From: Digestifier To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 15:13:26 EDT Subject: Linux-Development Digest #117 Linux-Development Digest #117, Volume #1 Wed, 22 Sep 93 15:13:26 EDT Contents: Re: What do people think about /config? (Dan Warburton) Disk Drivers in Amiga version (John Shardlow) Re: Mouseless X for Linux notebook (Charlie Krasic) Re: To all device driver writers; boot-time messages. (Herb Peyerl) An OPTIONAL /config (Andrew Mauer) Ricoh GS-1 generic SCSI host adapter (Dave Platt) ** makewhatis replacement ** (Mark Lord) Re: What do people think about /config? (Mark Lord) Good solutions for newbies without /config (Michael Griffith) Re: GCC, is it a bug or isn't it? (Fergus James HENDERSON) Re: ** makewhatis replacement ** (Rik Faith) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: warb@faatcrl.faa.gov (Dan Warburton) Subject: Re: What do people think about /config? Date: 21 Sep 93 22:51:59 GMT Symbolic links from /config/* to the original locations would be a good thing. It doesn't bother the people how know where things are, but gives new sysadms a simple place to find config files. I DON'T like symbolic links from places to /config (from /etc/hosts to /conf/net/hosts). What is THE right /config dir structure? /config/net /config/X /config/host /config/mail Does anything belong in /config ie. config files or just directories. BTW /etc/ probably started out this way. -- Dan Warburton warb@faa.gov warb@tgf.tc.faa.gov warb@pilot.njin.net TGF (Target Generation Facility, an Air Traffic Control Simulator) FAA Technical Center, Atlantic City International Airport, NJ 08405 Mail Stop ACN-400c Phone: 609-485-4480 ------------------------------ From: jshardlo@micrognosis.co.uk (John Shardlow) Subject: Disk Drivers in Amiga version Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 10:36:08 GMT Please could I implore the Amiga Linux developers to support the IDE disks which all new Amigas have. NetBSD only supports SCSI and even then only a few SCSI interfaces work with it. I guess as Linux on the PC works with IDE disks it is likely that the Amiga version will too?? I was hoping to run NetBSD on my accelerated A1200 but as I can't I'll have to wait for Linux. Heres hoping.............. ------------------------------ From: buck@wic.waterloo.shl.com (Charlie Krasic) Subject: Re: Mouseless X for Linux notebook Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:29:22 GMT In article <1993Sep19.200915.404@cs.wisc.edu> austin@aura.cs.wisc.edu (Todd Austin) writes: > p.s. here's a tool us small memory types could use -- run gprof on > an executable, recording the frequency of time spent in each executed > procedure for a "typical" usage of the program, then feed this information > back into "ld" so it could order procedures in the text in decreasing order > of frequency of time executed. This would minimize the internal fragmentation > found in allocated pages, thus maximizing the utilization of allocated > physical ram pages. I suspect the typical program's working set size would > decrease dramatically. > -- > %% Todd Austin, austin@cs.wisc.edu > %% Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin -- Madison > %% 1210 West Dayton, Madison, WI 53706 This is a good idea. A friend of mine who works at Microsoft did this for their OS/2 (blech!) linker. Of course, there are all kinds of really nifty things you can do once you start feeding back profiler data into the compiler and linker... -- Buck ------------------------------ From: hpeyerl@novatel.ca (Herb Peyerl) Subject: Re: To all device driver writers; boot-time messages. Date: 23 Sep 1993 00:23:07 GMT Russell Nelson (nelson@crynwr.com) wrote: : In article <1993Sep17.184413.6604@super.org> becker@super.org writes: : I'm still looking for comments on the main points, especially suggestions on : the content and (loose) format of boot-time messages. : I'd like to see a prefix, of say, "I:" for informative messages, "W:" : for warnings (something is not standard, e.g. COM1 using IRQ 3), and : "E:" for an actual drop-dead error, e.g. trying to mount a MS-DOS : partition as root. Actually; I think you should take that a little further and change *all* system errors to the following format: %-- -- So you