Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #593
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:     Thu, 11 Aug 94 19:13:12 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #593, Volume #2                Thu, 11 Aug 94 19:13:12 EDT

Contents:
  Re: starting X automatically on installing linux distribution (Charle Kempson)
  Re: Upgrading to 1.1.x ? (Jim Ribet)
  Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX) (Alfred Chetham)
  Re: CD-ROM vs Tape Distribution (was Re: Coherent & Linux  ...) (Torbj|rn Lindgren)
  need a linux book or pamphlet... (Florian Schmidt)
  Re: Motif and Linux
  talk request interceptor for X? (Mike Loseke)
  Re: Motif and Linux (Eoin Campbell)
  TERM POLL (Bill McCarthy)
  CD-ROM vs Tape Distribution (was Re: Coherent & Linux  ...) (Keith Smith)
  Re: Anyone assembling custom LINUX systems? (Keith Smith)
  Re: NeXTStep BETA on PPC? (Stephen J. Perkins)

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

From: kempsonc@carmen.logica.co.uk (Charle Kempson)
Subject: Re: starting X automatically on installing linux distribution
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 08:08:27 GMT

Sujat Jamil (sujat@shasta.ee.umn.edu) wrote:
: I'm sure this must have been discussed before, but nevertheless.....


: I was following the thread on Soft Windows vs. WABI which basically
: digressed to ease of use of "Unix"  (which a lot of people took to
: mean having a character based non-GUI interface) vs. "user-friendly"
: GUI based Windows, WNT, OS/2 etc.  A lot of the discussion was
: centered around the presence of GUI based help on these "friendly"
: systems vs. lack of it on Unix (again assuming character based
: non-GUI).  Some pointed out that with the "friendly" OSs you get a GUI
: environment right on installation to which somebody replied that with
: Unixware you also get X right on installation.  I know the same is
: true for commercial workstation Unix/X combinations (such as SGI IRIX
: or HP-UX). 

: I was wondering why the same isn't or can't be done for the popular
: Linux distribution e.g. Slackware.  I.e. when you install, you may be
: prompted on whether you'd like to install X Windows, and if so, it
: would go ahead and install X, configure it, and start it up with the
: lowest common denominator assumption (i.e. plain SVGA or even just
: VGA).  It could also have an option of asking you for your monitor and
: video card type, as well as preferred resolutions, root window color,
: etc. etc. where you could tune the configuration to your liking, 
: just as you can with Windows etc.

: In fact, if you like it could set up "automatically" using xdm or some
: startx based script so you'd never have to see the plain character
: based UI at all.

: Although I agree with those who say that Unix is more sophisticated
: than simple "user/friendly" Windows or MacOS systems and thus has a
: steeper learning curve, it's also true that much of the nicety of *nix
: is in its internal structure and resource management (e.g. preemptive
: multitasking, multiuser, network friendly etc.) all of which could be
: abstracted for the average user.  If NeXTStep, HP-VUE, Sun, SGI 
: etc. environments can abstract the complexities for the average user,
: why can't we in the Linux based environment?  Of course, the power
: user would be still able to use the character based Unix utilites.  

: It's quite silly to see the so-called friendly Windows/OS/2/Mac etc
: advocates compare the "friendly" GUI of these environments to
: character-based Unix shells.  Probably the only way to convince these
: advocates, if that is ever possible, is to actually provide similar
: GUI based environment for Linux.  I wish I knew enough about Unix and
: X programming to start working on this, but I'm still on the learning
: curve :)

: Well, I'd like know what other Linuxers think!

: Sujat

Hi Sujat,

This is a fair idea, though my instinctive feeling is that it would be
very difficult to find the 'lowest common denominator' for X.  The X11
distribution in its Slackware form comes 'ready to go' but, I wonder,
how many people have actually been able to run X out of the box, without
some major messing about with device drivers (/dev/ps2aux etc) and 
configuration options for the X server?  Unless some reliable way can be
found to probe the system hardware in Linux installation and install the
correct drivers for the hardware and write the correct Xconfig file this
would seem not to be feasible.

