Subject: Linux-Development Digest #541 From: Digestifier To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Linux-Development@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 03:13:13 EST Linux-Development Digest #541, Volume #1 Sat, 12 Mar 94 03:13:13 EST Contents: Re: TTY overruns cost money. (Thomas G. McWilliams) Re: Memory Allocation (was Re: AMD 486DX problem (with Linux?)) (Rob Janssen) Re: gcc internal compiler error - SIGSE [2~ [2SEGV (Grant Edwards) Re: kernel mmap() , MAP_SHARED/PROT_READ/PROT_WRITE (Robert Moser) [Possible bug?] rm * on write-protected dos floppy (gans) Re: Modula-3 compiler (david sims) Re: Amiga FileSystem, Anyone? (Lee Heins) Re: Amiga FileSystem, Anyone? (Lee Heins) VT's must all use the same font [was Re: Loaded fonts discarded aft] (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Lint for Linux? (H.J. Lu) Re: Can I extract kernel form scsiboot.gz? (David Kastrup) Re: Amiga FileSystem, Anyone? (Jay Denebeim P025) Re: TTY overruns cost money. (Rene COUGNENC) Re: if I crash the kernel, should I tell anyone? (Rene COUGNENC) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tgm@netcom.com (Thomas G. McWilliams) Subject: Re: TTY overruns cost money. Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 10:42:37 GMT Ken Pizzini (ken@halcyon.com) wrote: : For what it's worth: I too have encountered tty overruns in 0.99p15 : that I haven't before. Actually, previous kernels did not inform you of tty overruns. Now you are informed of them--that is all that has changed. : My clues, in case this is fixable, are: : The problem was most noticible while moving a large file between : two physical disks while scrolling text over a V.32/V.42/V.42bis : modem link. : I'm using a no-name IDE controller with two 16450-ish serial ports : I'm using a 386DX40 based processor (7.98 bogoMips) This sounds like a typical situation where you might encounter a tty overun. : I realize that using a buffered serial controller (such as one using : the 16550 chip) is the best long-term solution, but as I have been : doing fine with this setup from 0.96 to 0.99p14 I am disinclined to : take such measures just yet. Again, you were not doing just fine in previous kernels: you were merely blissfully unaware of what was happening. Many of the better file transfer protocols were not visibly affected because they detected the errors and asked for the damaged packets to be resent. Thomas tgm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: rob@pe1chl.ampr.org (Rob Janssen) Subject: Re: Memory Allocation (was Re: AMD 486DX problem (with Linux?)) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 22:35:29 GMT Reply-To: pe1chl@rabo.nl In <1994Mar9.161810.27615@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> alfie@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Nick Holloway) writes: >In <2lknvi$b5f@serra.unipi.it> romano@pimac2.iet.unipi.it (Romano Giannetti) writes: >> [enquire.c] >> But _before_ comment out the following lines around line#450: >> >> while (size!=0) { >> while (malloc(size)!=(char *)NULL) >> total+=(size/2); >> size/=2; >> } >> >> that drive my Linux box to a quiet dead :-) after a lot of swapping. >> BTW: is this normal? I cannot afford test it on another Unix. My conf >> is Linux pre-1.0, 8M ram, 16M swap. The box don't crash nor panic, >> only get more and more slow if I don't ctrl-c the program. >This program defeats Linux's ``don't grab all the memory'' heuristic. >Linus did say that it would be possible to defeat, and this does it. >The good news is that it doesn't actually die -- eventually (have a >coffee :-) the process gets killed by the system. I think it should be possible to kill it earlier by using ulimit. (e.g. ulimit -m 1000) I tried it, but it doesn't work... Rob -- ========================================================================= | Rob Janssen | AMPRnet: rob@pe1chl.ampr.org | | e-mail: pe1chl@rabo.nl | AX.25 BBS: PE1CHL@PI8UTR.