From: Digestifier To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 11:34:48 EDT Subject: Linux-Development Digest #146 Linux-Development Digest #146, Volume #1 Thu, 7 Oct 93 11:34:48 EDT Contents: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS (Bill C. Riemers) Page fault (Peter Andersson) Re: Xfree vs. BIOS (K J MacDonald) Real-time OS (Edmund Lai) Adaptec 2742 SCSI Controller Driver (Janet A Barnett) Re: Xfree vs. BIOS (Robert Gallant) Re: Linux Slowly Dying Off? (Robert Moser) Re: Xfree vs. BIOS ("Alex R.N. Wetmore") Re: CFC/CFI: XSysadmin (Michael A. Irons) signals ? (David Weiss) Re: Xfree vs. BIOS (Bartosz Blacha) vadvise functionality in linux? (David Maxwell) Elite16 software setup details? (Adrian Ho) Simplified loadkeys - ALPHA release (Brian McCauley) Adaptec 1510 SCSI board (d.hout@bull.com) Re: Xfree vs. BIOS (David E. Wexelblat) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bcr@bohr.physics.purdue.edu (Bill C. Riemers) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS Date: 6 Oct 93 21:46:29 GMT In article <28v1ti$9ct@galaxy.ucr.edu> grif@ucrengr.ucr.edu (Michael Griffith) writes: >Perhaps you miss the point. Although it might be easy enough for us >to interrogate the BIOS in Linux, it will not be so easy to do that >for the dozen or so other OS's that Xfree runs on. The Xfree folks >are not interested in solutions that only work on one out of many of >the operating systems that they support. Obcourse this misses the point that you are free to patch your own driver into Xfree86. If you want to write your own BIOS driver for Linux, great. Test it out, if it improves performance, increases speed, or has some other advantage upload it to an ftp and all the Linux community will appreciate it. Bill ------------------------------ From: pand@kullmar.se (Peter Andersson) Subject: Page fault Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 23:35:56 GMT Hi! I'm a bit of a newbie to the Linux world and I wonder if some kind soul could help me with this problem: I'm currently writing a program that needs the page fault handler (SIGSYSV) to obtain some speed. But the program needs some extra data like where it was trying to write or read and if it is possible, set the single step trap. Could someone help me to find out how I can do this? (Don't blame it on bad code! I'm counting every clockcycle :) - Peter Andersson, pand@kullmar.se - Sweden (so don't ask me where to find ^^^^^^ cheap computer equipment! =) ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc From: kenny@festival.ed.ac.uk (K J MacDonald) Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 00:15:00 GMT Michael Griffith (grif@ucrengr.ucr.edu) wrote: : In article <28uv1s$gos@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>, : Barzilai Spinak wrote: : [citation deleted] : > I want to give a humble (and maybe a little naive) comment on that. : >If, as you say, all the needed video info can be gotten by BIOS calls, a few [more stuff deleted] : Perhaps you miss the point. Although it might be easy enough for us : to interrogate the BIOS in Linux, it will not be so easy to do that : for the dozen or so other OS's that Xfree runs on. The Xfree folks : are not interested in solutions that only work on one out of many of : the operating systems that they support. This scheme doesn't have to have anything to do with the X Free 86 code. All it needs to do is write a locally correct XConfig file. Whether I'd trust the information or not is a different matter. How would it get the monitor bandwidth for example. Is this a dead end ? Kenny. -- ============================================================================== Kenneth MacDonald E-mail: kenny@ed Dept. of Geology & Geophysics "Allow me to introduce myself, Major Dennis University of Edinburgh Bloodnok, International Christmas Pudding ------------------------------ From: edmund@swanee.ee.uwa.edu.au (Edmund Lai) Subject: Real-time OS Date: 7 Oct 93 00:39:39 GMT Could linux be modified to become a real-time OS? What needs to be done? Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Edmund Lai Department of Information Engineering The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong email: mklai@ie.cuhk.hk ------------------------------ From: barnettj@pookie.crd.ge.com (Janet A Barnett) Subject: Adaptec 2742 SCSI Controller Driver Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 01:26:00 GMT I just got my new PC! After specifically asking for an Adaptec 1742 controller (to run linux), they sent me a 2742(T) instead (thank you). The SCSI-HOWTO says this is not supported, so I guess I'm in the position of writing this myself. Could someone give me a few pointers on how to proceed? I've done some work on the SCSI driver for my Amiga so I have a vague idea how these things work. Not being able to run linux from a hard disk would seem to be the chief impedement. Maybe even someone will tell me 'Hey, I'm almost finished doing this very thing!' :-) Allen Barnett (whose wife graciously allowed to use her account) ------------------------------ From: rpgallan@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Robert Gallant) Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 01:25:33 GMT I have an idea i've been thinking about, but, not wanting to be shot down by some hot fingered netter, have kept silent. but it's related to this thread, ... so Since the makers of video cards generally always write a windows driver, would it be possible to write a program to extract the neccessary code from a windows driver to make it work with Xfree? This wouldn't have to be incorporated into the Xfree program itself, but could be used to make just the driver portion, which could be linked in. Could this work? --Rob ------------------------------ From: araw@elm.circa.ufl.edu (Robert Moser) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Linux Slowly Dying Off? Date: 7 Oct 1993 02:47:59 GMT Hear hear!!! I heartily agree! However, I will point out that slackware provides many of the things on your wish list. In addition, X isn't that hard to set up for most of the common platforms (using tamux setup). ARAW ------------------------------ From: "Alex R.N. Wetmore" Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 23:38:47 -0400 Excerpts from netnews.comp.os.linux.development: 6-Oct-93 Re: Xfree vs. BIOS by Jerry Whelan@camelot.bra > What the first author is suggesting would actually have no > portability impact on XFree86. He is asking for a utility that > runs during boot that sucks out the video timing values from the > bios. That information could easily be written to in an Xconfig > format file. That file can then be used by an XFree86 server with > absolutely no modifications to the server source. This is what OS/2 actually seems to do. Is has you run a command called "svga on" in a dos window, where it traps the writes to ports and keeps track of what it did to go in and out of all of the vesa modes. It then uses this information to set its svga modes itself. Of course I may be totally wrong (I just figured this out by playing with it), but it seems to be what it is doing. This would allow someone to write a driver that would read similar files and output the same commands to the same ports to change video modes. Might even be a way to pick up ideas on new cards. alex (netbsd user, but likes to read the linux.development anyway) ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux From: mirons@icarus.ci.net (Michael A. Irons) Subject: Re: CFC/CFI: XSysadmin Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 18:05:15 GMT I have been thinking about just this thing. I would use OB/OI as it seems fairly easy to use and it would be good to show some support for the product. Each of the sections could be written and then merged into a main utility. If it's designed carfully, if should be extendable as well. As for the compile time stuff. Once the gui is set, it could be compiled into a *.o files and then linked with the code for maintaining the files. I think it would be good to have