It is very easy to draw unfarourable comparisons with *nixes from the likes
of SUN and HP, who IMHO have made a very good job of turning *nix from a 
command line OS to a graphically orientated OS.  At work here I have an HP
715 running HP-VUE, and it is easy enough for a complete novice to use, yet
powerful enough to be completely customizable to my needs (in the best
*nix tradition).  But I think it only fair to point out that after a bit
of work exactly the same(well, almost!) result can be achieved using XDM
and X on a Linux workstation.  Given the disparity in resources available
Linux does an extremely creditable job of bringing Workstation power and 
flexibility to the PC.  My PC boots straight into the X display manager
with nice customised resources, then on login goes into fvwm.  From here
all the most commonly used tasks - setting upa slip connection, dowloading
mail, playing Xmahjongg, performing an FTP etc may all be done from 
intuitive menus from the background - No Xterm's required - which as you say
gives you complete freedom from character based interaction with  the PC.

But back to the original point, making installation painless!  i would point 
out that, like it or lump it, any *nix requires System Adminislration chores, 
including the upload and installation of new packages.  Therefore there must be
a single person (or more) per PC who has the necessary *nix knowledge to 
reconfigure and perform upgrades to the system software - especially on a system
such as Linux where versions change on an almost daily basis!  Installation and 
setup of the X server, the SLIP software, the X display manager etc provided me with
a challenging but excellent way of learning about Linux and X from the sysadmins
point of view.   This I think, is therefore a necessary first step towsards running
a Linux system painlessly.

As for comparisonms with other GUI based OS's, I think that Linux + X + WINE (so we
can all do some useful wordprocessing in Linux) would be a serious challenge
to the traditional GUI based systems for serious users.  Even my girlfriend - 
not an expert in computers of any sort, has no trouble booting, logging on, using
and shutting down our system.  I count that as a success!

Charlie

==========================================================================
Charlie Kempson              INTERNET: charlie@mpef.logica.co.uk (work)
                                       kempsonc@logica.co.uk
Logica U.K. Ltd.,                      charlie@siren.demon.co.uk  (home)
68 Newman St.,
LONDON W1A 4SE               TEL:      071-637-9111 ext. 4192     (work)
==========================================================================








: --
: *******************************************************************************
: Sujat Jamil                                             Electrical Engineering
: Graduate Research Assistant                             University of Minnesota
: ******************************sujat@shasta.ee.umn.edu**************************

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

From: ribet@rbdc.rbdc.com (Jim Ribet)
Subject: Re: Upgrading to 1.1.x ?
Date: 11 Aug 1994 12:15:16 -0400

Hi Sven,

> >Could someone please tell me how to upgrade to 1.1.36 ?
> >I remember that the 1.1.x series needs a new update program, but
> >in linux-1.1.35.tar.gz there is no update.
> >Why is there no documentation ?

There is a great little text file about kernel patching on sunsite.unc.edu
in /pub/Linux/kernel/ called kernel.txt.tgz.  (by Kyng R-Thur)  It
gives a blow by blow description of how to patch kernels.

> >Do i really have to start with 1.1.0 and then apply all patches ?

Oh, no.  I'm an absolute newbie to Linux and I'm using 1.1.42 (just got the
1.1.43 patch) that I've built up from the 1.1.18 kernel I got in Slackware
distribution 2.0 last month.  I used the file kernel.txt as a guide.
(thanks Kyng)  You can ftp linux-1.1.42.tar.gz and install it at that
level.  Easy as pie - although it does take a while to compile on my little
486/33  w/ 8 megs of ram.

Peace,
Jim Ribet  PC Addict BBS #: (910)659-0576   Fido Address: 1:3661/604       


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

From: achetham@spanky.Sun.COM (Alfred Chetham)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX)
Date: 11 Aug 1994 19:49:40 GMT

If you buy your OS from SMCC it is called SunOS 4.X or SunOS 5.X, if you get
it from SunSoft it is Solaris 1.X or Solaris 2.X.  The latest releases of
these OS's is:

    1. SunOS 4.1.3_U1  or   Solaris 1.1.1
    2. SunOS 5.3       or   Solaris 2.3 with Solaris 2.4 due real
                            soon now.

