From: Digestifier To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 20:13:06 EDT Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #102 Linux-Activists Digest #102, Volume #6 Thu, 12 Aug 93 20:13:06 EDT Contents: Re: From your friends at UNIXWorld (Kevin S Ho) Re: [ANS] Re: can't login as root on serial line? (Kevin Cummings) Traveling Linux (was Re: Incredibly cheap ethercards available!!! ) (Jim Haynes) Re: ext2fs (Mark Buckaway) Boot problem with LILO (John Will) Cheap ethernet card intro (John Will) Re: How to fix a garbled (John Will) Re: Cheap ethernet card i (John Will) Re: SLS 1.03 no good ad f (John Will) Re: How to turn NUM LOCK (John Will) Re: Who is in charge of curses? (Brandon S. Allbery) Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux (Nate Williams) How to get a boot/root linux floppy (Bob Crosson) Re: Why would I want LINUX? (Dave Kochan) Re: IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH LINUX... (John Henders) Re: LILO with C: LINUX and D: DOS ?!? HELP! (E. Scogin) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ksh@prl.ufl.edu (Kevin S Ho) Crossposted-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy,comp.sys.next.software,alt.fan.bill-gates Subject: Re: From your friends at UNIXWorld Date: 12 Aug 1993 21:41:16 GMT In article , kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes: |> In article <23slvt$eim@nigel.msen.com> jeffk@garnet.msen.com (Jeff Kopmanis) writes: |> >Thayne Forbes (thayne@unislc.slc.unisys.com) wrote: |> >: Wade Guthrie (wade@nb.rockwell.com) wrote: |> [...] |> >: : Man, what do you want from *FREE* software? |> >: : Linux has the disadvantage that it's TOO GOOD. It looks too much like |> >: : commercial software; so, when people see it, they get upset that it |> >: : doesn't look *more* like commercial software. Well, no one I have seen ever bitches about Linux'es capabilities. They go down in flames over "ease of use" (more later) |> >: |> >: Linux. Are you saying that I should pay for Linux before I can |> >: bitch, or are you saying that we should all make it worse to install? |> |> [Windoze Access 1.1 install horror story deleted] |> |> >Don't complain about SLS or MCC Linux installs. They may not be pretty, but |> >they work "as advertised" with few surprises. The most difficult thing for |> >me was to figure out how to correctly partition my hard drives to get |> >everything to work together. Well, that's a good point, but take a total idiot and tell him to install linux....... |> |> Yup. Linux is really great stuff. Highest quality stuff *I've* ever seen. I agree, if you're willing to put in a few minutes of work for every program (except ones with precomp-binaries), because you are usually *porting to linux* and having to put up with the mutantness of linux (SYSV with some BSD with some hell if Iknow) |> |> However, I also agree that if a user is having problems installing the |> software, then (to a point) the installation process could be better. It's |> a hard problem, though. One word: SLS |> |> >I've been running Linux since December 1992, and its been a real performer. |> >While Windoze and DOS have required the use of more and more powerful |> >hardware, Linux screams on my older 386. |> |> Microsloth doesn't know how to delete code, only how to add code. Code that |> is buggy and slow. EXACTLY |> |> >It literally has prolonged the |> >life of my machine. I don't use X, as I don't have quite the memory for it, |> >but if I got 8MB instead of 4, I'd be all set. ROTFL ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) I have 8 megs, I'm choking back the tears. Try running X, emacs, a compile or 2 and Xtank and watch it swap! |> |> 386 to a 33 MHz 486). Even so, Linux hauls, *especially* on a 486. And it |> is as stable as a rock. I haven't managed to crash it *once* while doing Me too, I haven't been able to crash linux, and I think it would take a few minutes of work even if I TRIED |> normal Unix things. The only time it locked up on me was when I was playing |> with Dosemu (word of warning: don't try bringing up Jetfighter II under it. |> :-). I'm posting this from my Linux box. No problems. Most things |> compile right out of the box. A few things (BSD things, in particular) |> need a little coaxing, but it's not bad. Not bad at all. Well, usually it's just symlinking some #includes in from /usr/include/linux, but tell a secretary to do that. Linux is for those who want power and are willing to pay in sweat |> |> >-Jeff. :) |> KsH (no sig yet) ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: aus.computers.linux From: cummings@hammer.prime.com (Kevin Cummings) Subject: Re: [ANS] Re: can't login as root on serial line? