Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #92
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 09:45:14 EDT

Linux-Activists Digest #92, Volume #2            Wed, 22 Apr 92 09:45:14 EDT

Contents:
  pre-0.96 (was Re: gdb still isn't working) (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
  Re: cpio doesn't accept multi-volume archives (Douglas E. Quale)
  Question - Boot Linux from HD (Elvis Leung)
  A test post to comp.os.linux (System PRIVILEGED Account)
  Re: timezone support, date, CMOS clock support: archive sites please note (Charles Hedrick)
  dvips.a.tar.Z fixed + new directory organization at archsci.arch.su.oz.au (Peter Williams 8169821)
  Mail access to list. (jim wiegand)
  Re: gdb(1) and ptrace(2) (david nugent)
  Re: Yet another X question (Steve Sykes)
  Result of porting 'f2c' and 'ispell3.00.07' (Rob Hooft)
  Is there an archive server for the linux files ? (Elvis Leung)
  HD boot using shoelace. HELP! (Lars Lindner)
  Re: How to change the path : Followup (Leslie Griffiths (Griff))
  Re: Miscellaneous questions. (Joerg Pommnitz)
  Announcement: SYSV init, shutdown, last, and more... (Peter Orbaek)

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

From: [email-masked] (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: pre-0.96 (was Re: gdb still isn't working)
Date: 21 Apr 92 23:15:10 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Linus Benedict Torvalds) writes:
> [ trace not working in gdb ]
>
>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. 

Ok, the response seems to make a new pre-release appropriate: I have
uploaded "pre-0.96.tar.Z" to tsx-11 and nic. 

Here is what the pre-release contains:

- truncate/ftruncate/fchmod/fchown system calls

        note that there aren't any library functions for these, so they
        aren't very useful yet...

        [f]truncate needed a change in the logic of the internal
        truncate VFS call - anybody that has any nonstandard filesystem
        probably needs to look it up. 

- io-bitmap syscalls giving root-processes access to selected io ports
  from user space.  There is a "ioperm()" system call that lets the
  process select which ports it wants to enable/disable (all ports
  disabled as default) as well as a (standard sysv?) ioctl interface
  that X uses.

        again, no library stubs, but it allows things like reading and
        setting the cmos clock without using /dev/port, as well as
        control over the VGA registers... 

- mmap for /dev/mem

        more things needed for X...

- the signal-handling fixes needed for gdb

        These aren't yet complete: serial lines still send signals under
        interrupts that can result in problems (ie ptrace doesn't
        correctly get them), but that's pretty unlikely (and will be
        fixed in the final 0.96).  Breakpoints should work etc.. 

- multiple shared libraries

        Up to 6 simultaneous shared libraries/process: the patches were
        originally by pmacdona, but they were heavily changed by me, and
        I think they work in a more natural manner now.  One user-level
        change is that the libraries are now checked for read and
        execute permissions for safety-reasons.

- cleaned up special files.

        read/write/ioctl no longer has special-case code: it is all
        handled with tables to functions.  This will mean that the SCSI
        patches won't patch in quite cleanly into 0.96: you'll need to
        add the code that sets up the functions. 

        Again: device drivers and vfs-filesystem hackers need to look
        into the changes, although they are pretty logical (earlier
        versions just didn't implement all the vfs-routines)

        Note that the vfs-code for select is still not used: select is
        hardcoded for the devices it supports right now. 

- ptrace() has a new interface

        as gdb for versions < 0.95c don't work on the new version, and
        gdb won't work very well at all on 0.95c[+], there was no reason
        not to break ptrace.  Thus 0.96 has a new calling convention for
        ptrace, and the old ptrace library function no longer works. 
        I'm including the new ptrace library function at the end of this
        post. 

- mount() takes 4 arguments, and checks that only the super-user can
  mount/umount things. 

        Happily this shouldn't break any old binaries.

- some general cleanups

I've made the pre-release available only as pure source code: no diffs,
no binary. The reason is that most people that needed this release want
it for the gdb-fixes: and they should have no problem recompiling the
kernel.  Others just have to wait for the real 0.96.

Changes that are NOT in this pre-release, but which I hope to have in
the real 0.96:

        - more include-file cleanups - I'm still working on these

        - the wd8003 driver and hopefully some other parts of biro's
          config.

        - select() using the vfs-tables.

