From: Digestifier To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 23:13:13 EDT Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #121 Linux-Misc Digest #121, Volume #1 Fri, 10 Sep 93 23:13:13 EDT Contents: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** (Dennis Flaherty) Time install new SLS ?? (Mark Woodward) bind 4.9 for linux Does Local Bus video card help Xfree display faster? (Duen-Jeng (D-J Wang)) Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** (Keith Barrett) Re: NT versus Linux (George J. Carrette) Re: Bash 1.13.cwru (beta) available for Linux (Clayton Haapala) Re: WARNING: bash 1.13(beta) and XFree86 don't mix (Chet Ramey) Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** (Steve Dossick) Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** (Andrew R. Tefft) WORM drives (Dragon) Re: ypserv for Linux? (Michael Will) HELP: problems with Tandberg Tape Drive (David Jeske) Zombie processes (Vadim Geshel) Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** (Kelly Murray) Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** (Nitin Borwankar) Re: Zombie processes (Jonathan Stockley) Ultrastore 34F SCSI controller $180 (Ji Zhang) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dennisf@denix.elk.miles.com (Dennis Flaherty) Subject: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 05:03:10 GMT In article david.spott@Eng.Sun.COM (Dave Spott) writes: > > I have been contacted by a representative of the SimCity development > team, Bob Adams. He indicated that they may be interested in a Linux > port of SimCity, but he has a few questions regarding the size of the > Linux user base, etc. > > Please watch for his upcoming post in this newsgroup. > > This is an excellent opportunity to validate Linux as a viable OS. I'm > not saying that a port of one commercial game/simulation is the defining > metric by which viable OS's are judged, but this could be the first step > in getting other 3rd party vendors to notice Linux. Ask the various Linux T-Shirt vendors how many shirts they sold. (Don't ask them if they lost their shirts. :-)) -- Dennis T. Flaherty Home: dennisf@denix.elk.miles.com Flaherty Nanobreweries Work: dennisf@se01.elk.miles.com Oatmeal Stout: It's the Right Thing to Drink! ------------------------------ From: woodward@Newbridge.COM (Mark Woodward) Subject: Time install new SLS ?? Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 14:13:36 GMT I'm running SLS 1.01 with various upgrades to the kernel, gcc and xfree. I'm looking at going pl12 which means grabing the new gcc too. I'm just wondering if its worth while to get the latest SLS and update everything. What other benifits would I see (ie unmount fs on shutdown etc)? Also what sort of hassle would I have to go through to maintain my current configurations for X, news, users etc? Thanks Mark -- Mark C.R Woodward woodward@newbridge.com [work] mcrw@earth2.pinetree.org [home] Relax, Dont worry... Load up Linux Real computers dont run MS-DOS ------------------------------ From: mau@fisica.difi.unipi.it () Subject: bind 4.9 for linux Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 15:07:05 GMT Reply-To: mau@fisica.difi.unipi.it Hi all, I am trying to port bind rel 4.9 on my linux box. But the "aton" calls lacks in the library. can anybody help me ? Maurizio Davini ------------------------------ From: wdj@vlsidsp.ece.wisc.edu (Duen-Jeng (D-J) Wang) Subject: Does Local Bus video card help Xfree display faster? Date: 10 Sep 93 10:26:07 CDT I am looking for a PC to run Linux/X. In order to do the best investment, I have a naive question below (if it is FAQ, please point me the place for answer). If my memory is correct, Linux was developed for ISA bus and before the time of major popularity of local bus. I remember somewhere in June's version FAQ said EISA won't help improve the performance of Linux. I am wondering whether the latest XFree can take the advantage from some of the so-called window-accelerated video cards and makes display faster? Any information will be much appreciated. Duen-Jeng ------------------------------ From: barrett@pamsrc.enet.dec.com (Keith Barrett) Subject: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** Reply-To: barrett@pamsrc.enet.dec.com Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 15:56:34 GMT Count me in!!!!! -- Keith Barrett (\___/) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ == \---/ | Comments not represent- | barrett@pamsrc.enet.dec.com | ( ) =(|) | itive of any employer. | Linux: You're not dealing with AT&T | ][ __|__ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /TOM!\ /CROW!\ ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy Subject: Re: NT versus Linux From: gjc@mitech.com (George J. Carrette) Date: 10 Sep 93 09:35:27 GMT In article <8SEP199309323776@cccs.umn.edu>, rwh@cccs.umn.edu (RICHARD HOFFBECK) writes: > In article <1993Sep7.161524.10856@kf8nh.wariat.org>, bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >> The IBM PC was shipped in '79 as well. But there *is* lead time involved in >> designing a computer; they'd have needed 68000s available in '78 at the latest >> in order to build (and more importantly, ship) a machine based on it. > > The original IBM PC was shipped in August '81. IBM also had a 68000 based computer about that time, in a box the same size as a PC. I remember it because a lot of MIT people were excited about it. It was made by some kind of IBM laboratory products group, so it had an expansion I/O bus. Now, exact memory. Was this 1981 or 1982? ------------------------------ From: clay@haapi.mn.org (Clayton Haapala) Subject: Re: Bash 1.13.cwru (beta) available for Linux Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 15:02:42 GMT In article <1993Sep10.004311.28165@kf8nh.wariat.org> bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >Shared text, remember. If even one interactive bash is running, you will >*save* memory by letting scripts run the same binary, because they'll share >the parts of the text they both use. Use a separate /bin/sh and things like >the command parser *won't* be shared because they came from different >binaries, which will result in *wasting* memory. > And, isn't it demand-paged, as well? The pages with readline, etc. likely won't even be loaded to run a script. The fact that they might be in memory because I just happen to be typing on a console doesn't matter. -- Clay Haapala "Well, there was the process of sitting around clay@haapi.mn.org and wishing I had more computer stuff." -- Dilbert ------------------------------ From: chet@odin.ins.cwru.edu (Chet Ramey) Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.i386unix Subject: Re: WARNING: bash 1.13(beta) and XFree86 don't mix Date: 10 Sep 1993 17:57:45 GMT In article <26pe3s$hs6@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de>, Dirk Hohndel wrote: >Dirk Hohndel (hohndel@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de) wrote: >: [The bash refered to here is an alpha version of bash from cwru. If you >: have a "real" bash (i.e. pre-1.13) then you should be fine. --mdw] > >: The recently released beta version of bash changed the signal handling >: again. Therefore running startx won't work with bash-1.13 installed as >: /bin/sh. > > >It seems that there are more factors related to this, probably Linux >kernel release and even default configurations. I have found something that might explain this. The `stripped-down' bash uses `nojobs.c', which does not set the child's signal mask to the mask inherited by bash from its parent. (On Posix systems, this is simply an omission; that code should be in there.) This may change the handling of SIGHUP in a way that causes your problem. If linking the `full' bash to /bin/sh makes startx work when it did not before, send me mail. Chet -- ``The good news is that this year two million people will pass through Washington's new Holocaust Memorial Museum, which will survive the survivors and be their testimony.'' Chet Ramey, Case Western Reserve University Internet: chet@po.CWRU.Edu ------------------------------ From: gleek@news.cs.columbia.edu (Steve Dossick) Subject: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** Date: 10 Sep 1993 14:07:46 -0400 In article , Michael K. Johnson wrote: > >In article david.spott@Eng.Sun.COM (Dave Spott) writes: > This is an excellent opportunity to validate Linux as a viable OS. I'm > not saying that a port of one commercial game/simulation is the defining > metric by which viable OS's are judged, but this could be the first step > in getting other 3rd party vendors to notice Linux. > >Simcity is not the only one. I will be changing jobs in a while, to a >company with a *sharp* X11 product. They want to port it to Linux, if >the user base is there. I'm considering doing the port for free, to >show that there are people willing to buy it, and then if enough >people buy it, my work will have been justified. > >Commercial app vendors are beginning to get interested, but they won't >do the port if it won't sell, so: > >If you are interested in the future of commercial apps for Linux, just >ask all the vendors of all the apps you like when they will be doing a >Linux port, and be ready to explain it to them if they don't know >about it, and perhaps send them a copy of the INFO-SHEET (text and DVI >available at tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/docs/INFO-SHEET[.dvi]) to introduce >them. Heck, you could even fax it to them... > >The more people that ask, the more likely these things are to happen. > >michaelkjohnson I would suggest that anyone coming to the upcoming UnixExpo in NYC (or any other major Unix show) badger as many companies about Linux as possible. Ask about ports to Linux for as many applications as possible, and you never know what will happen....:) /steve ------------------------------ From: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com (Andrew R. Tefft) Subject: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** Reply-To: teffta@cs690-3.erie.ge.com Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 16:44:43 GMT Neat, I got to play with the SimCity demo on the Sun and thought about asking them if they'd consider a port to Linux. It's very addicting. This would be much better (for this non-dos-user, at least) than thinking