Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #12
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 92 08:15:07 EST

Linux-Activists Digest #12, Volume #2             Fri, 3 Apr 92 08:15:07 EST

Contents:
  shar unshar (William A. Calderwood)
  diskbackup -> broken pile (Jiansheng Zhao)
  hd.h in config95.a (Blah Blah Blah)
  SOS! linux refuses to go on my IDE drive! (Andy I. Liaw)
  Non-destructive repartitioning (was Re: What is linux?) (David H. West)
  Re: Help, can't compile 0.95a! (Jiansheng Zhao)
  Re: Problem with gcc2 (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim)
  Description of files? (.)
  Reduce "gcc is broken" postings, was:HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (Karl R. Buck)
  Quick!  Post the FAQ before it's too late! :-) ([email-masked])
  LINUX problems on a EISA 486 (Doug Liston)
  Re: ps095: problem with gcc2.1? and vile 3.13 (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
  Re: ps095: problem with gcc2.1? and vile 3.13 (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
  vile 3.13 + gcc 2.1 anyone? (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
  vile 3.13 + gcc 2.1 anyone? (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
  Re: gcc2.0, are the two .Z files all that are needed? (Roger Books)
  Re: Help, can't compile 0.95a! (Bill Bogstad)
  Re: What is linux? (Mark H. Wood)
  Alt=Meta doesn't work with Emacs 18.5[78] (Martin Junius)
  reboot() missing ... (Martin Junius)
  Re: Linux and SX, maybe FAQ? (Alex R.N. Wetmore)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (William A. Calderwood)
Subject: shar unshar
Date: 3 Apr 92 03:48:06 GMT

Are there any shar unshar utilities ported yet to linux.

Also thanks to the many many many wonderfull people who mailed me
about linux. I've already installed it on my Gateway 2000 386DX 25 and
haven't any problems yet.

Oh yea Does linux support port numbers too. I was thinking of porting 
Galactic Bloodshed (GB) to linux.

Thanks Again.

    Bill

[email-masked]
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Jiansheng Zhao)
Subject: diskbackup -> broken pile
Date: 3 Apr 92 04:22:33 GMT

When I tried diskbackup with compress
tar -cf - bin .. | compress |diskbackup "day one"
I always got an error message: broken pipe. What might be the problem?
I tried find | sort > list, the pipe seems working. Anyone has similar
problem (bug in compress?)

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Blah Blah Blah)
Subject: hd.h in config95.a
Date: 3 Apr 92 04:38:02 GMT

Call me stupid, but I can't find the hd.h file when trying to patch and build a new kernel with the config95a patches. everything else works, and the patch result shows no failures. I have looked around the tree and found no hd.h.
        Just for the record, I'm using gcc2.0. (I also, I've patched many kernels by now, just so no one asks me if I've ever done this before 8^] ).

Thanks for help.

Steve
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Andy I. Liaw)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: SOS! linux refuses to go on my IDE drive!
Date: 3 Apr 92 03:56:33 GMT

can anyone help me please?  i'm REALLY stucked.  here's the story:

i found linux on a local ftp site (sc.tamu.edu, in /pub/free_unix).  the
files in there are images of miniroot, boot-floppy-ide, boot-hd-ide, and
4 bin disks.  i managed to get these files onto floppies and naively
think that i can do the installation.  so i scratched my 125mb dos      
partition and created a 84mb partition for dos, thinking this would leave
enuff room for linux.

then i bootup linux from floppy without any problems.  i ran fdisk, and
it reported /dev/hda4 as 16-bit dos.  i ran pfdisk /dev/hda4.  it told me
i have 306 cyl., 4 heads, 17 sectors.  i did a G 1001 15 17 according to
CMOS, then 2 129 671 999 to set up the minix partition.  then wq, sync
3 times, and reboot.  ran fdisk again, it still only report the dos
partition.  i tried everything i could think of, pfdisk just doesn't
cooperate.  each time i reboot pfdisk tell me the wrong disk geometry.
can anyone help me?  my hard disk is a seagate st1144 130mb ide with
1001 cyl., 15 heads, and 17 sectors. 

