From: Digestifier To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 23:13:05 EDT Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #111 Linux-Activists Digest #111, Volume #6 Fri, 13 Aug 93 23:13:05 EDT Contents: Re: diskless booting from nfs (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Re: what software for PC-NFS (pc-end) (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Re: A Word Processor for Linux (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Re: which is better: Slackware or SLS (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Re: 38400 or 57600 baud, which to use? With what FIFO trigger setting? (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Re: Why is there a 1024 cylinder limit in Linux. (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Re: 57600 baud on Linux??? (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) GCC 2.4.5 slow on 386? (John Henders) Re: 486 Doesn't boot LINUX SLS v1.02 (Derek Bischoff) Re: A Word Processor for Linux (Derek Bischoff) Re: binary compatibilty with ATT Unix? (Derek Bischoff) Re: ext2fs (Derek Bischoff) Re: Ho much USL license(was Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy) (Derek Bischoff) Re: Ho much USL license(was Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy) (Derek Bischoff) Re: IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH LINUX... (Derek Bischoff) Re: Is 3c509 driver there yet? (Derek Bischoff) Re: [Q] How do you connect to linux boxes w/arcnet cards? (Phil Hughes) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: diskless booting from nfs Date: 12 Aug 93 02:19:12 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article jmp@login.qc.ca (Jean Marc Pigeon) writes: Excuse my quoting so much, it's needed to make the point. | davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes: | | >| >own HD with operating sys etc on it? | >| The answer is YES, I did it, on of my systems is | >| a perfectly normal Linux, the other is absolutly | >| disk free, I started from the Janie Hanan work, from | >| that point the tricky part is to have a process started | >| before "/etc/init" which do all the NFS mounting. | >| So far it working well, but a rather limiting factor, is | >| the fact you can't use "shared library" from a NFS mounted | >| device. | | > For those of us who don't remember that work, could you tell us where | >the "process before init" comes from? A custom BIOS ROM I assume? | | Not at all, once the kernel is loaded from the host, it Stop! My ethernet card doesn't load anything from the host, that's why I said a custom ROM. How did you get an "absolutely diskless" system to load anything from anywhere. I want to do this, and have no better way to ask the question, after the motherboard BIOS boots and sees that there are no disks, what tells it to go read stuff off the net, and how do you program in the boot disk address if you don't have some custom flash RAM or a burned EPROM, or something. | normally start "/etc/init" as "first job", (the purpose | is to spawn other jobs (getty, update, cron, etc...)). | Now, as the excutable files are on the host accessible | only via NFS, you need to have a little utilities | doing all the mount and AFTER calling "etc/init" execution. If someone else understands how the boot code gets executed, please give me a clue. I don't know a better way to phrase this, there's got to be custom ROM *somewhere*, no? The BIOS looks for a floppy, sees none, looks for a hard disk, see none, and then every BIOS I've tried says something like "no bootable disk." How do you get it to read the net??? -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: what software for PC-NFS (pc-end) Date: 12 Aug 93 02:23:14 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article <1993Aug10.004825.5627@engr.engr.uark.edu> hbj@engr.engr.uark.edu (Bernard Johnson) writes: | And as I remember, the nfs server code is plainly copyrighted, but has no | distribution restrictions. I'd have to check, but if the Net-2 code is | stable I'll probably just stick with that. My memory could be faulty, I remember freely distributing it, but I'm less sure about the lack of copyright. That I didn't see it when compiling doesn't mean it didn't exist, and I hope I didn't mislead anyone into not reading the code themselves. There's a nice NFS *server* for DOS called soss (from memory, that's been questioned once in this posting already ;-) which is $20 shareware. I don't have a copy, but I've seen it. -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: A Word Processor for Linux Date: 12 Aug 93 02:53:27 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article <1993Aug10.014818.24385@cc.gatech.edu> byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) writes: | This is my cut on the issues. It's my perception and no one else's: | | - People gravitate to what they're most used to. That's why there is such | a big division between the TeX folk and the WYSIWYG folk. Ummm, I don't think so. The flexible users gravitate to the best tool for the job. That means that some people with years of experience in troff and scribe are now using WYSIWYG, because it generates the same output faster for some tasks. If you use a markup language for hours every day doing complex tables, then maybe you can visualize how they will look (aesthetically, not physically) without a format and view cycle. I admit I can't, because most of the stuff I do just doesn't use that much complexity. Fiction, articles, and simple four font documentation can be done on almost anything, but when