Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #86
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 92 11:00:14 EDT

Linux-Activists Digest #86, Volume #2            Mon, 20 Apr 92 11:00:14 EDT

Contents:
  Partition tables suggestions... (Alex C. Liu)
  shared versions of tex/mf/dvips available (Peter Williams 8169821)
  A new game port, and mtools problems... (Adam Justin Thornton)
  Re: A new game port, and mtools problems... (David Engel)
  linux vs. 386bsd (was Re: Any comments on Quantum 240A ??) (Kirby Hughes)
  Re: shared versions of tex/mf/dvips available (Peter Williams 8169821)
  Re: ESDI drives (Charles Hedrick)
  gdb still isn't working (Charles Hedrick)
  Re: telecomm in Linux, users (Demian A. Johnston)
  Re: Yet another X question (Curtis Yarvin)
  Re: Some Questions Before Taking The Plunge. (Drew Eckhardt)
  Re: Some Questions Before Taking The Plunge. (Jim Winstead Jr.)
  Re: 850 gig extended*2 partition on 300 meg drive?  ;-) (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
  Re: gdb still isn't working (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
  Some Q's... (BATES, ROBERT PATRICK)
  Re: Graphics and IPC questions... (Alex R.N. Wetmore)

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

From: [email-masked] (Alex C. Liu)
Subject: Partition tables suggestions...
Date: 19 Apr 1992 16:54:41 -0700

I was wondering, would it be possible to implement logical partitions
within a Linux physical partition?  This would help us get around the
4 partition limit in MS-DOS.  The idea would be simmilar to what
MS-DOS does with the Extended Partition can be partitioned into
Logical drives.

(BTW, is anybody implementing SysV style IPC?  Is it gonna be in the
next release? :)

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
Alejandro Liu           |EMail: [email-masked] |All mispellings are intentional
3131 Mc Clintock #373F  |Voice: 213-745-2431 |Anything mentioned here is not
Los Angeles, CA 90007   |                    |necessarily true.

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

From: [email-masked] (Peter Williams 8169821)
Subject: shared versions of tex/mf/dvips available
Date: 19 Apr 92 23:53:31 GMT

*.a files for shared versions of tex/mf/dvi programs are available in
texmf.a.tar.Z and dvips.a.tar.Z in pub/linux at archsci.arch.su.oz.au 
(129.78.66.1)

Makefiles are included (just change the target directory for the binaries)

Remember tex, latex and slitex are created by linking to virtex and mf is
created by linking to virmf.

-- 
Peter Williams                |e-mail: [email-masked]
Key Centre for Design Quality |phone: +61-2-692 2053 or +61-2-660 6156
University of Sydney          |+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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

From: [email-masked] (Adam Justin Thornton)
Subject: A new game port, and mtools problems...
Date: 19 Apr 92 23:26:04 GMT

I'm using the mtools.a supplied with DLE.tar.Z in the gcc2.1 distribution,
and I have C defined as /dev/hda1 and D as /dev/hdb1, which is where they
are.  However, when I try mtools <anything> it gives me mtools: command not
found error message.  What am I missing?  Is there some syntax I should be
aware of?

Second, I compiled dungeon (zork) last night; no problems, worked straight out
of the box.  Once I get mtools straightened out or figure out how to get my
serial line to dial out, I'll upload it (the tar.Z file I'll upload has 
all source and a statically linked binary, but you'll have to edit the makefile
and recompile if you want the Great Debugging Tool).

Third, I got /dev/lp as char. device, major 6 minor 1 (LPT1:), which is an
HPIIP.  When I compiled the lp package, all worked OK, but catting stuff to the
printer causes it to be eaten (nothing ever appears).  If someone has a working
printcap that fixes this, it'd be really cool.  When I try to manually invoke
lpd it tells me the lock file exists, even though the one in /etc/printcap
manifestly doesn't.  I'm using the .95c+ kernel.

Help would be appreciated.

Adam
-- 
"Adam Thornton plays the homosexual Horatio without succumbing to _too_ many
 cliched stereotypes.  His Horatio, Hamlet's bosom companion...has a penchant
 for cream dresses and thigh-high black leather boots." | [email-masked]
Rice and I don't share opinions, thankfully. | Retry Student A | 64,928 | ;-)

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

From: [email-masked] (David Engel)
Subject: Re: A new game port, and mtools problems...
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1992 01:49:33 GMT

[email-masked] (Adam Justin Thornton) writes:
: I'm using the mtools.a supplied with DLE.tar.Z in the gcc2.1 distribution,
: and I have C defined as /dev/hda1 and D as /dev/hdb1, which is where they
: are.  However, when I try mtools <anything> it gives me mtools: command not
: found error message.  What am I missing?  Is there some syntax I should be
: aware of?

