From: Digestifier To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 18:13:41 EST Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #258 Linux-Misc Digest #258, Volume #1 Sun, 31 Oct 93 18:13:41 EST Contents: Re: Summary: Questions in non-help groups (G. Douglas Mauldin) Re: Old FAQ out of date - please remove (wasRe: SLS f (STRINH) Re: Hardware specs for multi-port serial cards? (Stan Young) How to do two-column sideways output to a DOT-MATRIX printer (a la enscript) (Brion Moss) Daily post for col.admin suggested (wasRe: Summary: Questions in non-help groups) (Ian Jackson) Re: Summary: Questions in non-help groups (Ian Jackson) Re: TAMU ditribution (Eberhard Moenkeberg) test (James West) Re: SLS/Linux ad in BYTE! (Jean Liddle) Re: SLS/Linux ad in BYTE! (Urban Koistinen) Re: Introduction into Unix (Robert L. McMillin) Linux BBS Re: SLS flaming ! (Andreas Klemm) Re: SLS flaming ! (Andreas Klemm) Re: SLS flaming ! (Andreas Klemm) Re: SLS flaming ! (Andreas Klemm) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Summary: Questions in non-help groups From: gdm@eieio.ualr.edu (G. Douglas Mauldin) Date: 30 Oct 93 18:38:11 -0600 Byron A Jeff (byron@cc.gatech.edu) wrote: [...] : In addition from my observations many of the groups are write only becuase : the same questions come up over and over and over again. In the best of all possible worlds, we would all be at the same level of expertise. In reality there are new people coming on board the Linux learning curve every day. I'm glad that there are still a few teachers and professors who are willing teach even though the students ask the same old questions every semester. : If posters just : scanned the last week of messages, much of the time they would find an : answer and would not have to post. That is true as long as there is someone out there who is willing to post an answer instead of emailing it, or worse, ignoring it as you would have them do. : Also many questions/answers can be found : in the FAQ's and HOWTO's. People don't read them much of the time. Maybe; maybe not. I think it is a mistake to assume that my asking a question implies that I have not exerted a reasonable effort to find an answer in the published literature. To those who make these great pronouncements about the lofty ideal of conserving bandwidth, I might point out that one informative post can save a ton of email. (Yes, email uses net resources, too. So does ftp'ing huge doc files.) One man's waste of bandwidth is another man's gold nugget of information. - - - - Doug Mauldin - - - - - University of Arkansas at Little Rock - - gdm@eieio.ualr.edu Graduate Institute of Technology gdmauldin@ualr.edu Department of Electronics and Instrumentation - standard disclaimers apply - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help Subject: Re: Old FAQ out of date - please remove (wasRe: SLS f From: strinh@mason1.gmu.edu (STRINH) Date: 31 Oct 93 11:47:29 -0500 In article <1993Oct27.021942.16842.chiark.ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu> iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) writes: >In article , >Rick Frankel wrote: >>RE: >> SLS is still perceived as the "flagship" Linux distribution by many, probably >> because it has wider distribution than Slackware because it's been around >> >>Not so. SLS is perceived as the flagship because all information in >>the FAQ point the newbie to installing SLS. > >Which FAQ is this ? The new FAQ (for the last three months or so) has >not advocated SLS in the slightest. > >If you (anyone!) have a copy of the old FAQ (the 5/6-parter) please >get rid of it - it is out of date. > >However the Installation HOWTO does point you towards SLS. IMO this >is very damaging and should be corrected immediately. Matt ? > >-- >Ian Jackson, at home or >PGP2 public key available on server. Urgent email: >2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England; phone: +44 223 64238 Can someone out there please tell me what is wrong with SLS ? I read the faq and it pointed me to the SLS. Which one do you recommend over SLS ? Can you give me a summary of what is bad about SLS and good about others ? I am new to Linux, less than 1 day :-) I got stuck last night with the creation of file system when I installed SLS, so it might not be too late for me to switch to other package if SLS has too many bugs (what kind?) Thank you for any information. -- strinh@mason1.gmu.edu ------------------------------ From: syoung@pecanpi.atl.us.ga (Stan Young) Subject: Re: Hardware specs for multi-port serial cards? Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 15:21:49 GMT In article , ewerlid@frej.teknikum.uu.se (Ove Ewerlid) writes: >DFI, Inc. makes a card called MS-400 with four serial ports. >(DFI is a company in Asia.) >The boards I have, have two sockets where a 16550A can be inserted. >Two such cards can be combined to form 8 com ports. >E.g., they support 8 different IO areas. >The problem is that they only support 4 simultaneous interrupts. >E.g., you can jumper IRQ 2,3,4 and 5 to an arbitrary port. > >Thus, more than 4 ports with interrupts are impossible. >In my case I could not spare IRQ 4 and 5 so I was stuck with only >2 possible ports. > >These bords cost, in Sweden, 450 kronor wich should be equivalent to >something like 50 dollars. There is a much better option - try the DFI MU-440 instead. This is a clone of the old AST 4-port card - it is BUILT to use a single interrupt for all four ports. Much easier solution, and the cost is comparable. BOCA also has some multi-port boards that are a LOT less expensive than the $1200 or so that Michael was describing! -- ==============================+=======================================+ Stan Young | Serendipity is looking in a haystack | syoung@pecanpi.atl.ga.us | for a needle and discovering the | | farmer's daughter. - Julias H. Comroe| ------------------------------ From: boss@soda.berkeley.edu (Brion Moss) Subject: How to do two-column sideways output to a DOT-MATRIX printer (a la enscript) Date: 31 Oct 93 17:27:46 GMT With 'enscript -2Gr' it's fairly simple to send nice two-column output to a postscript printer...however, my printer is a dot matrix, and linux doesn't seem to want to be fooled into thinking it's postscript. I know the printer can handle it, because I've printed out GIFs on it before with a reasonable degree of resolution. I've tried piping nenscript through ps2ascii with no result. -- Brion "Imp" Moss imp@cory.berkeley.edu | to save us both boss@soda.berkeley.edu | some effort, just | assume this .sig DISCLAIMER: I hereby claim the city of Dis as my own. | is already funny. ------------------------------ From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Subject: Daily post for col.admin suggested (wasRe: Summary: Questions in non-help groups) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 01:54:54 GMT In article <2as0pk$4t5@track.taz.de>, $ Burkhard Kohl wrote: >I too feel that c.o.l.admin - among other c.o.l groups is misused and overcrowded. >But - maybe I missed it - I never saw a regular posting of a > "Read this before posting" >article which might remind people on some other sources of information. You're right, col.admin doesn't have a daily at the moment. The reason for this is that it's not clear (to me, anyway) what is and isn't appropriate in col.admin. It needs to be very clear in order to to say something concise and meaningful in a daily posting. If you read Matt Welsh's "Welcome to the comp.os.linux hierarchy", posted weekly, you'll see that he's not exactly clear on what it's for, either. Personally I think the creation of col.admin was a mistake. Essentially, whether a posting is to do with "administration" seems to me to be orthogonal to whether it is an announcement, bugfix, question or development suggestion/discussion. Also, most of the issues that are raised to do with Linux affect system administration, to greater or lesser extent. These factors mean that it's not at all obvious which postings should go to col.admin and which elsewhere. This is presumably the reason why there are so many "off topic" posts there (depending on what "off topic" means). If we can come to some kind of consensus here as to what is appropriate in col.admin I'll be perfectly happy to put out a daily posting. Btw, I've been seriously considering a daily posting in col.development. What do people think about that idea ? >--- > _/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ Burkhard Kohl > _/ _/ _/ _/ buk@taz.de > _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ die tageszeitung > _/ _/ _/ _/ Germany > _/ _/ _/ _/ 10969 Berlin Phone: +30-259-02-120 > _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ Kochstr. 18 FAX : +30-251-06-94 Usually I wouldn't quote a signature, but this one is a prime example of what *not* to do. People, please keep your signatures short - 3 or 4 lines - and don't include a large ASCII graphic. Finally, you had Distribution: world in your header. If you want unrestricted distribution you should leave the Distribution field empty. -- Ian Jackson, at home or PGP2 public key available on server. Urgent email: 2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England; phone: +44 223 64238 ------------------------------ From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Subject: Re: Summary: Questions in non-help groups Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 13:24:40 GMT In article <1993Oct30.015103.9870@super.org>, Donald J. Becker wrote: >In article <1993Oct28.223906.1157@cc.gatech.edu>, >Byron A Jeff wrote: >>It seems to me that this a bad situation and it's not going to get any better >>because the querants don't do any basic research before posting. After >>running this survey for a couple of weeks my conclusions are the same: >> >>1) Don't answer inappropriate questions. >>2) Direct people to the correct answers (HOWTO, FAQ, whatever). >>3) Redirect questions to comp.os.linux.help. > >I had hoped it was obvious, but maybe