it very flexable. For example, with UUCP automatically figuring out which type of config files you are using and offering a conversion option to one of the others. That way the user is offered a list of systems, they pick a system (or add a new one) and get options to either clear/delete it, or edit it's 'capabilities'. -- Mike Irons mirons@Icarus.CI.NET ------------------------------ From: dweiss@philips.oz.au (David Weiss) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 04:23:10 GMT Subject: signals ? I am porting a big piece of software (isode-8.0) to Linux and am stuck on configuring the signal-related portions. ISODE refers to SIGEMT, which isn't declared in any Linux include files. [Stevens, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment] states that SIGEMT is an implementation-defined hardware fault, which is present in SVR4 and BSD4.3, but not POSIX.1. Is it true that Linux implements BSD signals, and if so, why isn't SIGEMT provided? A related query concerns the file signal.h which says; [ #define's of various SIGxxx's deleted ] /* Most of these aren't used yet (and perhaps never will) * so they are commented out. */ #define SIGIO 23 #define SIGPOLL SIGIO #define SIGURG SIGIO /* #define SIGLOST */ Is it just SIGLOST which is not used (and does `used' mean `implemented') or are SIGIO, SIGPOLL and SIGURG also not `used'? What is the meaning of these three signal types anyway? Why are they defined as the same value? - this implies that Linux doesn't distinguish between them. If anyone can shed some light on these mysteries I will be most grateful. David -- ============================================================================ David Weiss email: dweiss@philips.oz.au Philips Public Telecommunications Systems Phone: +61 3 881 3728 ------------------------------ From: Bartosz Blacha Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 02:06:53 -0400 "Alex R.N. Wetmore" writes: > This is what OS/2 actually seems to do. Is has you run a command called [...] Yeah, that's what some other programs do too, like ColorView by Millenium Technologies (shareware viewer for DOS.) It configures itself completely automatically every time I run it (it doesn't use a config file though), and finds all my resolution x color combinations all the way up to 1280 x 1024 x 8bit. Now I don't know how to do automatical configuration ike that, but I hope there are people out there who do :-) --Bartosz Blacha--bart+@CMU.EDU--I am, therefore I'll think. Electrical and Computer Engineering Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA (endorsement disclaimed) ------------------------------ From: damaxwel@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (David Maxwell) Subject: vadvise functionality in linux? Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 06:41:29 GMT Hi: Is there any way to tell the kernel that pages of memory are going to be accessed randomly (as in a garbage collection algorithm) so as to avoid thrashing. I know that sunos has a function called vadvise that does what I want -- is there something similar under Linux? David Maxwell damaxwel@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca ------------------------------ From: scornd9@solomon.technet.sg (Adrian Ho) Subject: Elite16 software setup details? Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 07:27:23 GMT I'm running Linux 0.99.p13 with an SMC EtherCard Elite16. The WD8003 driver comes up correctly, but my board mysteriously reconfigures itself to use the BNC port instead of the AUI one. Oddly enough, I've been running the kernel non-stop for at least 24 hours without any problems -- the config change only happened after I warm-booted the machine for the first time since I installed p13. I'm able to configure the port (and make it stick) under MS-DOS, but when I boot Linux, the setting reverts to the default (BNC). Does anyone have the details of software config for the Elite 16? Better still, has anyone written a config program under Linux? Please reply ASAP, as