Subject: Linux-Development Digest #504
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 94 23:13:06 EST

Linux-Development Digest #504, Volume #1         Sat, 26 Feb 94 23:13:06 EST

Contents:
  Re: How to turn OFF hysnc and/or vsync? (for powersaving monitors) (Craig Groeschel)
  A driver for v3.4 Future Domain SCSI BIOS? (Kevin A. Kwast)
  Re: Linux Darkstar 0.99.15 #2 Sat Jan 1 21:36:13 MET 1994 Alpha ?? (Ruediger Berlich)
  Re: YP or NIS for linux? (Dominik Kubla)
  Re: Linux Darkstar 0.99.15 #2 Sat Jan 1 21:36:13 MET 1994 Alpha ?? (Dan Pop)
  Re: Linux Darkstar 0.99.15 #2 Sat Jan 1 21:36:13 MET 1994 Alpha ?? (     job)
  Re: Netmasks not on byte boundaries? (Charles Hedrick)
  Re: Specialix driver (Frank Lofaro)
  YP or NIS for linux? (Shannon Maclure)
  Re: Specialix driver (Doug DeJulio)
  Re: Specialix driver (Doug DeJulio)
  Re: Specialix driver (Doug DeJulio)
  gcc won't compile with a -g flag (HELP! (learning)) (Chuck Tellechea)
  Re: Is there support for HPFS? (Andrew Davison)
  Re: Linux locks up when swapping heavily (pl14,4Mb) (Peter Much)

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

From: [email-masked] (Craig Groeschel)
Subject: Re: How to turn OFF hysnc and/or vsync? (for powersaving monitors)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 00:06:52 GMT

Well, the 8514/A and friends (and maybe all VESA-compliant cards)
have a Display Control Register DISP_CNTL at 0x22e8, bits 0 to 7.
A 1 in bit 5 enables the display and a 1 in bit 6 disables it.  This
register controls other display attributes--such as interlace--as well,
and it is write-only, so you will have to know something about the current
video mode--so you can restore it--before you fiddle with this register.
-- 
Craig Groeschel <[email-masked]> | I'm available! BSCS, BSEE, Unix, C,
The essence of every art is its intensity. Keats | X, TeX, MC68K, will reloc.

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

From: [email-masked] (Kevin A. Kwast)
Subject: A driver for v3.4 Future Domain SCSI BIOS?
Date: 26 Feb 1994 13:16:57 -0600

I've always used Rickard Faith's v5.9 fdomain.c support, and it's worked
just wonderfully, so I got another Future Domain TMC-1680 for a new
system.  Unfortunately, the new card has a v3.4 BIOS (as opposed to my old
v3.2), and the fdomain.c driver doesn't recognize it.

This is my last ditch effort at finding someone who knows about this
problem, and I'm sure someone here must be able to point me in the right
direction.  I need a new version of Faith's fdomain.c driver, or some
other Future Domain support, or just a patch so that fdomain.c recognizes
the new BIOS.

Thanks for any help you can offer,
kevin
-- 
   [email-masked] (Kevin A. Kwast)   "The computer is your friend."

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

From: [email-masked] (Ruediger Berlich)
Subject: Re: Linux Darkstar 0.99.15 #2 Sat Jan 1 21:36:13 MET 1994 Alpha ??
Date: 26 Feb 1994 19:32:32 GMT

Philippe Steindl ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Hello LinuxDevelopers,

: I didn't find an answer to this in the FAQs or in the newsgroups:

: Are there any people working/interested on/in an Alpha port of Linux? With
: the upcoming PCI alpha boards with a cheap 21066 Alpha, very fast Linux
: boxes for the price of an 486 could be realised. Maybe this is only a dream
: and Linux can't be ported (I'm no coder, pardon :) ). What do others think of
: this idea, especially coders that could do it? If there is a "faq" about this,
: please mail me.

: thank you

: Philippe Steindl

Hi !
With all those new processors around I would expect
Intel to come up with a 'real' RISC-Processor one day
exclusevely for the PC-Market. No 8086-Compatibility no nothing.
This probably would lead to the thing that 8086-compatible 
Processors will vanish from the market which in turn
would force us to migrate to another platform with Linux
that day.
So I think that porting to other architectures, e.g.
keeping the architecture-dependant parts of the kernal small
is the only way to ensure the future of Linux.
Ruediger
[[email-masked]]
P.S. : Sorry, I'm no coder either, at least until now ...