it's not. I don't answer questions that >are posted in the wrong newsgroup, nor questions that are posted to all c.o.l. >newsgroups. I encourage everyone else to do the same. I agree. >The "wrong" newsgroups is a subjective measure, but here are some guidelines: > > [stuff I agree with deleted] > >"Is the XYZ hardware supported" shouldn't be on c.o.l.d. either, but should be >in c.o.l.misc. No, I don't think so. There's the Hardware Compatibility List (now a HOWTO) to answer that kind of question. If a piece of hardware isn't in that list (either as supported or not supported) the question asking about it should be in col.help. >"Is anyone working on the XYZ hardware driver" is (barely) on the right side of >marginal for c.o.l.d., but still might not get a response if it's in the FAQ >or a HowTo. IMO questions of this nature should be answered in the Hardware Compatibility List. Again, if they're not they should be posted to col.help. -- Ian Jackson, at home or PGP2 public key available on server. Urgent email: 2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England; phone: +44 223 64238 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Oct 93 10:50:48 +0100 From: Eberhard_Moenkeberg@p27.rollo.central.de (Eberhard Moenkeberg) Subject: Re: TAMU ditribution Hello Andreas and all others, on 29.10.93 Andreas Helke wrote to All in USENET.COMP.OS.LINUX.MISC: AH> The current tamu release is pl12 it is available at net.tamu.edu. AH> This has Images for 3.5 and 5 inch disks. (17 5 inch). Tamu is AH> not organized into tgz files. The only choice you have is whether AH> you want X installed or not. With X included it takes about 60 MB. AH> I found a european mirror of the 3.5 inch images at ftp.ibp.fr. ftp.gwdg.de:/pub/linux/tamu holds the 5.25" images & sources. Greetings ... Eberhard ------------------------------ From: jwest@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu (James West) Subject: test Date: 29 Oct 93 20:42:11 GMT Ignore this, please. ------------------------------ From: jliddle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Jean Liddle) Subject: Re: SLS/Linux ad in BYTE! Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 18:12:50 GMT In article stock@dutsh7.tudelft.nl (Robert Stockmann) writes: >tzs@stein3.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes: > >connection: $15,= a month >netnews : $15,= a month > >when connection time above 20h/month: $1.25 per hour >and that is excluding phonebill. >SLIP single fee of $500.= > >downloading from for instance tsx-11.mit.edu: > > [ brutal fee structure deleted ] > >when downloading more than agreed in your contract: $1.25 per Mbyte > >So if you plan to get SLS1.04 (already there????) you would pay > >1 month connection: $ 15,= >100 Mb/month: $ 150,= >30 floppies $ 45,= > --------- > $ 210,= > >and thats comparable to what Peter is billing you.... >But then you would have a quarterly subscription to either CDROM or >tape or floppie. > Here in Chicago one can get unix accounts with unlimited internet access via a 56kb line for $25.00/month, or $65.00/quarter. A freind of mine uses this to connect to the internet. In London, a company called "Demon" has a similar price structure for internet connections offering SLIP access. It sounds like some entreprenuers should look into Holland as a ripe market for setting up business ... Jean. -- Jean Liddle Computer Science, Illinois State University e-mail: jliddle@ilstu.edu ============================================ ------------------------------ From: md85-epi@hemul.nada.kth.se (Urban Koistinen) Subject: Re: SLS/Linux ad in BYTE! Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 19:28:47 GMT In <1993Oct31.181250.25047@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> jliddle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Jean Liddle) writes: :In article stock@dutsh7.tudelft.nl (Robert Stockmann) writes: :>tzs@stein3.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes: :> :>connection: $15,= a month :>netnews : $15,= a month :> :>when connection time above 20h/month: $1.25 per hour :>and that is excluding phonebill. :>SLIP single fee of $500.= :> :>downloading from for instance tsx-11.mit.edu: :> :> [ brutal fee structure deleted ] :> :>when downloading more than agreed in your contract: $1.25 per Mbyte :> :>So if you plan to get SLS1.04 (already there????) you would pay :> :>1 month connection: $ 15,= :>100 Mb/month: $ 150,= :>30 floppies $ 45,= :> --------- :> $ 210,= :> :>and thats comparable to what Peter is billing you.... :>But then you would have a quarterly subscription to either CDROM or :>tape or floppie. :> :Here in Chicago one can get unix accounts with unlimited internet :access via a 56kb line for $25.00/month, or $65.00/quarter. A freind :of mine uses this to connect to the internet. In London, a company :called "Demon" has a similar price structure for internet connections :offering SLIP access. It sounds like some entreprenuers should look :into Holland as a ripe market for setting up business ... Even better opportunities exist in Moscow. There you are supposed to carry diskettes to a computer to send mail! Compared to that the Holland offer is a bargain. So, if there are any Linuxers in Moscow with an internet connection: write me and I'll help you get a customer. -- Urban Koistinen - md85-epi@nada.kth.se Stop software patents, interface copyrights: contact lpf@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.misc From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: Introduction into Unix Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 17:12:06 GMT On 30 Oct 1993 04:22:44 GMT, muenx@heike.