Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #271
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 20:13:15 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #271, Volume #2                Wed, 15 Jun 94 20:13:15 EDT

Contents:
  Re: future of Unixware (Mark A. Davis)
  Re: xearth is really cool (Bryce Denney)
  Re: Anyone using a BusLogic 747S with multiple disk drives ? (Ollivier Robert)
  Re: Pascal compiler for Linux? (Tadeusz Bak)
  Re: future of Unixware (klatta@pkdla5.syntex.com)
  Re: database system for e (Kai Petzke)
  Re: Fast Ethernet Adapter (Alan Cox)
  Only 7000 Linux boxes, Re: Multiport Bored ... (Cameron L. Spitzer)
  Re: Multiport Bored and Linux (Was: future of Unixware) (Brandon S. Allbery)
  Re: Fast Ethernet Adapter (Paul)
  Re: PCI Motherboards (Alexander)
  Re: Clean eXit from X possible? (Chris Raile)
  Re: future of Unixware (Kevin MacRae)

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware,comp.os.linux
From: mark@taylor.infi.net (Mark A. Davis)
Subject: Re: future of Unixware
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 18:45:11 GMT

bjb@shore.net (Beverly J. Brown) writes:

>In article <2tgi0i$icr@Venus.mcs.com>, Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>> In article <Dr6vC5.CIr@pe1chl.ampr.org>, Rob Janssen <pe1chl@rabo.nl> wrote:
>> >In <Cr5zEF.Ltx@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>> >
>> >Why would you ever want to have >96 RS232 ports on a Unix box??
>> 
>> A bunch of modems, some printers sprinkled around the building, some
>> inbound wire services, a couple of satellite uplinks. 96 sounds
>> about right to me...

>On one UNIX box?!?!?!?! Wouldn't you get better throughtput if you scattered 
>them on different machines?

Not if that machine can handle it :)
Ours can, and we have 136 serial ports + 2 ethernet channels.
-- 
  /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
  | Mark A. Davis    | Lake Taylor Hospital | Norfolk, VA (804)-461-5001x431 |
  | Sys.Administrator|  Computer Services   | mark@taylor.infi.net           |
  \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

From: bdenney@physics.oberlin.edu (Bryce Denney)
Subject: Re: xearth is really cool
Date: 15 Jun 1994 19:19:53 GMT

Kathleen Cully (kathleen@ritz.mordor.com) wrote:
: where is it? 

tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/binaries/usr.bin.X11

: hell.. what is it?

xearth shows a view of the earth from space in your root window, and makes the
shading correspond with the time of day.  You can customize it so that you see
the earth from the sun's point of view, or from the point of view of a
satellite flying right over your house.  Very fun.

- Bryce
<bdenney@physics.oberlin.edu>

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

From: roberto@keltia.frmug.fr.net (Ollivier Robert)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.sys5.r3,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,biz.sco.general,comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.unix.unixware,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: Anyone using a BusLogic 747S with multiple disk drives ?
Date: 14 Jun 1994 23:57:24 +0200
Reply-To: roberto@hsc.fr.net (Ollivier Robert)

In article <CrDswJ.7qE@cti-software.nl>,
Pim Zandbergen <pim@cti-software.nl> wrote:
>The problem is that our BusLogic dealer says "the cards work
>just fine with SCO and Netware, it must be your ISC driver"
>and our ISC dealer claims I've got a hardware problem, as the card
>fails with two different ISC drivers.

Maybe problem with ISC's drivers. I have a  747S with two SCSI-2 drives and
a SCSI-1 tape and   have no problem  whatsoever  with accessing  all  three
devices at the same time.

I even know someone (Hi Bob) who have three 747S card with  8 (or 9 ?) disk
drives on one computer...

>       1) Which OS are you running

FreeBSD-current

>       2) Are you using native or aha1540 drivers

Native BusLogic driver  in EISA mode,  no  ISA DMA, Burst  mode, Fast x/fer
rate.

>       3) What is the firmware revision of your card

Firmware 4.70, BIOS 3.37.

>       4) What SCSI drives are you using

Seagate ST-31200N 1 GB
Micropolis MP-1624 642 MB.

>       5) What kind of system/motherboard are you using

Elite EISA/VLB SIS chipset.

>The firmware on my cards is revision 1.37.

Well, are you sure its not 3.37 ?? 1.37 seems very old...
-- 
Ollivier ROBERT                                           roberto@hsc.fr.net
Hervi Schauer Consultants                Ollivier.Robert@keltia.frmug.fr.net
PERL / MIME / PGP 2.6ui     FreeBSD keltia 1.1.0(Current) CURRENT_099#0 i386

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.development
From: gcbak@cyf-kr.edu.pl (Tadeusz Bak)
Subject: Re: Pascal compiler for Linux?
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 18:35:34 GMT

In <2tk7a7$jbl@nic.wi.leidenuniv.nl> vermeule@wi.leidenuniv.nl (Hans Vermeulen) writes:

>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.