Take all the above with a grain of salt.  I am relatively new here at Sun,
and this is how it looks to me.  It has taken me awhile to get comfortable
with this confusion.  We have documentation and references to these OS's
under all of the pseudonyms listed above, and a few other internal names
just to make life more interesting.

           Al Chetham
           ESG Kernel
           Sun Microsystems
           achetham@lapis.Corp.Sun.COM
           415-336-1130


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

From: tl@cd.chalmers.se (Torbj|rn Lindgren)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.coherent
Subject: Re: CD-ROM vs Tape Distribution (was Re: Coherent & Linux  ...)
Date: 11 Aug 1994 18:21:42 GMT

In article <1994Aug11.042726.16697@ksmith.com>,
Keith Smith <keith@ksmith.com> wrote:
>Not to mention your tape drive.  What would backing up that much shit do
>to your network performance/response time?  Edge reports backup times of
>around 13MB/min with 8mm EXB8200's on a dedicated EISA controller under
>SCO.  
>
>My WangDAT does around 10MB/min (REAL measured, not burst or other
>bullshit rates).

Well, our DLT2000 easily exceeds 60 MB/min (and there's two disks on
that SCSI bus too, both which are included in the backup). This is the
*mean* transfer rate for our once-a-week level 0 backup (ie full
backup) on that machine.

If I only backup some of the partitions the mean transfer rate would
be much higher (I don't think it would hit the rated 2.5 MB/s even on
highly compressible stuff, but I've seen values above 2 MB/s). One of
the reasons that the mean transfer value isn't higher is that the
filesystems still are rather empty, this will probably be cured soon
:-) About 30% of the space is used if I exclude swap-space from the
calculation.

The machine is a DEC Alpha 3000/800S running OSF/1 2.0 in case anyone
wondered.

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

From: F.SCHMIDT@BIONIC.zer.de (Florian Schmidt)
Subject: need a linux book or pamphlet...
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 1994 23:00:00 +0000

which explains just about everything to me. daemons, drivers, channels,  
threaded stuff, networking (tcp/ip, ppp, plip, slip) and everything else.  
is there something like this out there? it would make things much easier..




--
jibbeldidabbeldidubbeldidu - mich juckts am arsch und kratzen darfst DU!
GMU -d+ -p+ c++ l u--- e* m--- s++/+ !n f? g+ w+ t+ r y?
## CrossPoint v3.0 ##

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

From: haigh@edieng.enet.dec.com ()
Subject: Re: Motif and Linux
Date: 10 Aug 1994 08:19:24 GMT
Reply-To: haigh@edieng.enet.dec.com ()


Thanks for all of the E-mails.

As I'm in the UK, I'll try LaserMoon Ltd.

Enjoy

AndyH

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

Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x
From: mike@bob.sc.colostate.edu (Mike Loseke)
Subject: talk request interceptor for X?
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 19:44:57 GMT

Is there such an animal? I'd like to have something running that would
activate upon reception of a talk request; throw a popup window onto my
X server with "talk" or "ignore" buttons, or something like it.

Anyone? Its not important or anything, it just kind of irks me when I exit
X and I see a talk request from hours earlier.

-- 
    __________http://bob.sc.colostate.edu/swo/ministers/mike.html_________
   |  Mike Loseke                    |  Behold, here cometh the Dreamer.  |
   |  mike@bob.sc.colostate.edu      |  Let us slay him, and we shall see |
   |  Linux Linux Linux Linux Linux  |  what will become of his dreams.   |

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

From: ecampbel@iol.ie (Eoin Campbell)
Subject: Re: Motif and Linux
Date: 11 Aug 1994 20:06:58 +0100

Try emailing info@seq.com, for SWiM for Linux

haigh@edieng.enet.dec.com (()) wrote:


>
>
>I know that this has probably been asked numerous times 
>before.  But I've been  out.
>
>Is there a way of using/getting Motif for Linux ?
>
>Cheers
>
>AndyH

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

From: bmccarth@gulfaero.com (Bill McCarthy)
Subject: TERM POLL
Date: 11 Aug 1994 15:09:55 -0400

Hiya:

Okay, all you termheads, here's the term template/poll form. Fill it out
and send it to me. I'll post a chart-like compilation of the info in two
weeks - look for TERM CHART as the header. This is just basic info, nothing
fancy - but just to give someone new or old to term an idea of what others
are doing/have done. Please be brief. Thanks and let me know if you like his
idea.