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Holger Muenx) said: > Due to the fact that some of my users are no Unix wizards I am looking for > some introduction paper for them to learn the basics. > It's for a Linux system but needs not to be special written for this OS. > It would be fine if it is available as plain ascii file. However, dvi or > postscript will do it too. Even references to printed books/papers will > be interesting for me. > Please tell me the exact locations and names of mentioned files! Not an e-text, but how about the O'Reilly & Associates book on Unix? -- Robert L. McMillin | Surf City Software | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Dude! "It's okay to stare at my ear. I know you can't help it." -- Bongo ------------------------------ From: arsenio@mobix.uc.pt () Subject: Linux BBS Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1993 19:30:56 GMT I am looking for a BBS package that run with Linux. If you know any please Email me. Thanks. Arsenio Reis arsenio@mobix.uc.pt ------------------------------ From: andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm) Subject: Re: SLS flaming ! Date: 31 Oct 1993 16:59:46 -0000 Andrej.Bauer@ijs.si (Andrej Bauer) writes: >> : Though SLS has had its share of problems, which Linux distribution has >> : been has been flawless? Once I ran through the setups and finally a basic >> : understanding about Unix/Linux began to dawn, things worked just fine. >> >> : What do people want for nothing? Perfection? >> >> : Apparently. >No. But we have the right to point out that something has been done >badly, don't we? I expect even people from Softlanding are happy to hear Yes, of course. >what is wrong with their distribution (well, perhaps it's not fair to >say that there are Aleph_0 bugs in it :-). Yes, perhaps for their commercial product ;-) >GNU software is perfection for nothing. >> I have to agree. I have had nowhere near as many problems with SLS or Linux >> as I see people whining about. Reading manals and reading the posts here daily >> certainly helps. Many people are too reilant on 'plug -n- play' programs and >> just aren't ready to have to get in there, dig a little bit and learn something. >I have to disagree. I guess you just haven't noticed all those 'features' >and 'bugs'. I am not a newbie in Unix at all, and in my opinion SLS >distribution gives one a rather badly configured Unix. I dig quite a bit >and have learned a lot this way, yet, there are still things in SLS >that puzzle me. Get Slackware. >Only yesterdat I noticed a file /dev/ttys3 (not /dev/ttyS3!), >which was 80kb long, had time stamp from April 1993, and was a plain >file (not a 'device driver'). Since I bought my computer in August, >I guessed this file came together with SLS. Now, that is a small nuisance, >isn't it? Could someone check if they have the same file? >I also have this problem with 'lpd', which is probably not connected >with SLS distribution. My lpd runs, but doesn't want to print anything. >When I put something in print queue with 'lpr', I have to kill lpd and >run it again. Then it prints the file. I have to do so for every file. >I saw a description of this problem somewhere, but no solution. Format your SLS Disks. -- Andreas Klemm /\/\____ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH andreas@knobel.knirsch.de ___/\/\/ andreas@sunny.wup.de (Unix Support) ------------------------------ From: andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm) Subject: Re: SLS flaming ! Date: 31 Oct 1993 17:07:49 -0000 rcampbel@weejordy.physics.mun.ca (Roderick Campbell) writes: >In article , rfrankel@us.oracle.com (Rick Frankel) writes: >|> RE: >|> SLS is still perceived as the "flagship" Linux distribution by many, probably >|> because it has wider distribution than Slackware because it's been around >|> >|> Not so. SLS is perceived as the flagship because all information in >|> the FAQ point the newbie to installing SLS. >|> >[lines deleted] >I couldn't agree more. Surely with the FAQ still pointing to SLS, SLS >will continue to be the distribution of choice for linux newcomers. I >have used SLS for over a year and was suprised to see the hard >critisism of it by important linux developers. However, since I am >getting ready to do a scratch install, I think I'll try Slackware :-) I just read the last Linux