From: Digestifier To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 12:13:11 EDT Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #137 Linux-Activists Digest #137, Volume #6 Wed, 18 Aug 93 12:13:11 EDT Contents: Welcome to the comp.os.linux.* hierarchy! (Matt Welsh) Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux (Chet Ramey) Re: How can I setup timezone on linux?? (Nick Hilliard) Re: tar & mt (Hal N. Brooks) How to set color in Virtual Console? (Zhuo Er Lin) Re: tar & mt (Ziad Najem) Re: Linux Distribution? (Hal N. Brooks) Re: Ext. Partitions (Mixed OS's) (Hal N. Brooks) Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius (KZUPAN@LSTC2VM.stortek.com) Re: Unable to find swap-space signature (Hal N. Brooks) /dev/tty (Whatis it for?) (C.W. Southern) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mdw@TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.announce.help,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux Subject: Welcome to the comp.os.linux.* hierarchy! Date: 18 Aug 1993 10:17:59 -0400 Welcome to the comp.os.linux.* hierarchy! Background ========================================================================= This posting is an introduction to the comp.os.linux.* hierarchy of USENET newsgroups. Linux is a free implementation of UNIX for 80386/80486 machines covered by the GNU GPL. Most of the development of the Linux kernel has been done by Linus Torvalds, an internationally reknowned UNIX wizard from Helsinki, Finland. For the past two years or so, the newsgroup comp.os.linux has grown be one of the most popular groups on USENET. Late in 1992, a CFV for splitting comp.os.linux was posted; the only group which passed was comp.os.linux.announce, a moderated newsgroup for Linux announcements and patches. Six months later, during the summer of 1993, another CFV for splitting comp.os.linux was posted. The voting period for the comp.os.linux reorganization results ended at 23:59:59 UTC on 4 August 1993 (4:59PM US Pacific Time, 7:59PM US Eastern Time.) The results are as follows: comp.os.linux reorganization results - 1842 votes Yes No : 2/3? >100? : Pass? : Group ---- ---- : ---- ----- : ----- : ------------------------------- 1692 135 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.os.linux.admin 1741 90 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.os.linux.development 1647 177 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.os.linux.help 1660 155 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.os.linux.misc Because of this split, the newsgroup comp.os.linux will be deleted on 11 November 1993. The new newsgroups will be created on 11 August 1993. This posting describes these newsgroups, including comp.os.linux.announce, which will remain entact. General Policy ========================================================================= The general policy for the Linux newsgroups is simple. Who sets the policy? We all do. All of us on USENET are interested in communicating openly about a number of topics. That's why we have USENET. If you want the Linux newsgroups to work for you, a few suggestions: * Read the Linux FAQ and follow the newsgroups for some time before posting questions. This is very important. comp.os.linux suffered from HUGE amounts of noise and traffic because much of the growing readership never bothered to READ the newsgroup; they only posted questions. The same thing will happen with the new newsgroups unless you read the FAQ (found on sunsite.unc.edu in the file pub/Linux/docs/FAQ) and read the newsgroup for some time before posting questions. Chances are, your question has already been recently answered, and a simple browsing of the newsgroup will answer it. We suggest using a threaded newsreader such as "trn" which will allow you to browse and mark articles by subject, so you don't have to read each and every article in each newsgroup. * Crossposting between the Linux newsgroups is STRONGLY discouraged. If you do crosspost questions between Linux newsgroups, expect to be flamed to oblivion. The reason we have a newsgroup split is to categorize discussions into separate newsgroups. Crossposting negates this effect. If your posting cannot fit into ONE of the newsgroups c.o.l.admin, c.o.l.help, or c.o.l.development, then you should post it to c.o.l.misc. The one exception is for announcements. Occasionally, an important announcement (such as this one) will be crossposted between c.o.l.announce and one or more of the other c.o.l.