And possibly bugfixes that people find in this pre-release...

                Linus

========== library ptrace.c (wants gcc=2.1) ==========
#define __LIBRARY__
#include <time.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int ptrace(int request, int pid, int addr, int data)
{
        long ret;
        long res;

        if (request > 0 && request < 4)
                (long *)data = &ret;
        __asm__ volatile ("int $0x80"
                :"=a" (res)
                :"0" (__NR_ptrace),"b" (request), "c" (pid),
                 "d" (addr), "S" (data)
                : "si","bx","cx","dx");
        if (res >= 0) {
                if (request > 0 && request < 4) {
                        errno = 0;
                        return (ret);
                }
                return (int) res;
        }
        errno = -res;
        return -1;
}

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

From: [email-masked] (Douglas E. Quale)
Subject: Re: cpio doesn't accept multi-volume archives
Date: 22 Apr 92 04:16:08 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Andrew Moore) writes:
>
>cpio will prompt for "next tape" but immediately dies upon pressing
>ENTER. 
>I am using the command:
>cpio -itv </dev/at0
>
>Under Coherent, multi-volume archives require using the raw device.
>If this is true of Linux as well, what are the raw device names/numbers?

Unfortunately Linux does not yet have raw disk devices.

--
Doug Quale
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Elvis Leung)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Question - Boot Linux from HD
Date: 22 Apr 92 04:11:16 GMT

Is it possible to install and boot linux from a HD partition?

-- 
================================================================================
 Sek-Kit E. Leung                               Fax:   +61-6-2836860
 Computer Power Software                        Voice: +61-6-2836777
 Multimedia Research Group                      ACSnet: [email-masked]

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

From: System PRIVILEGED Account <root>
Subject: A test post to comp.os.linux
Reply-To: root
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1992 05:15:25 GMT

I am testing the mail feed to comp.os.linux.  Please ignore this message
(assuming it actually gets out!)

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

From: [email-masked] (Charles Hedrick)
Subject: Re: timezone support, date, CMOS clock support: archive sites please note
Date: 22 Apr 92 03:35:44 GMT

[email-masked] (Kevin Cummings) writes:

>I happend to find timebin.tar.Z on tsx-11 yesterday, and downloaded
>to my LINUX machine.  I untarred it, configured it, and moved the
>binaries to /usr/bin and /usr/lib.  I then ran date, and it told me
>it was Mon 20 Apr, 20:xx:xx 1992.  No time zone info, even though
>/usr/lib/localtime was present.  I then ran clock to see what was in
>my CMOS clock, and it was Sat 20 Apr, 14:xx:xx EDT 1992.

I hope you mean /usr/lib/zoneinfo/localtime was present.  Otherwise
you don't have time zones.

I'm not sure whether the day of the week is worth worrying about.  It
wasn't set properly on my machine either.  I didn't know enough about
DOS to feel safe in ignoring it, so I display it and set it
appropriately.  But I have a suspicion that DOS may not be using it.
Certainly Unix doesn't care.  clock -s will set the Unix date based on
the date and time from the clock.  It will ignore the day of the week,
since that is computed from the date.

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

From: [email-masked] (Peter Williams 8169821)
Subject: dvips.a.tar.Z fixed + new directory organization at archsci.arch.su.oz.au
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1992 01:35:34 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Peter Williams 8169821) writes:
|> The dvips.a.tar.Z that I posted yesterday seems to be broken so I have
|> withdrawn it temporarily. Sorry!
|> 
|> Should be mended and back up tomorrow.
|> 
|> -- 
|> Peter Williams                |e-mail: [email-masked]
|> Key Centre for Design Quality |phone: +61-2-692 2053 or +61-2-660 6156
|> University of Sydney          |+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The mended version is now in directory pub/linux/tex-etc along with all of the
other tex related stuff at archsci.arch.su.oz.au (129.78.66.1).
This version of dvips does not work with font libraries whereas the statically
linked version in dvips.tar.Z does.

N.B. this is a different directory than previously posted (neatness) and now
includes a README file which gives a very brief description of the various files'
contents.

-- 
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: jim wiegand <[email-masked]>
Subject: Mail access to list.
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1992 06:00:37 GMT

hi all;
       It seems as if I am having some trouble posting messages.
       Sorry to waste bandwidth.