i'm getting very frustrated.  is this a bug or am i doing something wrong?

andy liaw       [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (David H. West)
Subject: Non-destructive repartitioning (was Re: What is linux?)
Date: 3 Apr 92 05:30:59 GMT

>   >> it is possible to non-destructively repartition under Messy-Loss.
>   >
>   >How can you repartition ms-dos drives without loosing info?
>
>   [...] In princip~ql it's easy.  In practice, it's difficult.
>
>Could someone with these instructions please mail them to me?  

IMHO this info is important enough to merit a separate (i.e. findable) 
file at the archive sites.

-- 
-David West       [email-masked]
"Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles; the earth has no limbs
and muscles, hence it does not move."   -Scipio Chiaramonti, Professor 
of Philosophy and Mathematics at the University of Pisa; 1633.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Jiansheng Zhao)
Subject: Re: Help, can't compile 0.95a!
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1992 05:09:31 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mike Dodds) writes:

>[email-masked] (Nicolai Wadstr|m) writes:

>>I'm unable to compile Linux 0.95a, I have installed the new sources
>>and bootup with the 0.95a binary kernel image, using the old gcc (1.40?),
>>and I get and error "cc1 got return code 16" when compiling fork.c!
>>Does this anything to to with the old gcc compiler? Or do I need new library
>>for 0.95a?

>Well,  
>       I can only offer my solution, not any reason why.  It seems
>that my 4Meg of RAM is insufficient for this mem hog.  So, what
>I did was to go down the tree stucture manually, finding all the
>sub-Makefiles, and "make"-ing them.  Yes, I know, "UUUuugh!".  But,
>it seemed to work.  The only exception was that console.c was too big,
>so we hand compiled it.  Don't ask me why, I just work here.  I've
>probably got something configured wrong (as if I could configure
>something right!), so if anyone out there who actually has a working
>.95a system, let me know.  

>                                               - The Magister

I compiled 0.95a with gcc2.1 today on my 386/33 with 4 MB.with little
difficulty.  Iain had mentioned 
on the net that when using gcc1.4, lines in Makefiles under
linux/kernel and linux/kernel/chr_drv have to be changed:
original:
#GCC_OPT = -fcombine-regs
you should delet the commnet sign # for gcc1.4, otherewise compiling will
stop at fork.c.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim)
Subject: Re: Problem with gcc2
Date: 3 Apr 92 06:11:49 GMT

[email-masked] (Martin Schulte) writes:

Could somebody post an answer to this question? It has come up at least half
a dozen time already. (Un)fortunately I never got these error when I use gcc2.

Zeyd

>I took gcc2misc.tar.Z and gcc2lib.tar.Z from tsx-11. I untared them
>in /usr.  /usr/gcc2/bin/gcc of a script which only contains the
>line "#include <stdio.h>" leads to the error-message:
>In file incluced from gcc2test.c:1:
>/usr/gcc2/include/stdio.h:99: parse error before '('

>Any help appreciated, Martin
>--

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (.)
Subject: Description of files?
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1992 06:29:57 GMT

I look at the nic.funet.fi sites, and thre are _tons_ of files there, and there
are 'indexes' that show all the files in the directory.

Is there anything similiar to the 00-Index.txt files on Simtel?  that have
name & descrptions of each file?  Also, where do things go?  all in the usr
directory usually?

okay and 2 technical questions:  (1)  I got the gcc 2.1.  but How do I make
        a path for it so I can 'make' from any directory?

        (2)  I keep loggging in as root.  how do I make a login?  

        (3)  how do I copy from floppy to linux's hd?  if I rawrite emacs.Z
                to  a floppy, & then

                cp /dev/PS0 emacs.Z  

                it makes a 2880 block file.  not much good.

