From: Digestifier To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Mon, 6 Sep 93 20:13:11 EDT Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #101 Linux-Misc Digest #101, Volume #1 Mon, 6 Sep 93 20:13:11 EDT Contents: IEEE Floating point functions? (Ron Watkins) Re: AMD 386 40 problem ? (Laszlo Herczeg) Re: Linux user groups in every city! (John A. Martin) SLS 1.03 Problems using ESDI drives (Andrei Borenstein) Re: TeXcad for linux? (Michael Boesch) Re: Has anyone ported BSD Mail? (Michael Boesch) Re: /proc/self/fd/0 and << in bash 1.12 (Linus Torvalds) Re: AMD 386 40 problem ? (Alexey Loginov) Re: NT versus Linux (Pat Breen) Re: NT versus Linux (Pat Breen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ron@argus.lpl.Arizona.EDU (Ron Watkins) Subject: IEEE Floating point functions? Date: 6 Sep 1993 18:31:54 GMT I was wondering if anyone is planning or has already implemented functions similar to the nan functions in the IEEE floating point library used on SUN archetectures? I have quite a bit of library code using these functions and I wanted to port them to Linux. Is there an alternative to these functions if they don't exist anywhere else? Ron Watkins -- Ron Watkins [ron@argus.lpl.arizona.edu] / /~~~~) / 931 Gould-Simpson / /____/ / University of Arizona / / / Tucson AZ. 85721 -- (602) 621-8606 (____ unar & / lanetary (____ ab. ------------------------------ From: las@whome.uucp (Laszlo Herczeg) Subject: Re: AMD 386 40 problem ? Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 17:59:29 GMT Stephen Harris (harris@teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk) wrote: : Linus Torvalds (torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI) wrote: : : What kind of co-processor are you using? There have been problem-reports : *NO* co-pro, and THAT's the problem! Somehow the kernel detect sequence : decides there is a co-pro using exception 13 reporting (even though the : code is meant to ignore these???), so I HAVE to use "no387" from Lilo : to avoid this. As I originally posted, I can work around it with no387, : but its a pain remembering this one machine (which I may not see again I would make sure that you don't have the jumper set on your motherboard for coprocessor support. Some motherboards like mine have this jumper, and if you don't have an actual coprocessor installed, Linux won't boot into protected mode. (BTW, I am using a Cyrix 83087-40 and it beats a 486-33 in speed on my AMD 386-40. Cyrix is really good, and the chip is very good quality low-dissipation chip.) ------------------------------ From: jmartin@opus.starlab.csc.com (John A. Martin) Subject: Re: Linux user groups in every city! Date: 6 Sep 1993 15:40:52 -0400 Reply-To: jmartin@opus.starlab.csc.com (John A. Martin) Nicholas Vargish asks if there is interest in forming a Linux User Group in the DC area. If there is an interest, it may be that there is also an unusual oppertunity to do so. If there is interest in forming a Linux User Group in the Baltimore-Washington DC area (Md., Va., WVa., ...) it might be worthwhile to consider forming it as a Special Interest Group of the Capital PC User Group (CPCUG). Founded in 1982, the CPCUG has almost 5000 members, is a 501(c)(3) scientific and educational organization (ie. it is a non profit organization contributions to which are tax-deductible) that is run by volunteers. The CPCUG has an infrastructure that provides excellent support for its Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and provides an opportunity for its SIGs to make their presence felt by a substantial segment of the local computer community and of the local community as a whole. The steps needed to form a CPCUG Linux SIG are simple: 1. A SIG Chairman, who must be a member of the CPCUG, must be chosen (this may well be whoever volunteers for the job). 2. A SIG becomes a recognized unit within the CPCUG when: a. A meeting is held to discuss the formation of the SIG. All interested parties are invited. (In my opinion a virtual meeting via the Internet might meet this requirement.) b. The following documentation is presented to the Board of Directors: 1. A SIG charter that includes: a. An outline of the purposes, interests, and activities of the proposed SIG. b. An identification of the SIG chairman. c. An estimate and analysis of any expenses or anticipated revenue associated with the activities of the SIG. 2. A description of the SIG for the CPCUG newsletter. 3. The Board of Directors votes and formally recognizes the SIG. (Current practice is to grant provisional recognition for a period of about three months before final recognition.) 