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

From: [email-masked] (Dominik Kubla)
Subject: Re: YP or NIS for linux?
Date: 26 Feb 1994 23:17:22 GMT

There are already two implementations:
        yp-linux
        NYS
The first one can be found in any Slackware source archive, while the
second one is (at least) available fron nic.funet.fi in /pub/BETA
yp-linux is a port of the NetBSD implementation, while NYS is written
from scratch and features service switching between files, nis, nis+ and
hesiod. But it is not yet completed and will force you to recompile all
affected binaries while the yp-linux support is included in libc since
release 4.5.x

Cheers,
        Dominik
-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| eMail: [email-masked]                                     |
| sMail: Dominik Kubla, Lannerstra"se 53, 55270 Ober-Olm, F.R. of Germany |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
DISCLAIMER:  Everything written above are the expressed thoughts of the
author and in no way connected to 'Johannes Gutenberg Universit"at', Mainz
(Germany). This way, they do not have to care about what I say ...

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

From: [email-masked] (Dan Pop)
Subject: Re: Linux Darkstar 0.99.15 #2 Sat Jan 1 21:36:13 MET 1994 Alpha ??
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 23:16:22 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ruediger Berlich) writes:

>With all those new processors around I would expect
>Intel to come up with a 'real' RISC-Processor one day
>exclusevely for the PC-Market. No 8086-Compatibility no nothing.

Intel has already produced RISC processors without any 8086
compatibility, but nobody in PC business was fool enough to try to
build a PC with them. If a PC can't boot MSDOS, then it's not a PC :-)

Dan
-- 
Dan Pop 
CERN, CN Division
Email: [email-masked]
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

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

From: [email-masked] (     job)
Subject: Re: Linux Darkstar 0.99.15 #2 Sat Jan 1 21:36:13 MET 1994 Alpha ??
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 20:54:05 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ruediger Berlich) writes:
>Hi !
>With all those new processors around I would expect
>Intel to come up with a 'real' RISC-Processor one day
>exclusevely for the PC-Market. No 8086-Compatibility no nothing.

They already have.  the i750, i860, and i960's are all nice risc 
microprocessors.  It's just that intel hasn't been pushing them in the pc
arena (their main useage seems to be in the large parrallel computing 
projects).

>This probably would lead to the thing that 8086-compatible 
>Processors will vanish from the market which in turn
>would force us to migrate to another platform with Linux
>that day.
>So I think that porting to other architectures, e.g.
>keeping the architecture-dependant parts of the kernal small
>is the only way to ensure the future of Linux.
>Ruediger
>[[email-masked]]
>P.S. : Sorry, I'm no coder either, at least until now ...
>

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

From: [email-masked] (Charles Hedrick)
Subject: Re: Netmasks not on byte boundaries?
Date: 26 Feb 94 23:47:49 GMT

[email-masked] (Chuck Munro) writes:

>I know this has been discussed here recently, but I've been very late
>catching up with c.o.l.*, and my latest FAQ copy only has a mention of
>netmask restrictions.

>Currently I am led to believe that netmasks can only be set on whole-
>byte boundaries in Linux (pl15).  I did note some code in the network
>sources that included something like ">>8" to shift mask bits (I'm not
>a C-language guru, sorry).

There's no problem with odd netmasks under Linux.  If you don't
specify a netmask, it will use the standard ones, but the fancy
byte-oriented guessing code is no longer present.  The only case I
know of where it will not deal with netmasks correctly is ICMP
redirects.  In that case there's no netmask present, so it will assume
the standard ones.  This is a bug.  It's supposed to redirect only the
host.  (I'll try to get that fixed.)

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

From: [email-masked] (Frank Lofaro)
Subject: Re: Specialix driver
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 94 00:04:14 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Paul JY Lahaie) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Donald J. Becker) writes:
>
>>of the GPL obligations.  The difference in method by which a 'modules'
>>device driver is integrated with the remainder of the kernel (a run-time
>>linkage vs. a kernel-compile-time linkage) is minor and irrelevant.
>
>(Not intended to start a flame war or anything, but just interested in
>clarificaton)
>
>    Let's say I run Linux, and one of it's system calls is unique to the OS
>(It could be another OS like VSTa for example).  If I use that unique system
>call, would my code need to be GPLed under the GPL?  I'm not exactly sure if
>Linux has unique (non-public) syscalls, but couldn't that potentially cause
>problems?
>

It would NOT have to be GPL'd as far as I know. If it did, Linux would have 
such silly licensing to be forever nothing but a toy. I sincerely hope that 
would not be the case.

