From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 21:28:43 EDT Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #67 Linux-Admin Digest #67, Volume #1 Mon, 20 Sep 93 21:28:43 EDT Contents: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (Wolfgang R. Mueller) Re: TeX from SLS (PERUCCI, PHILIP A.) Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (jcburt@gats486.larc.nasa.gov) TeX /lib/XtVer (Gordon Russell) Re: Swap *file* (Paul Jones) Re: TeX /lib/XtVer (Thomas Dunbar) Re: [Q] .cshrc?? (for root, that is) (Andreas Klemm) Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (Patrick J. Volkerding) Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing (Patrick J. Volkerding) [WANTED] Benchmarking programs (Joris Van Dyck) Re: TeX from SLS (Leon Dent) smail and files > 5KB (rejected) (Ruediger Pott) Compiling the new Elm 2.4 (John Henders) Re: Memory LEAKING!*=--.._ (Stephen Harris) mcopy: how to make file owned by user, not root (Chris Lee) Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root (Stephen R. Savitzky) How to use use 1.4MB 5 1/4 disk. Was: Not enough SLS bashing (KPARSONS@kentvm.kent.edu) Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root (Yusuf Pisan) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dvs@ze8.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de (Wolfgang R. Mueller) Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 09:11:15 GMT In article <27bbke$if@victrola.wa.com> vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan) writes: >The issue is which one is the a: drive that you boot off of. But shouldn't that be solved by a small utility BOOTB.ZIP which had been included in very early SLS versions, and which is still available from e.g. clio.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de:[/rz/ftp/]linux/sls102/ ? Wolfgang R. Mueller , Computing Centre, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany. ------------------------------ From: SSB1PZP@imcvms.med.navy.mil (PERUCCI, PHILIP A.) Subject: Re: TeX from SLS Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 10:09:02 GMT In <748487187.AA08289@gccs.fido.imp.com> pit@gccs.imp.com writes: > > I solved this just by NOT-installing the archive texbin during "normal" > installation of the T-series (btw just grep for pkgtool in the setup script to > get an idea how to use it). I installed this package then manually. > After running "pkgtool" on the T-series disks on everything EXCEPT texbin, should texbin then be installed? =========================================================================== Phil Perucci, Systems Programmer | "I don't speak for any organization ssb1pzp@imcvms.med.navy.mil | and no organization speaks for me" =========================================================================== ------------------------------ From: jcburt@gats486.larc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: 20 Sep 1993 11:51:43 GMT In article <1993Sep18.235436.4775@knobel.knirsch.de> andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm) writes: jerryg@jaiser.rain.com (Jerry Gaiser) writes: >grif@ucrengr.ucr.edu (Michael Griffith) writes: >> In article <1993Sep10.041506.8617@cc.gatech.edu> byron@cc.gatech.edu >> (Byron A Jeff) writes: >> [...stuff deleted...] >Well, I don't know about Slackware, because it requires me to have a 3 1/2 >inch diskette to boot and, believe it or not, I don't. >So for _some_ of us Slackware is worthless. >All of these have their problems. But until the distributor of Slackware >decides to support 5 1/4, I'll have to stick with SLS and MCC. But you don't get the stuff onto one 5 1/4" floppy. Buy a 3 1/2" floppy and everything will be fine ... Not to rag on Andreas in particular, but "Buy a 3 1/2 floppy and everything will be fine ..." is about as worthless bit of advice as I've heard in a long time... Look at it this way...the original post was about not being able to boot Slackware from a 5-1/4" floopy...Linux supports 5-1/4" floppy, other distributions boot from the 5-1/4, so how do you get Slackware to boot from a 5-1/4" floppy (i.e. READ: "Hey Slackware maintainer, how about a 5-1/4" boot disk...") Suggesting someone buy hardware is not the answer to the problem... In the majority of cases, if the person *could* purchase the hardware, they *would* purchase the hardware. But unfortunately many of us live in the real world and have to worry about things like food, rent, heat, transportation, insurance, spouses, kids,.... need I go on? There are probably *many* things that have a higher priority than shelling out $75 (US) on a 3-1/2 in floppy drive...