my machine is also the newsserver for my company. Thks much for any info! -- - Adrian Ho scornd9@solomon.technet.sg ------------------------------ From: bam@wcl-l.bham.ac.uk (Brian McCauley) Subject: Simplified loadkeys - ALPHA release Date: 07 Oct 1993 10:59:07 GMT Reply-To: B.A.McCauley@bham.ac.uk Many people (including myself) have noticed that many of the control and alt keys on the UK and US maps do not "Do the Right Thing(tm)" fixing the *.map files would be laborious (I tried it), so, as promised here are some patches for loadkeys so that your map files can look simpler and still DTRT (like this): auto keycode 7 = six asciicircum control = Control_asciicircum Instead of this: keycode 7 = six asciicircum control keycode 7 = Control_asciicircum shift control keycode 7 = Control_asciicircum alt keycode 7 = Meta_six shift alt keycode 7 = Meta_asciicircum control alt keycode 7 = Meta_Control_asciicircum control shift alt keycode 7 = Meta_Control_asciicircum [Meta_Control_asciicircum is not actually reconised by loadkeys at present] The new loadkeys hopefully retains full compatibility with old map files. I'm still working on the keytables.5 and *.map files but here are the patches for the programs in case anyone want to alpha test them. When I'm done I'll send the whole lot to Linus in the hope that it will become the ``official'' version. begin 644 keyb-patches.gz M'XL(`$1=LRP``]49:U,:V?+S^"M:(Q%D,#/#@#S$7=;+NE90]R+>6RE#60B# M&1@>!4-65]W??ON\SPP#FE3RX::HP.GNTZ_3KW/=F]Y))_,+LCN9 MCL?>A*CQ[GD;UZD4_O?4F`8O"'H*_(EW.YEGL]7?&J=G%VDK4YU[X7(^23>4^Q/G=')YT6XQ;HA'ZZEDCJPWVPIQ M.H^A3EL$F46D,%WC6[]N7Y[7VV+<.Y/[KE95^T6 M(SK"7\>?/S_AZ78)J_U9-EM#TG`:I!\?0^\AS-KFQ76S:98B&R:"=N_S9(^Y MA4=-?SF>C;S'Q4&/!=I_O3Z+G2(X&&6EBF7%`TUMB5#G*U:IXFR(-.9HN@0P MC!?Z_PS-#`?IP3@T89:I$M@+>,'"V]I6V!VP'E*6^P#RWXX)O6G?HQL((_Q\ MG?I](+K=+A['=ZAHFD`R\+1ZRF\1_L.D)[GBT#%+MG*%$-0-0L9_A3.EN+WS M)_TT_@`,DIN.">2GS[Z&1!3R$JP^AXP)`]R.I_WT$`';B@*/D!@!J7P?:FB1 MK].3\WTP/ M(#V$XQIT:KF^;F%<7 MDIY905",2MM>J]F$!8,3<7O=/0UPA("_]R*,;(T1Y"#O:-Q24$(>KF`PS+F, MYZ][$1#A^L_>&O4H12K.URX21J6(N<-<"0VN*8,A@>7'-&+/&^VZ*;=0QJN$ MMW]<-AL$1RK63XR[VLXW!UI2"I4*9MF5*415J8I?(_FK5]W*\5_3Y224JZ^Q MY;C[H!9!=Q%2#EA9EUC=1G<+;$'S1QB@FI(U45D%9X?">U^Z<]B?56EJE%VS MS%MID@$VMEJ[5)`F\'0W!M,YI'VH89B##T<\`:YPD MN$8RFHL&/]P:W'OB#$U@IQ'EHK9C1-N$Y3%CGZ(WK$ M!O$C\AOR%7&DMJ0^ITIKXJDT(8R;MU$<8X,MGZU)N:;5@LK.(;3M"F*9DI),E55V")[S8ULVU"`&*#&M1 M+5*+(E@WBBT7(]C"6JPL,*J\D`)":\]_ZDT=Q;>O["ROWUG6=^8TE>5FVUF_ M6^#X]B2M[?R&[?G8=KI7AMU*2;(Z_'AB18F"9)`XR4$BN!J+O_RP]P5I%X/N,@@K8KTQY*5J-(F1R@29R13;ZV(2N!6@WX5*!%SBX'(4;#L<;N<%XH5] MLR\V"-',8LFA&P@?P%E)5BM!\V2/PFL>W9AV&_-NG:-`F?2D"1NQ&CHBV<7J M/HQD_5S5?O2J]H(7:2B,553G4<1)L%;G4495*(.-6K93,NV"*X>M;VD8=/1: M5^36-!'6V#>V$<1RKMF:/MH1*X:96(TE+N#4Q^MBZ;4R&3\UC0WF>7ITY,#S M,ZPX.G(4WWNJ$0>]>K3KPW&4&(YRQ+'-Y%/G-J3"ZGY(MO9!F=(HGWSI_T@B7&P%$O M?)QY!U^.F8=,7@!^AGB0;Q*;%4GTBXTG)X99_"Q"\M[![\7>`%U-;Q`8(=X# MNSJ$W;O`8S]YO-,SYNM;VJ^+'1*@!(0W"8$=T%\I6EBH3U!T2<3,SQ%M0E<\ MX=0L`1=96H.0/ROE$8K!.HMRD3L+(L;G#, M^OVBL,)!LM)3U:;%Z[B%M9(6,#!Q"`/_"]^4(&,(]KKOO\ M:S?`Q-;T9J6)G_&N:[*CVBW&96N\T3-*COA%&3VK97P7<2=)(H.K_5R#M`U' M1_#Q])8B,E4NZUGD60+E"?I>(\0D3.)'GQ0-G>JTM8:.O"]J_A6Q@]INY!^T>RHTG22S4`;*'9=-DLPK'2WP\H\SQ>?''A.S(.[+AFS;?KZQMH'N8(C M2T%.7F%R()"X@\[OO>@##D$TF/[ES8D@=<'2 M@.+!1ZAM$)W#Z7(VHWC!3Q=DH2"\<^:=1*Q-U3",#_NP^.(/0MC_D$"%'S&I M4-)N$-[/DTGSBC0!ZQ)EUH-D/H4$RMP&%8L;Y1YNQ)9,[1T*>EGT M%0XKS,YD:>7H#B27'LRMW61;&[7`-K$1[41EYM`U3$OJFO52\QOW)>E,0]D5 M2KR(6J62;V.81X,\:I$J>/CAZ4Z:P1/L[HIB2_I.OFR6\JKO_.#B_MV57&^R MHKW6=O/5:*'G"%'M"W%ELK(O1E19E9UELK.R",F.3EIZ!CY]:K1:EZTJIT@6 MG\]P_`O]>G.SH16=V/GR_]YW\",/#C4FF^2:!IUX4WA6`V:,QI8TG*'6RQ3= M=W4U>C9:+!D4PL"LL=0PANBKX9JT2SY]/??H?42TO@)O?2J8;:Z%+E1KKX77 MY$1Z++OTORW5$R?0HFLZQ4-M!BTD?!B M2FYX1!U(T25+I50?;Y*F<#H=LO6I^ITWP6AF/B(.T@Z4_N?LZO3@H1'XL;@:YO%D0FRZ%!5`4U,0B(&!<8VRA76W*E3[/Q M(4#*>9$>T.7\NB+G'PK9EIYZ#WI^H\^8<5$E&.ESE%0IEE**B4E!*!/UN_Y7 ?IC5:D'OEVY0@E'K/E%+4]$,T(=?]_P&*1+E-$2$``%0I ` end -- \\ ( ) No Bullshit! | Email: B.A.McCauley@bham.ac.uk . _\\__[oo from | Phones: +44 21 471 3789 (home) .