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

From: [email-masked] (Shannon Maclure)
Subject: YP or NIS for linux?
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 19:40:43 GMT

Does anyone know of any existing or future plans to implement
YP or NIS capabilities for linux?

Shannon Maclure
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Doug DeJulio)
Subject: Re: Specialix driver
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 00:51:04 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Kai Henningsen <[email-masked]> wrote:
>I personally think that whoever argues that working-only-with-GPL'd-soft- 
>makes-GPL'd has no leg to stand on.

Precedent:

NeXT wanted an Objective-C compiler, instead of the preprocessor that
Stepstone distributed at the time.  So, they wrote a bunch of
functions that when linked with the GCC source, produced an
Objective-C compiler.

They distributed these as .o files, not giving out the source code.
Anyone who wanted to could modify the actual GCC source, link it with
the Objective-C .o files, and get a new Objective-C compiler.  But you
weren't allowed to distribute the .o files or the final, linked
binary.

The FSF got mad and their lawyers contacted NeXTs lawers, or something
like that.  In the end it was determined that since you couldn't use
those .o files without linking them to GPLed sources, they were
obviously a derivative work and so they fell under the GPL as well.

The result: NeXT was forced to release their Objective-C compiler
under the GPL.  That's why GCC includes an Objective-C compiler today.

-- 
Doug DeJulio
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Doug DeJulio)
Subject: Re: Specialix driver
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 00:53:10 GMT

>>of the GPL obligations.  The difference in method by which a 'modules'
>>device driver is integrated with the remainder of the kernel (a run-time
>>linkage vs. a kernel-compile-time linkage) is minor and irrelevant.
>
>(Not intended to start a flame war or anything, but just interested in
>clarificaton)
>
>    Let's say I run Linux, and one of it's system calls is unique to the OS
>(It could be another OS like VSTa for example).  If I use that unique system
>call, would my code need to be GPLed under the GPL?  I'm not exactly sure if
>Linux has unique (non-public) syscalls, but couldn't that potentially cause
>problems?

That's my understanding, yes.  So, you should be *really* careful to
make sure you just use POSIX interfaces.  Then there should be no
problem.

-- 
Doug DeJulio
[email-masked]

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

Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
From: [email-masked] (Doug DeJulio)
Subject: Re: Specialix driver
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 00:59:53 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Chris Royle  <[email-masked]> wrote:
>OK, here's a thought for you all. Linux is wonderful (that wasn't it..).
>However, if it is ever to get anywhere in the world on a serious foot,
>people *must must must* be able to provide systems for it which use source
>which they do not wish to disclose -- eg Motif.

Please, tell me, what does "get anywhere in the world on a serious
foot" mean?

Why should I, as a simple computer hobbyist, care if Linux ever does
this?  I'm more concerned with making sure *I* have the source code to
everything I can possibly get the source code for.

-- 
Doug DeJulio
[email-masked]

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

From: [email-masked] (Chuck Tellechea)
Subject: gcc won't compile with a -g flag (HELP! (learning))
Date: 26 Feb 1994 17:25:08 -0500

Greetings,

I am learning to code in C under linux SLS 1.03 0.99.pl14 with
gcc 2.5.8, libc 4.5.19, libg++-2.5.3l, ld.so-1.4. I am going
through the O'Reilly & Associates Book "Practical C" the program
listings compile fine without a -g flag. However, gcc -g ???.c
causes all kinds of problems. Bellow is an example from Chpt 6,
on page 75.