* groups. These announcements must be approved by the .announce moderator; see below. * Reply to questions via e-mail if at all possible. While discussion in the newsgroups is encouraged, if someone is asking a simple question to which the answer is well-known, there is no reason to post the reply. Don't assume that the person posting the question actually reads the newsgroup or will even note your followup if they do. Reply via e-mail unless the reply is of general interest. * Don't flame newbies. Over the course of the past few months, the Linux community has developed an oversensitive ego and a reputation for being unfriendly towards newcomers, mostly because of unwarranted flaming by a handful of righteous individuals. If someone posts, saying, "Hi! I'm new to this group! What is Linux?" (which will inevitably happen as the new newsgroups are propagated), DO NOT FLAME THEM. When someone sees a new newsgroup pop up within "rn", they are justifiably curious about the new group and probably don't know that well over 80,000 people who know EVERYTHING about Linux read the group. Right? Instead of being rude, you can send a polite note to the poster, saying, "Hello, Linux is a free implementation of UNIX for the 386 and 486. You can get the FAQ from sunsite.unc.edu in /pub/Linux/docs. Let me know if I can be of help!". That's all. Not difficult, eh? You can even save your stock reply in a file and simply send form-letters to newbies if you wish. But there is very little point in flaming or ever being rude. It goes against everything that Linux can and should be. Just remember that nobody knows everything---not even Linus--- and that you were a newbie once, too. :) comp.os.linux.announce ========================================================================= Comp.os.linux.announce is a moderated newsgroup for Linux announcements and source patches. The purpose of this group was to get all of the ``important'' Linux information out of the regular newsgroup and into a place where all Linux users could see the important announcements without having to wade through a jungle of other postings. So far, this group has been very successful. The moderators for this group are myself (Matt Welsh, mdw@tc.cornell.edu) and Lars Wirzenius (wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi). We will be sharing the moderator duty, and backing each other up to make sure that postings to this group will be approved as soon as possible after they're submitted. Submissions to this group should be mailed to the address: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu If you have any problems or questions about c.o.l.announce, please send mail to the moderators at linux-announce-request@tc.cornell.edu Or simply mail us directly. This is not a request address for mailing list subscription; see below. A separate posting details the guidelines for submitting to this group. I plan to approve just about anything that's posted to this group, except for questions or discussions about Linux. So, please, post away. :) There are also archives of comp.os.linux.announce available at a number of Linux FTP sites: check sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/linux-announce.archive There is a mailing list mirror of the comp.os.linux.announce newsgroup; to join, send mail to linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi With the line X-Mn-Admin: join ANNOUNCE at the top of the body (not in the subject). Approved postings to c.o.l.announce will automatically be mailed to this mailing list channel. comp.os.linux.admin ========================================================================= This newsgroup was created simply to thwart the unique newsgroup acronym "c.o.l.a", previously used by c.o.l.announce. However, this newsgroup is also used for discussions and questions about running Linux systems, either in a single-user or multi-user environment. Clearly, there is no large distinction between c.o.l.admin and c.o.l.help. However, .admin should be mostly used for discussions about RUNNING Linux, not USING or PROGRAMMING it. Unfortunately, especially with Linux, the line between system administrator and system user is very fuzzy. In short, we anticipate c.o.l.admin to be mostly about questions with installing, setting up, and configuring Linux systems, as well as other discussions relating to system administration. comp.os.linux.development ========================================================================= c.o.l.development, or "c.o.l.d" for short, is a newsgroup for questions and discussions about Linux kernel and systems-level development. Please note that this is a newsgroup about development OF Linux, not development FOR Linux. In other words, c.o.l.d isn't for questions about programming or porting software to Linux. Instead, this is a newsgroup for discussions about developing the Linux kernel itself, including writing device drivers, adding new features, and so on. In addition, discussions about development of shared libraries, and other essential systems-level projects, are welcome here. Hopefully, this newsgroup will embody some of the content and scope of the linux-activists mailing list channels such as GCC, KERNEL, SCSI, and NET. comp.os.linux.help ========================================================================= Comp.os.linux.help is perhaps the most general of Linux newsgroups. It is for any general user, programming, or setup questions and discussion about Linux. If your question is about Linux development, post to c.o.l.development. If it is about system administration, post to c.o.l.admin. However, if your question is of a more general nature, such as "How do I set up Linux for use with an NE2000 card?", c.o.l.help is your place. Remember that you should not crosspost between .help and other Linux newsgroups. This means that if you are asking for help in .development, that's fine, but .help is for those questions which don't fit into .admin and .development. comp.os.linux.misc ========================================================================= This group is the canonical ``catch-all'' for discussions and questions which don't fit into the other Linux newsgroups. While c.o.l.help is generally for questions, c.o.l.misc is for discussions of a general nature about Linux, such as setting up a file hierarchy standard, questions about Linus' personal life and virtual beer, and the inevitable flame war. Again, it should be noted that crossposting between c.o.l.misc and other Linux newsgroups is strongly discouraged. If your posting or question does not fit into ONLY ONE of the other Linux newsgroups, post it to .misc. Comments ========================================================================= If you have questions or comments about this document, please direct them to mdw@tc.cornell.edu. Flames to /dev/null; cheques and money orders to Linus Torvalds. Thanks. -- Matt Welsh, mdw@tc.cornell.edu "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." ------------------------------ From: chet@odin.ins.cwru.edu (Chet Ramey) Crossposted-To: comp.unix.shell Subject: Re: NetBSD's ash as /bin/sh substitute on Linux Date: 18 Aug 1993 14:23:11 GMT In article <1993Aug17.233557*Harald.Eikrem@delab.sintef.no>, wrote: >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? Because Berkeley did. The shell is shipped that way in net-2 and 4.4. The only `optional' builtin from ash that has been retained is echo. CSRG added a `printf' builtin for 4.4. Chet -- ``Times are hard, and you're afraid to pay the fee. So you find yourself somebody who can do the job for free.'' Chet Ramey, Case Western Reserve University Internet: chet@po.CWRU.Edu ------------------------------ From: nick@quay.ie (Nick Hilliard) Subject: Re: How can I setup timezone on linux?? Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 12:19:48 GMT Alexander Lin (alec@linux1.net.ncu.edu.tw) wrote: : I want to setup timezone on my linux. : Can anybody tell how?? : Thanks.. There should be some docs to show you how to do this in /usr/lib/timezone. nick -- | Nick Hilliard | e-mail: nick@quay.ie | | Quay Financial Software, | Phone: [+353] 1 6612377 | | Ferry House, Lower Mount St, | Fax: [+353] 1 6607592 | | Dublin 2, Ireland. | Opinions: I think; therefore I disclaim. | ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin From: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Subject: Re: tar & mt Reply-To: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 14:24:43 GMT In article <1993Aug17.232818.18231@kf8nh.wariat.org> bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >In article <4gQID2q00VR509B4si@andrew.cmu.edu> "Brian E. Gallew" writes: >>dclemmer%anl433.uucp@Germany.EU.net (David Clemmer) writes: >>> 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. > >Wrong answer. He's talking about separate tapefiles; tar won't read past the >end of the first tapefile. I'm glad you pointed out Brian's mistake here. > >The answer is: > mt -f /dev/rmt0 fsf > tar xvf /dev/rmt0 ... Whoops! Now we're back to the original question! If you do this, the tape will rewind after the "mt" command. :-) Better use /dev/nrmt0. [Stuff deleted] -hal ------------------------------ From: umlin000@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Zhuo Er Lin) Subject: How to set color in Virtual Console? Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 13:58:43 GMT The subject said it. BTW, when I run minicom to connect to UNIX host (vt100 or vt102), the text doesn't scroll up when it reaches the bottom of the screen. It just keep displayed at the bottom line. I tried stty rows 24; clear. But it doesn't work. Any ideas? -- ======================================================================== Eric Lin (Home): (204) 783-2884 Computer Engineering Internet: Umlin000@cc.Umanitoba.CA University of Manitoba ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin From: najem@cs.uiuc.edu (Ziad Najem) Subject: Re: tar & mt Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:07:49 GMT bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >In article <4gQID2q00VR509B4si@andrew.cmu.edu> "Brian E. Gallew" writes: >>dclemmer%anl433.uucp@Germany.EU.net (David Clemmer) writes: >>> 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. >Wrong answer. He's talking about separate tapefiles; tar won't read past the >end of the first tapefile. >The answer is: > mt -f /dev/rmt0 fsf > tar xvf /dev/rmt0 ... using /dev/rmt0 would still rewind the tape. use /dev/nrmt0 with the above. >++Brandon >-- >Brandon S. Allbery kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org - Ziad najem@cs.