From: Digestifier To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 10:13:13 EDT Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #62 Linux-Misc Digest #62, Volume #1 Fri, 27 Aug 93 10:13:13 EDT Contents: Re: WABI available on Linux or not (Chris Waters) Re: [ANNOUNCE] pwd for Linux (John Henders) Re: SLS tar broken or sick? (Karl Keyte, ESOC Darmstadt) Re: WABI available on Linux or not (Alastair Neil) Re: Bashing Peter MacDonald (Klaus Steinberger) Re: Anyone got **UPS DEBUGGER** working for LINUX (Bruce Stephens) Re: SLS update: 99p12 and lib 4.4.2 (Martin Boening) Re: NT versus Linux (John Henders) Re: SLS tar broken or sick? (Malcolm Beattie) Re: Anyone got **UPS DEBUGGER** working for LINUX (Norbert Bladt) Re: postscript labels (Stuart John) Re: WABI available on Linux or not (Arnaldo Mandel) Re: Why would I want LINUX? (David Hedley) Re: Bashing Peter MacDonald (Martin J Bligh) Re: A nice linux story (Karl Keyte, ESOC Darmstadt) Re: has anyone done booted a diskless Sun 3 from Linux? (Charles H. Murray) Re: POV binaries available? (Jeff Epler) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) Subject: Re: WABI available on Linux or not Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 08:45:45 GMT In rlerdorf@netcom.com (Rasmus Lerdorf) writes: >This issue of SunFlash has three Sun press releases about SunSelect's >Wabi technology. (Note - Wabi is not an acronym.). -johnj Ok, so Sun is now proclaiming (in public, at least) that Wabi is not an acronym. However, we all still know what the acronym stands for! :-) For those of us in the user community, the threat of Microsquishy winning their appeal to have the word "Windows" trademarked is mostly irrelevant. But perhaps the Linux group should consider calling their version of Wabi "WAW" ("WAW ain't Windows(tm)"). This would preserve the grand old tradition of recursive acronyms, and would also be a good nose-thumbing at the sorry gits in Redmond. Just an idea.... -- Chris Waters | "By experimentation, I have found that if I stand still and xtifr@netcom.COM| spin a universe around me, I get dizzy." -- W. Allison ------------------------------ From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCE] pwd for Linux Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 08:07:15 GMT muts@compi.hobby.nl (Peter Mutsaers) writes: >What is wrong with the following /bin/pwd, which you see on several >Unices:? >~> cat /bin/pwd >#!/bin/sh >pwd $ ls -l /bin/sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 222208 Sep 7 1992 /bin/sh* Awful big pwd. ;-) -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 11:57:14 CET From: Karl Keyte, ESOC Darmstadt Subject: Re: SLS tar broken or sick? In article , MARK@ardsley.business.uwo.ca (Mark_Bramwell) says: > >ummm..... So I try just tar. It says 'tar +help' for options. >I try tar +help and I get an error screen. Works for me fine from SLS 1.03 > >ummm.... Maybe my SLS1.03 tar is broken. SO I boot from a1.3 and try to >tar from there. tar +help works ok. Great I think! I mount the hardrive >and move the file over. > >So... Has anyone else seen odd things with tar? Yes! I do: tar tf /dev/rmt0 And....my system locks - needs rebooting. That's with a SCSI Wangtek 5150ES streamer. Anyone know the answer to THAT problem? Karl ======================================================================== Vitrociset S.p.A. (Space Division) Tel : +(49) 6151 902041 Eurepean Space Operations Centre Fax : +(49) 6151 904041 ------------------------------ From: ajn@resumix.portal.com (Alastair Neil) Subject: Re: WABI available on Linux or not Date: 27 Aug 93 10:19:58 GMT Reply-To: ajn@resumix.portal.com In article 7nG@serveme.chi.il.us, greg@serveme.chi.il.us (Gregory Gulik) writes: ->In article <25gh02$f8v@europa.eng.gtefsd.com> niemidc@oasis.gtefsd.com writes: ->> ->>It will also be very interesting to see how Wabi on Intel machines and various ->>brands of UN*X that support Wabi compare to ->>1) Win3.1 ->>2) Windows NoT ->>in performance! If it performs even remotely as well, I'd say that points to ->>Windows being very inefficiently coded relative to X-Windows. -> ->There was a front page article in InfoWorld in the last week or two ->that said that Windows applications run approximately 75% slower under ->Windows NT than under native Windows 3.1 what does 75% slower mean? it runs at .25 the speed or .75 the speed? Logically if should be the former - but I find it hard to believe that NT is *that* bad. reductio ad absurdam -> what is 100% slower? -> ->On the other hand, there was another article a while ago in a magazine ->I don't remember, that said that Wabi ran applications about twice as ->fast as native Windows 3.1. The magazine used two identical 486/50's ->for the comparison. One running Windows 3.1, the other Solaris 2.1 ->and Wabi. -> ->Please let me know if I missed anything as this is all from memory. -> ->-greg -> ->-- ->Gregory A. Gulik Call Gagme, a public access -> greg@serveme.chi.il.us UNIX system at 312-282-8606 -> || gulik@rtsg.mot.com For information, drop a note -> to info@gagme.chi.il.us --- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |..Alastair Neil.......