#UTR.NLD.EU | ========================================================================= ------------------------------ From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) Subject: Re: gcc internal compiler error - SIGSE [2~ [2SEGV Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 20:25:48 GMT Cord Johannmeyer (cord@kalliope.atlas.de) wrote: : Christopher Andrew Smith (z1g192@rick.cs.ubc.ca) wrote: : : I'm getting an error that I've never seen before when compiling a certain : : appliction. What happens is that after I've compiled all the object files : : for the application and start linking the application with the library : : I made, gcc reports an internal error which I've never encountered before. : [deleted] : : gcc: Internal compiler error: program ld got fatal signal 11 : : make: *** [app] Error 1 : : Has anyone else ever had this problem? I'd like to know if it is a common : : problem. : I've had this problem some time ago, it was caused by a Hardware failure, : but i don't remember what. So carefully check your hardware. I ran into the same thing a few days ago. It seems to be a hardware problem, but I couldn't narrow it down to an exact cause. As far as I could tell there was something quirky about the CPU board in an HP Vectra RS/20C (386DX-20 with 387 and cache). Exact same installation with a slightly different CPU board (RS/16 -- 386DX-16, no 387, no cache) never had the problem. Same video board, same disk controller and disk. Others have reported the infamous "sig 11" as being solved by: + new disk controller + slowing bus speed from 8MHz to something lower + flakey SIMM -- Grant Edwards |Yow! Disco oil bussing will Rosemount Inc. |create a throbbing naugahide |pipeline running straight to grante@rosemount.com |the tropics from the rug |producing regions and devalue |the dollar! ------------------------------ From: araw@iplab7.health.ufl.edu (Robert Moser) Subject: Re: kernel mmap() , MAP_SHARED/PROT_READ/PROT_WRITE Date: 11 Mar 1994 18:08:56 GMT In response to the mmap/shared memory thread, I'd like to remark that I'm presently developing an operator new for c++ that will use shared memory pages for its freestore. I've similar requirements for a server I'm developing (I need a sharable database structure). If anyone is interested, I'll mail a copy to you. Doug Lea (developer of libg++ malloc) pointed me to a person who may have done work in this area, but I got no response. cheers, araw ------------------------------ From: gans@acf2.nyu.edu (gans) Subject: [Possible bug?] rm * on write-protected dos floppy Date: 11 Mar 1994 20:19:53 GMT The following procedure illustrates a bug on my system: I mount a 3.5 inch *write protected* floppy using mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt and then do cd /mnt; rm * (as root) ls reports that all files on the disk have been removed. There are no error messages. If the floppy is dismounted and then remounted, the files are, of course, still there. If I copy a large file to the floppy, which was almost full, the copy fails with an out of space message. If I wait long enough update (or whatever program does this) eventually notices the situation and a further ls displays all of the files on the floppy. I would think that some sort of error message about attempting a write operation on a write protected disk would be appropriate. Previous versions (0.99pl14) did give some immediate feedback. I am running an essentially virgin Slackware 1.1.2 installation with 0.99pl15b. ---- Paul J. Gans [gans@acf2.nyu.edu] ------------------------------ From: sims@gehrig.ucr.edu (david sims) Subject: Re: Modula-3 compiler Date: 11 Mar 1994 18:02:19 GMT gpw1000@cus.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Webber) writes: gary> Does anybody know the whereabouts of a modula-3 compiler and gary> libraries for linux. You can ftp Modula-3 for Linux from gatekeeper.dec.com. Look in "pub/DEC/Modula-3/release-3.1". When I installed it on my Linux box a couple weeks ago, there were problems with the thread switching software. I don't know if they've been fixed since then. But, my singly threaded Modula-3 programs ran fine. If you have any questions about the installation, just let me know.... cheers! dave sims -- David L. Sims Department of Computer Science sims@cs.ucr.edu University of California +1 (909) 787-6437 Riverside CA 92521-0304 PGP encryption key available on request. USA ------------------------------ From: leeh@i-link.com (Lee Heins) Subject: Re: Amiga FileSystem, Anyone? Date: 11 Mar 1994 11:55:37 -0600 In article <1994Mar10.000319.23914@brtph560.bnr.ca>, Jay Denebeim P025 wrote: >Another weird disk drive was the old Apple ][ drive. It also payed no >attention to the track hole, you could use both hard and soft sectored >disks in it. Probably used the same trick the Amiga does because it >had about 20% more capacity than other drives of the same class, a >whopping 102K. Actually it stored a whopping 140k. From the description you give, it didn't work much like the Amiga at all. It worked more like the 800k Mac 3.5" floppies except being constant spindle speed, and single sided. Both are based on GCR encoding instead of MFM. >Jay Denebeim Address: UUCP: duke!wolves!deepthot!jay > Internet: jay@deepthot.cary.nc.us > BBS:(919)-233-9937 VOICE:(919)-233-0776 At any rate, this topic is getting _way_ off track for this news group unless someone is really serious about writing utilities to read these disk formats on Linux, which I doubt. If anyone is interested though, I have an Apple ][ emulator which runs under Linux... although you have to make 140k disk image files for it, since PC floppy drives can't normally read Apple ][ disks without some hardware help. -- Lee Heins, leeh@i-link.com ------------------------------ From: leeh@i-link.com (Lee Heins) Subject: Re: Amiga FileSystem, Anyone? Date: 11 Mar 1994 12:05:03 -0600 In article <2lng6l$cqr@smurf.noris.de>, Matthias Urlichs wrote: >In comp.os.linux.development, article <2lmaod$1vv@ilink1.i-link.com>, > leeh@i-link.com (Lee Heins) writes: >No, newer Mac drives spin at a constant rate. That's difficult to find out >as most Macs have fans these days and they are quite a bit louder than the >floppy. Are you sure about this? I will have to check the service manuals... Maybe the very recent "new" SuperDrive mechanisms change this (the cheapo ones made my Matsushita). I'm pretty sure that all of the older Sony SuperDrive mechanisms have the variable spindle speed capability. It is true that in 1.4M mode they are constant speed. Its just plain harder to tell on the SuperDrives in general because they are much quieter than the old 800k mechanisms were. >> >SIWM ("Super Integrated Woz Machine"). The IWM was the first integrated >> >version of the WM, which was a very magical piece of circuitry, created >> >(of course) by Steve Wozniak... totally incomprehensible, but it did its >> >job with the absolutely fewest possible number of parts. ;-) >> >> Incomprehensible? Nah... >> >What I meant is that Woz's circuitry was/is totally incomprehensible >(at least for people with "normal" minds)... Count me as having an abnormal mind then :-) I always found the WM circuit _easier_ to understand than the typical MFM controller electronics... >-- >Positive: Mistaken at the top of one's voice. >-- >Matthias Urlichs \ XLink-POP N|rnberg | EMail: urlichs@smurf.noris.de >Schleiermacherstra_e 12 \ Unix+Linux+Mac | Phone: ...please use email. >90491 N|rnberg (Germany) \ Consulting+Networking+Programming+etc'ing 42 > >Click here. -- Lee Heins, leeh@i-link.com ------------------------------ From: joel@rac3.wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: VT's must all use the same font [was Re: Loaded fonts discarded aft] Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 16:34:22 GMT > Well, I occasionally run Linux with different fonts on each virtual >console, and desperately missed that feature in pl15's font handling. I've >written a kernel patch that does exactly what Andries mentioned; it lets you >use a different font for each VC, and restores the font correctly after >exiting X. (Yes, it does use more memory; 8K per font, plus about 10K of >added kernel code and variables.) I'll upload the patch to sunsite after >another week of trying it out; if you *really* want it now, just drop me a >line. As the one who originally wrote the code-page (font) handling for Linux, I'm really surprised to see that the standard kernel no longer supports different fonts for each VT. I tend to work with Russian and Hebrew in additional to English, and there's no way to put all three into one font, as the Hebrew and Russian encodings overlap. So I NEED different fonts on different VT's. Who made this decision? I understand the code was rewritten (which is probably a good thing, because I'm a Pascal programmer, and don't really know C....), but why was the behavior changed? -Joel (joel@wam.umd.edu) -- ============================================================================= |_|~~ Germany, Europe. 