
Date: 23 May 1994 15:21:45 +0200

schenn@lerc.nasa.gov (Lisa Henn) writes:

>Well, I'm not a programmer, so I guess I'm one of those novice new Linux
>administrators everyone's been talking about.  I am fairly savvy to unix
>in general, though (just not administrative issues), so I'm not quite in the
>general users category that Byron is talking about.  Nevertheless, here are
>my responses:

>In article <2rljpv$egt@virgo.cc.gatech.edu>,
>Byron A Jeff <byron@cc.gatech.edu> wrote:

>Well, here's an idea:  someone came by my office a few months ago with a flier.
>It was for a graphical WYSIWYG interface to LaTeX.  You typed stuff and 
>selected commands much in the way that you do for WordP, but it would write
>out LaTeX commands behind the scenes.  The problem with it was that they 
>wanted $600 for it.  Here they were trying to compete wtih WordP and they
>were charging twice as much.

>How about soemthing like that?  That way we can make use of all the 
>capabilities of LaTeX (as well as all the extended modules, such as ArabTeX,
>MusicTeX (or whatever it is called), etc) but present it in a way that 
>the general gropu of users would like.

There is a nice (almost) WYSIWYG interface for LaTeX using X-windows
called Mathpad that can be ftp'ed from ftp.win.tue.nl. The program can be
found in directory pub/math.prog.construction/mathpad . It runs under 
almost flavours of Unix such as SunOs, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, Ultrix and
Linux. I use it myself for all my LaTeX work on a sun at the university
and at home on a PC using linux. Here is a part of the readme file for
Mathpad:

README FILE  MATHPAD

This directory contains the distribution of mathpad 0.31.
Mathpad is an experimental program and this is the alpha release.
If you install it and encounter problems with the program,
we can't guarantee immediate help (although we'll try). A mailing
list is available to ask questions or make suggestions.

Mathpad is a document preparation system particularly oriented to the 
production of articles involving large amounts of (non-standard)
mathematical material.  It is an interactive system designed to make
on-screen mathematical calculation a pleasure rather than a chore.
Mathpad generates LaTeX output. Existing LaTeX documents can be
incorporated directly into a mathpad document, no special conversion
being required (or performed).

The fundamental idea introduced by mathpad is that individual users
can compose their own ``stencils'' specifying mathematical and
non-mathematical notational conventions, in particular the screen
layout and how to convert the mathpad document to LaTeX. Fractions,
superscripts, subscripts, different fonts, different sizes, displayed
equations and lots of other mathematical (and non-mathematical)
structures can be used (and defined).


To install mathpad, you need a UNIX operating system, the X window
environment, an ansi C compiler and a C++ compiler. If you don't have
them all, you should not try to install it.

[some parts deleted]

The distribution contains a copy of the system manual both as a mathpad
document and a ps file.  Neither of these contains screen dumps however.
(These would make the size of the distribution inordinately large.)  If
you would like to obtain a complete, spiral-bound copy of the manual
write to mathpad@win.tue.nl .  A small charge may be made for this
service.

[remainder deleted]

Ed Voermans




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

From: msuzio@tiamat.umd.umich.edu (Mike Suzio)
Subject: Re: Linux for the masses? (WordProcessing again)
Date: 23 May 1994 09:37:44 -0400

My only input at this time would be:
Portability (in terms of being able to use any type of terminal, and
not requiring an Alt key, for instance) is nice, but I would place this way
below the need to emulate a *nice* interface.  Wordperfect is not what I
might call portable (needs working function keys), but it is an excellent
model to emulate.  In other words, if we end up producing a word
processor that will only run under X or a VC, I can live with that. Of
course, the best solution is a WP that will run in any of these modes
(terminal, VC, or X app), with corresponding levels of power.

One feature that needs to be included in some form is the WYSIWIG
previewing.  Maybe some kind of hook into Ghostview?  In any case, I long
ago learned to deal with Wordperfect's "code insertion" feature, but I always
needed that ability to look at how the final document would turn out.

************************************************************************
Michael J. Suzio                    | "Conjugate, conjugate, conjugate,
msuzio@tiamat.umd.umich.edu         | but never decline..."
                                    |  - my favorite Latin motto
************************************************************************

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

From: aeb@cwi.nl (Andries Brouwer)
Subject: Re: Virtual consoles > 12
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 13:55:30 GMT

jaf@jaflrn.Morse.Net (Jon Freivald) writes:

>I've messed around and played with the number of VC's available.
>Everything (so far) works great, except, how do I get to a VC that's
>greater than 12?  i.e., currently I'm running 13, and X uses 13 quite
>nicely, but if I switch to any other, I can never figure out how to
>get back... :(  Any hints?

If you have the default key settings, AltGr+Fn will bring you to Console n+12.

However, if you use lots of consoles (instead of X and lots of windows),
then you might be interested in my patches that
1. Allocate VCs dynamically (so that you start out with a single console,
and get as many as you need).
2. Define two keys DecrConsole and IncrConsole to circulate through them.
I find that more convenient than remembering what was on 7 and what on 9.

