From: Digestifier To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 11:13:23 EST Subject: Linux-Development Digest #287 Linux-Development Digest #287, Volume #1 Fri, 3 Dec 93 11:13:23 EST Contents: Re: THE ULTIMATE FAQ ANSWER (OSF/Motif vs. NCSA Mosaic) (Marc Andreessen) Re: Free Software and Motif (was: Re: Don't use Motif for free sw: ...) (Marc Andreessen) Re: Comments from the "TAMU Crap" author (Steven Buytaert) Re: Auto port detection for a 3c501? (Gordon Russell) Re: Xconfig (Steven Buytaert) 4 buttons too (was: 3 buttons on Microsoftish mice (mouses?)) (T. S. Kimball) Re: Making distributions of applications (Petter Reinholdtsen) Re: Shared Memory (Kai Petzke) Re: Is the a bug in pl14's setting of st_atime? (Dave Thomas) Re: Making distributions of applications (Steven Buytaert) Re: Tough! Quit griping! Was: Re: Don't use Motif for free sw: it now requires runtime royalties! (Joachim Schrod) Re: Working NIS anywhere? (Theo de Raadt) Linux and 1.72M floppies (3 1/2" HD) Question (Moore, Kevin) Re: Free Software and Motif (was: Re: Don't use Motif for free sw: ...) (John Franks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen) Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: THE ULTIMATE FAQ ANSWER (OSF/Motif vs. NCSA Mosaic) Date: 3 Dec 93 01:42:19 In article <2dmmv0$d0c@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> sla@umbra.UCSC.EDU (Steve Allen) writes: Can NCSA please put a statement asserting that its distribution of the Mosaic binaries is legal into the anonymous ftp server next to those binaries? The text of Darrell Crow's message would be a nice start, but I think more would be desirable. Why do I ask this? Out of caution. Once before I have been involved in a situation where distribution of code resulted in a major legal squabble. I would really rather that this never happened again. It can waste many human-years of time that we cannot afford. As a system manager at a UC, I might be held personally responsible for the existence of any software which should not legally be on our systems. This is true even if some random user obtains the code. For this reason I would like to see explicit statments from NCSA regarding the binaries. Good God, folks, the binaries as we currently distribute them are legal, and binaries as we may distribute them in the future are legal. If they weren't legal, we wouldn't be distributing them, so it makes no sense to have a notice that "hey people, we aren't breaking any crime" in the distribution directory -- NO sense. Marc -- Marc Andreessen Software Development Group National Center for Supercomputing Applications marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (MIME welcomed here) ------------------------------ From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen) Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Free Software and Motif (was: Re: Don't use Motif for free sw: ...) Date: 3 Dec 93 01:50:53 In article <2dla3d$5ga@news.acns.nwu.edu> john@math.nwu.edu (John Franks) writes: I think much of the uproar could have been avoided if there was some kind of definitive statement and explanation from NCSA. In the first place, we would not have been distributing illegal, unlicensed, or otherwise evil binaries. That we were distributing binaries is and has been itself a statement. In the second place, I did in fact make a clear statement in this forum some time ago that our university license covers what we do and what we plan to do in the future. Possibly my article did not make it to your site; possibly you have forgotten it; possibly you are ignoring it. For example, about half way through this long discussion Eric Bina posted that Mosaic binaries are made with Motif 1.1.4 which has a different license than 1.2 and following. As a binary only user I had no (easy) way of knowing what version of Motif was linked with my binary. This was very helpful. Of course it raises the question of whether there is a committment or intent to continue supporting binaries using version 1.1.4 indefinitely. It is irrelevant. As holders of a university license we can distribute 1.1.x and 1.2.x binaries equivalently. This should be clear now. This licenseing issue is a potentially difficult one for many people and a definitive statement, perhaps including the licensing terms imposed by NCSA for their binaries, would be much appreciated. The licensing terms for Mosaic, in the broad sense (what you can and cannot do with the binaries and the source code), are covered by the copyright statement, which is both online and in the source distribution. Information on specific licensing questions should be sent straight to us and will be dealt with on an individual basis. Marc -- Marc Andreessen Software Development Group National Center for Supercomputing Applications marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (MIME welcomed here) ------------------------------ From: buytaert@imec.be (Steven Buytaert) Subject: Re: Comments from the "TAMU Crap" author Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 10:04:44 GMT Eric Youngdale (eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil) wrote: : Try the following analogy. Think of it like a gear shift knob on a : car. Most cars do not let you shift into reverse while you are at highway : speeds, but there are a few that will (do not try this at home, kids :-). Just : trying all of the video modes to see which one works the best is like shifting : a car into all of the positions to see which one works the best. If your : transmission prevents you from shifting into reverse while you are driving, you : may be spared serious damage. If not and you happen to hit reverse.... Oh, the "R" on my gear stick stands for "Reverse" I always thought it was "Rally" mode. No wonder the garage don't want to fix it anymore, even in guarantee :-) : "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, : And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep." KLIK, KLIK, (I stand up in a daze, I have an urge to drive down to the nearest nuclear power plant, dig up the nitro there, ...) -- Steven Buytaert Interuniversity Micro Electronics Centre - Invomec Division Kapeldreef 75, 3001 Heverlee, BELGIUM phone : +32 16 281 271 fax : +32 16 281 584 e-mail : buytaert@imec.be In case of danger, BREAK glass ------------------------------ From: gor@cs.strath.ac.uk (Gordon Russell) Subject: Re: Auto port detection for a 3c501? Date: 3 Dec 1993 10:19:18 -0000 In article <1993Dec1.053955.21218@super.org> becker@super.org (Donald J. Becker) writes: > >Are you actually using a 3c501 with Linux? > >-- > >Donald Becker becker@super.org I have a number of Linux machines running here, mostly using the 3c509 card. However, my home machine, which I sometimes bring in to work, is now fitted with a 3c501. I have found the performance of this card to be adequate, but not on par with the 509. It is also reasonably reliable. Anyone using this card would be well advised to change the debug level (search for EL_DEBUG) to 0, and thus avoiding the annoying timeout messages which appear every so often. Unfortunately, with this new kernel, syslogd is now reporting all of its log messages to the screen. Temp fix is not to run syslogd. Oh well.... Keep up the good work Donald. 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: buytaert@imec.be (Steven Buytaert) Subject: Re: Xconfig Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 10:16:31 GMT David E. Wexelblat (dwex@aib.com) wrote: : In article andrewp@itwhy.bhp.com.au (Andrew PRUSEK) writes: : >Recently there has been a LOT of "discussion" about the merits/defects of : >various ways to config XConfig. : >Cant we get together and build a database/FAQ of monitor/graphics cards and : >allowable modes. [ stuff which describes in fact modeDB.txt deleted ] : Ever here of 'modeDB.txt'? The database that I've been maintaining since : before XFree86 and Linux were a dream for anyone? The one that's included : in every single XFree86 release? OK, I should do this, I tried to rephraim myself of getting into this thread and saying something which everybody knows already...:-) ########################################################### #*THANKS* David and Xfree team for doing a wonderfull job.# ########################################################### And yes folks, I did it, I installed Xfree 2.0, I did read the Howto, I dugged out of my documentation scrapyard I have, my monitor docs, I took my calculator, read *AGAIN* what to do, poked around the Xconfig and tried "startx". Worked first try. From the moment I started reading, up to the time I had 2 xterms running, together with xclock and xload, *double reading* the docs, it took me 4 hours (pee break and half a pack of Camels included). Yes folks, you can start flooding my mailbox now... -- Steven Buytaert Interuniversity Micro Electronics Centre - Invomec Division Kapeldreef 75, 3001 Heverlee, BELGIUM phone : +32 16 281 271 fax : +32 16 281 584 e-mail : buytaert@imec.be In case of danger, BREAK glass ------------------------------ From: tkimball@romulus.rutgers.edu (T. S. Kimball) Subject: 4 buttons too (was: 3 buttons on Microsoftish mice (mouses?)) Date: 3 Dec 93 11:46:07 GMT Just a side note -- Has anyone looked into exploting the neat little "feature" of the old BallPoint mice? (4 buttons)... in dos the last two buttons serve as a click-lock for button 1. _Very_ curious here as I am installing Linux on an old Toshiba luggable with a BallPoint... >| -Alex Freed (The opinions expressed are my own. | >| However everyone is entitled to them.) | >| freed%adobe.com@uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com | ------------------------------ From: petterr@stud.cs.uit.no (Petter Reinholdtsen) Subject: Re: Making distributions of