3. In order for a SIG to maintain its status as a recognized SIG and keep its membership on the board of directors, the following are required: a. The SIG chairman must submit quarterly SIG membership rosters. b. The SIG chairman or his representative must attend, as a minimum, seven of the Board meetings in the course of a year. (The board normally meets monthly.) c. The SIG must perform one of the following functions during the course of a year: 1. Give a presentation at the regional meetings. 2. Provide an article for the CPCUG newsletter. 3. Conduct a training seminar. There are experienced volunteers who are willing to help in all aspects of forming and operating a CPCUG SIG. In exchange for abiding by the bureaucratic requirements above a SIG benefits from being part of an established ongoing organization with access to an office, well equipped meeting places (albeit in competition with others), a BBS (the MIX 301-738-9060), a well edited monthly newsletter (The Capital PC Monitor (ISSN 0884-0830)), postage for meeting announcements, and a recognized identity. Because all meetings of the CPCUG and its units are open to the public there is no absolute requirement for any member of a CPCUG SIG other than the SIG chairman to be a member of the CPCUG. (Many SIGs define their membership as "those present.") CPCUG membership is strongly urged however (like public radio). The inducements for CPCUG membership include a subscription to the Monitor, extended use of the MIX, access to a lending library (books, etc.), and reduced rates for a number of other services. (There is currently a move underway to do Internet access from the MIX.) The CPCUG is largely oriented toward the needs of computer consumers (its logo states "Users Helping Users") but there are a substantial number of members who are computer professionals and a fair number of those whose professional computer work is not solely with PCs. I am willing to help organize a CPCUG Linux SIG, but I am not in a position to take the major responsibility because I already have substantial volunteer commitments. (I serve as the Chairman of the Potomac ACM SigAPL Chapter, as the Chairman of the CPCUG APL SIG, and on a demanding ad-hoc committee of the CPCUG BoD.) Please indicate your interest in this option for a Baltimore-Washington DC Linux group by responding to Nicholas Vargish whose message I am responding to is shown below. It would be particularly encouraging to have responses from both present CPCUG members and those who are not! Cheers --jam --- | jam@acm.org John A. Martin | jmartin@csc.com Computer Sciences Corporation | j.a.martin@ieee.org 1100 West Street | tel: +1 301 497 2698 Laurel, Maryland 20707-3587 USA | fax: +1 301 498 8260 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | From: vargish@cthulhu.sura.net (Nicholas Vargish) | Subject: Re: Linux user groups in every city! | Date: 5 Sep 1993 20:49:46 -0400 | | Here's one for a group in DC... I'll accept e-mail for now, but would | rather find someone else to handle it :^). | | Seriously, just to get the ball rolling, if you live in the Washington | DC urban sprawl (Maryland and Virginia "suburbs" included), send me | some e-mail. I know for a fact that there are people out there who are | much better at running things like user's groups than I would be, so | if you would like to take the helm from me, please say so in your | letter! | | Nick | | p.s. I also won't have a working home phone until mid September, which | makes me a less than ideal person to handle this kind of thing... | disregard what my .sig says for now. | | -- | ======================== ======================== | |. Nick Vargish .| |. vargish@sura.net .| | | systems engineer | | H:(301) 434-8957 | | |. SURAnet .| |. O:(301) 982-4600 .| | ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help From: andrei@actcom.co.il (Andrei Borenstein) Subject: SLS 1.03 Problems using ESDI drives Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 20:32:33 GMT Dear Linuxers , A week ago I posted a question regarding SLS 1.03 installation using ESDI HD. I saw another similar questions, but no answers. The problem was inability to boot Linux from/onto HD. I have 2 ESDI drives : Maxtor XT-760E (760Mb unformatted) and CDC 383H (380Mb unfomatted) and WD1007A ESDI controller. I've tried to install the system onto the Maxtor disk. As a last instance I've tried to install SLS onto CDC 383H on /dev/hda2 partition and it worked perfectly. I suppose that the problem is in PC-BIOS limitations. WD1007 works in translating mode as 1024 cyl. , 16 hd. , 63 sec. and the disk space is limited to 512Mb while another part of disk remains unreacheable for BIOS. There is no problem of this kind with the smaller HD when all the disk is used. Beware ! -- +---------------------------------------------+ | Andrei Borenstein andrei@actcom.co.il | | Tel. (972)6-935715 , Fax (972)6-935913 | | Korazim , ISRAEL 12391 | ------------------------------ From: root@exodus.abg.sub.org (Michael Boesch) Subject: Re: TeXcad for linux? Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1993 08:49:07 GMT In article 1447@p13.flokiste.fido.de, roland@p13.flokiste.fido.de (Roland Rosenfeld) writes: > > Hi Carsten! > > Carsten (CARSTEN@AWORLD.aworld.de) wrote: > > > does anybody now if there exist a simple graphic interface for > > LaTeX-style graphics (picture-environment)? > > On the other side You can use xfig to crate pictures and transfer them > to a LaTeX-picture-environment oder to PiCTeX via fig2dev. I don't > know whether it is ported to Linux, but I think so... I prefer the solution with xfig, 'cause you also can use the drawings in other programs then LaTeX. I've found it on tsx11 in the ported drawer and it works fine. Bye Mike -- Michael Boesch root@exodus.abg.sub.org "God not only plays dice, He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen." (S. Hawking) ------------------------------ From: root@exodus.abg.sub.org (Michael Boesch) Subject: Re: Has anyone ported BSD Mail? Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1993 08:50:28 GMT In article 25B@netcom.com, zmbenhal@netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) writes: > I was wondering if anybody has ported BSD's Mail (aka /usr/ucb/mail) to > linux. The BSD Mail comes with the porting of XMailtool for linux. bye Mike -- Michael Boesch root@exodus.abg.sub.org "God not only plays dice, He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen." (S. Hawking) ------------------------------ From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) Subject: Re: /proc/self/fd/0 and << in bash 1.12 Date: 7 Sep 1993 01:22:12 +0300 In article , Brian McCauley wrote: >I'm not sure if what I have here is a bug in bash or in procfs. I >expect it's in bash but before I podt to gnu.bash.bug I'd like to try >it here. Here are the symptoms. > >bam(bam:other)~$cat /proc/self/fd/0 <> X >cat: /proc/self/fd/0: Permission denied >bam(bam:other)~$ > >As far as I can see bash creates an unnamed temporary file and passes >it opened to cat. Cat tries to open /proc/self/fd/0 whicd is ths temp file >but somehow this is forbidden. The permissions on the file are OK as >can be see below: > >bam(bam:other)~$ls -lL /proc/self/fd/0 <> X >-rw-r--r-- 0 bam other 0 Sep 6 19:06 /proc/self/fd/0 >bam(bam:other)~$ > >Anyone got any ideas? Hmm. Interesting. The problem is probably an explicit chec in 'permission()' in linux/fs/namei.c, which looks like this: : int permission(struct inode * inode,int mask) : { : int mode = inode->i_mode; : : /* special case: not even root can read/write a deleted file */ : if (inode->i_dev && !inode->i_nlink) : return 0; Right now I can't remember why I disallowed the deleted file open.. Hmm. It's probably enough to remove that test to get it working, but I have this feeling I actually wrote those lines for a reason (that may or may not be true any more). Linus ------------------------------ From: loginov@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Alexey Loginov) Subject: Re: AMD 386 40 problem ? Date: 6 Sep 93 18:01:21 My machine seems to multiply wrong sometimes, do you think it could be that old Intel 386? About the co-proc problem, I you suspected the powersupply? Some of those off brands are a little tricky. ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy From: c9220321@alinga.newcastle.edu.au (Pat Breen) Subject: Re: NT versus Linux Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 23:01:18 GMT Peter Mutsaers (muts@compi.hobby.nl) wrote: : >> On Sat, 4 Sep 1993 06:07:50 GMT, kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin : >> Brown) said: : > Just keep saying to yourself "Cheap... easy... supported." : KB> Cheap...perhaps, but not as cheap as Linux. Easy? Perhaps, but : KB> others will probably say otherwise. Supported? What most : KB> people think of as being "support" is a total joke, and : KB> Microsoft does a bad job of supplying even *that*. : KB> And, of course, people are stupid enough to *pay* for that kind : KB> of non- support. : I am always annoyed when people in my company put such heavy emphasis : on support when they buy a product. They forget that you only need : minimal support for a good product, but a lot of support for a broken : product. And in those cases that lot of support isn't even enough. : I've seen projects utterly fail because of this. I dont know about the rest of the world, but good 'ol Microsoft down here has started to charge some heavy duty dollars for software support now... they charge 'by the problem', and they have purchase deals for buying support (eg. deals on 10 problems, deals for business package problems etc...) Thanks microsloth.. once WINE gets going, i dont think i am going to be a dual operating system guy... (dos/windows, linux).. Pat ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy From: c9220321@alinga.newcastle.edu.au (Pat Breen) Subject: Re: NT versus Linux Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 23:20:51 GMT : Unix, for the operating system. BSDI is a good example of something which is : stable. Linux is a good example of something which is reasonably stable (but : it depends on the version). : A good application? How about "X-Wing"? :-) Seriously, though, I haven't : found much in the way of applications that I really like. I learned early : on that I'm better off writing what I need rather than trying to buy : someone else's idea of a good application. I personally think that there are many excellent applicatinons that have been released... especially in the MSDOS arena... it is the only reason why I use such a limited operating system... : A "decent" OS does *not* mean a "bug-free" OS. It means that the OS provides : a reasonably orthogonal and complete set of services that (a) allow the user : or programmer to run and/or write programs efficiently, (b) protect the : programs the user runs from the vagaries of other programs which may be : running, and (c) efficiently use the full capabilities of the hardware. : DOS is not what I consider to be a "decent" operating system (if it can even : be called that) because it fails all three of the above criteria. yeah: i still disagree though: stability is DEFINITELY a major factor for choosing/using an operating system. Fair enough if you enjoy hacking away to fix things, but for the average, third party, non c-programming end user, it aint much use if things have consistent problems. : It's not??? What makes Unix inappropriate for a small business? It's just : an operating system. For launching applications, it does a better job than : DOS because the applications can be larger, more complete, and more capable. : The networking is already there, as is NFS (and thus file sharing), as is : print spooling, as is a real filesystem (or, at least, a better filesystem : than is provided by DOS, if the 14-character filesystem is the only thing : the particular brand of Unix you're talking about provides). : >Not to mention that Unix has far too many of its own problems. :-) : No doubt this is true, but would you care to mention some of these problems? It is true, but hey, look at all the problems with Windows 3.1/NT etc etc. Maybe not as numerous, but what can you expect from something so basic as a Microsoft Product (limited power -> limited problems) ;) : >>>Technical excellence in software or hardware has *never* been a reason for : >>>the consumer to go with a particular product. People buy Microsoft products : >>>because they are relatively cheap, easy to use, and available. : >> Yup. But technical excellence and low cost are not mutually exclusive! : >> Just look at Linux if you want an example. Or look at the Amiga. : > : > Linux is *NOT* low cost. See below for my reasoning. As for technical : >excellence... let's see... we get new kernel releases every few weeks. Bugs : >galore are reported every day on the Linux groups ( And I'm not referring to : >problems people have with Unix in general ) : Technical excellence doesn't mean bug-free. It means that maximum power is : made available with minimum resource usage. Lets face it - if you have time to have a hack at it, or time to let a few other people have a go at it, then you have a very good support team on the Internet. Also, one might mention, Linux is still in Beta stages, hence the 0.99 status... (Jeeez... i didnt read this whole article before i followed it up, and have just realised there is 40 pages of this argument.. hehehe) Ill put it like this: DOS is useful because it has been developed to its very limits: if Linux had been developed as much, and had as many high-quality apps available for it, it would probably be the ONLY operating system that i would use.. as for xwindows more elegant than windows, ill stay out of the arena because i think it is really just personal choice.. : There's more to an operating system than just being able to run programs, : and people who don't think so quickly learn otherwise. Why else do you : think Consumer Reports rated the Mac GUI above Windoze? Why else do you : think they even *bothered* to put multitasking (such as it is) in Windoze? : Why else do you hear *normal users* complaining about the broken filename : limitations in DOS? hmmm.. as far as the Mac GUI goes, I used it for a few years, and then starting windows, and i must say i prefer the Microsoft product simply because you arent STUCK in the GUI... (I find i am very limited in power in such an environment..) Pat ------------------------------ ** 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-Misc-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.misc) via: Internet: Linux-Misc@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-Misc Digest ******************************