Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #15
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 92 00:00:16 EST

Linux-Activists Digest #15, Volume #2             Sat, 4 Apr 92 00:00:16 EST

Contents:
  Re: Linux doesn't recognize my HD (Drew Eckhardt)
  Re: What is linux? (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
  Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (Farhan H Garib)
  make and terminal problems (Alex R.N. Wetmore)
  Using a modem under Linux? (Haohui Wang)
  Re: Experience with Elite Group or Pony 386/33 motherboards ($99!) (Drew Eckhardt)
  Bootsector patch (Drew Eckhardt)
  Re: Reduce "gcc is broken" postings, was:HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
  Re: Help, can't compile 0.95a! (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
  Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (William A. Calderwood)
  Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (William A. Calderwood)
  tip on restoring keyboard & display sanity (Derek Lieber)
  Re: advice/proposal on the lp patch (Paul Allen)
  Re: Reduce "gcc is broken" postings, was:HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (c t wilson)
  Re: INSTALLATION (FILETRANSFER) (Satish CHITTAMURU)
  MGR vs. X (was: Re: Ghostscript, printing of dvi...) (Paul Allen)
  Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a) (William A Jones)

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

From: [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: Linux doesn't recognize my HD
Date: 3 Apr 92 22:26:47 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Johan Rudolf Sundstr|m) writes:
>Hi
>
>I would like to use Linux but it doesn't recognize my HD. I have a SCSI drive
>and I think it is an Adaptec controller.(The machine is writing something
>about Adaptec AT/SCSI bios when booting). I have tried following things:

Adaptec support in the generic SCSI package is "RSN" - I have Tommy's driver
patched in, and a new release in source and binary form will be made after
this weekend.  Currently, the SCSI distribution only comes with 
Ultrastor 14f and Seagate ST01/02 support.

If you want to be immediately aware of any changes, new revisions, etc of
the SCSI support, subscribe to the linux-scsi mailing list.

The request address is 
[email-masked],
the mailing list linux-scsi.

An archive of the latest SCSI distribution is maintained at the same
site.

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

From: [email-masked] (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Subject: Re: What is linux?
Date: 3 Apr 92 21:44:00 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mark H. Wood) writes:
>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.

It's not due to some internal linux-design: linux does count on a 386+
processor, but there isn't any heavy kernel dependancy on the AT-bus. 
HOWEVER: most device driver will probably have to be changed to some
degree, but I haven't got the slightest idea of what is needed. 

The minimum needed to make a PS/2 port is a very thorough knowledge of
the interrupt and IO system of the MCA systems, as well as patience and
a feel for kernel programming (debugging is /hell/ when nothing works -
no debugger I know of can follow the code from real mode to protected
mode and paging-setup etc - you'd probably need an emulator).  I can
help with questions about the current code, but I have /no/ idea of what
the microchannel architecture changed with respect to the ISA standard,
so you are essentially on your own in that respect.  I assume DMA, A20
etc have changed - I know the keyboard seems to work differently etc... 

                Linus

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

From: [email-masked] (Farhan H Garib)
Subject: Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: 3 Apr 92 21:03:54 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

In article <[email-masked]> [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.
>
>If I keep running gcc, I will continue to get the same error.  However,
>I can usually fix the problem temporarily by switching to another terminal,
>logging in as root, and running sync or fsck.
>
>Does anyone have ANY idea as to what is going on and if there is a way to
>fix this?  Am I stuck until the next version of linux?
>
>Thank's for your help
>Stewart Baker
>[email-masked]

I am having the same problem.  A couple little programs that
would compile last week now produce this error.  I can't remember
what I have changed since the last compile that worked either.

-Greg

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

From: [email-masked] (Alex R.N. Wetmore)
Subject: make and terminal problems
Date: 3 Apr 92 21:23:18 GMT

What should the permissions bits be set to for make?  I used to get an error:
make: setuid: not owner (or something like that), now I get make:
setgid: whateverr.  I have tried setting make g+s but with no luck, any
ideas.

Also, is it just me or is the terminal emulation having some trouble
with cursor movement.  Also, sometimes I get it in a mode were the
terminal output all goes to one line, with no way of fixing it that I
can think of (except rebooting).  I have played around with setterm with
no luck.

alex

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

From: [email-masked] (Haohui Wang)
Subject: Using a modem under Linux?
Date: 3 Apr 92 22:16:17 GMT

I've ftp'ed pcomm12b from tsx-11.mit.edu
After I read the docs, i still have no idea which /dev/* to use.

Is /dev/ttys[1-4] the serial ports?

Is so how should I change the config files to using com4 (where the modem is)?

Thanks

howie

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

From: [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: Experience with Elite Group or Pony 386/33 motherboards ($99!)
Date: 3 Apr 92 22:20:22 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mark Saltzman) writes:
>
>Has anyone ever heard of or used Elite Group or Pony motherboards?
>A kind of shady looking operation is selling them locally for $99.  I
>would snap one up in a second if it can run linux and the performance is
>decent.  
>

At that price it doesn't include a CPU.  