As described in README-DLE, you need to create symlinks to mtools for
each of the mtools commands.

David
-- 
David Engel                        Optical Data Systems, Inc.
[email-masked]                      1101 E. Arapaho Road
(214) 234-6400                     Richardson, TX  75081

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

From: [email-masked] (Kirby Hughes)
Subject: linux vs. 386bsd (was Re: Any comments on Quantum 240A ??)
Date: 20 Apr 92 01:25:27 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Scott Silverstein MD) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ted Manos) writes:
>
>> I'm getting ready to get 386BSD 0.0 myself
>
>I have little enough faith in 1.0 releases, let alone 0.0 releases...
>

Could someone please tell me which (free) unix I should get for my pc.
I know about linux from reading every note in here since this group started;
it sounds really good, but I'd like to know why I should use it instead
of, say, 386bsd (which I know nothing about).

Thanks,
Kirby Hughes

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

From: [email-masked] (Peter Williams 8169821)
Subject: Re: shared versions of tex/mf/dvips available
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1992 01:58:17 GMT

just a postscript to my previous message:

the shared binary files (when linked with the -s option) are much smaller than
the corresponding *.a files in most cases.

-- 
Peter Williams                |e-mail: [email-masked]
Key Centre for Design Quality |phone: +61-2-692 2053 or +61-2-660 6156
University of Sydney          |+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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

From: [email-masked] (Charles Hedrick)
Subject: Re: ESDI drives
Date: 20 Apr 92 02:11:12 GMT

[email-masked] (Kayvan Sylvan) writes:

>Is this true (partition sizes limited to 64MB)??? If that's the case
>it would be a shame. What about those of us who have larger drives?

The problem is that Linux is using the Minix file system, which is
limited to 64MB.  There's work going on to do large file systems.
However now that extended partitions work, it shouldn't be a big
problem.  Just create a big extended partition with a bunch of logical
partitions that are 64M or smaller.  In 95c or later Linux should be
able to handle them fine.  The public-domain partition programs don't
seem to be able to make extended partitions, but fdisk in DOS should
work fine.

The idea is that you make file systems on each of the logical
partitions, and then stick mount commands in /etc/rc.  Once you've
done that, all your disk space will be accessible.  The only serious
problem is that you have to worry about splitting up your usage
evenly across several 64MB pieces.  But that should hold you until
the larger file systems are working.

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

From: [email-masked] (Charles Hedrick)
Subject: gdb still isn't working
Date: 20 Apr 92 02:23:04 GMT

I've been trying to get gdb working.  The problem is more subtle than
I had first thought.  It worked fine up to 0.95b.  However as of 0.95c
and 0.95c+, it stopped working.  My main problem is that breakpoints
don't work.  It's hard to be sure, but it looks like when the program
comes to a breakpoint, typically it gets segmentation fault, though
sometimes I also see the program terminate with signal 5 (breakpoint).
At first I assumed that this was because of changes in the header
files, such as a.out.h, but I've built 0.95c+ with the old a.out.h and
that doesn't fix it.

At this point I can't even tell whether the problem is in gdb or the
kernel.  I'm hoping the folks who did gdb and ptrace in the first
place can look into this, since trying to learn the innards of gdb,
ptrace, and signal handling could take quite some time...  I'd
be happy to test any fixes.

By the way, even in the working kernel, gdb doesn't trap errors.  When
a program blows up, it's supposed to trap to the debugging, so you can
look around.  It doesn't do that.  I think die, in trap.c, needs to
check whether the program is being debugged or not, and do something
different.

Finally, gdb seems to lose control over the program being debugged
if my shell is tcsh.  It works only with bash.

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

From: [email-masked] (Demian A. Johnston)
Subject: Re: telecomm in Linux, users
Date: 20 Apr 92 02:36:56 GMT

I had this problem before.  I had found that by using the dial command I
was all set.  This is a wild guess but I would imagine it is cause by
and noninitialized serial port.  That is, stty speed 2400 </dev/ttys?
>/dev/ttys?

Thats whats worked with me and Kermit...

