Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #180 From: Digestifier To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Linux-Activists@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU Date: Sat, 28 Aug 93 20:13:06 EDT Linux-Activists Digest #180, Volume #6 Sat, 28 Aug 93 20:13:06 EDT Contents: Looking for Prolog for Linux (Harold Brian Raynor) Re: Out of virtual memory error with 8M RAM and 16M swap. (Andrew R. Tefft) Re: Summary Virtual Memory prob. and X as root (Andrew R. Tefft) Re: DOS partition (Andrew R. Tefft) Re: Terminal Scrolling (Rich Mulvey) Configuring X-Window (mayank@vnet.ibm.com) Re: Problem with EXT2 --- maybe some help...maybe not.... (Jim Graham) Re: [Q] How do you dial out from Linux? (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) kernel Swap failure (John Tippitt) Bug in atof? (Tsung-lung Li) Re: HELP WITH MY MOUSE IN X PLEASE (Timothy H Miley) Slackware rdev doesn't set video mode. (Sreekar Shastry) xdm lack of security (Sreekar Shastry) Re:OS/2 2.1 Boot mMgr and Linux (Holger Wiese) SLS 1.03 hosing /dev/hda1 !! (Joe George) Boca 1008 serial line board (John Jarvis) Re: kernel Swap failure (Alan Bleasby) help with system to run unix (Jay Hauben) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: raynor@cs.scarolina.edu (Harold Brian Raynor) Subject: Looking for Prolog for Linux Date: 28 Aug 93 15:58:22 GMT I am looking for a Prolog compiler/interpreter for Linux. If anyone knows of one being available, PLEASE let me know. Also, if there is not yet one available for Linux, but if the source is available for standard Unices, please let me know, I can spend time recompiling it for Linux and then post the binaries to TSX-11 or something. Please reply to below address Thanks, Brian Raynor raynor@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu raynor@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Brian Raynor Graduate Assistant in Computer Science University of South Carolina - Columbia, SC ------------------------------ From: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com (Andrew R. Tefft) Subject: Re: Out of virtual memory error with 8M RAM and 16M swap. Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 17:24:49 GMT In article rhh2h@fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU (Ron Henderson) writes: >Idraw will not run from X-windows because of this error. Out of >virtual memory ... cannot open 'new'. I think 24M should be enough memory. >Only 2 windows open, and an xclock. Only 6 gettys are up. I just started an idraw and it is about 2.5 megs in size. 24M should definitely be enough. 8M almost definitely won't be enough without swap -- you need to check your swap. > >Should the partition type show up as different for my swap >partition? It is still type 81. > The partition type isn't really important for linux, except to keep other operating systems from seeing it as one of their own and trying to trash it. It *is* important to to a mkswap on it once though to set up the "swap signature" -- analogous to making a filesystem on a filesystem partition. And your rc or rc.local have to contain a 'swapon' command (with the correct options) to turn on swapping -- swapon -a if the partition is in your /etc/fstab swapon filename if you have a swap file or want to specify a partition Try 'free' and see if you have any swap enabled. 'top' will be helpful for monitoring the size of the top 15 or so processes. >I am running startx as root, I can't run it as a user yet (another problem). Perhaps this problem is the same as someone else's recently. Your X server (/usr/X386/bin/X386, X386mono, XF86_SVGA, or XF86_mono, depending on your setup) needs to be owned by root and setuid root. chown it to root and chmod 4755 it. ------------------------------ From: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com (Andrew R. Tefft) Subject: Re: Summary Virtual Memory prob. and X as root Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 17:41:47 GMT In article rhh2h@fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU (Ron Henderson) writes: >I have now set my X-server as root suid by 'chmod 4755 XF86_SVGA'. >I now get the X background, but my mouse buttons still don't function >at all (they are fine as root). The next step is to apply the same >fix to xload, xterm, xinitrc, and twm. Of these only xterm needs to be setuid