Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #270
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:     Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:13:11 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #270, Volume #2                Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:13:11 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Latest in PC WEEK (May 30 Editorial) (Bjorn Ekwall)
  Re: ATI VGA Wonder Card and X (Marc La France)
  Re: PPP and Slackware (Roy Hann)
  Re: PCI Chipsets? URGENT! (Paul)
  If you're going to buy a DELL (Juan Carlos Perez)
  Re: retire Linux drive (msouth on BIX)
  Re: My OS is better than yours... (Wallace Roberts)
  Re: Linux for the masses? (WordProcessing again) (Alan  T Shutko)
  Re: Linux and UltraStor 34F SCSI Controller (bryanc@ralvm29|tp|584676|Brian Cope)
  Re: Linux stable enough for commercial products yet? (Alan  T Shutko)
  Re: Pascal compiler for Linux? (John Lellis)
  Re: Need recommendation for SVGA card (Mark van Hoeij)
  Re: PCI Chipsets? URGENT! (Alan Krantz)
  printing duplex mode (Enrico Scotoni)
  Re: QIC tape drives (David Lesher)
  Slackware and X11, what gives? (Ken Sorensen)

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

From: bj0rn@blox.se (Bjorn Ekwall)
Subject: Re: Latest in PC WEEK (May 30 Editorial)
Date: 14 Jun 94 21:40:58 GMT

Alan Cox (iiitac@uk.ac.swan.pyr) wrote:
 > In article <2tau1r$n0h@news.u.washington.edu> tzs@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
 > >lilo [Dances With Geeks] <lilo@slip-5-16.ots.utexas.edu> wrote:
 > >What do you mean "only among lawyers"?  I doubt that there are many lawyers
 > >who think loadable modules are derivative works.

 > A loadable module is simply a piece of kernel code that got linked slightly
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 > later rather than earlier. It depends totally on Linux and it's calling all
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 > sorts of internal routines. 

 > Alan

Extremely well put!

The kernel is GPL-ed. All code that is linked to it is therefore also GPL-ed.
The only interface to the kernel that is non-"GPL-virus-infected" is the
syscall API, as this is explicitly extempt from the GPL.
All "official" interpretations of the GPL, as seen in the numerous
discussions in gnu.misc.discuss, are _very_ clear about this.

Bjorn Ekwall == bj0rn@blox.se

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

From: tsi@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Marc La France)
Subject: Re: ATI VGA Wonder Card and X
Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:40:35 GMT

In article <2tl90d$efp@sand.cis.ufl.edu>, Modesto Tabares (tm1@cis.ufl.edu) wrote:

> Hi there, does any one out there use an ATI Vga Wonder video card with X?
> Mine works fine except that when you quit X, the screen is all corrupted and you can't
> see the characters anymore.  All you see is a bunch of vertical lines accros the screen.
> It uses the 18800-1 (I think) chip and it has 512k of memory, thanx

Try XFree86 2.1.1.  If that doesn't work, you'll probably have to start up
XFree86 2.1 with the runx script found in the svgalib package.

+----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|  Marc Aurele La France           |  work:   1-403-492-9310           |
|  Computing and Network Services  |  fax:    1-403-492-1729           |
|  352 General Services Building   |  email:  tsi@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca  |
|  University of Alberta           +-----------------------------------+
|  Edmonton, Alberta               |                                   |
|  T6G 2H1                         |     Standard disclaimers apply    |
|  CANADA                          |                                   |
+----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

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

From: rhh@tachy.uah.ualberta.ca (Roy Hann)
Subject: Re: PPP and Slackware
Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:42:01 GMT

rhh@tachy.uah.ualberta.ca (Roy Hann) writes:
: I just installed the Slackware version of Linux last week, and tonight
: I got around to trying to set up PPP.  I do not seem to be able to 
: get `pppd' to behave as advertised.  The README file recommends 
: running:
: 
:    pppd debug x.x.x.x:y.y.y.y
: 
: and observing the resulting trash, just to prove the thing does 
: SOMETHING.  Unfortunately, as far as I can tell it just "goes away."
: Is there someone out there who has done it, who wouldn't mind 
: leading me tenderly by the nose through this process?

Hm.  Well I never did get the above to work, but I am posting this
response from my Linux box running PPP, so I guess I have the 
important stuff working. :-)

========================================================================

Roy Hann
Senior Analyst, Information Systems        rhh@tachy.uah.ualberta.ca
University of Alberta Hospitals            (MIME-capable mail agent)
WMC 2C2.21, 8440-112th Street,     
Edmonton, Alberta                          Tel: (403)492-4367
T6G 0N4                                    FAX: (403)492-3090
Canada

PLEASE: No shipments by courier from outside Canada; use regular mail.
========================================================================

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: paul@myrddin.isl.cf.ac.uk (Paul)
Subject: Re: PCI Chipsets? URGENT!
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 13:23:41 +0000

In article <CrCt3w.Gp4@newsflash.concordia.ca>,
Paul Quinn <p_quinn@ECE.Concordia.CA> wrote:
>
>I need to know the exact differences between the Saturn and the Neptune
>chipsets?  Is the Saturn really buggy?  What are the major problems
>with it?  If I can only get a Saturn, should I still buy PCI?
>

Terry Lambert gave me this, I doubt he'll mind me porting it.