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 21:10:15 GMT In article <1993Aug5.182418@hammer.prime.com>, cummings@hammer.prime.com (Kevin Cummings) writes: > Like I said in my original post. The SLS stuff is running a mix of a getty > program from getty_ps package and a login program from somewhere's else. > NEITHER program references /etc/securetty (I looked at the executables > with the strings command). Changes I make in that file cause no change in > the situation. > > Don't feel too bad. Someone else suggested that I modify /etc/login.defs, > but that file has no effect either. > > Aaaaaaaaaargh! B^) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Well, I went back and tried this again. Good thing I did too, because it worked. changing the CONSOLES line in /etc/login.defs did what I wanted. I Then changed it again to reference the file /etc/securelogin. It now allows me to put my CONSOLE information in that file! Now both answers are right! -- Kevin J. Cummings ComputerVision Services cummings@kjc386.framingham.ma.us cummings@primerd.cv.com ------------------------------ From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes) Subject: Traveling Linux (was Re: Incredibly cheap ethercards available!!! ) Date: 12 Aug 1993 22:10:32 GMT In article <248ncc$eso@slab.mtholyoke.edu> jyanowit@mtholyoke.edu (Jason Yanowitz) writes: >ps: _please_ mention Linux when ordering. you can even mention Linus >("a nice chap, so popular he could travel around the world, getting >free room, board and beer as he passed from town to town...") That reminded me of an article in Science magazine some years back about a world-famous mathematician, whose name I can't recall at the moment, who does exactly that. -- haynes@cats.ucsc.edu haynes@cats.bitnet "Ya can talk all ya wanna, but it's dif'rent than it was!" "No it aint! But ya gotta know the territory!" Meredith Willson: "The Music Man" ------------------------------ From: mark@datasoft.north.net (Mark Buckaway) Subject: Re: ext2fs Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:02:07 GMT John Will (john.will@satalink.com) wrote: : R >> Is there a program convert extfs to ext2fs yet? : R > : R >This doesn't seem like a very useful project to me. Why not just tar : R >the current directory structure to tape, reformat the drive as ext2fs, : R >and then replace everything? : Let's just suppose the poor guy doesn't have a tape! Then I'd say the poor guy has a problem! :-) I happen to agree the project is not worthwhile. If it were me (and a tape drive I do no have), I'd back up all that I'd changed, get the latest SLS release and re-install copying in my backups as well. Mark -- Mark Buckaway mark@datasoft.north.net DataSoft Communications uunorth!datasoft!mark System Administrator ------------------------------ From: john.will@satalink.com (John Will) Subject: Boot problem with LILO Date: 12 Aug 93 02:58:00 GMT S >the "LIL-" message shows that there is a problem finding S >the map file, and that this could happen if the map file S >has been moved on the disk or anything. I'm sure I've S >not been doing this since I have had no reason to be S >playing around in the LILO directory after getting the S >booting mechanism to work! Have you recompiled the kernel and moved it to the name that the previous version was using? You have to run the LILO install EVERY time you modify the kernel, even though it's in the same directory and has the same name. ------------------------------ From: john.will@satalink.com (John Will) Subject: Cheap ethernet card intro Date: 12 Aug 93 03:00:00 GMT R >There's a posting in comp.os.os2.networking about an introductory R >deal from Accton for their EN1651 MPX ethernet cards--NE2000 clones. R >They apparently will sell two to a customer for $29 apiece. That's correct, I've ordered a couple, but I don't have them yet. R >Will these cards work with Linux? I don't know if the offer is R >thinnet, 10BaseT, or what. I didn't find the cards on the R >net faq/net 2 faq lists of supported cards. The samples are for both thinnet & 10base-T if you ask, and they're NE2000 clones, so they should work with Linux... ------------------------------ From: john.will@satalink.com (John Will) Subject: Re: How to fix a garbled Date: 12 Aug 93 03:13:00 GMT D >well, I always switch to another virtual console to fix it. D >Since there's 8 virtual consoles, I can afford to lose one vc because of D >garbledness during the day, and it's faster than typing 'reset' if D >I'm already logged in to the other consoles. Gee, typing "reset" is such a bore, I'll agree. I renamed it to cls, that was soooooooo much easier. :-) ------------------------------ From: john.will@satalink.com (John Will) Subject: Re: Cheap ethernet card i Date: 12 Aug 93 14:49:00 GMT FR>>deal from Accton for their EN1651 MPX ethernet cards--NE2000 clones. FR>>They apparently will sell two to a customer for $29 apiece. FR> FR>This is quite interesting, especially in light of the Allied Telesis offer FR>of a NE2100 clone for $19.95. Maybe this is also a twisted-pair deal only, FR>and there is some underlying reason that t/p cards are now so cheap? No mystery, they're just trying to achieve brand recognition, note that you can only buy one or two of the afore mentioned cards. You can't buy 100 at that price... :-) ------------------------------ From: john.will@satalink.com (John Will) Subject: Re: SLS 1.03 no good ad f Date: 12 Aug 93 14:55:00 GMT PR>If these VIP's know what they're doing, they'll *insist* on this test PR>being run as it was done, namely as a "pop quiz". There is a world of PR>difference between an OS that has to be nursed to life by a tame guru PR>and one that any idiot can just drop into a random machine with a PR>reasonable (certainly >20%) expectation that it will come right up. If you're looking for an O/S for idiots, I suspect you're came in the wrong door. :-) ------------------------------ From: john.will@satalink.com (John Will) Subject: Re: How to turn NUM LOCK Date: 12 Aug 93 21:48:00 GMT GR>>The problem with this is (1) You gotta run it on every console, and (2) GR>>you gotta hack your /etc/rc.... GR> GR>As for "hacking your /etc/rc," I don't really see the badness there. I'm with you here, you can run numlok in your rc file once at boot and be done with it for all consoles. I don't understand the comment about having to "hack your /etc/rc", what installation doesn't significantly change the rc & rc.local files? :-) GR>Runtime configuration like this is essential for those who do not GR>like to recompile the kernel for minor things. Also, I often GR>have several kernel boot images at various patchlevels and GR>states of personal customization/experimentation. BINGO! I have three in my LILO menu, and if I have a problem with one, or I'm tinkering around with it, I can boot another. In addition, every patch I've ever seen wants a clean kernel source tree, why garbage it up with a patch I don't need. :-) GR>Loadable keymaps are a step in the right direction. This is GR>another step. Hey, we might even see binary-only distributions GR>of Linux one day, or *gasp* Linux systems without gcc installed. Let's not get carried away, I think I still want gcc! :-) ------------------------------ From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) Subject: Re: Who is in charge of curses? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 22:10:04 GMT In article <24dmimINNpee@gap.caltech.edu> ashley@cco.caltech.edu (Allen M. Ashley) writes: >The problem with ncurses is that it isn't on all other machines. Curses >is. I would like to write one program that runs under Linux, and other >non-486 based machines. Curses under Linux seems badly flawed, but it >runs on the Sun. SunOS 4.x has System V-style curses under /usr/5bin --- that includes attributes but may not include color, I haven't checked. (Color and acs_map[] were added to SVR3 curses; attributes were in SVR2, including A_ALTCHARSET, but there was no specific support for alternate character sets.) Solaris 2.x has standard SVR4 curses. Moreover, porting ncurses to any system which supports POSIX (which is to say, at least termios and sigaction) is fairly simple (barring the usual, e.g. incompatible prototypes between ncurses and system header files). There is support for SunOS in the source for 