From: Digestifier To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 19:13:13 EDT Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #133 Linux-Activists Digest #133, Volume #6 Tue, 17 Aug 93 19:13:13 EDT Contents: Re: When's Linux 1.0 coming out? (Mark A. Davis) 'truncating inode number' with cpio and DOS filesystem (David Hinds) Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux (Jeff Jennings) Help: SLS1.03 Xwindow ... (Elden S. Liu) Re: Warning: old style IOCTL called! (Jerry A. Segler Jr.) Re: When's Linux 1.0 coming out? (Ben Lippolt) Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius (Matthew Wright) Re: tar & mt ("Brian E. Gallew") Re: VESA local bus (Jerry Shekhel) linux on disks = $30 (yuri@atmos.washington.edu) Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux (Harald.Eikrem@delab.sintef.no) Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius (David Truckenmiller) Re: Ncurses, how do I... (Zachary S Smith) Re: When's Linux 1.0 coming out? (Mika Liljeberg) Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius (Eric Youngdale) Re: xfree ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) Subject: Re: When's Linux 1.0 coming out? Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 18:42:54 GMT marcf@nexus.yorku.ca (Marc G Fournier) writes: >mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) writes: >>calica@cae.wisc.edu (Carlo James Calica) writes: >>>In article <24p4h8$g81@agate.berkeley.edu> genie@con.Berkeley.EDU (Gene Choi) writes: >>>> >>>Actually what would be pretty neat is if 1.0 would be put on hold until >>>WABI, ELF, and maybe even COFF support is fairly concrete. (Or even early >>>BETA) What capabilities for its first non-beta release! >>You took the words right out of my mouth. WABI could be a later add-on, >>but full ELF and COFF are major and Unix native enough. That plus good >>documentation and administration tools and the concept is complete. > Wait...we are asking for 1.0 of the kernel, not the 'packages' >that are being distributed. I agree with what ppl are saying would be >nice to have completed for 1.0, but don't lump documentation/adminstration >tools are part of 1.0... Yes, that is true. Sometimes it is hard to separate the two, though. What I was trying to say is that WABI seems more like a package "add-on" while ELF & COFF seem to be more a part of the kernel and base "unix" unit. Let me correct my posting by agreeing with your statement. -- /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Mark A. Davis | Lake Taylor Hospital | Norfolk, VA (804)-461-5001x431 | | Sys.Administrator| Computer Services | mark@taylor.wyvern.com .uucp | \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/ ------------------------------ From: dhinds@leland.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds) Subject: 'truncating inode number' with cpio and DOS filesystem Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 20:19:57 GMT I just tried backing up my system using cpio to a remote tape drive. While backing up a DOS partition, many files produced 'truncating inode number' messages. Are these harmless? I did a quick test, and an archive of a few of these files seems to be otherwise normal. I'm using the cpio included with the Slackware 1.01 release, which appears to be GNU cpio 2.2 -- David Hinds dhinds@allegro.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.unix.shell From: jennings@lhotse.stortek.com (Jeff Jennings) Subject: Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 17:28:36 GMT Linus Torvalds (torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI) wrote: : In article <24m3s6$sv@adv.win.tue.nl> devet@adv.win.tue.nl (Arjan de Vet) writes: : > : >>>It runs indeed configure scripts very well except it cannot do `cd .' :-) : >> : >>Interesting. I hadn't tried that...:-) : > : >Not the first test you think of indeed :-) Seems to be a Linux-only bug. : One thing to check for in cases like this is what arguments the shell : actually uses for the "chdir()" call: it might be using the empty string : (or even the NULL pointer), both of which probably work under BSD to : give the "current directory", but it doesn't work that way under linux : (and is not supposed to). "ftpd" has a similar problem when using : "mget/mput" for the current directory. One good way to check this out : is to use "strace" on ash. : There may be other use of "BSD features" that break under POSIX (and : thus linux), which may explain why the problem cannot be seen on the : NetBSD platforms. : Linus Linus is correct, ash is passing "" to chdir(). Here are diffs I used to make it work, it's not pretty but it does the job. diff -c sh.old/cd.c sh/cd.c *** sh.old/cd.c Tue Aug 17 11:18:22 1993 --- sh/cd.c Tue Aug 17 11:24:43 1993 *************** *** 163,168 **** --- 163,172 ---- STPUTC('/', p); cdcomppath++; } + if (*dest == '.' && dest[1] == '\0') { + STPUTC('.',p); + cdcomppath++; + } first = 1; while ((q = getcomponent()) != NULL) { if (q[0] == '\0' || q[0] == '.' && q[1] == '\0') -- Jeff Jennings | Imagination is more important than knowledge. Jeff_Jennings@stortek.com | - Albert Einstein Storage Tek - Iceberg | The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to LSVL 4 (303)673-7855 | save all the pieces. - Aldo Leopold ------------------------------ From: ELDEN@TOROLAB6.VNET.IBM.COM (Elden S. Liu) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:54:15 EDT Subject: Help: SLS1.03 Xwindow ... Since I cannot access c.o.l.h at this time, I decided to post my question here: I installed SLS 1.03 last Saturday. Everything went Ok during disk feeding :-) However, when I started X-windows, vitural memory got exhusted so quickly even with only 2 or 3 applications running. To get one purticular X-app up when vitural memory runs out, I have to exit X and restart it. When I switch back to Linux text-mode, I saw a few error messages indicate 'exceeded vitual memory...', and the last error was alway an interrupt error. My system has 8M RAM with 10M swap space created for Linux. Is there any configuration work needed here? Thanks in advance! -- Elden ------------------------------ From: jas54553@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jerry A. Segler Jr.) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help Subject: Re: Warning: old style IOCTL called! Date: 17 Aug 1993 20:44:18 GMT In <1993Aug15.131748.5562@a.cs.okstate.edu> chris@a.cs.okstate.edu (Chris Schuermann) writes: >I do NOT currently have any type of ethernet board installed, but would >like to have the tcp/ip services available so that I can work on some >socket code. I've upgraded a SLS distribution to PL10. Any attempt to >use telnet/ping/ftp/etc results in "network unreachable". I have the same problem.. I thought it was kernel/net-1 stuff so I upgraded to net-2 source (which I compiled) & .99PL11 kernel.. I still get network unreachable.. (no other warnings..) I've hacked apart the kernel and it is failing in tcp_connect when it calls build_header (returns -101). (I turned on ALL debugging and then added a few more lines.. BTW who was the wise guy who added all the #undef *_DEBUG 's??? That was *really* annoying.. ) If anyone knows what could be wrong or has some pointers... :) -Jerry -- "I didn't do it... Nobody saw me do it... You can't prove anything!!!" -Bart Simpson "I think the surest sign of Intelligent life in the Universe is that fact that none of it has tried to contact us" -Calvin & Hobes & Many others. ------------------------------ From: bjl@loki.research.ptt.nl (Ben Lippolt) Subject: Re: When's Linux 1.0 coming out? Reply-To: B.J.Lippolt@research.ptt.nl Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 19:33:27 GMT stsai@husc11.harvard.edu (Shun-Chang Tsai) writes: >just out of curiostiy, can anyone give me an estimate of the relase >date for Linux 1.0? After all, the version number is getting pretty >close to it. Just some historical notes about version 1.0. At the time of 0.12 (feb '92) we talked about the next version as 0.13. But Linus jumped to 0.95 instead. His explanation was that we were getting close to version 1.0. The expected date for 1.0 at that time was May '92. Originally he wanted to call it version 1.0 as soon as he could run GCC on it. This he achieved with 0.10 I believe. The list of excuses of putting off 1.0 contain amongst others: a real login, SCSI support, better memory management, virtual filesystems, better memory management, shared libraries, networking, better networking, etc. I don't believe in this mythical Linux 1.0 anymore. The last time Linus said something about 1.0 was around december last year. Since then I have seen him mentioning it. And besides, I don't see why we can't have Linux 0.99.999 :-). Ben Lippolt. ------------------------------ From: mwright@netcom.com (Matthew Wright) Subject: Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 20:42:49 GMT David Truckenmiller (trucken@exa.cs.umn.edu) wrote: : In <24q88v$ndo@agate.berkeley.edu> tito@uclink.berkeley.edu (Attilio Shaud Ingargiola) writes: : Failing that, I noticed that the local bookstore now contains at least : 2 dozen books about unix. The only ones that are missing are "Unix for : Dummies," and "I Hate Unix." (Though, I'm sure they're due out any : day now. :-) ) David, "Unix for Dummies", is out from IDG Books, a great Unix intro and quite funny to boot.. -- ==================================== Internet: mwright@netcom.com Matthew Wright Fido : 1:130/808 Arlington, TX Why? Telecommunications (817) 784-8993 ------------------------------ From: "Brian E. Gallew" Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin Subject: Re: tar & mt Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 16:46:58 -0400 dclemmer%anl433.uucp@Germany.EU.net (David Clemmer) writes: > umm... why would it be needed at all... admittedly, i've only had my tape drive > (with tapes :) since last night, but in my little experience, i saw that > whenever the system was finished with the tape, even if it was a job stopped by > SIGINT, it rewound the tape before restoring the prompt... You were using the REWINDING tape device, which automagically rewinds upon closure. > ok... how would you specify which you wanted when restoring from that tape? > i mean, you can't exactly say 'tar xvf /dev/rmt0/file1' or something equally > silly... Actually, RTFM will show tar xvf /dev/rmt0 path1 path2 path3 where pathX is the full pathname of the file of