faq from Ian Jackson. Brouse through it and you will see, that recommendations are _not_ to use SLS. "...The SLS 1.03 distribution (which I would recommend you stay well clear of - it has a number of serious and annoying bugs) takes around 100Mb..." "Question 6.14. Emacs just dumps core. You probably have the old version of Emacs that comes with SLS. It doesn't work without the X libraries....." "Some versions of SLS have an entry for the root partition in /etc/mtab made in /etc/rc by using rdev. This is incorrect -- the newer versions of mount do this automatically..." "Other versions of SLS have a line in /etc/fstab that looks like: /dev/sdb1 /root ext2 defaults This is wrong. /root should read simply /." "You should read the Installation HOWTO for more details on how to go about installing Linux. Note, though, that despite its heavy emphasis on the SLS release I would not recommend using SLS for any new Linux installation; you should consider using MCC-Interim, TAMU or Slackware instead." I think it's obvious enough, that SLS isn't something superior... Bye Andreas /// -- Andreas Klemm /\/\____ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH andreas@knobel.knirsch.de ___/\/\/ andreas@sunny.wup.de (Unix Support) ------------------------------ From: andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm) Subject: Re: SLS flaming ! Date: 31 Oct 1993 16:56:25 -0000 markm@wallach9.dgtl.com (Mark Mcghehey) writes: >X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] >: Though SLS has had its share of problems, which Linux distribution has >: been has been flawless? Once I ran through the setups and finally a basic >: understanding about Unix/Linux began to dawn, things worked just fine. But if you can choose between distributions with more or less flaws, which one would you want to install '-) >: What do people want for nothing? Perfection? So much perfection as possible. What I absolutely don't like is, that Peter Mc Donald concentrate his activities on his *commercial* SLS version, after he climed the 'hall of fame' with SLS at a time when no other package was so large and complete. I was very disappointed, that P. McDonald didn't respond to suggestions I made concerning bootutils-0.1 and other things. >: Apparently. >I have to agree. I have had nowhere near as many problems with SLS or Linux >as I see people whining about. Reading manals and reading the posts here daily >certainly helps. Many people are too reilant on 'plug -n- play' programs and >just aren't ready to have to get in there, dig a little bit and learn something. If somebody is making a release with updates, with respect to the fact, that thousands of users use his system then he should do his best, to fix bugs, that are reported by the community who use his product. I believe, that Peter Mc Donald fixes only his commercial version a lot using the bad experiences his non commercial users made. Otherwise I can't imagine another reason, why SLS 1.0.3 has so many flaws after 1.0.1 and 1.0.2. Compared to that Patrick Volkerdings Slackware Releases since 1.0.1 (now 1.0.5) made real jumps from release to release. And he is someone who knows about the 'r'eply key in elm. I would recommend to delete any recommendations about SLS in the howtos or Linux faq's. Put in something other like Slackware.... -- Andreas Klemm /\/\____ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH andreas@knobel.knirsch.de ___/\/\/ andreas@sunny.wup.de (Unix Support) ------------------------------ From: andreas@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm) Subject: Re: SLS flaming ! Date: 31 Oct 1993 17:11:35 -0000 al-b@minster.york.ac.uk writes: >In article <1993Oct26.154212.690@cathy.ijs.si> Andrej.Bauer@ijs.si (Andrej Bauer) writes: >>> : Though SLS has had its share of problems, which Linux distribution has >>> : been has been flawless? Once I ran through the setups and finally a basic >>> : understanding about Unix/Linux began to dawn, things worked just fine. >>> >>> : What do people want for nothing? Perfection? >>> >>> : Apparently. >> >>No. But we have the right to point out that something has been done >>badly, don't we? I expect even people from Softlanding are happy to hear >>what is wrong with their distribution (well, perhaps it's not fair to >>say that there are Aleph_0 bugs in it :-). >> >>GNU software is perfection for nothing. >:-) :-) It seems you don't read gnu.gcc.announce :-) :-) >We got about half a dozen articles in one week announcing new >"bug-fixed" versions of gcc 2.4.x when it came out. They made >a bit of a mess of the first 2.5.0 release as well :-) >(A file or two were missing) But gnu people are making fixes when there is a bug. In SLS you have the same errors in three different releases .... No feedback from P. Mc Donald. -- Andreas Klemm /\/\____ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH andreas@knobel.knirsch.de ___/\/\/ andreas@sunny.wup.de (Unix Support) ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************