root. ------------------------------ From: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com (Andrew R. Tefft) Subject: Re: DOS partition Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 17:46:18 GMT In article swift@world.std.com (Peter Lu) writes: > > I inadvertently did a "dd of=/dev/hda if=..." and trashed the >partition table on my C disk. Luckily, I knew its layout and just >manually recovered the partition set-up. However, the first partition I Hm I think I will use dd to back up the important part of my drive in case I ever do something like this. Question -- how many bytes should I save? I know next to nothing about the layout of these drives. ------------------------------ From: rich@mulvey.com (Rich Mulvey) Subject: Re: Terminal Scrolling Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 14:19:20 EDT tchandl@crl.com (Tim Chandler) writes: > Howdy, > > I'm encountering a small problem with my scrolling. It seems > that occasionaly (usually after a vi or more), my terminal will only > scroll data through the bottom-most line of the terminal, without > advancing any of the 23 lines above it -- I essentially will see > all output come an go on line 24. I can do a 'clear', but when I > get to line 24, it screws up again. I'm not sure if I have described > this well. My video card is a 'noname' - no information of > compatibility on the card, the book that came with the pc, and nothing > displayed upon bootup. I'm running Slackware 0.99.12 on a 386SX-16 > clone. Any advice appreciated. Thanks. > -- -- Make sure that your TERM is set correctly: i.e. use export TERM=console when you are running on the console. - Rich -- Rich Mulvey Amateur Radio: N2VDS 787 Elmwood Terrace rich@mulvey.com Rochester, NY 14620 ------------------------------ From: mayank@vnet.ibm.com Subject: Configuring X-Window Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 17:07:17 GMT Reply-To: mayank@vnet.ibm.com Hello, I am a new linux and UNIX user and need some help in configuring X-Windows env. I just installed linux on my 486/66 PC. When I issue startx command, I get initialization errors which are most likely due to the fact that my svga card is not supported. I would like to switch to monovga mode. The readme wasn't very helpful. Before I start fumbing around on my own really scre things up, would some kind souls out in netland help me navigate through any pitfalls, landmines and roadblocks I might encounter. X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.00 Lines: 12 Thanks for your help. Mayank Shah mayank@vnet.ibm.com ------------------------------ From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham) Subject: Re: Problem with EXT2 --- maybe some help...maybe not.... Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 14:33:36 GMT Btw, which of the new groups, col.help or col.misc, would this really belong in? I tend to think .help, but then, it isn't really about help with an application, but more about actual system problems (possibly even hardware-related), so .misc might be more appropriate..... Any thoughts on this? In article smj@netcom.com (Scott Mitchell Jennings) writes: >I'm using SLS v1.02 (0.99.p12) and I seem to get consistenly recurring >filesystem corruption only if I use 'screen' (virtual terminals). > >I get lost inodes, lost blocks, corrupted directory entries (once I even >ended up with a directory whose first two entries were both '.', even >e2fsck could not correct this, had to use mke2fs to fix), and once I even >had a .tar file magically aquire the status of a directory, lost it all. > >As nearly as I can tell so far, this only occurs after I have run 'screen'. I had (note past-tense) similar problems under my previous configuration here. I was running 0.99 PL6 and using the minix filesystem. I also had (again, past-tense) a lot of problems with SIGSEGVs (aka signal 11). I wasn't sure you were talking about the same problems, though, until you mentioned the directory missing '..' (I seem to recall that they were missing '.' here) and, more importantly, a file somehow turning into a directory.... Btw, I almost never ran screen, so I don't think screen has anything to do with it. You don't just happen to have a Kalok hard drive, do you? That was one of the things Linus thought might be a problem on this end. Apparently, Kalok drives have been the cause of some problems in the past. Anyways, I