        (4)  were these on any FAQ sheets?  I looked around, but didn't find
                any answers.

                                follow up or e-mail.  Thanks in advance.

                                        Frank Wang
                                        [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Karl R. Buck)
Subject: Reduce "gcc is broken" postings, was:HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: 3 Apr 92 06:55:26 GMT

[email-masked] (Stewart Baker) writes:

>Is there anyone else having problems with their disk in .95a?  I have
>two IDE hard disks, a Conner 170MB as the master, and a Maxtor 120MB as
>the slave.  I have / and /usr on the Conner disk, and a 10MB swap partition
>on the slave.  Sometimes when I compile using gcc-1.40 I get a HD timeout 
>error and then a general protection that looks like:
>general protection: 0000
>EIP:    000f:00002A08
>EFlags: 00010202
>ESP:    0017:03BFFE80
>fs: 0010
>base: 28000000, limit: 04000000
>Stack: 00008000 00044001 00044001 03BFFEE0
>Pid: 22, Process nr:10
>00 A4 2B 00 00 C9 2B 00 00 00
>Program got fatal signal 22.

[...]

Hmmm. I have a single 40mb IDE drive and am getting the following:

general protection: 0000
EIP:     000f:00000180
EFLAGS:  00010246
ESP:     0017:03BFFE70
fs: 0010
base: 20000000, limit: 04000000
stack: 00000150 0001CABC 00000000 00000008
Pid: 677, Process nr:8
10 89 55 ff 8b 45 fc 80 38 2d
Internal compiler error:
Program as got fatal signal 11

I've been getting similar errors like this, and have not been able to
compile even a "hello world."

As an aside: I really think the compiler is fast becoming the biggest
source of problems with Linux. It really is great that people are
donating their talents working on the latest and greatest versions of
gcc (first first 1.40, 2.0 now 2.1), but now there are rumblings on
the horizon about 2.2 and a reliable (what I define as reliable
anyway :-) is still a thing of the future.

I'm not sure what the answer is; perhaps a more comprehensive FAQ for
gcc? Different type of beta-testing program? 

At any rate, I have high hopes for version 2.1 and hope I'll actually
be smart enough to be able to compile a "hello world" one of these
days. :) I don't want to sound ungrateful to the good people porting
gcc,(Thanks for the work!), I would just like to start seeing some of
the common gcc problems posted to the net reduced a bit.

-- 
Karl Buck, [email-masked]     :)

------------------------------

From: [email-masked]
Subject: Quick!  Post the FAQ before it's too late! :-)
Date: 2 Apr 92 16:31:32 GMT

    Now that comp.os.linux exists, many people who didn't get alt.os.linux
will suddenly be wondering what linux is.  Would the keeper of the FAQ
please post it as soon as possible!

Richard D. Nichols
Teradyne Inc.,  Telecommunications Div.
Phone:  (708) 940-9000
Email:  [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Doug Liston)
Subject: LINUX problems on a EISA 486
Date: 2 Apr 92 21:26:43 GMT

I am having a problem with booting LINUX on my 486.
 
I have a Advanced Loginc Research 486/33 EISA machine with 17 MEG of
RAM on which I am trying to get LINUX "up and running". The boot and
root disks are correct (I have tried them at work on a COMPAQ 386).
 
Whenever I try to boot the system, I get to the part where it asks me if
I want to see the available SVGA modes and the the computer does a COLD
REBOOT. Does the memory POST tests and everything.
 
Any ideas? I thank you in advance for your superior knowlege and
assistance.
 