(hey, if I had extra money, do you think I'd be running Linux on a 386-33DX with 4MB and a CGA monitor ? I would *love* to have a SVGA card and monitor and 8MB so I can run X at home, but other things come first... "How do you get X to run in 4MB ?" the answer is *NOT* "get 8MB" (unless of course you'd care to contribute to the cause :-) Again, I'm not flaming Andreas, I just suggesting that instead of immediately suggesting "go buy more hardware" the person responding to a post should try to come up with a solution that *doesn't* involve the expenditure of cash... John -- John Burton G & A Technical Software, Inc. jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov 28 Research Dr. Hampton, Va. 23666 jcburt@gats486.larc.nasa.gov (804) 865-7491 ------------------------------ From: gor@cs.strath.ac.uk (Gordon Russell) Subject: TeX /lib/XtVer Date: 20 Sep 1993 13:12:02 +0100 I have been unable to run TeX's mf commands, since they all report that the library XtVer is missing. I have already installed Xfree, and this is not one of its libraries. Any suggestions? Gordon +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Gordon Russell | EMAIL : gor@cs.strath.ac.uk | | L13.16, Livingstone Tower, | TELEPHONE : 041-552-4400 Ex 3635 | | University Of Strathclyde, | FAX : 041-552-0775 | | 26 Richmond Street, +-------------------------------------------+ | Glasgow, G1 1XH | Spelling mistakes within this document are| | Scotland, UK | caused by internet compaction algorithms. | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: paulj@cs.kun.nl (Paul Jones) Subject: Re: Swap *file* Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 09:12:35 GMT In <1993Sep18.024643.7987@nrao.edu> rzm@oden.oso.chalmers.se (Rafal Maszkowski) writes: >I have problems with seetting up second swap file on NFS mounted partition: >rzm@dain:/usr/src,-1# mkswap /usr/src/swap 8096 >Setting up swapspace, size = 8286208 bytes >rzm@dain:/usr/src,0# swapon /usr/src/swap >swapon: /usr/src/swap: Invalid argument >rzm@dain:/usr/src,-1# swapon swap >swapon: swap: Invalid argument >rzm@dain:/usr/src,-1# >The file is not owned by root and 666. Am I doing it wrong or it is still >not possible in 0.99pl13? The problem lies in the fact that swapfiles must be on a *local* partition because the kernel uses a mapping from file to physical blocks and then uses the block device to access those blocks. In case of an NFS mounted filesystem this does not work (we don't have a block device for it). I'm working on a solution that uses the VFS layer to access the swapfile. It is working, but I still need to do some stress-testing to make sure that all the hacks I made actually work. The main problem is that when swapping you can't really allocate memory (as this may cause a need to do some extra swapping). I made a dirty hack to support this anyway but I need to test some more.... Paul. PS If anybody else is working on this/would like to work on this, please send some mail. ------------------------------ From: tdunbar@vtaix.cc.vt.edu (Thomas Dunbar) Subject: Re: TeX /lib/XtVer Date: 20 Sep 1993 14:36:21 GMT what tex binary (ie from what package) are u using?! the one's i post only use the standard libs (X11, Xt) ^-ie /pub/linux/packages/SLS/t1/texbin.tgz or /pub/linux/packages/TeX/Milieu/TeX.tz at tsx-11.mit.edu thomas ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help From: andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm) Subject: Re: [Q] .cshrc?? (for root, that is) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 15:15:54 GMT rich@mulvey.com writes: >In article <27hd91$cns@Tut.MsState.Edu> simmons@EE.MsState.Edu writes: >>In article jmadison@etsun.tech.iupui.edu (Gold Silver Soup and Silk) writes: >>> >>>don't know if this is the right place to ask, but anyway: >>>since i've installed(tookoff&reinstalled) linux on my system, i've >>>been trying to figure out where it gets the root's aliases, etc. >>>from. i can't find a .*rc (.cshrc like) file anywhere. where is >>>it? or is it built in & needs a program to modify it? please help. >>> >>>-jon'Newbie'M >>> >> >>Try ".profile" >>The C-Shell ("csh") uses ".cshrc" files, while the >>Bourne shell ("sh"), and the Bourne Again shell >>("bash") use ".profile" files to store initial >>commands. >> >Check /etc/profile as well. And not to forget /etc/csh.cshrc, the global config file for tcsh. -- /-\ Andreas Klemm +-----------------+ |@|########################################################-@ "pay for it !" | \-/ 41469 Neuss Germany phone +49/ 2137 12609 +-----------------+ ------------------------------ From: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding) Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: 20 Sep 1993 17:04:26 GMT Reply-To: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding) In a previous article, jcburt@gats486.larc.nasa.gov () says: > >Look at it this way...the original post was about not being able to boot >Slackware from a 5-1/4" floopy...Linux supports 5-1/4" floppy, other distributions >boot from the 5-1/4, so how do you get Slackware to boot from a 5-1/4" floppy >(i.e. READ: "Hey Slackware maintainer, how about a 5-1/4" boot disk...") > Look, I ignored it the first time, but now you've gone and posted for the second time that I need to support a 5 1/4 boot disk, when at the time of both posts you'd have seen that I *do*, if you'd bothered to go to