There is a GNU Pascal Compiler GPC 2.5.7 in the Debian package.

--
  Tadeusz
  Cracow, Poland


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

From: klatta@pkdla5.syntex.com
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware,comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: future of Unixware
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 11:29:32 PDT


In article <2tjc5g$4ma@bhairav.ee.iitb.ernet.in>, <vinod@annapurna> writes:
> 
> Any product, to be successful, requires
>   -- A very good marketing support
>   -- A good amount of advertising
>   -- After sales support
>   -- support from other peripheral vendors  etc.
> 
> Taking into consideration any big organisation like Novell, SCO, SUN
> these are all available by default. 

In general all that is required for product success is ubiquity. These
are simply the methods available to large enterprises to achieve that
state.
 
> For linux, NONE of these are available. It is perhaps IMPOSSIBLE to 
> advertise for linux since the benefits of advertising neednot necessarily
> go to advertiser.  (At least not at the scale expected.)  After sales
> support is not possible easily - no one company can set up its offices
> all over to support linux. 

Linux is in fact widely advertised by the much sought after means of
word-of-mouth by satisfied users.
 
> In spite of so many deficiencies, you find so much of discussion going on 
 
> about linux! Does it convey anything?
> 
> I believe it is just matter of time before we see linux as the major
> base platform for unix! (At least for we Indians, linux is going to 
> save much of foreign exchange by removing need for other unix and even
> novell platforms.)

I think it can be argued that the ubiquity of MS/PC-DOS is as much due
to negligible cost and illegal copying as it is to Microsoft's extravagant
advertising. I hear their support services leave something to be desired
as well. Linux may not come to be the unified UNIX(tm) platform, but the
possibility is not preposterous. If Novell really does ship a product
based on Linux, its chances would be substantially improved.

Ken Latta
klatta@pkdla5.syntex.com
A consultant working at Syntex

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

From: wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke)
Subject: Re: database system for e
Date: 15 Jun 94 17:01:31 GMT

dheltzel@crl.com (Dennis Heltzel) writes:

>:  >I need a database system that runs under Linux that is useable! 

>:  JG> I've been looking for information on this, myself, 

>Ditto! I've heard a lot of talk about "killer apps" needed to make a new 
>OS successful. I think a good database would be a great starting point!

>I've been trying many different programs, like metalbase, ingres, etc. 
>None are easy to use in a "Alpha 4" sense. (I hate alpha 4, but it is *easy*)

>Perhaps a team of programmers could work on this, I know I'd be willing 
>to help! Any interest?


Postgres from University of Berkeley, is another "alpha 4" database.
I am willing to work on enhancing it, once my time permitting it, so
are a few more people.

For now, you could join the mailing list:

        linux-postgres@native-ed.bc.ca

by sending mail to:

        linux-postgres-request@native-ed.bc.ca


Kai
-- 
Kai Petzke                      | How fast can computers get?
Technical University of Berlin  |
Berlin, Germany                 | Sol 9, of course, on Star Trek.
wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de   |

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: iiitac@uk.ac.swan.pyr (Alan Cox)
Subject: Re: Fast Ethernet Adapter
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 16:28:18 GMT

In article <1994Jun15.134008.24667@cm.cf.ac.uk> paul@myrddin.isl.cf.ac.uk (Paul) writes:
>There are two significant measurements, the amount of CPU time a card takes
>to send a packet and the mamximum throughput.
You missed the third - the maximum latency of response it can tolerate and
the fourth - the amount of 'down time' between sends and between receives.

>bus-mastering DMA to get the packets straight into main memory. The Allied
>Telesis AT1500 is one, the NE2100 is another. There are lots more and AMD
>who produce the LANCE have isa/vlbus/pci versions of the lance as well.

The lance cards are nice.

>There can be problems with these cards if you have lots of bus-mastering
>DMA controllers on your ISA bus because it is estimated that running
>at FULL ethernet bandwidth the LANCE will use a minimum of 22% of the ISA's
>bandwidth. Depending on the driver software this could go higher. Most of the
>time though you're not likely to be driving the card that hard.

Well with an AHA1542 SCSi controller on the same bus its just fine. I guess thats
about the heaviest load to worry about 8).
>
>Of course, specifically for Linux the question should be posed more as, which
>is the best performance combination card/driver, since the performance
>of the hardware depends heavily on whether the driver is written well enough

Donald Becker wrote most of the drivers and having timed them low level and done
brutal tests to them I'm of the opinion Donald wears robes, has a pointy hat
and a wand 8)

Alan


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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware
From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: Only 7000 Linux boxes, Re: Multiport Bored ...
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 03:55:15 GMT

In article <1994Jun13.134758.13245@frmug.fr.net> bernard@cpio1.frmug.fr.net (Bernard Fouche) writes:
>
>Linux seems to be very near to be stable enough to run business
>applications on it. The only reason that we do not plan to quickly
>move to Linux is the lack of support from hardware manufacturers (like
>Digiboard) and major sofware house (that sells RDBMS).