recently (about 2 weeks ago) upgraded to 0.99 PL9, and the ext2 filesystem. When I did this, all of the above problems went away. I built a new version of the kernel (after a ``make clean'') and the only time it stopped compiling was due to a problem that was *MY* fault (I missed something when installing a patch). No SIGSEGVs at all, compared to about 5 or 6 minimum under the old setup. I haven't had any filesystem problems to speak of. I did make one other change at the same time, btw, which might also be significant. I had noticed that *MOST* (not all) of the filesystem problems hit the same partition where the news spool dirs were stored, and when I changed filesystems, I setup a separate partition for news (/usr/spool/news is a symbolic link to /newsspool). Ok, yet another difference. :-) When I was trying to figure this all out a month or two ago, Linus suggested making a change in hd.c in the kernel, and change the HD_DELAY parameter to something like 2000. I forget what value I used most recently, but 2500 comes to mind. This didn't seem to help under PL6, but it just might have made the difference under PL9. With all of these changes happening at once, it's hard to say which one really made the difference. Even worse, it's probably some combination of all of the above. :-( I suppose we can rule out the filesystem type, though. I have no idea what the chances are of such a problem going away in PL9 and returning in PL12, so I don't know whether that can be ruled out or not. Oh well, that's what I know on the subject. It isn't much, but perhaps it's a start. If you do find out what, exactly, is going on, PLEASE let me know! If nothing else, I'm curious as hell..... Later, --jim -- #include 73 DE N5IAL (/4) ==========================< Running Linux 0.99 PL9 >========================== INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com | j.graham@ieee.org ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W AMATEUR RADIO: (packet station temporarily offline) AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL ============================================================================== E-mail me for information about KAMterm (host mode for Kantronics TNCs). ------------------------------ From: zmbenhal@netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Subject: Re: [Q] How do you dial out from Linux? Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 19:16:55 GMT In article davidw@cs.UAlberta.CA (Woloschuk David R) writes: > >I have Linux SLS 1.03 running on my IBM ValuePoint and am >trying to dial out using my modem using 'cu' > >Is there a better way? Try pcomm or minicom. If you are running X try seyon. Zeyd >How do I configure my system to accept the modem I am using and >the paramters I need to use? > >Do I need source for Taylor UUCP 1.04 to do this? ( Ican't find the sources >if they are already on my system) > >I looked in the Linux FAQ for infor, but couldn't seem to find it...is >there any documentation on this stuff? > >Thanks in advance > >David R! Woloschuk >davidw@cs.ualberta.ca -- Zeyd M. Ben-Halim zmbenhal@netcom.com 10479 1/4 Santa Monica Blvd, LA, CA, 90025 (310) 470-0281 ------------------------------ From: john@sparc.uucp (John Tippitt) Subject: kernel Swap failure Date: 28 Aug 1993 20:28:59 GMT Is anyone else having problems with this? My machine locks up after displaying this message: unable to handle kernel paging request at address c0000014 ooops: 0000 EIA: 0010:001350c3 Eflag: 00010246 eax: 00313d10 ebx:00000000 ecx: 012ad0c0 edx: 00000005 esi: 00310000 edi:00000168 ebp: 0079168 ds: 0018 es:0018 fs: 0026 gs:002b Pid: 0, process nr: 0 task[0] (swapper) killed. unable to recover kernel panic: trying to free up swapper memory space In swapper task- not syncing On my computer, this seems to follow having slip up for a little while,, before it crashes. However, I have seen a similar error occur on machines doing nothing more exciting than sit there. Any help would be appreciated, if only to know the causes. ------------------------------ From: quantum@stein1.u.washington.edu (Tsung-lung Li) Subject: Bug in atof? Date: 28 Aug 1993 21:08:39 GMT Hello, If I am doing right in the following program, I have found a bug in "atof". #include #include main() { static char st[80] = {'1', 'E', '+', '4'}; float x; x = atof( st ); printf( "%s %f\n", st, x ); } Execution