would see errors that look like: %TCPIP-F-EINVAL -- Invalid Argument. %EXTFS-E-EDSKTRSH -- Lost track of Inode. Filesystem Trashed. %EXTFS-W-ENOINODE -- Couldn't find free inode. You may have trouble later. Then you could go a little further and modify all the console logging so that console messages look like: %%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM 22-SEP-1993 09:17:09.24 %%%%%%%%%%% Message from user "news" on mynode.my.domain Expire: no permission on history. %NEWS-F-EPERM -- No Permission. -- hpeyerl@novatel.ca | NovAtel Commnications Ltd. hpeyerl@fsa.ca | ------------------------------ From: mauer@mcs.anl.gov (Andrew Mauer) Subject: An OPTIONAL /config Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 16:17:34 GMT 1. Obviously, the /config set-up will NOT replace any standard UNIX configure files. It is meant ONLY to provide a front-end to let newbies/UNIX innocents get [insert desirable state here] without having to study the man pages for hours to figure out some trivia. People who know "what's up" should be able to disregard it with no loss. There should be an easy way to propagate the "/config" setups, but they should not be "it". 2. As far as I am concerned, a *scary* number of linux boxes are hooked up to the net. I would like to see "simple security" --- easy ways for them to get correct setups because they'll never have any clue about obscure sendmail holes [or whatever your favorite Net-bug is]. (And please, don't pretend that a standard linux setup (a.k.a. "I just installed NET-2 myself...") is going to end up properly configured. Maybe not even if they do RTFM ;-) /Andrew/ -- /Andrew Mauer/ mauer@mcs.anl.gov ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware From: dplatt@ntg.com (Dave Platt) Subject: Ricoh GS-1 generic SCSI host adapter Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 16:59:37 GMT Does anybody out there have any information (jumper list, programming guide, etc.) or drivers for a Ricoh GS-1 generic SCSI host adapter? This is an 8-bit PC adapter based (as usual) on the 5380; it has an on-board BIOS and an 8k SRAM. The design dates back to 1988, the board I have was built in '90 or '91 I believe. I bought it surplus, without documentation. My goal is to figure out enough about it to get it to work with Linux. MS-DOS support would be an extra win if it's possible. I'm trying to chase down somebody at Ricoh who might have information about it... no results so far. -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 813-8917 Domain: dplatt@ntg.com UUCP: ...netcomsv!ntg!dplatt USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2470 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303 ------------------------------ From: mlord@bnr.ca (Mark Lord) Subject: ** makewhatis replacement ** Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 15:10:17 GMT This is an updated copy of /usr/lib/makewhatis (from slackware 103), which seems to handle hyphenations better, as well as working better (for me) with many of the slightly non-"standard" manpages on my system. I didn't write it, and my name ain't on it.. I merely modified it. For those who care.. #!/bin/sh # makewhatis: create the whatis database # Created: Sun Jun 14 10:49:37 1992 # Revised: Wed Dec 23 14:22:44 1992 by root # Copyright 1992 Rickard E. Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu) # May be freely distributed and modified as long as copyright is retained. # Wed Dec 23 13:27:50 1992: Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu) applied changes # based on Mitchum DSouza (mitchum.dsouza@mrc-apu.cam.ac.uk) cat patches. # Also, cleaned up code and make it work with NET-2 doc pages. PATH=/usr/bin:/bin for name in $* do case $name in -u) update="-ctime 0"; continue;; -c) pages=cat; filter="col -bx"; continue;; -*) echo "Usage: makewhatis -c -u [manpath]"; echo " -c: build database from cat pages"; echo " -u: update database with new pages"; echo " [manpath]: man directory (default: /usr/man)"; exit;; *) if [ -d ${name} ] then mandir=$name else echo "No such directory $name" exit fi;; esac done pages=${pages-man} export pages mandir=${mandir-/usr/man} filter=${filter-cat} cd $mandir for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 n l do if [ -d ${pages}$i ] then cd ${pages}$i section=$i export section for j in `find . -name '*' ${update} -print` do # I realize this is rigged funny. I'm still learning sh script :^) Cat=cat if [ `basename $j .z` != `basename $j` ] then Cat=zcat fi if [ `basename $j .Z` != `basename $j` ] then Cat=zcat fi if [ `basename $j .gz` != `basename $j` ] then Cat=zcat fi ${Cat} ${j} | ${filter} |\ gawk 'BEGIN {after = 0; insh = 0; wordjoin = 1; pages = ENVIRON["pages"]; section = ENVIRON["section"]} { if (($1 ~ /^\.