__/ \\ /\@ /~) /~[ /\/[ | +44 21 627 2171 (voice) 2175 (fax) . l___\\ /~~) /~~[ / [ | PGP-fp: D7 03 2A 4B D8 3A 05 37 # ll l\\ ~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | A1 93 FE EA BE E3 2A 91 ###LL LL\\ (Brian McCauley) | More: finger bam@wcl-rs.bham.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: d.hout@bull.com Subject: Adaptec 1510 SCSI board Reply-To: d.hout@bull.com Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 12:45:42 GMT Does anyone know if there is any plan to support the Adaptec 1510 SCSI board. That's what I have in a new PC I bought and if there aren't any plans to support it, I might just ship it back because I bought it primarily to run linux at home. Dave -- =============================================================================== Dave Hout hout@eastham.ma30.bull.com 508-294-2307 Bull Worldwide Information Systems 300 Concord Rd. Billerica MA 01821 MA30/850A =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc From: dwex@mtgzfs3.att.com (David E. Wexelblat) Subject: Re: Xfree vs. BIOS Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 14:03:59 GMT In article kenny@festival.ed.ac.uk (K J MacDonald) writes: > Michael Griffith (grif@ucrengr.ucr.edu) wrote: > : In article <28uv1s$gos@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>, > : Barzilai Spinak wrote: > : [citation deleted] > : > I want to give a humble (and maybe a little naive) comment on that. > : >If, as you say, all the needed video info can be gotten by BIOS calls, a few > [more stuff deleted] > : Perhaps you miss the point. Although it might be easy enough for us > : to interrogate the BIOS in Linux, it will not be so easy to do that > : for the dozen or so other OS's that Xfree runs on. The Xfree folks > : are not interested in solutions that only work on one out of many of > : the operating systems that they support. > > This scheme doesn't have to have anything to do with the X Free 86 code. > All it needs to do is write a locally correct XConfig file. > > Whether I'd trust the information or not is a different matter. How > would it get the monitor bandwidth for example. > > Is this a dead end ? Very likely. I don't think there is any general way to do what is being discussed. Where the BIOS stores the actual video parameters is completely up to the BIOS, and there is no standard, as far as I know. Hence I don't think it can be automated. It is possible to determine this by disassembling the BIOS and finding where the tables are located, but I consider this an ethically questionable practice, so I have never done this. What I have done is write some DOS-based programs to extract register values for a given mode. This has served to allow me to develop a relatively successful set of generic modes, which will be included with XFree86 2.0, along with a new document on how to get up and running. Basically, we have modes that should provide a working, if not optimal (in size and positioning), set of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc modes for any monitor. I think. Some very old, or esoteric fixed-frequency monitors may not work with these modes, but there has been no case where someone on the XFree86 beta team wasn't able to get at least one working mode at each resolution from the set. The idea is to get people up and running, and then let them tweak size, position, refresh rates, etc, based on the detailed documentation. > > Kenny. > -- > ============================================================================== > Kenneth MacDonald E-mail: kenny@ed > Dept. of Geology & Geophysics "Allow me to introduce myself, Major Dennis > University of Edinburgh Bloodnok, International Christmas Pudding -- David Wexelblat (908) 957-5871 Fax: (908) 957-5305 AT&T Bell Laboratories, 200 Laurel Ave - 3F-428, Middletown, NJ 07748 XFree86 requests should be addressed to "If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down." -- Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy" ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************