results: 1E+4 1.000000 If you think I have done anything incorrect, please e-mail me at quantum@u.washington.edu Thank you. Tsung ------------------------------ From: thmiley@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Timothy H Miley) Subject: Re: HELP WITH MY MOUSE IN X PLEASE Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 21:10:52 GMT u339580@sparc17.ncu.edu.tw (* 3cMonster *) writes: >Hi all UNIX admirers, >Here I just come across the situation below: > 1. I set everything OK with my X-window (XFree 1.3) and it works fine. > 2. As I am trying to move my mouse, I just find it move randomly on the > screen. > 3. I tried to find through the FAQs times and times..nothing about that > 4. my mouse is Microsoft compatible. > 5. I set it to Microsoft "/dev/cua0" in my Xconfig > 6. That's all... > Could any of you, experienced players, tell me what's wrong with my mouse? > Thanks a LOTS! > Sincerely, > Aurona I had the same problem, but I got mine to work after tweaking the sample rate. Don't know why it worked, but it worked. -- thmiley@cs.wmich.edu (Timothy H Miley)! "Man is destined to a better occupation Computer Science Major ! than that of pursuing and cutting the Western Michigan University ! throats of dumb animals." - Cicero =============================================================================== ------------------------------ From: sreekar@panix.com (Sreekar Shastry) Subject: Slackware rdev doesn't set video mode. Date: 28 Aug 1993 17:26:27 -0400 rdev -v /dev/hda1 -2 in Slackware doesn't set the video mode; it always comes up 80x25. Thanks for any help. -- Sreekar Shastry sreekar@panix.com -- Sreekar Shastry sreekar@panix.com ------------------------------ From: sreekar@panix.com (Sreekar Shastry) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.windows.x.i386unix Subject: xdm lack of security Date: 28 Aug 1993 17:41:15 -0400 Whenever I log in from xdm and type in any valid login name all I have to do is type enter or anything and I will log in, even for root! I am running the full Slackware linux distribution. Thanks for any help. -- Sreekar Shastry sreekar@panix.com -- Sreekar Shastry sreekar@panix.com ------------------------------ From: cindy@tron.gun.de (Holger Wiese) Subject: Re:OS/2 2.1 Boot mMgr and Linux Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 12:53:00 +0200 Am 26.08.93 um 03:35 schrieb IKS%BSU-CS.BSU.EDU@USENET.ZER unter dem Betreff OS/2 2.1 Boot mMgr and Linux: > I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it is the only > newsgroup we get here. I have installed OS/2 2.1, Linux and the OS/2 > Boot Manger program on my system. I can't get the OS/2 boot manager to > boot up the Linux partition. Here is my fdisk to show my setup: > > Disk /dev/hda: 8 heads, 46 sectors, 903 cylinders > Units = cylinders of 368 * 512 bytes > > Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System > /dev/hda1 620 620 902 52072 5 Extended > /dev/hda2 * 1 1 6 1081 a OPUS > /dev/hda3 7 7 619 112792 7 OS/2 HPFS > /dev/hda5 * 620 620 902 52049 81 Linux/MINIX > > I've read the FAQ and tried the command for lilo they give and here is > my result: Hi, i have tried successfully two ways to use OS/2 and Linux together. But it seems to be unpossible to boot Linux from the OS/2 Bootmanager directly. So try one of the following two ways. First: Install OS/2 with Bootmanager and then install LILO. Use LILO to start Linux or the OS/2 Bootmanager. Then use the Bootmanager to start OS/2 or DOS. Second: Install OS/2 and Linux and use LILO to boot OS/2, DOS, or Linux. Both ways worked without any problems. To my mind the second way is preferable, because you only need one bootmanager to start. No switching through LILO and the OS/2 Bootmanager. Give it a try. If you encounter problems send me an email and i will try to help as good as i can. Bye, Holger ... Windows 3.1 - The Best $89 Solitaire Game You can Buy! -- THE ANSWER V2.03 ------------------------------ Subject: SLS 1.03 hosing /dev/hda1 !! From: jgeorge@whiffer.mese.com (Joe George) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 17:47:59 EST I'm posting this as a warning since I've received mail that the problem I had with a hosed /dev/hda1 has occurred to other users. SLS 1.03 (which I downloaded from sunsite) has a potentially serious gotcha in it which I think you should be aware of. After installing the SLS, /etc/rc