interest. > btw, in checking my back-up (which i did by saying: tar cvf - * |gzip -cv > > /dev/rmt0), i found that zcat couldn't deal with the tape... ie: i couldn't do > zcat /dev/rmt0 |tar tvf - > i had to do: > cat /dev/rmt0 |zcat |tar tvf - > this make sense to anyone? Yeah, zcat isn't truly intelligent. Try `zcat < /dev/rmt0 | tar tvf -`. Of course, if you are at all familiar with GNU-tar, then you would use `tar tvfz /dev/rmt0`. -Brian ========================================================================= | "Are they dead?" | | "Does it matter?" | | - Pugsley and Wednesday in "The Addams Family." | ========================================================================= ------------------------------ From: jerry@msi.com (Jerry Shekhel) Subject: Re: VESA local bus Date: 17 Aug 1993 21:09:46 GMT John Will (john.will@satalink.com) wrote: : : R >The FAQL states that Linux must be run on an ISA system. How about VESA : R >local bus? That's not EISA, it's just a manipulation of ISA... Let me : R >know. : : If it won't run on VLB systems, mine doesn't know! I have it running : here with a VLB ET4000 video, all is well. I don't know about some : of the VLB disk controllers, they could be trouble. : I'm running Linux on a 486DX/33 with VLB graphics (ET4000/W32) and VLB IDE-I/O combo. No problems at all, and the system runs at warp speed. No, better make that "ludicrous speed" :-) -- +-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+ | JERRY J. SHEKHEL | Molecular Simulations Inc. | Time just fades the pages | | Drummers do it... | Burlington, MA USA | in my book of memories. | | ... In rhythm! | jerry@msi.com | -- Guns N' Roses | +-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: yuri@atmos.washington.edu Subject: linux on disks = $30 Date: 17 Aug 1993 21:30:09 GMT Reply-To: yuri@atmos.washington.edu I could copy for you full set of SLS (30 x 5.25" disks) for $30 or 30 x 1.25 for 30 x 3.5" disks (I'll pay shipping.) If you need linux faq in binder, it's another $7. I copy sls or any other set directly from ftp site of your choice. (I like wuarchive because we have direct gateway to it). Yuri. INTERNET: yuri@atmos.washington.edu UUCP: uw-beaver!atmos.washington.edu!yuri ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.unix.shell From: Harald.Eikrem@delab.sintef.no Subject: Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux Date: 17 Aug 93 23:35:57 One serious complaint I have about the NetBSD shell is that they threw out the builtin "test" and "expr" that Almquist had put in. Anyone know why they did so? It also had a builtin "catf", as quoted from the man page: HISTORICAL NOTE Early versions of UNIX had a program which was very similar to catf. It was named cat. Maybe they disliked his sense of humour so badly that they dropped the other builtins too..... Also, I miss a "type" command. ~~h ------------------------------ From: trucken@exa.cs.umn.edu (David Truckenmiller) Subject: Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 21:17:14 GMT In mwright@netcom.com (Matthew Wright) writes: >David Truckenmiller (trucken@exa.cs.umn.edu) wrote: >: In <24q88v$ndo@agate.berkeley.edu> tito@uclink.berkeley.edu (Attilio Shaud Ingargiola) writes: >: Failing that, I noticed that the local bookstore now contains at least >: 2 dozen books about unix. The only ones that are missing are "Unix for >: Dummies," and "I Hate Unix." (Though, I'm sure they're due out any >: day now. :-) ) >David, > "Unix for Dummies", is out from IDG Books, a great Unix intro and >quite funny to boot.. Well, I see. I can imagine how funny it must be to jam the book into that little diskette slot. (so it will boot) :-) =======Personal Opinion follows, hit 'n' now if you already hate me======== I do think that Unix is coming to the masses. Once the "* for Dummies" books start, people simply assume that they should know something about the topic, and that everyone else must already be using that product and they must be the only one on the planet who doesn't know how everything works, etc. So the only question is: will Linux be there for the masses? Yep, because of one thing: IT'S FREE. People will put up with a lot for that kind of price. Sure there are a lot of problems now, but in the next few years, I wonder who'll be left? Windows? NT? OS/2? or some Unix variants? Probably all of them, but those with some flavor of Unix will be better off -- more connected to the rest of the world, more able to use the free software out there, more everything. Linux is doing a lot to move quickly in that direction, even with all the problems people are having now. It's exciting. Now, the real worry I have is this: Bill Gates is no dummy. Say he reads this group. :-) He is immediately convinced by the above (brilliant) argument, and dashes off a check to Linus for $2,000,000 in exchange for the rights to sell Linux. (MS Linux). Linus, being a poor student with lots of debt, agrees, snaps up all his code, and sues anyone who uses it, (with Billy's help, of course). Suddenly, MicroSoft and Billy are worth (more) billions of dollars, and the rest of us have to purchase shrink wrapped programs! Oh, I'm sorry, that was the story about MS DOS, my mistake :-) -Dave -- --- Dave