Thanks, Doug Liston
 
<[email-masked]>

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: ps095: problem with gcc2.1? and vile 3.13
Date: 31 Mar 92 20:47:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Dahai Li) writes:
|> Hi,
|> 
|> I am experiencing problem with ps095, compiled with gcc2.1.
|> 
|> I rebuilt the patched 0.95a kernel according to I Reid's post "Compiling kernel,
|> installing ps: a solution".
|> 
|> The compilation of of 0.95a (using gcc2.1) went without any problem.
|> 
|> However, on linking ps, ld complained about unresolved external "_ctype".
|> So I made the ctype.o of linux' lib.a one of ps' objects. It linked
|> succesfully.

Please do not do anything like that to gcc 2.1. You don't know what you are doing.

|> 
|> But when I called "ps -U /usr/src/linux/tools/system", Linux chocked, gave
|> me a segment fault.
|> 
|> The system I am running Linux is a 2Meg Zenith 386 Laptop (Tubors PORT
|> 386).

Glad to hear gcc 2.1 can run with 2MB. How big is your swap space?

|> 
|> Any one has any idea what's wrong, and what should I do to overcome the
|> problem?
|> 
|> Thanks in advance.
|> 
|> Dahai Li

Please wait for a few days. I will post a patch for ps with gcc 2.1. Here is
a very short description.

I added some goodies to this pacth. Now you can configure your kernel
at Makefile of the top level. Read the Makefile and edit it.

One bug in free.c is fixed.

I am waiting for feedback from a guy.

H.J.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: ps095: problem with gcc2.1? and vile 3.13
Date: 31 Mar 92 20:47:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Dahai Li) writes:
|> Hi,
|> 
|> I am experiencing problem with ps095, compiled with gcc2.1.
|> 
|> I rebuilt the patched 0.95a kernel according to I Reid's post "Compiling kernel,
|> installing ps: a solution".
|> 
|> The compilation of of 0.95a (using gcc2.1) went without any problem.
|> 
|> However, on linking ps, ld complained about unresolved external "_ctype".
|> So I made the ctype.o of linux' lib.a one of ps' objects. It linked
|> succesfully.

Please do not do anything like that to gcc 2.1. You don't know what you are doing.

|> 
|> But when I called "ps -U /usr/src/linux/tools/system", Linux chocked, gave
|> me a segment fault.
|> 
|> The system I am running Linux is a 2Meg Zenith 386 Laptop (Tubors PORT
|> 386).

Glad to hear gcc 2.1 can run with 2MB. How big is your swap space?

|> 
|> Any one has any idea what's wrong, and what should I do to overcome the
|> problem?
|> 
|> Thanks in advance.
|> 
|> Dahai Li

Please wait for a few days. I will post a patch for ps with gcc 2.1. Here is
a very short description.

I added some goodies to this pacth. Now you can configure your kernel
at Makefile of the top level. Read the Makefile and edit it.

One bug in free.c is fixed.

I am waiting for feedback from a guy.

H.J.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: vile 3.13 + gcc 2.1 anyone?
Date: 31 Mar 92 20:54:40 GMT

How good is vile? 3.13 is out. Is anyone doing the porting? If you are not
using gcc 2.1, please do.

H.J.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: vile 3.13 + gcc 2.1 anyone?
Date: 31 Mar 92 20:54:40 GMT

How good is vile? 3.13 is out. Is anyone doing the porting? If you are not
using gcc 2.1, please do.

H.J.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Roger Books)
Subject: Re: gcc2.0, are the two .Z files all that are needed?
Date: 30 Mar 92 14:09:10 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Chuck Boyer) writes...
> 
>Very basic question, but are the '2lib.tar.Z' and '2misc.tar.Z'
>files the only two that are necessary to get gcc2.0 up and running?
>(is it 'ar' or 'as' the compiler complained about missing...
>for instance). And I'm the one writing the (DOS) Beginner's
>Guide to Linux/unix. (I appreciate the help knowlegable persons
>have given on correcting me on the first drafts...error's caught
>now...).
>thanks
>[email-masked]
>chuck

I recently installed the GCC 2 stuff, 'as' was missing from 2 but is in
1.40.  as86 does not work for GCC purposes.