about getting it running under dosemu! I think the price for the Sun version is $89, perhaps a bit high for a game, but of course much less than other Unix software. If the price were the same as the dos version I would definitely buy. ------------------------------ From: william@CS.Arizona.EDU (Dragon) Subject: WORM drives Date: 10 Sep 1993 12:28:00 -0700 does anyone know if Linux will work with a WORM drive? I've been seeing ads for Maxtor 800 MB WORM drives. The come with controllers that connect betweeen a SCSI adapter and the WORM drive. The result (under DOS) is that you don't need any special drivers. Will this work under Linux? Is any SCSI drive that works under DOS definately going to work under Linux? Particularly, I'm concerned with how unerasing erased files work. (more properly, i should say "how you make available a previously unavailable file", since no real "erasing" takes place. Any info would be appreciated, as I'd sure like to get one of these monster drivers. Email to william@cs.arizona.edu is preferable, but I do keep up with the group. If people ask, I'll post a summary. William ------------------------------ From: michaelw@desaster.hanse.de (Michael Will) Subject: Re: ypserv for Linux? Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 12:23:25 GMT tigger@tigger.cl.msu.edu (Eric Kasten) writes: >I've found the other (well many functional) pieces of the yp >family, however, I was wondering if anyone knows of where there >might be a ypserv for Linux (if one should exist). If not >does someone know where I can get a hold of a good example of >source for a ypserv that I can build on? Thanks! Are they not terribly insecure? I am currently using shadow-login, and I have been told that I would have to remove this protection in order to use yp. In the local university I could let Crack-1.4 outgess 15 out of 600 passwords which I got via "ypcat passwd" in less than half an hour :-| on my i386-33!!! Cheers, Michael Will - please respond via eMail because I cannot follow news at the moment - I can make a summary if interested. -- Michael Will Linux - share and enjoy :-) Life is not there if you can't share it... Hazel'O'Connor Breaking Glass Happily using Linux 0.99p12 with X11R5, \LaTeX, cnews/nn/uucp and: PGP! >>> Ask for Linux and / or pgp-Information <<< ------------------------------ From: djeske@chameleon.uiuc.edu (David Jeske) Subject: HELP: problems with Tandberg Tape Drive Date: 10 Sep 1993 20:34:49 GMT Reply-To: jeske@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu Ok, I have tried this post before. Is anyone successfully using a Tandberg 3600 tape drive (QIC-150 SCSI) with Linux. I have one which is working, but it will often not allow me to put "another" archive on to a tape with existing archives on it. It says "write error" and dosn;t even touch the drive. I have been informed that there are 2 firmware revisions of the tape drive one which is "sort of SCSI 1", and one which is "REALLY close to SCSI 1". I'm not sure which one I have. Apparently the one which is "sort of SCSI 1", has a behavior where the tape drive does not "clear" an error after sending it to the host. So that the host could think that the old error is still occuring. Does anyone know if there is an easy to determine if this is the problem. Or if it's a blocksize problem? Any ideas would be appreciated, please respond in email jeske@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development From: vadik@unas.cs.kiev.ua (Vadim Geshel) Subject: Zombie processes Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 13:48:34 GMT I have a little problem with 0.99pl12alpha kernel. The problem is in that fork() fails with EAGAIN (no more processes) if there are many zombie processes. The number of user's processes is limited to NR_TASKS / 2 (which is 32 by default), and fork() counts zombie processes as well. The problem may occur if you have some program (like desktop manager or something), which starts many processes and doesn't wait() for them. Then after some time there will be too many zombies, and you will be unable to start more processes. So, my question is: is this behavior defined by some standard (posix)? If not, it would be simple and useful to fix it (a trivial patch to kernel/fork.c). -- Vadim == vadik@unas.cs.kiev.ua -- Vadim == vadik@unas.cs.kiev.ua ------------------------------ From: kem@prl.ufl.edu (Kelly Murray) Subject: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** Date: 10 Sep 1993 20:56:18 GMT In article , johnsonm@calypso.oit.unc.edu (Michael K. Johnson) writes: |> |> In article david.spott@Eng.Sun.COM (Dave Spott) writes: |> This is an excellent opportunity to validate Linux as a viable OS. I'm |> not saying that a port of one commercial game/simulation is the defining |> metric by which viable OS's are judged, but this could be the first step |> in getting other 3rd party vendors to notice Linux. |> |> Simcity is not the only one. I will be changing jobs in a while, to a |> company with a *sharp* X11 product. They want to port it to Linux, if |> the user base is there. I'm considering doing the port for free, to |> show that there are people