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

From: [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Bootsector patch
Date: 3 Apr 92 23:29:30 GMT

here is a corrected bootsector patch, which adds the eliminated # sign.
This code just doesn't see as much use now that people don't write linux
to 360K disks... =8^)

*** bootsect.S  Sat Mar 14 08:45:32 1992
--- bootsect.S.orig     Tue Feb 25 23:48:06 1992
***************
*** 317,322 ****
--- 317,324 ----
  print_loop:
        push    cx              ! save count left
        call    print_nl        ! nl for readability
+ 
+       cmp     cl, #5
        jae     no_reg          ! see if register name is needed
        
        mov     ax, #0xe05 + 0x41 - 1

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

From: [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
Subject: Re: Reduce "gcc is broken" postings, was:HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 92 23:32:57 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>
>   From: [email-masked] (Karl R. Buck)
>   Date: 3 Apr 92 06:55:26 GMT
>
>   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.
>
>GCC 1.40 should be quite stable.  GCC v2 is still in beta test, and so
>of course it is not quite as reliable as we would all like it to be.  I
>wouldn't say that the compiler is "fast becoming the biggest source of
>problems with Linux."  GCC 1.40 for Linux has been unchanged since
>version 0.10 or 0.12.
>
>                                               - Ted

Even 2.1 is still pre-beta (Hopefully it will become beta this
weekend.) It is quite stable. I have dumped gcc 1.40. I am using it to
compile everything. Chances are some programs you are using is compiled
with gcc 2.1 (kernel is the one.)

H.J.

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

From: [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student)
Subject: Re: Help, can't compile 0.95a!
Date: 3 Apr 92 23:27:30 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Linus Benedict Torvalds) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Bill Bogstad) writes:
>>

[stuffs deleted]

>
>With the advent of an official gcc-2.1 (this weekend?), people might

A beta, but should quite stable.

>want to change to that one: note however that gcc-2.1 is about twice as
>big as 1.40, so it's going to be slower on machines that swap...  People
>with just 2M of mem might not want to upgrade (*).  I like the changes
>to 2.1: the code quality seems to be a lot better (esp floating point). 

I heard somebody run 2.1 with 2MB RAM.

>
>On a slightly related note: the as-binary in newgcc has been reported by
>several people to have problems.  Getting as from the original
>gcc-distribution by me (gccbin.tar.Z) might be a good idea if you have
>problems with the newgcc version.
>

There will be another file, called binutils.tar.Z, when 2.1 beta is
released. You can get this if you have problem with the old one.

>               Linus
>
>(*) Even with only 2M of mem, using gcc-2 has it's good points. The

Try it out when 2.1 is available.

>shared libraries should cut down on memory use as well as loading time
>and disk-space use. Shared libraries work even with 1.40 if you know how
>to build them, but 2.1 does it all automatically...

H.J.

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

From: [email-masked] (William A. Calderwood)
Subject: Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: 3 Apr 92 22:59:59 GMT

I think I read somewhere that linux doesn't support slave drives yet.
(but some one is working on it) I could be wrong.  Try making your
swap space on the master.

Bill,
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (William A. Calderwood)
Subject: Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: 3 Apr 92 23:00:59 GMT

I think I read somewhere that linux doesn't support slave drives yet.
(but some one is working on it) I could be wrong.  Try making your
swap space on the master.

Bill,
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Derek Lieber)
Subject: tip on restoring keyboard & display sanity
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1992 01:19:47 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked] (Derek Lieber)

Here's a handy shell script to clean up the mess caused by inadverently
getting the screen and keyboard into funny modes (typically by
copying a binary file to the screen). 

Name it something like "cls" and do a "chmod +x cls" before running it.

===============cut here==============
#!/bin/sh
# reset keyboard and screen modes to something reasonable

# keyboard
stty sane
  
# keyboard "application mode" off
echo "\033>"

# US character set
echo "\033(B"

# screen attributes off
echo "\033[0m"

# screen clear
echo "\033[2J"

# cursor home
echo "\033[H"

========= cut here =======

In a worst case scenario, your keyboard might be in raw mode
with echo disabled, so you'd have to invoke the above by typing
in the blind: "cls^J" (ie. use control-j instead of the enter key).

-- 
Derek Lieber
[email-masked]

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

From: Paul Allen <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: advice/proposal on the lp patch
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1992 03:03:55 GMT

[email-masked] (Peter Williams 8169821) wrote:

|According to the documentation comments in lp.c/.h machines are expected to
|return either 0 or the byte sent during initialization in lp_init if the port
|exists.
|
|This has not proved to be the case for at least two machines (the OCT33Mhz and
|the Gateway 2000 25Mhz) which returned 170 and 11 respectively. Both machines
|reliably returned 255 from nonexistent ports. If this is also the case for
|other machines then a test for the returned byte not being 255 may be a more
|universally acceptable test for the existence of a port.