will call 'swapon -a' all well and good, but if you check /dev/swap you'll see that it is aliased to /dev/hda1. Since a good number of people have real data on /dev/hda1, when swapon gets to it it will just simply stomp all over the data there and make it a swap partition. After you install SLS but BEFORE YOU BOOT IT, reboot the A1 disk, mount the disk where you installed Linux and re-alias /dev/swap to your real swap partition. And make sure you back up /dev/hda1 before you start installing it, just to be safe. Joe 'Lets reload 110MB of data now, shall we?' George -- Joe George (jgeorge@whiffer.mese.com,emory!indigo!whiffer!jgeorge) Actually, I _do_ speak for The Waffle Whiffer | begin 644 foo M1W)A=FET>2!I2!F875L="P@22!V;W1E9"!F;W(@5F5L8W)O(0T* ` end ------------------------------ From: jfj@lakes.trenton.sc.us (John Jarvis) Subject: Boca 1008 serial line board Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 22:06:18 GMT I need help in setting up LINUX to run additional ASCII terminals using a Boca 1008 serial board. At boot time, the board's presence is recognized as tty16-tty23 at addresses 0x100 0x108 ... IRQ 5 is set and recognized but the kernal indicates IRQ 12 was expected. Individual terminalswill run on COM1 but I can't make them work over the a Boca port. Obvious things like null modems have been tried. Question: what are appropriate software settings for thing: dev names, major and minor node numbers getydefs and initab settings, etc. ANy suggestions welcome. John Jarvis ------------------------------ From: ajb@s-crim1.dl.ac.uk (Alan Bleasby) Subject: Re: kernel Swap failure Date: 28 Aug 1993 23:03:40 GMT Hi, This might now be in the FAQ :-) If you're running pl12 you MUST load the new kbd.tar `loadkeys' + relevant map otherwise such swap failures will occur. Hope this is useful ------------------------------ From: ag173@yfn.ysu.edu (Jay Hauben) Crossposted-To: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.os.minix,alt.amateur-comp Subject: help with system to run unix Date: 28 Aug 1993 23:30:50 GMT Reply-To: ag173@yfn.ysu.edu (Jay Hauben) A friend is looking to buy a computer system. She has limited money (under $1400). She is doing research and writing for a book about the net. She wants to use UNIX tools for this but also has files now in DOS format. She wants a system that will successfully run some form of UNIX with uucp and also run DOS. She would also want at some point to get a Usenet news feed via uucp using the computer system she is looking to buy now. She has been quoted a price for a system at the upper limit of what she can afford. The system consists of the following components. Does anyone see in this system anything that would prevent her needs from being met? Might any of the components be too weak for what she wants to do? The forms of UNIX she might have available are Minix (which appears not to have uucp) and off the net Linux. She has a 2400 baud modem now and hopes to upgrade it and maybe buy a CD-ROM player and controller some time in the future when she is in a position to afford them. The system she has the quote for consists of: 1) Intel 486DX/33Mhz 2) Mid height tower case with 230 watt power supply. (Will this give enough power and enough VENTILATION?) 3) 245 MB hard drive by Seagate or Maxton. (Is either preferable?) 4) 128 kB cache (Might she in fact need a 256 kB cache?) 5) 4 MB RAM expandable to 64 MB. (Should she insist on SIMM chips?) 6) AMI bios and ? motherboard. (Would a Pheonix bios be better?) 7) 3 1/2" and 5 1/4" TEAC floppy drives 8) Pentium Overdrive with Intel (?) chips 9) 14" Acer 34T (SVGA NI) monitor. 10) 101 keyboard 11a) Trident 1 MB SVGA video card with a DC 009 IDE controller card or 11b) Genoa IMD VESA local bus graphics card with a VLB IDE controller card (for about $150 more). (Is there a significant advantage gained for the extra money even though she doesn't anticipate doing much graphics?) 12) 2 serial, 1 parallel and 1 game ports 13) DOS and Windows on the hard drive - no disks and no manuals!! Is there anything in the above system that might prevent her from successfully running UNIX or handling her DOS files? Is there anything she should change in order to better insure that her system might last for a long time? All responses e-mail or by public post appreciated. ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************