willing to buy it, and then if enough |> people buy it, my work will have been justified. |> Which version of Linux will SimCity or your product be ported to? -Kelly Murray ------------------------------ From: nitin@sybase.com (Nitin Borwankar) Subject: Re: *** Commercial app developer and Linux! *** Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 21:08:51 GMT In article david.spott@Eng.Sun.COM (Dave Spott) writes: > > I have been contacted by a representative of the SimCity development >team, Bob Adams. He indicated that they may be interested in a Linux >port of SimCity, but he has a few questions regarding the size of the >Linux user base, etc. > > Please watch for his upcoming post in this newsgroup. > > This is an excellent opportunity to validate Linux as a viable OS. I'm >not saying that a port of one commercial game/simulation is the defining >metric by which viable OS's are judged, but this could be the first step >in getting other 3rd party vendors to notice Linux. Actually, being almost free, Linux is ideally suited for creating a plug and play Internet node. With the exploding interest in the Internet, all it would take would be some creative partnering with PC hardware companies that are desperately looking for ways to add $$ to their margins and to differentiate themselves. It would take some packaging but the low cost of the software + the availability of source would make it very attractive. So who wants to do this ? Anyone want to help me do it :-) ? Nitin Borwankar Statistics show that most people are in the Tools Technology Group, majority, while a few are in the minority. Sybase Inc., Emeryville CA. 510-596-8057 nitin@sybase.com -- Nitin Borwankar Statistics show that most people are in the Tools Technology Group, majority, while a few are in the minority. ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development From: jvs@netcom.com (Jonathan Stockley) Subject: Re: Zombie processes Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 00:01:04 GMT In article vadik@unas.cs.kiev.ua (Vadim Geshel) writes: > >I have a little problem with 0.99pl12alpha kernel. >The problem is in that fork() fails with EAGAIN (no more processes) >if there are many zombie processes. The number of user's processes >is limited to NR_TASKS / 2 (which is 32 by default), and fork() counts zombie >processes as well. The problem may occur if you have some program >(like desktop manager or something), which starts many processes and doesn't >wait() for them. Then after some time there will be too many zombies, and you >will be unable to start more processes. > >So, my question is: is this behavior defined by some standard (posix)? If not, >it would be simple and useful to fix it (a trivial patch to kernel/fork.c). > >-- >Vadim == vadik@unas.cs.kiev.ua This is the correct behaviour in all Unices I have come across. The reason for having a zombie is that all child process have an exit status, which the kernel (rightly) assumes the parent will want to examine. This status is kept in the process table entry. When the parent does a wait() type system call the childs exit status will be delivered to the parent and the process table entry for the child will then be released. If the parent never does the wait the process table entry is effectively locked. If the parent process dies (exits) the orphan children get inherited by process 1 (init) which always does a wait and so the children's proc. table entries would be release that way. From what you say it sound like bad coding in the parent. One can set a signal handler for SIGCHLD (sometimes called SIGCLD) so that when a child dies you get a signal and can do a wait and see which child died and what it's exit status was. I believe there is a section on this in POSIX 1003.1 but I don't have my copy to hand so I can't quote chapter & verse. cheers, Jo -- ======================================================================== Jo Stockley jvs@netcom.com jonathan@sybase.com Happy, Happy, Happy... Joy, Joy, Joy! ======================================================================== ------------------------------ From: zhang@bach.ecse.rpi.edu (Ji Zhang) Crossposted-To: misc.forsale,misc.forsale.computers.other,comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help,misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone,misc.forsale.computers.workstation Subject: Ultrastore 34F SCSI controller $180 Date: 11 Sep 1993 02:46:31 GMT Ultrastor 34F SCSI, SCSI-2, local bus controller. Less than 4months old. latest bio chipset 200080.006 (not the earlier buggy version, which has problems with MS-DOS) Worked perfectly with DOS, Linux (but it is supposed to work with OS/2, SCO and other commercial UNIX systems). In original packaging, with all software drivers (one floppy disk) and documents included. (just one brochure) Paid $279 +s/h from DC Drives. Price reduced to $180, and I'll pay shipping. If interested, please contact: Ji Zhang 518-276-6483 (day) or 518-371-4154 (evenings), Email: zhang@ecse.rpi.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-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 ******************************