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

From: mbrinkho@nyx.cs.du.edu (Matthew C. Brinkhoff)
Subject: Linux on PS/2 Model 90?
Date: 23 May 1994 07:46:53 -0600

I'm looking for an alternative to Unixware for our Internet gateway system.
Does Linux support the PS/2 Microchannel SCSI Adaptor with cache?  Does
the "X" that comes with Linux support XGA?  Does Linux's TCP/IP support
source routing?

I'd appreciate any pointers to FTP sites, etc. that you can help me with.
-- 
Matt Brinkhoff
mbrinkho@nyx.cs.du.edu

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.unixware,comp.unix.solaris
From: msohnius@novell.co.uk (Martin Sohnius)
Subject: Re: A good NFS server ?
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 13:41:32 GMT

Craig I. Hagan (hagan@opine.cs.umass.edu) wrote:
: Martin Sohnius (msohnius@novell.co.uk) wrote:
: > Alan Cox (iiitac@uk.ac.swan.pyr) wrote:
: > : In article <Cq1HGz.8w1@hippo.ru.ac.za> csgr@cs.ru.ac.za writes:
: > : >[.. something about Linux and freeBDS...]

: > : [.. something else about Linux and something about BSD in general...]

: > Hey, you guys,  this whole thread is degenerating into a little
: > NFS-on-BSD discussion!

: the point is to get people talking about what is a good nfs
: server. since linux isn't the best, people who need the
: best now should be aware of their options. people developing
: for linux should know where to look for implementation ideas. 
: If i remember right, *BSD got a lot of nifty ideas
: from linux already (and vice versa), isn't that the point
: of free software and competition (even if it is friendly)?
: I like having multiple free os's for the pc. it allows
: [ .. etc...]

The problem I was addressing is that this stuff is being CROSSPOSTED
to comp.unix.unixware.  Now, UnixWare is most definitely NOT a 
free operating system, and therefore has about the best NFS support
imaginable. :-)  (I think it originates from Sun, through the old
AT&T + Sun agreement.)

Could you please remove the cross-post to comp.unix.unixware on a 
thread, once it has nothing to do with it?

--
Martin Sohnius

Novell Labs Europe              |  Press one for confusion, press two
Bracknell, England              |  for frustration, and any other number
+44-344-724031                  |  to hear this message again.

(My opinions may not be those of Novell!)

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

From: dagon@hebron.connected.com (Mark Rafn)
Subject: BOOTP support
Date: 23 May 1994 07:03:01 -0700

Can any of the Linux distributions be used to boot a PC with a network card
and a floppy drive from a non-Linux Unix server?  Slackware can INSTALL this
way, but I want to actually run linux over the network.


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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.help
From: news@edus.oau.org (Bob Perkins)
Subject: Re: Linux and Bernoulli?
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 13:13:36 GMT

adap@andrews.edu (Edsel Adap) writes:


>Hi!
>Is there any way I can get linux to recognize my bernoulli 90?  Is
>anyone working on a device driver for it?
Depends. If the Bernoulli is on the SCSI bus, treat it just like a
second hard drive, or third or fourth, and address it as such; i.e.,
/dev/sd[bcd]x.

If you have one of the IDE interface units, I cannot help.

>thanks.
>-- 
> Edsel Adap                         Computer Science / Mathematics Major
> adap@andrews.edu                   Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI

>The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development:
--
rcp@edus.oau.org

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development
From: cgjks1@lut.ac.uk (James Soutter)
Subject: Re: PCI or VL bus SCSI Host Adapters
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 12:49:19 GMT

Doug McIntyre (merlyn@icicle.winternet.com) wrote:

: I don't know why anybody automaticly thinks of VL as soo much faster. I did
: some time comparisions with various VL bus and ISA bus controllers with 
: a fast SCSI-II hard drive (Fujitsu 1.2G), and the one that one had the
: top speed was still the Adaptec 1542CF. Granted, a couple of them came
: real close, like only 20-30k/sec slower :)
: These did not include the Adaptec 2842 though, so I don't know if that
: would have gained anything. I haven't gotten to play with one yet :(

SCSI adapters on a PCI bus are supposed to be much better than SCSI
adapters on an ISA bus because PCI supports 16 word burst most
transfer.  This will also improve CPU throughput because less CPU
cycles will be lost waiting for the SCSI controller to finish with the
bus.

I don't know much about VLB so I can only suggest some questions:

1) Does VLB support burst mode transfer (or is PCI better than VLB in
        this respect) ?
4) Is the gain of CPU cycles that significant ?
2) Were the VLB cards used in Adaptec 1542 compatibility mode rather
        than native mode (did the test use burst transfer mode) ?
3) Were the VLB cards bus mastering cards (did the test use burst
        transfer mode) ?
        
-- James

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


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