applications Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 13:15:20 GMT In article <2dmo91$3mu@phakt.usc.edu>, aliu@phakt.usc.edu (Alex Liu) writes: >I was wondering if there is any standard in Linux for making application >distributions. So far the only de-facto standard I have seen seems to >be the one used by Slackware/SLS disks. Allthough useful I think it is >missing >a couple of key features. Namely being able to handle upgrades of existing >software. (So users configuration files and not overwritten) Also version >control. I could be installing an older (obsolete?) version of a program >and don't know any better. > >What do you guys think? I'm currently working on a SysV-clone of their distribution-system. Who knows when it will be finished... :) Petter R. ------------------------------ From: wpp@lise.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help Subject: Re: Shared Memory Date: 3 Dec 1993 13:22:24 GMT In johnsonm@calypso.oit.unc.edu (Michael K. Johnson) writes: >In article <2dlbd0$i9k@apollo.west.oic.com> news@apollo.west.oic.com (INN NEWS) writes: > Linux also has a mmap() call but does NOT yet support shared segments > through it. >But ingres or postgres (I don't remember which) has been using mmap of >/dev/zero to share memory for a long time. Are you dead sure that University Ingres for Linux had been out long before the IPCALPHA package was available. I do not know about the commercial Ingres version(s?) however. Postgres uses normal System V shared memory, which is allocated via shmget() and friends. I had to hack into that code quite a lot to get it work under Linux. Kai -- Kai wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de Advertisement by Microsoft in a well-known German magazine: If you don't like our programmes, than make your own ones. However, they expect you to use Microsoft products for this -:) ------------------------------ From: dave@devteq.co.uk (Dave Thomas) Subject: Re: Is the a bug in pl14's setting of st_atime? Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 13:57:24 GMT To be crass and followup my own article, the difference between pl11 and pl14 seems to be that ftruncate on pl11 updates atime, but on pl14 it doesn't. So I guess 11 was wrong and 14's right! -- -- From_____________________________________________________________________ | Dave Thomas - Devteq Ltd - 18 Thames St - Windsor - Berks SL4 1PL - UK | | Tel: +44 753 830333 - Fax: +44 753 831645 - email: dave@devteq.co.uk | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ From: buytaert@imec.be (Steven Buytaert) Subject: Re: Making distributions of applications Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 14:03:21 GMT Alex Liu (aliu@phakt.usc.edu) wrote: : I was wondering if there is any standard in Linux for making application : distributions. So far the only de-facto standard I have seen seems to : be the one used by Slackware/SLS disks. Allthough useful I think it is missing : a couple of key features. Namely being able to handle upgrades of existing : software. (So users configuration files and not overwritten) Also version : control. I could be installing an older (obsolete?) version of a program : and don't know any better. : : What do you guys think? In the debian mailing list, there is currently a proposal to make packages behave uniformly during installation. Join the list if you want to help us getting debian become the best 8^) send a mail with the word HELP as first line to debian-linux-request@netcom.com See you on the other side... -- Steven Buytaert Interuniversity Micro Electronics Centre - Invomec Division Kapeldreef 75, 3001 Heverlee, BELGIUM phone : +32 16 281 271 fax : +32 16 281 584 e-mail : buytaert@imec.be In case of danger, BREAK glass ------------------------------ From: schrod@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (Joachim Schrod) Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Tough! Quit griping! Was: Re: Don't use Motif for free sw: it now requires runtime royalties! Date: 3 Dec 1993 15:06:50 GMT In article , rhealey@sirius.aggregate.com (Rob Healey) writes: > In article , > Mike Hopkirk wrote: > >pcg> 1) There are complicated licensing issues that can cause problems to you > >pcg> or to us, and that reduce the potential for usefulness and widespread > >pcg> adoption of any free sw that depends on OSF/Motif. > >No - read the clarification... > >If its still unclear mail OSF with your exact situation and what you want to > >do... > > > Actually, using a Free toolkit would simplify things the most. Why > would I want to spend MONEY on a project that is freely redistributable? I don't ``spend MONEY on a project that is freely redistributable.'' I create some systems for my own use. For this, I use software that is available here anyhow, this includes freeware _and_ commercial software like Motif. Some of my systems may be of interest for others, so I distribute them. But I didn't do them for distributing, I did them for _me_ or for our working group. If the others don't have the software I used (which are prerequisites) -- bad luck. It's simple, isn't it? Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Joachim Schrod Email: schrod@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de Computer Science Department Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany ------------------------------ From: deraadt@fsa.ca (Theo de Raadt) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin Subject: Re: Working NIS anywhere? Date: 1 Dec 93 14:05:08 In article <2dddi7$30n@bera.ifi.uio.no> kjetilho@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Torgrim Homme) writes: We're trying to set up a cluster of PC running Linux here at the University. We started out with SLS 1.03, and have upgraded the kernel to 0.99.13s, libc to 4.4.4, and installed the binaries from the yp-linux package (the lib-source in yp-linux seems to have been folded into libc by now). gcc is 2.4.5. Whoever handles YP for Linux should get in touch with me: there's some bug fixes and a serious change that you *really really really* want! First of all, there are a couple of bug fixes. You should get the new code and merge the changes (which, last I saw, is not going to be easy: whoever made the code in Linux saw fit to change the formatting of most of the files.) There are some important fixes. The change causes the /var/yp/bindings files to be the same as with Sun NIS. This is a good idea for future binary compatibility: if SVR4 binary emulation is added to NetBSD or Linux, we would like those binaries to talk to YP correctly. (Heh. Or SunOS -- that is actually my main concern at the moment -- since NetBSD/amiga can run SunOS sun3 binaries today.) (The Linux and NetBSD YP code should also be compatible, so that if NetBSD ever gets a Linux binary emulation mode that YP still functions..) I've looked at NYS, but it isn't near a finished state. Peter Erikson suggested I replaced yp-linux code (partially) with NYS, but this isn't trivial, so that would be my absolutely last option. I have no idea what NYS is. What is it? Oh and please, a request: The code that I wrote is simply called `YP'. It is not called `NIS' -- as far as I know `NIS' is a copyright/trademark/whatever of Sun. `Yellow Pages' is a trademark of British Telecom, but `YP' is NOT a trademark held by anyone. So call it what I call it -- just plain simple `YP' (YP is not an acronym for anything, except perhaps "Yucky Poo!" ) -- This space not left unintentionally unblank. deraadt@fsa.ca ------------------------------ From: Z3KLM@ttacs3.ttu.edu (Moore, Kevin) Subject: Linux and 1.72M floppies (3 1/2" HD) Question Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 15:00:29 GMT I'm wondering if anyone out there has figured out how to get Linux to understand (and possibly write an ext2 fs) on 1.72M format 3-1/2" HD floppies ala FdFormat. I've got the source to FDformat (a Messy DOS program that formats floppies to all sorts of useful extended formats), but it's all in Pascal and asm (I program in neither language). I realize this probably will require some kernel hacking, which is why I'm asking so as not to reinvent the wheel.. Please E-mail me if you can help me (also post so the answer might show up in the newsgroup digests). Thanks much. ------------------------------ From: john@math.nwu.edu (John Franks) Crossposted-To: comp.infosystems.www,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.x.i386unix,comp.windows.x.motif,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Free Software and Motif (was: Re: Don't use Motif for free sw: ...) Date: 3 Dec 1993 15:54:49 GMT Reply-To: john@math.nwu.edu In article , marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen) writes: > > In the second place, I did in fact make a clear statement in this > forum some time ago that our university license covers what we do and > what we plan to do in the future. Possibly my article did not make it > to your site; possibly you have forgotten it; possibly you are > ignoring it. > Licensing restrictions are important. They make people nervous. If NCSA's pronouncements on licensing are limited to "this forum," i.e. Usenet, then we are probably doomed to repeat this thread every six to nine months. That, at least, has been my experience on Usenet groups. Important issues, especially complicated ones, where confusion and misinformation are possible, keep coming up. A clear definitive statement from NCSA, quoting relevant OSF licensing policies, would be of great value for all the reasons listed by other posters. An individual developer's opinion posted to a Usenet group is much less valuable, and is probably of no use at all six months after it is posted. -- John Franks Dept of Math. Northwestern University john@math.nwu.edu ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************