you start doing sidebars, wraparound illustrations, etc, most people either do it a lot or require at least one format and view. And from watching people who do it for a living, a lot more than one, because they're able to notice subtle things to fix. I judge my tool by how quickly I can do a satisfactory job, and that pretty much leads away from markup for complex pages. | - Different jobs have different levels of complexity and therefore require | different tools to accomplish said jobs effectively. That's more in line with my thinking, the complex stuff is easier to do once in a while with a nice human interface instead of "remember this arcane sequence of commands." | - Some folks have the time and energy to invest in deep understanding of | complex software. Some folks would rather die than crack the manual. The rich and poor have an equal number of hours. The output per hour is productivity, and whatever works is the right way to go. You could write directly in PostScript (once in a while), or fill in the bitmaps with adb if you like arcane stuff with "real control," but most people just want to get it done. In fact, most Linux people would rather write code than documentation, and it sure shows. | - There's always a tradeoff between power and complexity. Um, only partially true. WYSIWYG makes it easier to do stuff like a multi-column table with hyphenation in one column, multiple type fonts, and left vs. right justification in various columnns. Doing this in troff or TeX is time consuming (I'm not sure I can do it in TeX at all). I mention this because I recently had to do it, and with WYSIWYG it was easy. Other stuff I do in troff, and I used to use scribe a lot, although I'm forgetting to make room for new things. | | The bottom line is that there is no simple single solution to the problem. Both | formatting and WYSIWYG word processing tools are necessary and desirable. | They generally fall at opposite ends of the power/complexity line. Other than saying I see no correlation between a top of the line WYWIWYG and lack of power, I see a high degree of correlation between memorization required vs. ease of use. | Let me know what you think. I personally think the need is for a native X based open systems WYSIWYG with power and ease of use comparable to Word for Windows or Word Perfect. Things like making a few paragraphs double columnn should be select and click on the columns. Fonts should be menued. Headers and footers, footnotes, indexing and table of contents should be as easy as (a) highlight the text, (b) click, (3) enter the level (for TOC). You should be able to do outlining, of course, and move sections by drag and drop. Embedded graphics (from Xfig??) and equations should be a full part of it, and not by 500 chars of multiply nested parens and keywords. Too many people in this group speak as if WYWIWYG is still at the state of _Electric Pencil_ or the CP/M version of Wordstar. The market has voted, ease of use is in. Microsoft got big by giving people stuff they liked to use, not by technical excellence. If Linux is going to be anything but a hobby, it better offer what people find productive, and not with the attitude of "we techies know this is shit, but we offer it to you dorks who are too dumb to use this complex and arcane stuff." -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: which is better: Slackware or SLS Date: 12 Aug 93 03:02:00 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article person@plains.NoDak.edu (Brett Person) writes: | | Slackware wins hands down. As I recall, i had to have lots of help | installing SLS. The guy who helped me install SLS is the same | guy who produced the Slackware distribution. | | If you want Xfree to work right the FIRST time, get Slackware. I had no end | of problems getting X up and going with SLS. Pat had to figure that one out | for me too. I don't think your problems are universal. I've had virtually no questions about the install, and that was from people who were trying to customize it and really hack it, rather than just plain users. My 72 years old civil engineer converted from OS/2, no problems other than "what card do I buy to run X" at a computer show. A used car saleswoman who's native language is not English had no trouble. There are hardware configurations which don't go smoothly with the defaults, and I spent about 30 hours getting my networking going right because I wanted the config my way. If I did it the "right way" it would drop in. I've stumped TAMU, also, it's just a matter of how well you match the envelope of self configuration. I bet there are systems which don't drop in slackware, and that's nothing against it, no one can cover all the bases. If I hit the lottery I try slackware, otherwise I stay with SLS 1.02 and let my friends find the bugs in 1.03. -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Crossposted-To: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: 38400 or 57600 baud, which to use? With what FIFO trigger setting? Date: 12 Aug 93 03:03:58 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article <1993Aug9.073934.377@grendel.demon.co.uk> jes@grendel.demon.co.uk (Jim Segrave) writes: | I'm using a 486SX25 laptop, which has built in 16450's (no chance of | replacing them, no expansion cards). It runs quite happily at 38K4 | getting news and email via SLIP. Performance does not seem to be | significantly worse while receiving news or ftping files. Out of curiousity, what's your actual transfer rate, as opposed to serial line speed? -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: Why is there a 1024 cylinder limit in Linux. Date: 12 Aug 93 03:14:20 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article <247quu$1de7@nwg.nectec.or.th> nui@nwg.nectec.or.th (Kaiwan Honglakdaromp) writes: | > Actually as long as your *boot* partition lies below cyl 1024 the rest | > of the Linux partitions can be where the disk is. There are performance | > reasons *not* to remap the disk geometry. | Greeting all to linux-er :) | | This followup might be a bit late but it seems that I'm running into | some problem that (I think) relate to this post.. My new 486 is equiped | with HD Micropolis 2105A (1048 cyl 16 head 63 sect'). And everytimes | that I try to mke2fs , I always got "kernel panic: sector write error". To be sure you follow what I said, *all* of the boot sector must be below 1024. If you are installing a small boot partition and then trying to create the other partition running from Linux after installation, I can't help. If you're trying to do this from an installation floppy, thaere's a possibility that you are using the BIOS for disk i/o, and getting the problem. I've done 4-5 of these by putting in the boot partition and then doing the rest of the partitioning from a running system. No problems with 1224 cyl, I have a bunch of old Maxtors. -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: 57600 baud on Linux??? Date: 12 Aug 93 03:18:18 GMT Reply-To: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) In article <1993Aug10.145548.9001@cc.gatech.edu> byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) writes: | 38400 is the highest standard baud rate that most Unix machines go to. The | baud rates are hard coded. Linux rather elegant solution is to allow the | use to swap out the 38400 baud rate with a high baud rate. The setserial | program found on the nearest Linux archive site allow you swap 38400 for | 57600, 115200, or in fact any other baud rate you like. The process: The drivers for some UNIX systems use slow baud rates remapped, so you still have the regular high speeds. In particular 50=>56k, 75=>76.8k. I find that pretty easy to remember ;-) This is in FAS (free v.3/V.4 driver), and a few other drivers I've seen go by. -- Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654 C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems, heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software ------------------------------ From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: GCC 2.4.5 slow on 386? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 23:40:33 GMT Is it just me, or does the new 2.4.5 run slower and use a lot more memory on a 386 than 2.3.3 did. I just got 2.4.5 and the pl11 kernel tree to upgrade, and gcc took over a half hour to compile compared to 2.3.3 taking around 20. Also, the memory usage for 2.4.5 was over a meg more than usage under 2.3.3. I never saw it swap on my 8 meg machine when I ran just gcc, now it goes abnout a meg into swap. To see if this was because the new kernel was using g++ (my first suspician) I installed the pl99 tree and recompiled it. Same results. Way slower and swapping. Is this the result of the 486 compile of gcc? Is it really this much less efficient now on a 386, or is it a major change in the way gcc works that accounts for this speed and memory use? -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: 486 Doesn't boot LINUX SLS v1.02 Date: 11 Aug 93 22:39:02 GMT Hv> I tried at first with all cards installed: FAILED Hv> All I got was LILO telling it was booting. Then LINUX Hv> loading the RAMDISK. Then LINUX loading and Hv> uncompressing. Right after the message Hv> Booting LINUX Hv> my system freezes. Hv> Also note I have installed LINUX to my other sytem and Hv> I made bootdisk without LILO. This disk just comes as Hv> far on my 486! You're clue here is your other system doesn't work either. Bet'ya bottom dollar that you have a bad copy. ( I know you hate to here that) But this is what happened to me for a 386/25 and I had to bang away at it for a week. Because everyone else thought it was because of "my scsi controller" But, please let your question float a while before you invest in anything. I'm only telling you about my experience. Derek (PS the problem went away when I downloaded all the A disks again from the same source! (I don't understand it either) ... Sincerely, Derek ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: A Word Processor for Linux Date: 11 Aug 93 22:44:03 GMT EM> Seems to me this argument always ends up being irrelevant to Linux. EM> Its not a comparison of current word processors that is important to EM> Linux. No one questions the power of TeX. Its just the front end to it EM> that most people don't like, if there was a WYSIWIG word processor EM> that used TeX as its engine and gave you acess to the TeX source, and EM> the ability to EDIT the document in preview mode (not just view), have EM> short cut keys and pull down menus would both camps be happy ? Seems to me that the true spirit of Linux is to find what you need/want and produce it through development or porting. All the tools are there to make what you want. One needs only to build them. Hmmm a wysiwyg WP eh???? ... Sincerely, Derek ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: binary compatibilty with ATT Unix? Date: 11 Aug 93 22:50:04 GMT KH> I tried a curious thing the other day. A customer had their machine KH> in our shop the other day. It was an OEM Unix but I believe the KH> underlying Unix was ATT Unix 3.1 (I believe). I was cruising around KH> on the machine checking things out and I found this language called KH> "Sixth" which is a Forth variant written in C. Only thing was there KH> was no source code there to recompile it under Linux but I tarred it KH> up (binaries) on a floppy and moved it over to my Linux machine and I see, You can pay me now for the copy right infringement. just send $1,300 to the bbs below, and make it a donation in my name. ... It's okay --- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too. ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: ext2fs Date: 11 Aug 93 23:16:05 GMT 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? JW> Let's just suppose the poor guy doesn't have a tape! Then, does the poor guy have a lot of disks?? :) ... Sincerely, Derek ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: Ho much USL license(was Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy) Date: 11 Aug 93 23:29:06 GMT AYR> I agree with Evan. But .... Linux has a big advantage over UNIX in the AYR> area of development resources. There are thousands of Linux and GNU AYR> enthusiasts and there are tens of engineers developing commercial AYR> UNIX. And among these engineers there are not many whose business is AYR> bug fixing. So, as a result We have an advanced standard UNIX AYR> environment which is too buggy from my point of view. Can the AYR> advantages of Linux and commercial UNIX be unified in a single product AYR> ? AYR> How much is USL(or Univel) source license ? I heard that it is below AYR> $200,000. I guess that it is possible to find 200 unix-fans (each AYR> will contribute $1000) in order to found a UNIX company. AYR> I do expect this to have a form of spare time activity for AYR> contributors at least for a first time. I won't flame you too much. How will this make Linux any different from anyone else. If you charge for Linux, you lost the developing spirit, (and how could you with so much source code around??) If you don't charge for Linux, and you do invest 200 grand what do you get for it?? If the OS is still free, then it won't change the perception of the users in the commercial software market. ... Sincerely, Derek ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: Ho much USL license(was Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy) Date: 11 Aug 93 23:35:07 GMT >I fail to see the purpose? What advantage does this $200 Unix have >over Linux? LDS> End user support, applications and support from industry known third LDS> party hardware and software Unix vendors. Larry, You will not find anyone interrested in Linux inless you charge for it, then you find yourself with an OS that is just like every one else. I own SCO, Coherent and Linux, and I use HPUX I can tell you, the biggest difference between them all! Is that LInux is free, and it is on the cutting edge of development. (with this many people working with it, with their hearts mind you, (since they are not paid) Linux is the cutting edge, and all that you want from OUTSIDE VENDORS will come from inside developers. Both Computone and Stallion are offering Development Kits for the drivers for their boards. Why don't you purchase one and develop the drivers for these boards? You could then do what hundreds of other generous programers do, and share the information. ... In fact, pick Stallion, I'm going to do the Computone soon. ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH LINUX... Date: 11 Aug 93 23:38:08 GMT EC> Keep those questions coming, folks! I'll be posting the 900 number EC> soon... -- EC> Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@apple.com 510/659-9560 Uh, how do you use rawrite again?? ... :) ------------------------------ From: Derek.Bischoff%f1.n3641.z1@psybbs.durham.nc.us (Derek Bischoff) Subject: Re: Is 3c509 driver there yet? Date: 11 Aug 93 23:50:09 GMT >3COM supplies MSDOS drivers to sell their cards to the largest audience. eh? 3com I know that 3com has been a part of the development of drivers for many other operating systems, and the companies there of. However, I wouldn't expect them to spend money to develop drivers for Linux enthus', (We propably buy our cards used they would say) :) any way, I wouldn't worry too much yet. Evern Cryer has not come up with a driver for the 3c9. And they are usually pretty quick. (come to think of it, I have two SCO boxes and they don't have drivers for the 9 yet either. go fig'ya ... Sincerely, Derek ------------------------------ From: fyl@fylz.com (Phil Hughes) Subject: Re: [Q] How do you connect to linux boxes w/arcnet cards? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 01:21:46 GMT Donald J. Becker (becker@super.org) wrote: : In article <1993Aug6.174418.22904@ennews.eas.asu.edu> jbattles@slab.pr.erau.edu (John Battles) writes: : >I have 3 computers with arcnet cards running linux and I was wondering how : >to connect them together. : : There is no Arcnet driver for Linux. : : > 1) Where do I get drivers for arcnet cards? : : Feel free to write a driver. There might be people with home systems : that will be able to use it with discarded hardware. With the very : low cost and better performance of ethernet I expect that most places : will be giving away their Arcnet hardware for free. For anyone considering this there is good news. All the Arcnet cards are alike. So, if you write a driver for one card, all of Arcnet is supported. -- Phil Hughes - FYL - 8315 Lk City Wy NE - Suite 207 - Seattle, WA 98115 Phone: 206-526-2919 x74 Fax: 526-0803 E-mail: fyl@fylz.com or nwnexus!fylz!fyl ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************