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

#include <stdio.h>
char line [100];                /* line of data from the input */

int result;                     /* the result of the calculation */
char operator;                  /* operator the user specified */
int value;                      /* value specified after the operator */
main()
{
    result = 0;                 /* initialize the result */

    /* Loop forever (or until we hit the break statement) */
    while (1) {
        (void) printf("Result: %d\n", result);
        (void) fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin);
        (void) sscanf(line, "%c %d", &operator, &value);
        
        if (operator = '+' ) {
            result += value;
        } else {
            (void) printf("Unknown operator %c\n", operator);
        }
    }
}

****************************************************************************
Here is the Makefile
****************************************************************************

#
# Makefile for the program calc
#
# Turn on debugging
CFLAGS=-g -static
calc:calc.o
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o calc calc.o

****************************************************************************
Here is the compile buffer from emacs. I tried to compile with the -static
flag set incase there was some sort of problem with using the shared libs.
The results were the same without the -static flag set.
****************************************************************************

cd ~/dev/c-source/practical-c/pgm-6/
make -k 
cc -g -static   -c calc.c -o calc.o
cc -g -static -o calc calc.o
/usr/lib/libg.a(atexit.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(atexit.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(__brk.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(__setfpucw.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(malloc.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(malloc.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(malloc.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(malloc.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(free.o): Undefined symbol _mcount referenced from text segment
/usr/lib/libg.a(exit.o): More undefined symbol _mcount refs follow
make: *** [calc] Error 1

Compilation exited abnormally with code 1 at Sat Feb 26 16:34:33

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

What is going on here. Why does adding debugging symbols to the object code
cause this? How can I fix it? I would realy like to be able to compile with
a -g flag in order to learn how to use gdb, and to understand better how C
works.

I am seriously thinking about trashing this whole installation and downloading
the Slackware 1.1.3 distribution. Do you think that might be my problem?
Somewhere in all the upgrading to this system something my have got crossed up.
However, I have downloaded many programs sources which have compiled succes-
fully. I have also recompiled my kernel many times without a hitch.

Please send me email if you know how to fix this.

My internet addr:       [email-masked]

Regards,

-Chuck

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

From: [email-masked] (Andrew Davison)
Subject: Re: Is there support for HPFS?
Date: 27 Feb 1994 01:55:41 GMT

Tibor Polgar ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Is there support for HPFS as a VFS, similar to the support for FAT?  At first i
: thought not but in going though one of the standard ftp sites i noticed an
: article on HPFS in one of the doc directories.  Is someone working on this??

: -- 
: Tibor Polgar
: [email-masked], Amdahl Corp, ph.(408) 944-3500

: -- all disclaimers apply  --

At the moment the kernel supports a READ-ONLY HPFS file system. You'll need
to rebuild the kernel to get this. Just answer positive for the HPFS question 
when you  "make config".

Hopefully somebody is still working on the read/write fs...

Andy

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

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
From: [email-masked] (Peter Much)
Subject: Re: Linux locks up when swapping heavily (pl14,4Mb)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 17:25:57 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Nick Andrew) writes:

>>The second lockup came while compiling Elm 2.4.23. About halfway through
>>the 'make' the kernel emitted a message (sorry I didn't write it down)
>>regarding a SCSI timeout error. Lockup. Because gcc was running at the
>>time I assume it was swapping a lot as well.
>
>The message is:
>
>       SCSI host 0 timed out - aborting command

This seems to be a bug in the scsi driver.

We reported it here about some months ago, after we had verified it's
reproducibility.

Eric Youngdale, who did work inside the code, stated that this behaviour
would come through old and/or defective hardware.

We could reproduce the effect on the following different configurations
(the list is identical to the list of all scsi-equipped machines under
our access) with different versions of linux:

486sx25 isa
 + Galaxy DC800
 + ALPS 220 MB
 + Seagate 80 MB

386dx40
 + Adaptec 1542c
 + conner 60 MB
 + syquest sq555
 + toshiba x3301
 + hp 3940a

486dx50 EISA
 + Adaptec 1742
 + Seagate 3283N
 + Seagate 1096N
 + IBM Tandberg 525MB Tape

486dx2/66 VLB
 + Adaptec 1542b
 + WD HDD
 + Conner HDD

486dx33
 + Galaxy
 + Seagate 340 MB
 + HP 3940a

386sx25
 + WD7000
 + Conner 100 MB
 + Micropolis 140 MB

(to be continued)
-- 
              ***** no political correctness intended *****

 Write to:  Peter Much * Koelnische Str. 22 * D-34117 Kassel * +49-561-774961
  [email-masked] = Znet: [email-masked] = [email-masked]

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

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End of Linux-Development Digest
******************************