                                                  Demian 
                                              --->  [email-masked]
                                              --->  [email-masked]
                                              --->  [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Re: Yet another X question
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1992 03:44:55 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Adam Thompson) writes:
>In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student) writes:
>
>>From my own experience, a real X11R4 can take as little as 10MB to run.
>>on a 386.
>
>Perhaps you're assuming he doesn't want to compile it :-)
> 
>According to the docs in the R5 distribution, the source tree untars to
>roughly 150-200 Megs.  To compile, expect to need at least another 100Meg.

Yes, but this is the fault of stupid makefiles that leave .o's lying
around.  If you're clever and know what you're doing, you should be able to
build it utility by utility, and I doubt that all the object and source for
any one utility is more than a few megs.

The reason X is such a hog is that its designers assumed people have a few
hundred megs of disk lying around to waste.

c

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

From: [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: Some Questions Before Taking The Plunge.
Date: 20 Apr 92 04:33:35 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Steve Frampton) writes:
>Hi everyone.
>
>Last night I switched hard drives around, now I have my 40 MB as MS-DOS 
>drive C:, and my 80 MB hard drive has been reformatted and it's DOS 
>partition removed (as far as MS-DOS is concerned it doesn't exist).
>
>I have been following the messages on this newsgroup, I have read the 
>beginners guide, the installation instructions, and the FAQ's, and am now 
>ready to take the plunge.
>
>I understand that I can use a hard disk partitioning tool that comes on 
>the 'root' disk (the name escapes me at the moment), then I would use 
>'mkfs' and then 'mount' the file system to get Linux installed on my 80 
>MB hard drive (it's a Seagate ST1102A IDE drive).
>

Makesure you have atleast 2 partitions on the 80M drive, 
and that none of them are >= 64M, as that's the limit for the minix file
system.

>Is the above basically correct?  Is there a guide somewhere that explains 

Yes.

>how to add users, etc.?  Has anybody met with success with regard to 

It's under development.

>running Waffle under Linux?
>
>One thing concerns me, however...once I install Linux on my 80 MB hard 
>drive, MUST I continue to boot up Linux under floppy drive?  Most 

You must have a small partition on your first physical hard disk 
with a "miniroot" - ie /vmunix, /etc/config, /etc/disktab, 
and /shoelace if you want to boot Linux off of the hard disk.

Either switch the disks so the 80M is the first physical disk,
and put all your linux stuff there, a small C: partition
for DOS, and use Winiboot to select what you boot, or put a 
mini-linux partition on the 40M drive, and use Winiboot on it.

>implementations of Unix that I have seen have, upon boot-up, displayed a 
>'boot' prompt -- the user could type DOS to enter MS-DOS, or <Enter> (or 
>just wait a few seconds) to go into Unix...is there anything like this 
>available for Linux?  I really hate the idea of have to use a floppy all 
>the time (and yet I still want to be able to jump into MS-DOS on those 
>rare occasions).

shoelace and winiboot.

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

From: [email-masked] (Jim Winstead Jr.)
Subject: Re: Some Questions Before Taking The Plunge.
Date: 20 Apr 92 05:35:37 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Drew Eckhardt) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Steve Frampton) writes:
>>One thing concerns me, however...once I install Linux on my 80 MB hard 
>>drive, MUST I continue to boot up Linux under floppy drive?  Most 
>
>You must have a small partition on your first physical hard disk 
>with a "miniroot" - ie /vmunix, /etc/config, /etc/disktab, 
>and /shoelace if you want to boot Linux off of the hard disk.
>
>Either switch the disks so the 80M is the first physical disk,
>and put all your linux stuff there, a small C: partition
>for DOS, and use Winiboot to select what you boot, or put a 
>mini-linux partition on the 40M drive, and use Winiboot on it.

Another possibility is to get bootlin.zip, which was posted to
comp.os.linux, and use that to boot Linux from the DOS partition - I
just switched over to this today, and I have to say it's great.  There
is the minor problem of it printing garbage instead of the 'Press
enter for SVGA' message, but that's relatively minor compared to how
much easier it makes life.

Otherwise, my root partition, which has everything except /tmp and
/usr, is only about 2 megs.  I would recommend something like 4 megs,
just to make sure you have enough room.  (Mine's actually 15 megs, but
only has 2 megs in it - time to repartition. :)
-- 
Jim Winstead Jr. (CSci '95)    | "Catch a fish!"
Harvey Mudd College            |  -Geddy Lee,
[email-masked] |   San Diego Sports Arena
Disclaimer: Mine, not theirs!  |   January 20, 1992

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

From: [email-masked] (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Subject: Re: 850 gig extended*2 partition on 300 meg drive?  ;-)
Date: 20 Apr 92 05:51:29 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Chris Waters) writes:
>
>Truly inconsequential, but I thought y'all might find this amusing.  I
>just tried the .95c+ bootimage out at tsx-11 (I had been using .95a),
>and all of a sudden I get the following report from fdisk:

[ "somewhat" erraneous output deleted ]

The old fdisk messes up extended partitions (as did the old kernel), and
shouldn't be used. Not that it does any harm, as the old fdisk only
reads from the disk, but as you saw, it doesn't exactly give good
results.