                             LINUX+TERM TEMPLATE
_______________________________________________________________________________

kernel ver.                    |___________________|

modem/make/speed               |___________________|

term ver.                      |___________________|

command line flgs              |_____________________________________________|

termrc optns (brief)           |______________________________________________
                                ______________________________________________
                                ______________________________________________

connection speed               |___________________|              

cps rate/avg:                      

tupload                        |___________________|

termftp                        |___________________|

other                          |___________________|

General comments:











_______________________________________________________________________________
pls email to: bmccarth@gulfaero.com



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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.coherent
From: keith@ksmith.com (Keith Smith)
Subject: CD-ROM vs Tape Distribution (was Re: Coherent & Linux  ...)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 94 04:27:26 GMT

In article <Cu63yn.CGC@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <danpop@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>In <9408042225.16@rmkhome.com> rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) writes:
>>
>>Every UNIX box has a tape drive.
>
>You must be kidding, aren't you? Less than 10% of the Unix workstations
>I've seen have a tape drive. If you have the Unix boxes connected to a
>LAN, you don't need a tape drive on each machine.

You must work in a university enviroment.

The original thread evolved into DISTRIBUTION media and costs and so
forth, and tagging the cost of a CD-ROM onto what you "pay" for linux,
and relative costs of each method.

I install Unix systems for small businesses.  Every single one gets a
tape drive.  When your talking a $5000 Computer with another $5K in
ancillary hardware the $500 for at least a QIC-525 is kinda nil.

CD-ROM is nice, but if I had to choose CD or Tape I'd take the Tape.  At
least you can back up your box.  Also with a tape distribution it's
easier to make a COPY of your distribution.  Someone cracks your
distribution CD in half and your shit out of luck.

Everything in *IX is so _big_, shit _EVERYTHING_ is so big these days I
wouldn't be without a tape drive on 99% of the boxes.  Backing up to
tape across a network generally sucks in terms of performance, though it
can be done fairly easily.  Problem is with say 30 machines on a network
that all have 1G hard drives, you have to back up 30G a day.  That means
your network tape drive has got to maintain 20MB/min SUSTAINED thruput
just to back it all up.  Gee,  what is a sustainable ethernet bandwidth?

Not to mention your tape drive.  What would backing up that much shit do
to your network performance/response time?  Edge reports backup times of
around 13MB/min with 8mm EXB8200's on a dedicated EISA controller under
SCO.  

My WangDAT does around 10MB/min (REAL measured, not burst or other
bullshit rates).

If only 10% of your machines have tape drives then you are only backing
up about 10% of your data every nite.

You can't back up on your CD-ROM (at least not the $100 ones :) ) and if
you are all over a network you are just as likely to have a CD-ROM farm,
as a tape farm so in that particular instance neither media is better.
-- 
Keith Smith aka Digital Designs                 keith@ksmith.com
5719 Archer Rd.                    Free Usenet News and Internet Mail Services
Hope Mills, NC 28348-2201         All 28K/14K Modems  (910) 423-4216/7389/7391
Somewhere in the Styx of North Carolina ...         14K-V.32/28K-V.34/28K-V.34

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

From: keith@ksmith.com (Keith Smith)
Subject: Re: Anyone assembling custom LINUX systems?
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 94 04:59:19 GMT

In article <7765528448-347730@syllog2.watson.ibm.com>,
Gustaf Neumann <neumann@watson.ibm.com> wrote:
>In article <EWERLID.94Aug10013228@frej.teknikum.uu.se> from [09 Aug 1994 23:32:28 GMT]
> ewerlid@frej.teknikum.uu.se (Ove Ewerlid)  wrote:
> |> 
> |>    Not to much different than 486, it might not be worth the extra
> |>    money. Anyone have any bench marks for Linux?
> |> 
> |> We have a P90 system (PCI/48Mb DRAM (64bits wide)/512kb cache (WBack))
> |> and a vanilla i486DX2 @ 66 Mhz (IDE/16Mb(32bits)/256kb).
> |> 
> |> The P90 is 2.1 times faster wrt compiling the linux kernel.