Saturn          Original.  Broken cache coherency model; results in either
                a failure of bus mastering DMA (motherboard expecting a
                working chipset) or vastly reduced performance (150% --
                hacked motherboard to use bad chips).

Mercury         Fixed.  Working cache coherency model.  Will *not* maintain
                cache coherency correctly for bus mastering DMA if motherboard
                was hacked for Saturn and not unhacked for Mercury.

Neptune         Fixed (SMP version).  Working cache coherency model,
                supports update/invalidate.  Likes to invalidate for
                SMP shared memory coherency.  Generally a Neptune based
                PCI motherboard was designed differently for Neptune,
                and so does not have the problem of having been hacked
                for a bad previous version of the chipset.

So, the at the end of the day, if it's a neptune chipset you can be
failry confident that there's no problems (bearing in mind that this is
relatively new technology anyway).

1) If it's a new motherboard designed to work with the fixed chipsets
   you're okay.
2) If it's a  motherboard with a broken chipset but hacked to get around the
   bugs then it'll work but with a MASSIVE decrease in performance.
3) If it's a motherboard that's been hacked to work with the broken chipset
   but is actually supplied with a working chipset then you're hosed.
4) If it's a motherboard with a broken chipset that hasn't been hacked then
   you're hosed.


So, only option 1) is acceptable anything else you should consider broken.
The big problems obviously is how do you know what motherboard you're
getting. The answer is you don't. I'd play safe and get a neptune based
board. Only get a Saturn board if you can first, get you're dealer to admit
that these problems exist, go through each point so you can be sure they 
understand all the issues and make sure that they get you a motherboard
that definitely works.
-- 
  Paul Richards, FreeBSD core team member.
  Intelligent Systems Laboratory, ELSYM ,University of Wales, College Cardiff
  Internet: paul@isl.cf.ac.uk,  JANET(UK): RICHARDSDP@CARDIFF.AC.UK

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

From: juan@fiu.edu (Juan Carlos Perez)
Subject: If you're going to buy a DELL
Date: 15 Jun 1994 02:32:47 GMT

I was going to buy a Dell Dimension XPS 90 machine to run OS/2, Windows, and
Linux, and I was notified that they don't have full towers for these systems,
only mini-towers :(
If anyone is going to buy a Dell, please mention the full tower. They have a
hell of a system for the price, but it's a shame they don't have a Full Tower 
as an add-on option, otherwise I would have gotten one. Maybe you might not need
a full tower, but you will be helping those wishing to buy a Dell in the near
future to run Linux. Thanks so much!


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

From: msouth@BIX.com (msouth on BIX)
Subject: Re: retire Linux drive
Date: 15 Jun 94 08:23:01 GMT


BTW, the LILO documentation has a typo in it.  It says to
use "FORMAT /MBR" rather than "FDISK".

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

From: robertsw@agcs.com (Wallace Roberts)
Subject: Re: My OS is better than yours...
Date: 14 Jun 1994 19:41:58 -0700

In article <8z$-jukh1eaL066yn@shore.net> bjb@shore.net writes:
>In article <1994Jun12.101656.3897@vectrex.login.qc.ca>, Denis Solaro wrote:

        [ ...snip happens... ]

>> "Tech support !!!....  You mean your Sparc isn't under contract?
>>  Well it's $250 an hour, and an hour is counted as the minimum." 

        [ ...yet another snip happens... ]

>And I thought Microsoft was bad! They *only* charge $150 a phone call for 
>Windows NT! :)

you've got to understand -- microlimp is going for *volume*.

:->

gears,
ye wilde ryder
--
robertsw@agcs.com | 86 cr250 "dirt devil"    83 v65 magna "animal"
"E Pluribus Unix" | 79 it250 "mr. reliable"
"Criminals (especially tyrants) prefer unarmed victims."
"Ignorance can be cured; stupidity, on the other hand, is hereditary."

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

From: ats4@cec3.wustl.edu (Alan  T Shutko)
Subject: Re: Linux for the masses? (WordProcessing again)
Date: 11 Jun 1994 04:43:15 GMT

>>>>> On Thu, 09 Jun 94 12:58:19 GMT, gjh@ukc.ac.uk (Greg Harewood) said:

        Greg> The escape key is the worst possible choice because it
        Greg> makes using the function keys and keypad so much more
        Greg> difficult; PF1 for example returns ESC O P. Even the
        Greg> cursor key sequences start with ESC.