With 0.95c+, the available partitions are reported at bootup, so the
need for a fdisk is less, but I hope the next release will contain one
that works correctly. 

                Linus

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

From: [email-masked] (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Subject: Re: gdb still isn't working
Date: 20 Apr 92 08:51:43 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Charles Hedrick) writes:
>I've been trying to get gdb working.  The problem is more subtle than
>I had first thought.  It worked fine up to 0.95b.  However as of 0.95c
>and 0.95c+, it stopped working.

Yes, it's a bug in the kernel.  It was there already in 0.95b and
earlier, but those had a (buggy) workaround that made it work for most
things anyway.  The problem was that not all kernel mode -> user mode
changes checked the error conditions, so things like breakpoints didn't
work too well. 

My personal version handles this correctly (as well as doing some other
things in a cleaner manner), but I'm not quite ready for a new release
yet.  I could make YAAR (yet another alpha-release) or just mail
interested parties the fixes needed - mail me if you're interested, and
depending on the number of messages I get I'll make it a new release. 

Here's a preview of 0.96 (* means already implemented):

* truncate/ftruncate/fchmod/fchown system calls

* io-bitmap allowing user processes controlled access to io-ports (thanks to
  obz - needed for X)

* mmap for /dev/mem - (thanks to obz) allows X etc to use the frame buffers

* the signal-handling fixes needed for gdb

- multiple shared libraries (pmacdona)

- cleaned up special files: partly implemented already

and probably some other minor fixes.

                Linus

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

From: [email-masked] (BATES, ROBERT PATRICK)
Subject: Some Q's...
Date: 20 Apr 92 11:04:00 GMT

OK - First things first.  I just read a note that said that the Minix system 
wouldn't handle any partitions larger than 64MB.  Is this in reference to the 
Linux partition, or any partitions? (Just curious - I'm running Linux on 30MB 
and DOS under 100MB.)  

Next question - When I get these patches from tsx-11.mit.edu, how do I go about 
incorporatin' them into my current version (I just got 0.95a up Fri and got the 
0.95c.patch from MIT tonight)?

Third and final - Is there a way I can get the .tar.Z files from an FTP site 
and d/l to my DOS machine (since most of my InterNet work is done offa my VAX 
account from my DOS apps), then somehow port them into Linux to uncompress?  I 
DO have a Sun account, but it's on the other side of campus, where I seldom 
ever go... However, I will if I have no other alternative (say, a comm package 
for Linux that I could use???)

Thanks,
Rob.

==============================================================================
Robert Bates                        Disclaimer:
[email-masked]                   "I make no claims..."
Texas A & M University
==============================================================================

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

From: [email-masked] (Alex R.N. Wetmore)
Subject: Re: Graphics and IPC questions...
Date: 20 Apr 92 14:31:20 GMT

Excerpts from netnews.comp.os.linux: 18-Apr-92 Re: Graphics and IPC
questi.. by Brian Chojnowski@osiris 
> >Ugh. Isn't that a step backward?  Why create a completely new,
> >nonstandard, *local-only*, graphics library?  I don't think there is
> >much chance that people will write programs for Linux that use your
> >direct-to-screen library.  To put it bluntly, if you want to fiddle
> >with direct hardware access assembler routines, stick to DOS.  Even if
> >you don't need networked graphics, I'm certain a significant fraction
> >of the Linux community wants it.
>  
> I dont intend on making a local only system. What I do want to avoid is the
> system requirements of X. I dont think there are any X telnet programs for
> the 286. I already have an application, and Unix would be a good multi-user
> platform for it, but it requires characterset based graphics.

Why not implement these in vt100 mode, rather then with direct screen
writes then?  Linux seems to have very fast terminal emulation (at least
on my 386/16 with a very old Paradise EGA), and you might as well take
advantage of those using termcap.  That way people on terminals (and
telnet sessions, when those exist), can use the software too.  It also
doesn't restrict the software to linux, but allows it to work on any
other unix platform (in theory at least).

alex

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

** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **

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to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:

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

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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
******************************