(44)-0(206-872861).......[ajn@plasparc3.essex.ac.uk]...| |....Visne scire quod credam? Credo luctationes omnes praestitutas esse!......| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: k2@bl.physik.tu-muenchen.de (Klaus Steinberger) Subject: Re: Bashing Peter MacDonald Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 10:24:22 GMT imccuaig@nexus.yorku.ca (Ian McCuaig) writes: >eds@VFL.Paramax.COM (Ed Skladany) writes: >Absolutely. As a Linux/Unix novice I would have never got my machine up >and running without SLS. In the three weeks since I first installed I've >posted several questions to c.o.l.help and ftp'd the odd thing, but SLS >1.03 with the docs and install scripts it comes with was fabulous. As >easy as any commercial OS I've ever installed and almost as problem >free. I would agree, I was very positively surprised, when I installed SLS on some PC's. The installation went much smoother than on some very big names in the Unix business. Sincerely, Klaus -- Klaus Steinberger Beschleunigerlabor der TU und LMU Muenchen Phone: (+49 89)3209 4287 Hochschulgelaende FAX: (+49 89)3209 4280 D-85748 Garching, Germany Internet: Klaus.Steinberger@Physik.Uni-Muenchen.DE ------------------------------ From: bruce@liverpool.ac.uk (Bruce Stephens) Subject: Re: Anyone got **UPS DEBUGGER** working for LINUX Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 10:01:41 GMT >>>>> On Thu, 26 Aug 1993 10:02:37 GMT, nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt) said: >>UPS surely has to be the best C debugger available for X windows, not >>having it under Linux really detracts from all the great work that is >>being done here, especially as (as I've already said) IT WORKS UNDER >>386BSD. > I agree it's the best C debugger I have seen, too. > That's one of the reason why I am not sure whether I will want Linux or > not. I don't really care how UPS works internally, and I don't really care about the C interpreter features. It seems to me that someone ought to rewrite xxgdb, or whatever it's called now, and copy the same user interface across (minus the un-X like features like the weird scrolling). Then we'd have something almost as nice as UPS which could do C++ and (ultimately) Fortran, ... -- Bruce Institute for Advanced Scientific Computing bruce@liverpool.ac.uk University of Liverpool ------------------------------ From: boening.pad@sni.de (Martin Boening) Subject: Re: SLS update: 99p12 and lib 4.4.2 Date: 27 Aug 93 10:36:14 GMT In <1993Aug26.132901.23939@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> af8t@aixfile2.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Markus Nullmeier) writes: >In article <25ginl$kug@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> Patrick J. Volkerding (bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) writes: >> Nice how Peter can leech a living off free software and than >> refuse to give any back. >I don't think _any_ is correct. Some history files about Linux >teach us about his contributions to the kernel, etc. Besides, what is meant here by "leech a living off free SW". When I look on Linux FTP mirror sites, I see a subdirectory SLS in the directory packages, so it would appear that, provided you have mail ftp or direct ftp access, you can get the SLS for free. Now that's what I call a generous contribution, not "leech a living off free SW". The conrtibution being that there is an easy-to-install Linux out there for the masses for free (even if there are others). Just my $0.02 worth on this "leech a living" thing. Keep up the great work folks. So long, Martin #include -- Email.....: boening.pad@sni.de Paper Mail: Martin Boening, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG; Dept.: MR STO SI 325, Riemekestr. 160, 33106 Paderborn, W.-Germany Phone.....: +49 5251 835641 ------------------------------ From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) Subject: Re: NT versus Linux Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 21:21:15 GMT hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes: >The code is different in pl12. There is a check to see whether it's >safe to allocate more memory. The only thing that bothers me about >the code is that it looks like if the expansion fails it simply >returns the current break, rather than generating an actual error. >Maybe I'm missing something... I hit a major out of memory condition on 99pl12 a few days ago, when I tried to delete about 99% of a 3.5 meg text file in vim as root . (don't ask) It took about 3 or 4 minutes of eeverything being as slow as a glacier, but vim finally announced it it was out of memory and exited with no problems. -- John Henders GO/MU/E d* -p+ c+++ l++ t- m--- s/++ g+ w+++ -x+ ------------------------------ From: mbeattie@black.ox.ac.uk (Malcolm Beattie) Subject: Re: SLS tar broken or sick? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 11:49:11 GMT In article MARK@ardsley.business.uwo.ca (Mark_Bramwell) writes: >I was playing with a scsi 4mm tape drive. I did a tar cvf /dev/rmt0 * >and watched the files fly. Although unrelated to your question (answer below), I'd recommend you use tar cvf /dev/rmt0 . (with . instead of *). Tar can handle `everything under current directory' fine whereas shell globbing of `*' will miss files beginning `.'. >I then tried a tar t /dev/rmt0 Thinking I would get a listing. > >No go. I tried various other combinations thinking I had the parameters >wrong. Still no go. That should be `tar tf /dev/rmt0' unless you've mistyped that here. From a quick `strings' of GNU tar I see that it looks for /dev/rmt0h (although /dev/rmt%d appears too.) If it's not that, I don't know. >I then tried tar xvf /dev/rmt0 into another directory to see if the files >would come back. Yes, they did come back ok! Good. >ummm..... So I try just tar. It says 'tar +help' for options. >I try tar +help and I get an error screen. I'm fairly sure I can explain this. Newer versions of libc have option getting functions which disallow `+' (in favour of `--'). + has been deprecated by POSIX for a while and POSIX 2 disallows it. Of course, tar itself just prints "tar +help for options" but then uses getopt to parse... --Malcolm -- Malcolm Beattie | I'm not a kernel hacker Oxford University Computing Services | I'm a kernel hacker's mate 13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN (U.K.) | And I'm only hacking kernels Tel: +44 865 273232 Fax: +44 865 273275 | 'Cos the kernel hacker's late ------------------------------ From: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt) Subject: Re: Anyone got **UPS DEBUGGER** working for LINUX Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 11:06:39 GMT iyer@npg-sd.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM (Rajappa Iyer) writes: >In ben@cs.uwa.oz.au (Ben Robbins) writes: >>UPS surely has to be the best C debugger available for X windows, not >>having it under Linux really detracts from all the great work that is >>being done here, especially as (as I've already said) IT WORKS UNDER >>386BSD. >I think the original author (I'm sorry, I forget his name) was >working on using the bfd library which gdb uses. Then it would work >on all platforms that bfd supports. Yes, but it's has not been done, obviously. >Actually, I am surprised to hear that ups is working under 386BSD. >My impression was that it was too closely tied to the SPARC >architecture. Who did the port? Any reasons why bfd wasn't used? I won't take the credit for "porting" it to 386BSD, because I "just compiled" it and it worked. That's it. And, I can tell you, it's VERY NICE to work with. Come on, Linux MUST be better than 386BSD, somebody should do the port, I am waiting for it :-) :-) No O/S war again, please. I know the differences between 386BSD, NetBSD and Linux well enough to do my own decision. It wouldn't be 386BSD any more, now. Norbert. P.S. Is the Zorn-shell (zsh) available on Linux ? It was easily "ported" (ah, configured and compiled) on SunOS, 386BSD and even SVR4 (Unisys == Convergent ?) but NOT on ISC V.3 Rel. 4.0 -- Norbert Bladt, Ascom Autelca AG, Worbstr. 201, CH-3073 Guemligen, Switzerland Phone: +41 31 999 65 52 FAX: +41 31 999 65 44 Mail: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch UUCP: ..!uunet!mcsun!chsun!hslrswi!aut!nbladt ------------------------------ From: stuartj@wv.mentorg.com (Stuart John) Subject: Re: postscript labels Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 12:22:13 GMT Reply-To: Stuart_John@etc.MENTORG.COM In article , gberg@netcom.com (Greg Berg) writes: |> on the sheet? What labels would _you_ like to see in the set? Any chance of labels for Slackware, ie. more A, no B, more X, and some E's ??? ta. -- _________________________________________________________________ Stuart N. John Stuart_John@etc.MENTORG.COM Mentor Graphics Corporation (UK) Tel: +44 344 867555 x2232 BRACKNELL, Berkshire, England. #include _________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: am@ime.usp.br (Arnaldo Mandel) Subject: Re: WABI available on Linux or not Date: 27 Aug 1993 12:06:37 GMT In article xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes: > For those of us in the user community, the threat of Microsquishy > winning their appeal to have the word "Windows" trademarked is mostly > irrelevant. But perhaps the Linux group should consider calling their > version of Wabi "WAW" ("WAW ain't Windows(tm)"). This would preserve > the grand old tradition of recursive acronyms, and would also be a good > nose-thumbing at the sorry gits in Redmond. WAW! I hope the Wine team takes the suggestion seriously. -- .................................................................. Arnaldo Mandel \ am@ime.usp.br (1st choice) Computer Science Dep. \ amandel@cce.usp.br (2nd) Universidade de S\~{a}o Paulo / macdcc@fpsp.fapesp.br S\~{a}o Paulo - SP - Brazil / (if all else fails) ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc From: hedley@kipa (David Hedley) Subject: Re: Why would I want LINUX? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 13:03:41 GMT Dejan Vucinic (dejan@cdfsga.fnal.gov) wrote: [ stuff deleted ] : Now, the copmarison. Those were EXACTLY THE SAME MACHINES. Bought from : a same vendor, exactly the same equipment inside, 387 FPU in both of them. : Fortran on DOS was an expensive commercial product, it was dos 5.0 if I : remember well, and under DOS the program ran about a minute and five seconds : on both of them. We ran the program on BSD, fifteen seconds. Well, I know : that in real mode 386 emulates 32bit integer operations, but FOUR TIMES : FASTER!? Get real! : All this probably holds for Linux as well. It seems that DOS engineers : used some other mathematics in their time calculations. ;> : Don't trust figures too much. Try and measure. You'll be surprized. I think the real reason for the speed increase lies with gcc. I use gcc v2 under DOS and it blows Borland C out of the water... I suspect that if you compiled your C program under DOS gcc, you would find a similar (if not greater) speed increase. David -- Internet email: hedley@cs.bris.ac.uk or: cs1019@seqa.bris.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: wa95003@black.ox.ac.uk (Martin J Bligh) Subject: Re: Bashing Peter MacDonald Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 13:06:52 GMT In article <1993Aug27.024517.19825@VFL.Paramax.COM> eds@VFL.Paramax.COM (Ed Skladany) writes: > >It's amazing that some people keep bashing Peter MacDonald for problems >with SLS. SLS is not a perfect release, but it is the release responsible >for getting thousands of people started with Linux, including me. For this, >we owe Peter our gratitude. His product must have taken a lot of work, but >it's effectively free for the asking. The simple installation of Linux >is something that can always be improved upon, but Peter made it happen. I don't think it's the state of SLS that bothers people so much as the way people keep on about it as if it is the only release. Lots of people I've spoken to seem to think SLS is Linux, and Linux is SLS. There are other better distributions around, even if they don't include everything including the kitchen sink. Try MCC for example. I was pleasantly suprised. Fletch ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 14:53:45 CET From: Karl Keyte, ESOC Darmstadt Subject: Re: A nice linux story In article , c@royle.org (Chris Royle) says: > >In comp.os.linux.misc, Frerk Meyer >(frerk@loophole.tk.telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de) wrote: >:> > >fortran, the only major porting hurdle... they don't trust language >:> > converters). > >However, whilst you are correct and your comment is justified, they feel that >converters which do not convert directly to either assembler or machine code >are less reliable than those that do. > ...but nearly all C++ compilers convert to C. That's accepted, it's pretty reliable and it's used very heavily in industry. There's absolutely no reason to mistrust multiple translation steps as long as one has faith in each layer of translation. Karl ======================================================================== Vitrociset S.p.A. (Space Division) Tel : +(49) 6151 902041 Eurepean Space Operations Centre Fax : +(49) 6151 904041 Darmstadt, Germany e-Mail: kkeyte@esoc.bitnet ------------------------------ From: murrayc@hansford.com (Charles H. Murray) Subject: Re: has anyone done booted a diskless Sun 3 from Linux? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 07:51:31 -0700 In hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes: >One of our faculty is interested in using a diskless Sun as an X >display. For $600 you can get a machine that has a bigger display >than most people can afford for a PC. The problem is that >diskless suns require RARP and TFTP servers to boot. RARP is >not a pure TCP/IP protocol. Does anyone have any experience >booting a diskless Sun, or know of an RARP server? Where would you get the Sun binaries? You would still have to purchase them and put them on the Linux machine. -- Charles H. Murray "Performing Rocket Science at Software Engineering Consultant Orbital Sciences Corporation Breckenridge, Colorado USA Chantilly, Virginia USA" murrayc@hansford.com ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux From: jepler@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jeff Epler) Subject: Re: POV binaries available? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:47:46 GMT It's not that hard to compile povray for Linux. In the system-specific file, (unix.c or xwindows.c), one must comment out the matherr() function by placing comment marks (or #if 0, or whatever) at the start and end. No alterations of the Makefile are needed. If there's interest in having a POV binary available, I would be willing to upload one to Sunsite in about two weeks (Until then, my access is limited without FTP). -- Jeff Epler jepler@nyx.cs.du.edu (Preferred) or bx304@cleveland.freenet.edu ____ "Nuke the unborn gay whales" -- Never seen on a protest sign \bi/ I have no time for petty theft, I have no time for sex, \/ But I have time for what I like, And that is what is best. ------------------------------ ** 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 ******************************