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

From: [email-masked] (david nugent)
Subject: Re: gdb(1) and ptrace(2)
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 13:18:06 +1000
Reply-To: [email-masked]

enewton@uucp (Eric C. Newton x2092) writes:

>    1.  gdb does not work with the new .95c+ kernel.  
[...]
> 
> I have the whole beastie compiled on my machine at home.  The problem
> I have is that the ptrace() function is not in libc.a.  I wrote a
> dummy ptrace() function to link the program.
> 
>    3.  GDB 4.5 has been released.  Is anyone building this?>
> 
> Yes.  I will after 4.4 works.
> 
> Anyone care to volunteer the sources for making a ptrace system
> call?

Linus has detailed some further fixes that were necessary, and I now have
a working gdb 4.5 binary here. It does require those kernel fixes to run.
When the new kernel is posted for download, I'll be uploading the gdb 4.5
binary, cdiffs to the 4.5 distribution and documentation (to tsx-11.mit.edu).

..............................................................................
david nugent          Public Access Usenet        "Only Nixon can go to China"
[email-masked]     +61-3-792-3507                - ancient Vulcan proverb
3:632/400@fidonet, 58:4100/1@intlnet, 199:4242/5@rainbownet, 33:300/6@admin
PO Box 260, Endeavour Hills, Victoria, Australia, 3802.

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

From: [email-masked] (Steve Sykes)
Subject: Re: Yet another X question
Date: 21 Apr 92 18:20:26 GMT

I'm very keen to get something like X up.  At the moment my biggest
problem is a lack of knowledge on how to implement i/o mapping.
Rather than thinking up some obscure and probably bad way to allow
user processes access to io-space, I was hoping someone could point me
in the right direction.  I think it's normally done as an ioctl call
but have now idea how to implement it.

Any help gratefully received
Please reply by e-mail

Laurence Culhane
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Rob Hooft)
Subject: Result of porting 'f2c' and 'ispell3.00.07'
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1992 07:07:14 GMT

Hello all,

As my first post to this group (listening for a few months already)
I would like to share my experience on installing 2 packets.

1) f2c, ftp'ed from research.att.com, compiles ok, but if it is run
   with the shared libraries, it crashes on a segmentation violation.
   static libraries work ok. My main problem is that I do not understand
   the full error message.

   Executables from fortran, produced with the f2c/gcc2.1 pair do not
   terminate. Only when I press the ENTER key after the program stops,
   the prompt is returned.

2) ispell3.00.07 compiles great! I've never seen a workstation 
   compiling this software in just under a minute real time!
   Running ispell from the command-line works really very well.
   Running ispell from EMACS, however, takes AGES! May have something
   to do with interprocess communication?

I'll have to look into the problems I mentioned. I just thought: If I
post it, may be somebody can assist me in locating them (I'm lazy).

I'd like to compliment Linus: It is unbelievable how LINUX feels on my 
ETEQ486/33 with 16Mb of memory. During compilations of medium-sized
packages with GCC2.1, my 340Mb IDE drive led only flashes every 30 
seconds for update.... Compilations run at 98+% of the CPU.....

Greetings, Rob Hooft, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
-- 
Rob Hooft, Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research, 
Chemistry department University of Utrecht, the Netherlands
[email-masked] [email-masked] [email-masked] [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Elvis Leung)
Subject: Is there an archive server for the linux files ?
Date: 22 Apr 92 07:08:42 GMT

Subject says it all.
-- 
================================================================================
 Sek-Kit E. Leung                               Fax:   +61-6-2836860
 Computer Power Software                        Voice: +61-6-2836777
 Multimedia Research Group                      ACSnet: [email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Lars Lindner)
Subject: HD boot using shoelace. HELP!
Date: 22 Apr 92 07:44:36 GMT

The question have probably already been answered but i could not find it
so here comes the question again.

I have installed shoelace on my computer, changed /etc/config to contain
" boot /vmlinux", made a file /vmlinux with "dd if=/dev/at0 of=/vmlinux"
with my boot floppy in drive A.
After the commands "laceup /dev/hda2 wini" and "laceup -w 2 /dev/hda"
i tryed to reboot and here is what a got:

/dev/fd0 not found - guessing major and minor device numbers.

processor     = -1
ramimagedev   = 512 /dev/fd0
ramsize       = 0
rootdev       = 770 bootdet
scancode      = 13

Component       base    text   data   bss   stack symbols   model
shoelace      : 80000   5688   C0C    B80    91EC      0    ComI&D
Load Parts
kernel        : kernel not found

Load Image

And after that nothing happend. What have i done wrong. Is there something
wrong in the /etc/config or shall i use another way to create /vmlinux?