That's not that bad.    Just make sure you don't use capital letters
after the ESC, and you should be all right.  I am running emacs, with
the f-keys and even though it uses lots of ESC- whatever combo's, I
have never had problems.

        Greg> It could be ALT under X, and PF1 on VT100 keyboards, and
        Greg> we could always have, say, a fllback of control
        Greg> X. Shortcuts could still be defined for particular
        Greg> layouts, eg F10 could enter Meta F X for you.

I have to argue against that.  Havign to use different keys under X
and text terms is annoying.  Also, there is so much stuff out there
that uses ESC as the Meta character (from some keyboards to all the
emacs stuff) that your naming something else that would confuse new
users.  

        Greg> The menu's should optionally pop up when using the
        Greg> keyboard method, so that you can glance at them if you
        Greg> wish, but if you know the key sequences then you don't
        Greg> need to.

How about, the menus pop up if you pause a second between hitting the
keys?  Then you could be very fast with the commands you know, but
still get the menus on commands you aren't sure about.

--

========================================================================
Alan Shutko - Home of the Mighty Morphin' Power Sig - ats4@cec.wustl.edu
Atoms of the World, UNITE (whoops, too late)
GCS/S d? -p+ c++++ !l u+ e+ m+ s n- h f g+ w+(@) t+(@) r++ y+(@)


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

From: bryanc@pooch.raleigh.ibm.com (bryanc@ralvm29|tp|584676|Brian Cope)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Linux and UltraStor 34F SCSI Controller
Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:07:22 GMT
Reply-To: bryanc@pooch.raleigh.ibm.com (bryanc@ralvm29|tp|584676|Brian Cope)


> 
|> I thought that it was the Adaptec 1542 probe that scrambed the
|> Ultrastor.  When I was swapping a Buslogic 445S and an Ultrastor 34F
|> (with all device adresses and irqs the same as the 445S defaults, so
|> the U34F was at 0x330), I had to recompile the kernel with the
|> appropriate driver to get the SCSI controller to work.
|> -- 
|> Bruce Evans  bde@kralizec.zeta.org.au
|> 

Bruce,

Well, not sure about the probing question, but all that was necessary
was for me to move the I/O port (as several people suggested! THANX!)
and the system would boot and install. 

Thanx for all the help from those who responded!

Bryan

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

From: ats4@cec3.wustl.edu (Alan  T Shutko)
Subject: Re: Linux stable enough for commercial products yet?
Date: 13 Jun 1994 04:44:39 GMT

>>>>> On Sun, 12 Jun 1994 12:44:24 GMT, stuart@libra.hasler.ascom.ch (Stuart J. Barr) said:

        > Now, can any of you experts out there come up
        > with a convincing argument about the stability of Linux?  

Well, Novell is releasing Corsair, which AFAIK is a Linux Kernal with
Novell UI add-ons. 
--

========================================================================
Alan Shutko - Home of the Mighty Morphin' Power Sig - ats4@cec.wustl.edu
Synonym: A word you use when you can't spell the other.
GCS/S d? -p+ c++++ !l u+ e+ m+ s n- h f g+ w+(@) t+(@) r++ y+(@)


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

From: lellis@dmccorp.com (John Lellis)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.development
Subject: Re: Pascal compiler for Linux?
Date: 15 Jun 1994 15:45:31 GMT

Hans Vermeulen (vermeule@wi.leidenuniv.nl) wrote:
: Hello,

: I am looking for a Pascal compiler for Linux.
: Is there one out there? I don't like to use a pascal-to-c translator and gcc.
: So, anybody got a clue? After all, there is modula-2/3, eiffel, fortran, ....,
: so why no pascal?

Where can one get GNU PASCAL?  GNU FORTRAN?  Not p2c or f2c, but the real thing?

--

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.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video
From: hoeij@sci.kun.nl (Mark van Hoeij)
Subject: Re: Need recommendation for SVGA card
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 15:29:10 GMT

In <CrEu42.5KK@cc.umontreal.ca> southiea@JSP.UMontreal.CA (Southiere Alain) writes:

>In article <2tj0gr$bkt@aurora.engr.LaTech.edu>, Alex Ramos (ramos@engr.latech.edu) wrote:
>: Which ISA video card would give me the best quality 1024x768x256
>: resolution, under Linux/XFree86, for the least cost?  What is the
>: general opinion on the Trident SVGA cards (those you can find with 1M
>: for $58.00).

>   The Trident is a good card, run on everything and has drivers for 
>everything. The downside is that it's one of the slowest card around.