Argh!  I work for (but don't speak for!) a major manufacturer of
boards for PCs.
As far as I can tell, the *ONLY* reason we have not already developed,
tested, documented, released, and field-supported performance-optimized
Linux drivers is that the best data we can get say there are less than
7000 actual Linux systems in use!  That data is from the Linux Counter
project which is announced now and then in comp.os.linux.announce.
We can't spend tens of thousands of US dollars and divert critical
personnel based on a survey in a German magazine, or newsgroup Arbitron
ratings, which suggest the numbers might be higher.
(Or at least that's what the product managers tell me.)

Have **YOU** registered **YOUR** Linux system??  I've registered mine.

Cameron in San Jos\'e
(who will be off the net on vacation till the 20th.)
Not speaking for *anyone* but myself!!!

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

Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware
From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery)
Subject: Re: Multiport Bored and Linux (Was: future of Unixware)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 16:13:40 GMT

In article <CrF2Dw.G07@molly.uucp>, uunet!molly!vlcek (Jim Vlcek) says:
+---------------
| Brandon S. Allbery writes
| > Joe Portman has Oracle 6 running under iBCS2 emulation; I have Unify 2000
| > running; various others have Informix-SE running, and Informix-Online 
| > should work once Linux IPC has been rewritten to fix various problems with 
| > the message queue interface (among others).
| 
| What does "running" mean?
+------------->8

Well, it doesn't mean there's an installed base... although I believe that's
what Joe is angling for (I think Westin is interested in replacing an SCO
front-desk system with Linux, although I may have misunderstood what was going
on).  In my case, it's only single-user and is not going to change; my main
reason for bringing up U2000 is that Telotech's only remaining SCO-based
customer (everyone else is on SPARCs running Solaris 2) doesn't have the disk
space to host an upgrade of their database application from ACCELL/SQL 1.3 to
2.4.  (In fact, it's their copy that I'm running, and unless I manage to
scrape up the money for my own license I will destroy the installation when I
put 2.4 on the customer's system.)  ---And I can't install Linux on their
system because they rely on a smart multiport board, which (worse) is *not*
going to get a Linux driver because it is no longer being produced.

I *can* tell you that U2000 runs much faster singleuser on my Linux system
than singleuser on the SCO system, but then (a) I have a 486DX2/66 vs. a
486DX25; (b) U2000 2.4 is faster than U2000 1.3; and (c) there appear to be
some problems between SCO 3.2.4's SCSI driver and the (also no longer
produced) SCSI host adapter in the SCO box which were alluded to when SCO
3.2.4 was dis-recommended by the box's vendor.  (The entire system was in fact
obsolete when 3.2.4 came out.  We upgraded because 3.2.4 introduced some
shared memory incompatibilities that made newer U2000 versions fail under
3.2.2.)  Therefore, no valid comparison can be made between the systems.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery         kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org          bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org
Friends don't let friends load Windows NT.

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: paul@myrddin.isl.cf.ac.uk (Paul)
Subject: Re: Fast Ethernet Adapter
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 13:40:05 +0000

In article <2tia1l$520@galaxy.ucr.edu>,
randy hyde <rhyde@mirage.ucr.edu> wrote:
>Yes, I've read the FAQ.
>Yes, I've read lots of recent posts.
>Hell, I've even read the source code to the existing ethernet cards.
>And, yes, I've read the BYTE article.

Well that was a waste of 20 mins wasn't it :-)

>(1) The etherlink III is a very well rated card (tops in BYTE's list, e.g.)
>    However, they only rated the ISA card.  I notice there is an EISA version.
>    Is it any faster?  Are there any compatible PCI cards on the horizon which
>    will be better?
>(2) I've heard some noise about the SMC Elite16T Ultra being slightly better.
>    Under what conditions?  How about the EISA version ($630, ug).
>

Ignore the BYTE article, they have a completely inadequte benchmark which
involves really stupid things like using a standard mail message and timing
how long it takes and transferring files and thigns like that which have
bugger all to do with the actual ethernet hardware. I was totally amazed
that they should be so stupid as to rate the actual NIC's on this basis.

As for hardware:

There are two significant measurements, the amount of CPU time a card takes
to send a packet and the mamximum throughput.

In FreeBSD there's a lot of work been done on optimising the ethernet
drivers and I think that most, if not all, of the NIC's are capable of
reaching the full ethernet bandwidth of 10Mbs (taking into account
the protocol overheads).