Truckenmiller (trucken@cs.umn.edu) [ ASCII picture ] Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux. [ under development ] ------------------------------ From: zak@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Zachary S Smith) Subject: Re: Ncurses, how do I... Date: 17 Aug 1993 22:10:23 GMT Reply-To: zak@csd4.csd.uwm.edu > There s no kbhit(), you need to call cbreak() before you call getch() this > will return single keystrokes. Might anyone know why this little program puts the cursor on the 1st line when run? #include #include main () { initscr(); crmode(); printf("%c\n",getch()); nocrmode(); endwin(); } .. Or how to prevent it? -- Zak Smith zak@csd4.csd.uwm.edu 414-966-3551 voice OS2 & LINUX ------------------------------ From: liljeber@plootu.Helsinki.FI (Mika Liljeberg) Subject: Re: When's Linux 1.0 coming out? Date: 18 Aug 1993 01:18:30 +0300 In article entropy@world.std.com (Lawrence Foard) wrote: > In article stsai@husc11.harvard.edu (Shun-Chang Tsai) writes: >>just out of curiostiy, can anyone give me an estimate of the relase >>date for Linux 1.0? After all, the version number is getting pretty >>close to it. > > version 1.0 is to linux as the speed of light is to space :-) > No matter how much energy is put into an object it never quite > reachs c. Oh, Linux is just gathering momentum for a jump. As everyone knows, there are two version name space/time continuums: the development version name space and the production version name space. In these continuums different natural laws apply. We shall call these continuums D-space and P-space, respectively. In D-space v (version) will approach C (complete version) as E (development effort) approaches infinity. The natural laws in D-space are well known and well documented. In P-space the situation is more complex as v has no direct relation to development effort (E). This implies that P-space lacks definition. Thus, a need to impose some structure on the behaviour of v arises. P-space is commonly defined with the equation v = M(t) (the management function), which varies v as a function of time. A very popular equation is M(t) = C * (t^2 + 1)^E', where E' means "negative development" and is calculated as follows: E' = 1/E). This quickly escalates even the most rudimentary bug fixes into major versions. Of course, every management function differs in some ways resulting in an infinite number of P-spaces (witness SLS, SlackWare and MCC, for instance). One natural law applies in all P-spaces, however: v will always be greater than C. It may seem that the transition from D-space to P-space is extremely difficult, not to say impossible. Fortunately, this is not the case. It is well known that D-space and P-space completely overlap each other. All that is required for a transition between the continuums is an alteration of perception. One merely has to cease thinking that one resides in D-space and imagine oneself a merry inhabitant of P-space. The transition between D-space and P-space can be extremely traumatic, however. This is mainly because during the transition there is a split-second of utter chaos, as v crosses C (no-one in their right minds buys software with a version number of 1.0!). Another thing to remember is that v can change drastically, when jumping from D-space into P-space, if not enough (positive) development effort has been spent. As development effort approaches infinity (and v/D-space approaches C), v/P-space approaches C from the other direction. It is very important to match v/D-space and v/P-space withing an order of magnitude. Otherwise the transition trauma will result in a massive loss of end users. And there we have the explanation. Linux is getting ready to jump into P-space and is at this very moment gathering the necessary momentum to avoid excessive transition trauma. I suspect we will come out in P-space at a version of 3.0, or so (with C being 1.0, of course). I hope this cleared things up. I also hope you enjoyed reading this. > ------ Time: 820713600 seconds, Space: 1727.2mm, Mass: 9.5E10 ug . > \ / Kinsey: 4.5, Religion: Science, Energy: 8.55E18, OS: Linux . . > \ / Species: Human, Planet: Earth, Fame: Tinymush, Allergy: Dustmite . . . > \/ Purity: 40, Sex: male, frequent, Drugs: Caffeine, Rock & roll: . . . . Mika -- Mika Liljeberg Email: liljeber@hydra.Helsinki.FI Helsinki University Mika.Liljeberg@cs.Helsinki.FI Dept. of Computer Science ------------------------------ From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) Subject: Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 22:27:33 GMT In article mwright@netcom.com (Matthew Wright) writes: > "Unix for Dummies", is out from IDG Books, a great Unix intro and >quite funny to boot.. Hmm, I have never tried to boot off of a book. What kind of floppy drives do you have that allow you to insert a book? :-) -Eric -- "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a lawyer." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 18:15:33 EDT From: Subject: Re: xfree In article , rlion@access.digex.net (Rebel Lion) says: > >whats the group to post to with xfree86 questions? > >rl > comp.windows.x.i386unix ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************