ftp.cdrom.com and LOOK. Maybe you should try this next time before you post, OK? -- Patrick Volkerding volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu bf703@cleveland.freenet.edu ------------------------------ From: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding) Subject: Re: [Not] enough SLS bashing Date: 20 Sep 1993 17:14:33 GMT Reply-To: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding) In a previous article, jcburt@gats486.larc.nasa.gov () says: > >Not to rag on Andreas in particular, but > "Buy a 3 1/2 floppy and everything will be fine ..." >is about as worthless bit of advice as I've heard in a long time... > >Look at it this way...the original post was about not being able to boot >Slackware from a 5-1/4" floopy...Linux supports 5-1/4" floppy, other distributions >boot from the 5-1/4, so how do you get Slackware to boot from a 5-1/4" floppy >(i.e. READ: "Hey Slackware maintainer, how about a 5-1/4" boot disk...") > In the first place, I'm not required to improve anything until the day you start writing out my paychecks. Also, I think the advice is valid. Should people with 286's start demanding Linux work for them? How about people with 720K floppies? Linux supports those drives too, you know. Hey, time marches on, pal! Finally, if anyone had bothered to check ftp.cdrom.com, they'd have seen that the Slackware distribution does support a 5.25" boot disk. It even did at the time that the lack of that feature was first falsely reported in this thread. -- Patrick Volkerding volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu bf703@cleveland.freenet.edu ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help From: jak@denkart.be (Joris Van Dyck) Subject: [WANTED] Benchmarking programs Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 12:02:31 GMT Hi All, Originally, I posted this article in c.o.l.misc, but I didn't get any answers. So I'm giving it another try in c.o.l.help and c.o.l.admin. I'm looking for recent benchmarking programs to compare overall performance of Linux, HP-UX and SunOS on different HW-platforms. Anyone know of such programs + where I can get it? Preferably benchmarks that includes X performance as well. Please respond via e-mail. I will post a summary of all the programs and their location (if I get response of course, which was not the case with my first try). Thanx, Jorre -- --- #include Joris Van Dyck -*- Denkart nv, Molenweg 107, B2830 Willebroek - BELGIUM Tel +3.866.00.22 Fax +3.866.03.01 e-mail: jak@denkart.be ------------------------------ From: lcd@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Leon Dent) Subject: Re: TeX from SLS Date: 20 Sep 1993 15:30:19 -0400 Thomas Dunbar has updated texbin.tgz to eliminate this problem as of the date of the message. Leon Dent lcd@umcc.umich.edu ------------------------------ From: pott@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de (Ruediger Pott) Subject: smail and files > 5KB (rejected) Date: 20 Sep 93 20:59:50 GMT Hi all, I've the following problem. Using smail and sls 1.01 my configuration works fine and all mail is forwarded to our mailhost. But when the mailfile gets larger than approx 5KB the mail stays in the mailqueue and will never be send. Does someone know a config-parameter to chnge this behaviour? Thanks, Ruediger ------------------------------ From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: Compiling the new Elm 2.4 Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 05:27:28 GMT Has anyone compiled elm 2.4with kernel 99pl12, gcc2.4.5 and the 4.2.2.libraries? ? I tried everything in the newspak7 doc, including runnig the config.sh supplied directly. I'd be interested in conversing with anyone who has succeeded. Also, I saw mention of a 2.4.11. The newest I found on ftp.uu.net was 2.4. -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ Segments are for Worms ------------------------------ From: harris@teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk (Stephen Harris) Subject: Re: Memory LEAKING!*=--.._ Date: 20 Sep 93 20:45:09 BST Michael Chapman K8/EIS1. Tel. 1662 (mchapman@argos.eis) wrote about article 10264@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk, in which I wrote : >There is one downside to this caching system: when memory is needed for : >programs, the buffer needs to shrink, and this can lead to a pause as : >parts of it are written back to disk. This is one case where a hardware : >cache can be beneficial! : If you have got the money for memory, put it into main memory for linux : not a hardware disk cache. : If you don't need the memory for programs then you have a bigger : buffer cache. If you need the memory for programs then your hardware disk : cache is not going to help a whole lot. Under normal circumstances this is perfectly true. However I just installed dx2/66 16Mb RAM local-bus IDE 0.5Mb cache. Now it is VERY annoying every so often to find the machine pausing for a couple of seconds just to flush this cache to disk when the