[Ss][Hh]/ && $2 ~ /[Nn][Aa][Mm][Ee]/) || (pages == "cat" && $1 ~ /^NAME/)) { if (!insh) insh = 1 else { printf "\n" exit } } else if (insh) { if ($1 ~ /^\.[Ss][HhYS]/ || (pages == "cat" && $1 ~ /^[DS][yYeE]/)) { printf "\n" exit } else { # Substitutions after Tom Christiansen perl script if (!wordjoin) printf " " gsub(/ /, " ") # tabs to spaces sub(/^ +/, "") # Kill initial spaces if (!after && $0 ~ /^[^ ]+-/) sub(/-/, " - ") sub(/ *,/,",") # Fix comma spacings sub(/,/,", ") # Fix comma spacings sub(/--/," - ") # Handle Double dash gsub(/ */, " ") # Collapse spaces sub(/ *$/, "") # Kill trailing spaces if ($0 ~ /[^ ]-$/) { sub(/-$/, "") # Hypenation wordjoin = 1 } else wordjoin = 0 sub(/^.[IB] /, "") # Kill bold and italics gsub(/\\f[PRIB0123]/, "") # Kill font changes gsub(/\\s[-+0-9]*/, "") # Kill size changes gsub(/\\&/, "") # Kill \& gsub(/\\\((ru|ul)/, "_") # Translate gsub(/\\\((mi|hy|em)/, "-") # Translate gsub(/\\\*\(../, "") # Kill troff strings sub(/^\.\\\"/, "") # Kill comments gsub(/\\/, "") # Kill all backslashes if (after) { if ($1 !~ /^\.../ && $1 != "") printf "%s", $0 else { printf "\n" after = 0 } } else if ($0 !~ / - / && $0 !~ / -$/ && $0 !~ /^- /) { if ($1 !~ /^\.../ && $1 != "") printf "%s", $0 else printf "\n" } else { after = 1 if ($0 ~ / - /) { printf "%-20s", sprintf( "%s (%s)", substr( $0, 0, match( $0, / - / )-1 ), section ) printf " - %s", toupper(substr( $0, 3 + match( $0, / - / ),1 )) printf "%s", substr( $0, 4 + match( $0, / - / ) ) } else if ($0 ~ / -$/) { printf "%-20s", sprintf( "%s (%s) -", substr( $0, 0, match( $0, / -$/ )-1 ), section ) } else { printf "(%s) %s", section, $0 } } } } }' done cd .. fi done > /tmp/whatis$$ sed '/^$/d' < /tmp/whatis$$ | sort | uniq > ${mandir}/whatis chmod 644 ${mandir}/whatis rm /tmp/whatis$$ -- mlord@bnr.ca Mark Lord BNR Ottawa,Canada 613-763-7482 ------------------------------ From: mlord@bnr.ca (Mark Lord) Subject: Re: What do people think about /config? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 93 15:32:11 GMT In article kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com writes: > >In article jgrape@coos.dartmouth.edu (Johan A. Grape) writes: >>I think that the /config idea spurs from unix sysadm >>suddenly becoming a job for every PEECEE owner now >>that linux is around. > >Yup. That's my assessment as well. > >>I can't help but think that >>it is a really bad idea to differ from the standard >>unix filesystem. With hopes of getting some commercial >>software ported to linux and a general acceptance of this >>as a _solid_ OS, I have to vote against. > >If the contents of /config are merely symlinks to the actual configuration >files, then I really don't have much of a problem with it. Those of us who >don't need /config can then simply remove it and be done with it. > >If there's any single standard that needs to exist with respect to config >files, it's the use of a comment character. Most things can use '#' at >the beginning of a line to indicate a comment. I suggest that everything >be modified to deal with that. > >Then you include sufficient documentation in comments to enable novice >admins to get a handle on what they're doing when they look at the file. >This, of course, is for system configuration files that don't have a >specific application that uses them. > >Application configuration files should be managed by the applications >themselves when at all possible. What knows better what it's looking >for than the application? > >If applications are made responsible for managing their own configuration >files, then the responsibility for knowing about configuration files will >be distributed appropriately. Any other "solution" simply adds unneeded >complexity to what's