>   For good speed at 1024x768x256, I would suggest a 2 mb video card,
>S3 based

There is absolutely no point in having 2Mb for 1024x768x256 on an S3 card.
If you have an S3 with 1Mb on an ISA bus then X runs perfectly. 2 Mb won't
give a speedup. By the way, why run 1024x768? It would be a big coincidence
if exactly that number would be the best resolution for your monitor+card.

Mark van Hoeij


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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: atk@agua (Alan Krantz)
Subject: Re: PCI Chipsets? URGENT!
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 15:27:41 GMT

Paul (paul@myrddin.isl.cf.ac.uk) wrote:
: In article <CrCt3w.Gp4@newsflash.concordia.ca>,
: Paul Quinn <p_quinn@ECE.Concordia.CA> wrote:
: >
: >I need to know the exact differences between the Saturn and the Neptune
: >chipsets?  Is the Saturn really buggy?  What are the major problems
: >with it?  If I can only get a Saturn, should I still buy PCI?
: >

: Terry Lambert gave me this, I doubt he'll mind me porting it.

: Saturn          Original.  Broken cache coherency model; results in either
:                 a failure of bus mastering DMA (motherboard expecting a
:                 working chipset) or vastly reduced performance (150% --
:                 hacked motherboard to use bad chips).

: Mercury         Fixed.  Working cache coherency model.  Will *not* maintain
:                 cache coherency correctly for bus mastering DMA if motherboard
:                 was hacked for Saturn and not unhacked for Mercury.

: Neptune         Fixed (SMP version).  Working cache coherency model,
:                 supports update/invalidate.  Likes to invalidate for
:                 SMP shared memory coherency.  Generally a Neptune based
:                 PCI motherboard was designed differently for Neptune,
:                 and so does not have the problem of having been hacked
:                 for a bad previous version of the chipset.

How do third party chipsets (like Opti) fit in this list ?

atk

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

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 08:36:00 +0200
From: scoti@p46.keru.baboon.ch (Enrico Scotoni)
Subject: printing duplex mode

Hi all,

I have a problem printing big doc's (several hundred pages). Concretely I would
like to print out the tcl-book. Unfortunately it is in postscript, because I
would like to print on the front and on the back-page of the paper to save
some. When the source of a manual is in dvi-format I can use dvi2lj and set
options to first print the odd pages, reinsert the whole paper pack again and
then print the even pages, so I get a nice double-page book. The problem is
only when the source is in Postscript. I checked all the doc about ghostscript
but I didn't find similar options for ghostscript.

Does anybody know a way to print first odd and then even pages with ghostscript
? Or does there exist a conversion tool from postscript to dvi, so that I could
use dvi2lj ?

Thanks in advance

Enrico.


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

From: wb8foz@netcom.com (David Lesher)
Subject: Re: QIC tape drives
Reply-To: wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu (David Lesher)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 14:27:14 GMT

pbackhou@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Peter Backhouse) writes:

>I need some info on tape drives to use with Linux.
>(yes I have read the HOWTO). I have access to a large
>number of DC6150 (150Mb) and DC 300 XL/P tapes. I
>have an IDE hard drive, but will soon be using SCSI.
>Is there a 'best' drive that I could buy, taking this
>into account? 

Find a used QIC150 tape drive. It will back up {surprise} 150 meg/tape.
You should pay about $150.00 for such used.

I'm told you can use one of the really cheap ST-01/2 scsi cards with
tapes, but have not done so myself.

{Forget the 300's --I see them for $1.00 apiece used.}
-- 
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close...........(v)301 56 LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close)....kibo# 777............pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead..............vr....................20915-1433

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

From: ksore@atr-14 (Ken Sorensen)
Subject: Slackware and X11, what gives?
Date: 15 Jun 1994 16:07:04 GMT

Hi all,

I just re-installed slackware last night, and before I go off and criticize
it, I'd just like to say that on the whole the installation procedure
is very nice and easy. However, the X11 installation is not easy. What
is it with the ../../../var/X11/lib/X11 stuff?

I have my partitions setup so that / is an 8MB partition and /usr is about
160MB. My /var in the root partition isn't gonna hold very much stuff,
that's why I wanted to install X in /usr. So I had to rm all the damn
symbolic links that the X installation setup, and cp -R all the stuff
happened to get stuffed in /var/*. Anyway, its an annoyance for me, but for
a beginning user that want's to setup a standard *nix partition strategy it
can be a pain in the neck.

Is this all done to support some strange notions about the file system
standardization? Also, if I'm missing some important points about the
installation, then let me know.

--
Kenneth Sorensen                    |  ksore@sed.hac.com
====================================+==================================
Hughes Aircraft Company             |  Phone: (714) 732-9816
P.O. Box 3310                       |  Fax:   (714) 732-1953
Fullerton, California, US           +----------------------------------
92634-3310, Mail Station: 618/B223  |  #include <std-disclaimer.h>

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


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