The question is therefore which can achieve full bandwidth with the lowest
CPU overhead and the clear winner's are LANCE based cards which use 
bus-mastering DMA to get the packets straight into main memory. The Allied
Telesis AT1500 is one, the NE2100 is another. There are lots more and AMD
who produce the LANCE have isa/vlbus/pci versions of the lance as well.

There can be problems with these cards if you have lots of bus-mastering
DMA controllers on your ISA bus because it is estimated that running
at FULL ethernet bandwidth the LANCE will use a minimum of 22% of the ISA's
bandwidth. Depending on the driver software this could go higher. Most of the
time though you're not likely to be driving the card that hard.

Of course, specifically for Linux the question should be posed more as, which
is the best performance combination card/driver, since the performance
of the hardware depends heavily on whether the driver is written well enough
to utilise it fully. This is why you should totally disregard any benchmark
that claims to test the hardware by using a proprietary protocol stack
because a really good card could perform abysmally because of a badly written
driver while an inferior card could outperform it because of a well written
driver.
-- 
  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: alex@wtpd00.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de (Alexander)
Subject: Re: PCI Motherboards
Date: 15 Jun 1994 13:49:38 GMT

Markus Kuhn (unrza3@cd4680fs.rrze.uni-erlangen.de) wrote:
: [ ... ]

: BTW: There has been some rumour that Drew will present his Linux
: NCR SCSI PCI driver on the Linux conference in Heidelberg in a few
: weeks. Any confirmations ... ;-)

He`ll better be doing it ...

* packaging tar and feathers for Heidelberg * :-)

yours

Alexander Jung

Grad. physics student at                    Snail mail: Alexander Jung 
State University of Bavaria at Wuerzburg                Kopernikusstrasse 19
                                                        97218 Gerbrunn
Email: alex@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de                     Germany

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

Subject: Re: Clean eXit from X possible?
From: raile@cs.ukans.edu (Chris Raile)
Date: 15 Jun 94 17:07:59 CDT

In article <2tm6nf$114@crl.crl.com>, Bogdan Urma <bogdan@crl.com> wrote:
>   Is there any way to have a clear screen after exiting X. Like
>some way to automatically issue the 'clear' command as soon as X is done?
>
>
>Thanks,
>Bogdan Urma
>bogdan@crl.com
>

(For csh/tcsh):

alias startx '\startx ; clear'


-- 
Chris Raile, GTA for EECS | E-mail 1:  raile@cs.ukans.edu
215 Snow Hall             | E-mail 2:  otter@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Lawrence, KS 66044        | WWW URL:   http://www.cs.ukans.edu/~raile/home.html
(913) 864 7379            | PGP public key available by finger or keyserver

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

From: krman@peinet.pe.ca  (Kevin MacRae)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware,comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: future of Unixware
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 10:36:37
Reply-To: krman@peinet.pe.ca

In article <H$e$jukh1qjG066yn@shore.net> bjb@shore.net (Beverly J. Brown) writes:

>>In article <2tgi0i$icr@Venus.mcs.com>, Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>>> In article <Dr6vC5.CIr@pe1chl.ampr.org>, Rob Janssen <pe1chl@rabo.nl> wrote:
>>> >In <Cr5zEF.Ltx@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>>> >Why would you ever want to have >96 RS232 ports on a Unix box??
>>> A bunch of modems, some printers sprinkled around the building, some
>>> inbound wire services, a couple of satellite uplinks. 96 sounds
>>> about right to me...
>>On one UNIX box?!?!?!?! Wouldn't you get better throughtput if you scattered 
>>them on different machines?

Yes/No. A single high performance UNIX box can sometimes be faster than 
multi-boxes. .i.e. With large databases, the time/load required to move data
from a server to a client can outweigh the time required to service the port.
One MUST remember that a >96 RS232 port Unix box has onboard "computers" to
service the high load caused by the servicing the ports. Some will do onboard
protocol admin. 

Serial printers been serviced by these "computers" remove most of the load 
from the UNIX host.

The admin of a single system is always easier than networks. Where is the
required data, is the data on host A newer than host B, etc?

Sometimes you just require a lot of access points, but each one has low
volume, i.e. a deptartment stores POS, inventory lookup, office, and modem
/fax pool.

The list can go on and on. Remember the UNIX computers today, are NOT the
ones from 6 months ago but the people using them are.

>>Beverly J. Brown
>>bjb@shore.net
>>beverly@datacube.com


--



Kevin MacRae
**************************************************************************
*  K & R Management, 20 Berkeley Way, Charlottetown, PE, C1A 8X5, Canada *
*  krman@peinet.pe.ca   (902) 566-3198      Fax (902) 566-3423           *
**************************************************************************


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


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