program memory requirement grows by a Mb or so. Here a hardware cache *is* beneficial. (the 0.5Mb is essentially non existent because of its relatively small size) Well, just a viewpoint. This subject has been killed lots of times before, but just having DONE a top-rate setup that has this problem I know that my next system will have at least 2Mb disk cache. -- Stephen Harris harris@teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk Opinions are just opinions, and the facts are the facts. But what are what? ------------------------------ From: lee@ceg.uiuc.edu (Chris Lee) Subject: mcopy: how to make file owned by user, not root Date: 20 Sep 93 20:44:43 GMT Is there a way to have MCOPY copy the file and give permission to the person who copied it instead of root? (I haven't checked yet to see if it uses root's current umask). Copying files TO floppy doesn't matter, but copying FROM floppy sets the file perms to root-only. I suppose I can write a front end script to do this, but I'm trying to avoid this situation :-) Thanks in advance. -- Chris Lee University of Illinois Urbana lee@ceg.uiuc.edu (217)244-2903 ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.unix.admin From: steve@crc.ricoh.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky) Subject: Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root Date: 20 Sep 1993 23:50:40 GMT My standard way of allowing anyone to shut down is to have a *user* called "shutdown", with UID = 0 and no password. "shutdown"'s login shell is, of course, a script that contains #!/bin/bash /etc/shutdown -f now One shuts down by logging in as "shutdown". There's another user called "reboot" that has "-rf" in place of "-f". Both these users have a home directory, /home/etc, which is writable only by root, so nobody can mess with their .profile, and to give them a suitable environment for starting up via "xdm". Works great! -- \ --Steve Savitzky-- \ 343 Leigh Ave \ REAL HACKERS USE AN AXE! \ steve@crc.ricoh.COM \ San Jose, CA 95128 \ Free Cyberia! \ w: 415-496-5710 \ h:408-294-6492 \ \_________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: KPARSONS@kentvm.kent.edu Subject: How to use use 1.4MB 5 1/4 disk. Was: Not enough SLS bashing Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 20:48:21 EST You can easily use 1.44MB floppies if you only have a 5 1/4" drive. Use the popular FDRORM18.ZIP package. With it you format your 1.2MB floppies as 1.44MB. Then adjust the CMOS setup to tell it your 1.2 drive is a 1.44. Then Linux will work with your 1.44 MB 5 1/4" floppies. I didn't try this, but I told a friend with this problem to do this, and he reported back to me that it works fine. So there is no reason to have 1.2 MB versions. Don't forget to set interleave 2:1 if you format with CMOS set "wrong". Also you have to tell FDFORMAT the disk size you want and interleave to use since your CMOS is lying to programs in this setup. It will only matter to formatting type programs. cu ------------------------------ From: y-pisan@nwu.edu (Yusuf Pisan) Crossposted-To: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: [Summary] /etc/shutdown by non-root Date: 21 Sep 1993 01:01:32 GMT Reply-To: y-pisan@nwu.edu And how do you keep just anybody from shutting down your machine whenever they feel like it? Do you mean to say that anybody can telnet to yor machine and login as shutdown to shutdown your machine!!! How strange, I want to keep my machine running most of the time :-) Yusuf >>>>> On 20 Sep 1993 23:50:40 GMT, steve@crc.ricoh.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky) said: Stephen> Nntp-Posting-Host: shasta.crc.ricoh.com Stephen> My standard way of allowing anyone to shut down is to have a *user* Stephen> called "shutdown", with UID = 0 and no password. "shutdown"'s login Stephen> shell is, of course, a script that contains Stephen> #!/bin/bash Stephen> /etc/shutdown -f now Stephen> One shuts down by logging in as "shutdown". Stephen> There's another user called "reboot" that has "-rf" in place of "-f". Stephen> Both these users have a home directory, /home/etc, which is writable Stephen> only by root, so nobody can mess with their .profile, and to give them Stephen> a suitable environment for starting up via "xdm". Stephen> Works great! Stephen> -- Stephen> \ --Steve Savitzky-- \ 343 Leigh Ave \ REAL HACKERS USE AN AXE! Stephen> \ steve@crc.ricoh.COM \ San Jose, CA 95128 \ Free Cyberia! Stephen> \ w: 415-496-5710 \ h:408-294-6492 \ Stephen> \_________________________________________________________________________ -- Yusuf Pisan y-pisan@nwu.edu The Institute for the Learning Sciences Northwestern University ------------------------------ ** 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-Admin-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.admin) via: Internet: Linux-Admin@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 sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux End of Linux-Admin Digest ******************************