0.7.2, but it didn't look quite right to me... easy to fix, though. In any case, I suspect you'll find SVR4 curses showing up on other systems, since BSD curses still doesn't have attribute or alternate character set support. I think 4.4BSD defines termcap entries for such (a bit too late, IMHO, as everyone else using BSD termcap/curses has already pseudo- standardized on their own sequences --- mutually incompatible with each other and 4.4BSD, of course) but curses hasn't been rewritten to use them yet. In the meantime, System V curses has had them for several years and applications have been written to use them, making it a de-facto standard. -- Brandon S. Allbery kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org ------------------------------ From: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) Crossposted-To: comp.unix.shell Subject: Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux Date: 12 Aug 1993 22:43:13 GMT In article <24bucm$43@adv.win.tue.nl>, Arjan de Vet wrote: >It runs indeed configure scripts very well except it cannot do `cd .' :-) > >It has however some serious bug (I think): many shell scripts from INN and >smail use commands in backquotes (`date`). When running these scripts from >the command line, they work fine, but when run from crond they hang at the >first `...` command, consuming 100% CPU time. This is also the case for >/etc/rc scripts. I started using debugging traces but haven't been able >yet to find the problem. > >When this bug has been fixed, ash will be a good (and small: 66K) /bin/sh >substitute for Linux. Hmm, I don't see either of those bugs with the same shell (NetBSD and FreeBSD same the same shell) bsd % cat /etc/motd FreeBSD 0.1.8 (COE) 08/04/93 14:21 bsd.coe.montana.edu bsd % sh $ pwd /usr/user/nate $ cd . $ pwd /usr/user/nate $ cat ash-test #!/bin/sh -x echo "this is a test of /bin/sh (AKA ash)" echo `date` echo `pwd` cd /tmp echo `pwd` cd . echo `pwd` echo Date-`date` exit And the output from running this under cron From root Thu Aug 12 15:38:03 1993 Received: from localhost (root@localhost) by bsd.coe.montana.edu (8.3/8.3) id PAA26779; Thu, 12 Aug 1993 15:38:03 -0700 Message-Id: <199308122238.PAA26779@bsd.coe.montana.edu> From: root (Cron Daemon) To: nate Subject: cron for nate@bsd said this Date: Thu Aug 12 16:39:00 1993 X-Cron-Cmd: X-Cron-Env: X-Cron-Env: X-Cron-Env: X-Cron-Env: Status: OR + echo this is a test of /bin/sh (AKA ash) this is a test of /bin/sh (AKA ash) + date + echo Thu Aug 12 15:38:01 PDT 1993 Thu Aug 12 15:38:01 PDT 1993 + pwd + echo /usr/user/nate /usr/user/nate + cd /tmp + pwd + echo /tmp /tmp + cd . + pwd + echo /tmp /tmp + date + echo Date-Thu Aug 12 15:38:02 PDT 1993 Date-Thu Aug 12 15:38:02 PDT 1993 + exit I suspect a bug somewhere in the Linux libraries, or at least different behavior than under the free BSD clones. Nate -- nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu | In the middle of it ........ again. nate@cs.montana.edu | Running/supporting one of many freely available work #: (406) 994-4836 | Operating Systems for [34]86 machines. home #: (406) 586-0579 | (based on Net/2, name changes all the time :-) ------------------------------ From: crosson@cam.nist.gov (Bob Crosson) Subject: How to get a boot/root linux floppy Date: 12 Aug 93 20:47:40 GMT I would like to create the equivalent of the SLS A1 disk for the version of linux I'm running on my system. I've read the lilo documentation but I'm still not sure of what I'm doing and why things aren't working. Could someone please correct my thinking listed below? Doing a 'dd if=/zImage of=/dev/fd0' copies a bootable image to a floppy. I know this part works. The problem is how to get a root file system on that same floppy and how to get the image to mount that root file system. I calculated the number of sectors the image would take for storage on the floppy. Then I used 'fdisk /dev/fd0' to create a partition on the floppy starting at a cylinder beyond the end of the image. I made an ext2 file system on that partition and mounted it. I copied all kinds of stuff (/etc/init, /etc/inittab, /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /bin/getty, /bin/update, /bin/sh, etc.) to that floppy's file system. I made a /dev/fd0 node with 'mknod /dev/fd0 b 2 0' in the floppy file system. I ran lilo with a config file containing