Yes.  If the cpu reads from an address that is not recognised by any
device, the bus floats to a level that the cpu "sees" as all ones.  So,
you can say with certainty that a port exists if it returns something
other than 0xff.

Paul Allen
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (c t wilson)
Subject: Re: Reduce "gcc is broken" postings, was:HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: 4 Apr 92 02:59:53 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Theodore Ts'o) writes:
> 
>    From: [email-masked] (Karl R. Buck)
>    Date: 3 Apr 92 06:55:26 GMT
> 
>    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.
> 
> GCC 1.40 should be quite stable.  GCC v2 is still in beta test, and so
> of course it is not quite as reliable as we would all like it to be.  I
> wouldn't say that the compiler is "fast becoming the biggest source of
> problems with Linux."  GCC 1.40 for Linux has been unchanged since
> version 0.10 or 0.12.
> 
>                                               - Ted

gcc 1.40 is quite stable for me, and probably everybody else. people need to
realize that beta means unproven and possibly buggy.   I wonder what can be
done about this?

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

From: [email-masked] (Satish CHITTAMURU)
Subject: Re: INSTALLATION (FILETRANSFER)
Date: 4 Apr 92 02:04:25 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Kevin Cummings) writes:
 > In article <[email-masked]>, "23-MAR-1992 22:24:24.81" <[email-masked]> writes:
 > > Hi there!
 > > 
 > > I found Linux some days ago when searching for 386BSD. Rather good stuff but
 > > installation is quite difficult. My problem: 0.95a ist successfully installed
 > > on hd but i'm not able to transfer any files i've downloaded on my DOS-
 > > partition. After writing a file with rawrite i can't mount the disk on Linux.
 > > The mount command says: mount: error 16.
 > > Here is what i did:
 > >    writing an image of an file (ie. kermit.z) with rawrite under dos5:
 > >            rawrite
 > >             source: kermit.z
 > >             destination: a
 > >    booting Linux:
 > >            mount /dev/PS0 /mnt
 > >            -> mount: error 16

The mount is, ofcourse, incorrect. Reason: Tar archives cannot be mounted
(atleast not until a tar filesystem is written). Anyways, all you have to
do it just

        tar xvf /dev/PS0

 > Step one, uncompress kermit.tar.Z into kermit.tar.  If you are
 > doing this on a PC, get an MS-DOS compress/uncompress.  Otherwise,
 > do this on your system onto which you FTP'ed the compressed files,
 > before transferring them to your PC.

You don't need to uncompress the thing. Just rawrite the compressed
file to disk. When untarrint it, use the z option to tar.

        tar xvzf /dev/PS0

Saves you the bother of uncompressing and you can transfer larger
files this way (unless you want to uncompress, untar, compress, tar
and then rawrite).

        -csk.

-- 
Satish K. Chittamuru                            [email-masked]
Microsoft Corporation                           Redmond, WA
=====
Veni! Vidi! Visa! (I came! I saw! I purchased!).  --  Julius, Sieze Her!

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

From: Paul Allen <[email-masked]>
Subject: MGR vs. X (was: Re: Ghostscript, printing of dvi...)
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1992 04:05:02 GMT

[email-masked] (D.Bolla) wrote:
|In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Michael Haardt) writes:
[...stuff omitted...]
|>Concerning grafics: Is there anyone porting MGR?  I recently used
|>TeX-MGR, a TeX dvi previewer for MGR, on a Sun and it works pretty good.
|>It uses the printer fonts, so no extra preview fonts are needed.  That
|>should be reason enough to look at MGR, apart from the fact that it
|>doesn't need much CPU time or memory.
|
|I think that is worth waiting for X11.....

Reasonable people will have differing opinions on this, I think,
although I expect most will agree with Damiano.  Building X under Linux
is a bigger task than I'm willing to spend my leisure time on.  It
takes many hours to build on a SPARCstation with local disk.  I imagine
it will take on the order of *days* under Linux.  And that's if you've
got enough free disk to hold it all.  And then you've got to figure out
how to use it.  The O'Reilly series takes, what is it now, 8 volumes to
describe X??  Give me a break!  I do this for fun, not masochism!  :-)

While I do acknowledge the huge wealth of applications that exist for
X, MGR is appealing simply because it's small enough for one person to
comprehend and build in an afternoon.  I'm just waiting for the Linux
X port to appear.  When Linux can support X, it will have everything that's
needed for an MGR port, and will be a viable candidate to replace Minix
on my home system.

Paul Allen
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (William A Jones)
Subject: Re: HD timeout Errors (with .95a)
Date: 4 Apr 92 04:35:26 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (William A. Calderwood) writes:
>I think I read somewhere that linux doesn't support slave drives yet.
>(but some one is working on it) I could be wrong.  Try making your
>swap space on the master.
>

I have linux installed on my slave drive with DOS on the master and both
linux and DOS are running just fine.

Are there any problems with mounting file systems across two drives?
That's what I am planning to try this weekend and any advance warning
of potential trouble would be appreciated.

Bill Jones

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

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Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
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The current version of Linux is 0.95a released on March 17, 1992

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