                Roger Books

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Bill Bogstad)
Subject: Re: Help, can't compile 0.95a!
Date: 3 Apr 92 07:05:16 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mike Dodds) writes:
>[email-masked] (Nicolai Wadstr|m) writes:
>
>>I'm unable to compile Linux 0.95a, I have installed the new sources
>>and bootup with the 0.95a binary kernel image, using the old gcc (1.40?),
>>and I get and error "cc1 got return code 16" when compiling fork.c!
>>Does this anything to to with the old gcc compiler? Or do I need new library
>>for 0.95a?
>
>       I can only offer my solution, not any reason why.  It seems
>that my 4Meg of RAM is insufficient for this mem hog.  ...

        I have a 8 Meg system and also am having problems compiling fork.c.
I would have thought that would have been sufficient....

                                Bill Bogstad
                                [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Mark H. Wood)
Subject: Re: What is linux?
Date: 3 Apr 92 12:47:58 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Lance Pickup) writes:

>While not part of the original question, it's worth mentioning that
>Linux requires an ISA bus--no MCA )-;

Is this just because nobody's done it, or LINUX' structure would make it too 
difficult, or is it a matter of principle :-) ?  Seriously, if anybody is 
working on MCA mods, I'd like to know.  If not, I may take a stab at it 
myself, so my poor underemployed PS/2 can have a real operating system, in 
addition to MeSs-DOS.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Martin Junius)
Subject: Alt=Meta doesn't work with Emacs 18.5[78]
Date:  3 Apr 92 12:37:34 GMT

The emacs binary from tsx-11 doesn't recognize the left Alt key 
as a meta key. stty tells cs8 and -istrip, it works with bash, so 
why no with emacs?

Is there any way of getting the Alt key to work with emacs?

Martin
--
 _____ _____
|     |___  |   Martin Junius           FIDO:    2:242/6.1   2:242/6.0
| | | |   | |   Republikplatz 3         DOMAIN:  [email-masked]
|_|_|_|_____|   W-5100 Aachen, Germany  Phone:   ++49-241-86931 (voice)

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Martin Junius)
Subject: reboot() missing ...
Date: 3 Apr 92 12:41:32 GMT

Just tried to compile the small programs reboot.c and cad.c 
posted to this newsgroup some days ago. gcc (version 1.40) 
complains about undefined reference reboot. Looks like the 
library (from gcc 1.40 binary on tsx-11) doesn't implement the 
reboot() system call interface.

So: where to get reboot()?

Martin
--
 _____ _____
|     |___  |   Martin Junius           FIDO:    2:242/6.1   2:242/6.0
| | | |   | |   Republikplatz 3         DOMAIN:  [email-masked]
|_|_|_|_____|   W-5100 Aachen, Germany  Phone:   ++49-241-86931 (voice)

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Alex R.N. Wetmore)
Subject: Re: Linux and SX, maybe FAQ?
Date: 3 Apr 92 12:32:26 GMT

Excerpts from netnews.alt.os.linux: 31-Mar-92 Linux and SX, maybe FAQ?
by Dragan [email-masked] 
> I am going to get one 386SX/25MHz PC compatible with 2 Mb RAM, and 80 Mb
> hard disk, so I ask: is it possible to run Linux in this enviroment? I just
> get it over FTP, but if I can not use it, I will better not try to.
>                 Thanks. D. Cvetkovic
>                         [email-masked]

Possible, yes.  But you might want to spend  an extra $100 (or more if
it costs more in germany) to get another 2 megs of memory.

alex

------------------------------

** 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: [email-masked]

You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux) via:

    Internet: [email-masked]

Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
    nic.funet.fi				pub/OS/Linux
    tsx-11.mit.edu				pub/linux
    tupac-amaru.informatik.rwth-aachen.de	pub/msdos/replace

The current version of Linux is 0.95a released on March 17, 1992

End of Linux-Activists Digest
******************************