C'mon here.  Your comparing a LOT MORE than just the CPU here.  You've
spec'd a Total Write back 64 bit Pentium 90 with PCI and an unknown disk
controller (probably PCI/SCSI) against a simple IDE 486/66 ISA box.

The You have 3 TIMES the Memory in the Pentium box and twice the cache. 
That in and of itself cost as much as the 486/66 box.

+32MB RAM@45/M =~ $1500 +256K Cache =~ $75

That's like comparing an Indy car with a V8 engine to an Olds 98 with a
V6. A lotus runs an inline 4, but is still faster and more responsive
than an Olds 98.  If you want to compare motors they need to be on the
same or similar chassis.

For a REAL comparison you need more roughly equivilant components, like
a Write Back cache 486/66 with the same amount of cache, and an EISA or
VLB SCSI controller for the disks.

Then that done bring up the cost factor.

> |> 
> |> The bandwidth to the DRAM of the P90 system is 4 times that of
     the i486 system.
> |> This gave me quite a boost as far as linking large binaries with
> |> lots of debugging info (6 Mb and larger). 

Uhmmmm,  with pre-fetch and adequate cache, I'd say your disk was
binding you up more than your memory bus.  With 48MB of RAM you can have
one HELL of a disk buffer cache under Linux.

> Same experiences here on a SUPER PCI/VLB P54 90Mhz motherboard.
> On cpu-intense tasks (largish Prolog programs, typically 4MB memory) 
> i measure a speedup of 2.3 over a 486@66MHz

You can't compare apples and oranges and get anything meaningful.  There
are too many factors involved.  IMHO, save the money for the CPU and
upgrade your DISKS to fast SCSI.  I like my programs to launch quickly,
and I don't like to wait all day to copy a large file to disk.

Also note Cyrix is going to have WRITE BACK CACHE 486/66's any time now,
and the DX2/50 and DX/50's are out.  The W/B '100Mhz chips are scheduled
for late fall.

One of my favorite benchmarks:

$ dd cat some_large_10MB_file | gzip | gzip -dc > alternate_name

Nice thing about this is it hits your CPU and your DISK at the same
time.  It's also a similar usage pattern to the crap I _do_, constantly
shifting data from point a to point b thru filters like awk, and then
compressing to save disk space.
-- 
Keith Smith aka Digital Designs                 keith@ksmith.com
5719 Archer Rd.                    Free Usenet News and Internet Mail Services
Hope Mills, NC 28348-2201         All 28K/14K Modems  (910) 423-4216/7389/7391
Somewhere in the Styx of North Carolina ...         14K-V.32/28K-V.34/28K-V.34

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

From: sperkins@osage.csc.ti.com (Stephen J. Perkins)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.soft-sys.nextstep,comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: NeXTStep BETA on PPC?
Date: 11 Aug 1994 14:22:28 GMT


In article <32bsap$jj2@sefl.satelnet.org> mraja@satelnet.org (mraja) writes:
>> 
>>  For what i know, at this time it's not possible to use NEXTSTEP
>>  on PPC, but who knows if it is possible, if we use an ORANGE CARD ?
>>  And is it possible to use LINUX with such a card
>> 
> Well.....from what I have heard. Developers already have NeXTStep
>running on PPC....but dont really know if they are gonna release it.
>I *heard* that on some WWW site...i think..i might be wrong.

I had heard through the grapevine that the NRW (which some claimed to
use dual Moto 88100 or some such) was really running dual PPCs.  Have
no idea as to the truth of the statement.  Hoewver, it does lead one
to ponder...

- Steve
--

===========================================================================
Stephen Perkins                     | 
Texas Instruments                   |   sperkins@csc.ti.com
Dallas, TX                          |   (214) 995-1794

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


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