boot = /dev/fd0 : image = /dev/fd0 range = 1+397 # this is the number of sectors # used by the 'dd' of the image file My problems are that this doesn't work. If I don't do the 'dd' and make the file system on the entire disk and don't include the 'range' variable, lilo only gets through the first 'L', then hangs. Doing all I've described above gets me to the point where lilo runs, loads something, then starts lilo again, loads something, runs lilo again, etc. Do I have to do something like change my root directory before running lilo? I tried using the lilo -r option but it can't find the directory where the floppy is mounted. If these are ignorant questions, please excuse my stupidity. Can anybody help? Bob Crosson crosson@cam.nist.gov ------------------------------ From: slflq@cc.usu.edu (Dave Kochan) Subject: Re: Why would I want LINUX? Date: 12 Aug 93 16:46:16 MDT In article , daniel@austin.ibm.com (Daniel Supernaw-Issen) writes: > > In article <24djra$764@belfort.daimi.aau.dk>, poe@daimi.aau.dk (Peter Orbaek) writes: >> Thus spake rozum@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Stephen Rozum): >> >> >I have a simple question to all those who use LINUX. >> >> > *** Why should I want to use LINUX? ** >> > [ a bit of the origonal letter and reply deleted ] >> >> >I know that LINUX is UNIX operating system for PC's, but unfortunately >> >it can't run my DOS base programs (i.e., Borland C++ compilier, Amipro, >> >games, Mktools, etc...). >> >> Many people don't like DOS that much, and want something better at a >> reasonable price ($0 :-). Linux is a very viable option for those that >> are not forced to use DOS some reason or another. > > you might consider looking at dosemu0.49 it is a very robust well written > product. It virtualizes the bios and hardware to a sufficent extant that you can > run dos on top of it. Not only is it functional but because it runs in user > space, this 'dos box' shares system resources rather than claims them. This > means that unlike the 'dos boxes' of MS Windows and OS/2, you can still run other > processes at the same time and go on with your work. This means that my wife can Huh? What exactly to you mean? OS/2 has no trouble at all with other processes running while a DOS box is running, or even running several DOS boxes. If you mean that you can't hang a terminal off the serial port and have multiple users, yes, that's true... (Single user multitasking vs. Multi-user multitasking) > >> If you happen to like DOS and your tools, and don't want to broaden your >> horizon beyond that, fine, forget about Linux... >> >> - Peter. >> -- >> Peter Orbaek >> Hasle Ringvej 122, DK-8200 Aarhus N, DENMARK > > Daniel Supernaw-Issen > > please send all mail/flames/etc to danielsi@cs.utexas.edu > I speak for nobody but myself. ------------------------------ From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: Re: IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH LINUX... Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 22:31:07 GMT imp@boulder.parcplace.com (Warner Losh) writes: >Reminds me of a comic I once saw. He said there should be a $5 charge >for being stupid. Anybody could collect at any time. So, if you see >someone being stupid, say "That'll be $5 for being stupid." If they >pay it, charge them another $5.... :-) Sort of like the Amway approach. -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ ------------------------------ From: ges@sdf.lonestar.org (E. Scogin) Subject: Re: LILO with C: LINUX and D: DOS ?!? HELP! Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 04:57:48 GMT First you do need to do a msdos sys command on your d drive second the lilo config file should have an entry like this: other = /dev/hdb1 label = msdos_d table = /dev/hdb loader = any_d.b Its the last line that is important Gene E. Scogin ------------------------------ ** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is: Internet: Linux-Activists-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux) via: Internet: Linux-Activists@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites: nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux tupac-amaru.informatik.rwth-aachen.de pub/msdos/replace The current version of Linux is 0.99pl9 released on April 23, 1993 End of Linux-Activists Digest ******************************