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ From: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Subject: Re: Linux Distribution? Reply-To: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:20:19 GMT In article <1993Aug18.003949.3568@bcars6a8.bnr.ca> markem@bcarh10d.bnr.ca (Dave Mielke) writes: > >Anybody know if their is an FTP site with one big tar-file containing the >full Linux Distribution? Any (I believe) of the ftp sites these days will let you do "get dirname.tar" and it'll tar up the directory and transfer it for you. I don't know of any site that keeps everything tar'd for immediate consumption, but there's no reason for it. -hal ------------------------------ From: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Subject: Re: Ext. Partitions (Mixed OS's) Reply-To: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:24:45 GMT In article <93229.175427KKEYTE@ESOC.BITNET> Karl Keyte, ESOC Darmstadt writes: >Simple (& probably dumb) question: > >Can I mix OS's in the extended partition? I want the partitions >like: > > P1 Boot Manager > P2 OS/2 & DOS System > P3 Linux LILO > P4 Extended > > E1 DOS Stuff > E2 OS/2 Stuff > E3 Linux /usr > E4 Linux Swap > E5 Linux /home > E6 etc. Sure, you can do that. No problem. But P2 looks a little suspect to me. > >Can I do it & whose 'fdisk' should I use for which bits? It's probably best to use OS/2 fdisk to do the partitioning, because OS/2 wants to have partitions set up in a certain way that Linux fdisk won't enforce. Then use Linux fdisk to change partition id numbers as appropriate. -hal ------------------------------ From: KZUPAN@LSTC2VM.stortek.com Subject: Re: Tractatus Linuxicus Newbius Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 14:52:21 GMT In article trucken@exa.cs.umn.edu (David Truckenmiller) writes: > >In mwright@netcom.com (Matthew Wright) writes: >>David Truckenmiller (trucken@exa.cs.umn.edu) wrote: > >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! > Now this would be an interesting battle, especially when gnu tried to tell Mister (I use the term loosly) Gates that he had to provide the source code also. Bill GATES vs. The GPL THE FINAL DEVASTATION ========================================================================= | L IIIII NN N U U X X Out to fix what Windog MS'd up!!! | | L I N N N U U X X | | L I N N N U U X Another Word From Kevin Zupan | | L IIIII N NN UUU X X Kzupan@lstc2vm.stortek.com | | LLLLL X X | ========================================================================= ------------------------------ From: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Subject: Re: Unable to find swap-space signature Reply-To: hal@cs.uga.edu (Hal N. Brooks) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:43:37 GMT In article JOSEPH@ob.missouri.edu writes: >I tried to use the swap partition (/dev/hdb3) but when linux is booting up, >it gave the following message: > Unable to find swap-space signature > Swapon /dev/hdb3:Invalid argument >configuration >etc/fstab: >/dev/hdb3 none swap defaults > >etc/rc: >swapon -a > >Any suggestion?? Did you do a mkswap? ============================================================================= Hal N. Brooks Voice: (706) 546-7792 Internet: hal@pollux.cs.uga.edu ============================================================================= ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux From: cws9669@ultb.isc.rit.edu (C.W. Southern) Subject: /dev/tty (Whatis it for?) Reply-To: cws9669@ultb.rit.edu () Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:21:38 GMT I am having a program with serial logins on my machine. I am running SLS 1.03. I have a good connection between the two, and when I try to connect the to together it will get as far as the Password: prompt then stop. So I ran strace on getty and found for some reason that the login program switches ttys from /dev/ttys2 (COM3) to /dev/tty. When this file is removed the login process continues as normal. But this file (/dev/tty) is required when loading xterm up under X-windows. I have a few questions. What is the reason for this file (/dev/tty)? The only way that I can find around it is to patch login program, is there another? chris. i -- ___ Internet: cws9669@ultb.isc.rit.edu / / __ cws9669@cs.rit.edu / /--- /-- . ( BITNET: CWS9669@RITVAX \__ / / / / __) UUCP: !uucp!rit!cws9669 ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************