already there. > >People who come from the MS-LOSS world don't seem to realize that the >reason Unix is more complex to administrate is that Unix is a more >complex system! Furthermore, how can you effectively manage a system >if you don't know how the pieces are supposed to work? Configuration >files give you a clue about how things work. Knowing about them is an >advantage. > >I do admit that there are some configuration files for which a front-end >editor would be really useful. Sendmail.cf comes to mind. :-) > > >-- >Kevin Brown kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com >This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end > > This is your .signature virus on drugs: <> > Any questions? -- mlord@bnr.ca Mark Lord BNR Ottawa,Canada 613-763-7482 ------------------------------ From: grif@ucrengr.ucr.edu (Michael Griffith) Subject: Good solutions for newbies without /config Date: 22 Sep 1993 17:49:22 GMT In article , Andrew Mauer wrote: > >1. Obviously, the /config set-up will NOT replace any standard UNIX >configure files. It is meant ONLY to provide a front-end to let >newbies/UNIX innocents get [insert desirable state here] without >having to study the man pages for hours to figure out some trivia. >People who know "what's up" should be able to disregard it with no >loss. There should be an easy way to propagate the "/config" setups, >but they should not be "it". I still don't get it. The way I understand it is: /config is supposed to be a series of (say) shell scripts that are used to parse the various files in /etc so that sysadmin tools for newbies are easier to write. The programs in /config won't really be run directly, because the excellent sysadmin tools will be the interface of choice for newbies and hackers can still use /etc directly. What does this gain us? The sysadmin tools should not be reading directly from /etc but rather calling the access routines in libc. For example if we want to look up a hostname, a call to gethostbyname() is much preferred to parsing /etc/hosts because it will allow NIS, NIS+, or DNS lookups to be made instead of only using local files. I say that good sysadmin tools should be written to assist newbies. These tools can safely be ignored by hackers who would prefer to muck around in /etc directly. However this /config stuff is just extra baggage that we don't need. ------------------------------ From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus James HENDERSON) Subject: Re: GCC, is it a bug or isn't it? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 18:41:45 GMT bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >Or the line is actually something like > >You shouldn't have defined NEVER_DEFINED > >and gcc tripped over the unmatched single quote, which ANSI compilers are >apparently allowed (supposed?) to do. Required. ANSI-conformant compilers must issue a diagnostic for code containing syntax errors, such as the above. NB. The -traditional or -traditional-cpp flags to gcc will allow it to compile the above sort of code. -- Fergus Henderson fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU ------------------------------ From: faith@cs.unc.edu (Rik Faith) Subject: Re: ** makewhatis replacement ** Date: 22 Sep 1993 18:03:03 GMT In article <1993Sep22.151017.6641@bmerh85.bnr.ca>, mlord@bnr.ca (Mark Lord) writes: |> This is an updated copy of /usr/lib/makewhatis (from slackware 103), |> which seems to handle hyphenations better, as well as working better |> (for me) with many of the slightly non-"standard" manpages on my system. |> |> I didn't write it, and my name ain't on it.. I merely modified it. It would be nice, however, if you added your name to the header information as someone who modified it. That way, I don't end up getting mail about changes I didn't make :-) [_and_ you get credit for your work]. -- Rik Faith: faith@cs.unc.edu "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin ------------------------------ ** 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-Development-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.development) via: Internet: Linux-Development@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-Development Digest ******************************