All help is appreciated.

[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Leslie Griffiths (Griff))
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: How to change the path : Followup
Date: 22 Apr 92 08:27:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Hongjiu Lu -- Graduate Student) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Matthew Jackson) writes:
>>A short while ago I posted a query on how to change the path. Attached are the
>>responses I received. I have not tried them as my Linux machine is at home and
>>my net access is at work. 
>>
>>It seems those who have had the same problem replied after they worked it out
>>and also some more familiar with Unix than myself replied too, for which I am
>>grateful.
>>
>>Anyway, I thought it would be of some use to others so I post a summary.
>>
>>Summary:      For historical reasons, the root user does not have the
>>              current directory in the path.
>
>WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. That is not for historical reasons. Do your
>homework about Unix. That is for security reason.
>
>>
>>              Under ash and bash, PATH=dir1:dir2:...
>>              Then export PATH
>>
>>              Under csh or tcsh, PATH=(dir1 dir2 ...)
>
>Please DO NOT DO THAT. KEEP THE WAY IT WAS.
>
>H.J.

Hmm. Actually, under bash/sh and other Bourne-like shells

        $ PATH=dir1:dir1:...
        $ export PATH

Under Csh, Tcsh and other C-shells

        % set path=( dir1 dir2 dir3 )

(In which case the environment variable PATH is automatically updated)

or

        % setenv PATH dir1:dir2:dir3

Which does it directly. Preferred method (I believe) is the former (i.e.
"set path=").

Above applies to sh, bash, csh, tcsh. Don't know about ash or others.

Cheers

-- 
Griff                           \\              [email-masked]
^^^^^                            :-=            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                //

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

Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
From: [email-masked] (Joerg Pommnitz)
Subject: Re: Miscellaneous questions.
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1992 10:38:59 GMT

[email-masked] (Scott Dunn) writes:

I'd like to ask the same question:

>2.     What is a working version of tar and un/compress?
>       A lot of problems seem to be solved by getting new versions of the
>       aforementioned.  However, nobody has indicated how to identify which
>       are the dodgy copies.
>       Sometimes when uncompressing it seems to get stuck in an infinite
>       loop which takes all system resources.  ie I can't login to another
>       terminal and kill the process.  Is this what is known as a 'race
>       condition' ?  Is this indicate a dodgy copy of un/compress ?

How can I fix these problems ?
What's the reason ?

I must say, I'm really glad somebody else ran into the same problem.
I was very angry that this would be a problem of my specific hardware.

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

From: [email-masked] (Peter Orbaek)
Subject: Announcement: SYSV init, shutdown, last, and more...
Date: 22 Apr 92 06:49:40 GMT

I just put

        /pub/Linux-source/admutil-1.0.tar.Z

on

        ftp.daimi.aau.dk (130.225.16.27)

It includes source for a better last(1) and setgrp(1) both by Michael Haardt,
plus a SYSV compatible init(8) program with runlevels and all.

This init was written by Miquel van Smoorenburg for Minix, and I ported it to 
Linux with little effort.

There's also a shutdown(8) program as well as passwd(1) and chsh(1).

You should be able to build the binaries with both gcc 1.40 and gcc 2.1.
Follow the instructions in the Makefile and README.

Be warned that the init program is fairly untested, and I don't use it myself.
It's very easy to lock your self out of the machine if you do something wrong
with init and the new inittab format, so be sure you know what you are doing
before you install the new init.

There's also a problem with putpwent(3) in the older versions of libc, and if
you don't fix this or use the newest gcc 2.1 libc (later than 10-Apr-92) then
chsh and passwd will trash the /etc/passwd file and make it hard to log into
the machine afterwards.

        - Peter ([email-masked])

--
Peter Orbaek ----------------- [email-masked]  |      ///
Hasle Ringvej 122, DK-8200 Aarhus N, DENMARK     |     ///
                                                 | \\\///
"Strong typing is for people with weak memories" |  \XX/

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

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