1943. "The diameter of the bomb was 30 centimeters, __|~| 16 Million DEAD. and the diameter of its destruction, about 7 meters, and in it four killed and 11 wounded. cnc Bosnia, Europe. 1993. And around these, in a larger circle of pain cnc HOW MANY MORE? and time, are scattered two hospitals and one cemetery. But the young woman who was buried in the place from where she came, at a distance of more than than 100 kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably. And the lonely man who is mourning her death in a distant country incorporates into the circle the whole world. And I won't speak of the cry of the orphans that reaches God's chair and from there makes the circle endless and godless." ============================================================================= Tell Clinton to stop the genocide: president@whitehouse.gov ------------------------------ From: hjl@nynexst.com (H.J. Lu) Subject: Re: Lint for Linux? Date: 11 Mar 1994 17:59:54 GMT In article , jaffer@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Aubrey Jaffer) writes: |> In article stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender) writes: |> |> In article <1994Mar1.115924.20298@uts.uni-c.dk> |> elmnjb@unidhp.uni-c.dk (Niels J. Bagger) writes: |> |> As the title says: Does lint(1) exist for Linux? |> |> gcc -Wall is pretty close to lint for telling you about dumb C |> coding practices. |> |> Not close enough! If you code with K&R style function prototypes (as |> opposed to ANSI) then gcc -Wall tells you nothing about argument |> mismatch and number of arguments mismatch between modules. |> |> I have to code for a variety of machines not all of which support ANSI There is a way to do that. The codes in the Linux C library from glibc support both K&R and ANSI. H.J. |> prototypes. Lint is essential for finding argument mismatch. I wish |> I could find a lint for linux so I wouldn't have to ship my code |> elsewhere just to use lint. ------------------------------ From: dak@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (David Kastrup) Subject: Re: Can I extract kernel form scsiboot.gz? Date: 10 Mar 1994 21:45:14 GMT sl93k@cc.usu.edu writes: >I installed Slackware from ftp.cdrom.com >using a floppy with rawrite -> scsiboot and color177 >I installed the A series and X, everything works great. >I boot using scsiboot floppy and typing >mount root=/dev/hda6 >and then inserting the color177 disk when prompted >Should I learn to compile my own kernel, or >can I somehow extract the kernel, that I like, from the rawritten >scsiboot disk? You can always mount the boot disk and copy /vmlinuz (I think that's the name of the kernel file). However, this kernel has a ramdisk (which will just take memory and be rather useless for HD use) and lots of unnecessary drivers. I really suggest going into /usr/src/linux, saying make config;make dep;make clean;make zlilo and get a kernel going which is just what you need. This is not too complicated, is it? Although it will take half the night, most of which without maintenance. Oh, probably you should read the README in /usr/src/linux before. -- David Kastrup dak@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Tel: +49-241-72419 Fax: +49-241-79502 Goethestr. 20, D-52064 Aachen ------------------------------ From: denebeim@bnr.ca (Jay Denebeim P025) Subject: Re: Amiga FileSystem, Anyone? Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 00:03:19 GMT In article <2lkoeo$55r@infosrv.edvz.univie.ac.at> cprakt2@acpx5.exp.univie.ac.at () writes: > >In article <1994Mar3.174849.2359@swan.pyr>, iiitac@swan.pyr (Alan Cox) writes: >> >>The amiga floppy is a single sector MFM encoded 80 track double sided disk. >>It's beyond the standard PC hardware to drive >> >>[And before Amiga people go no no its 11 sectors/track read the hardware >>manual - its 11 _software_ sectors per physical sector] >> >>Alan > >I would guess from reading what is written on my disk package that PC disks >have 9 _software_ sectors - it says "soft sectored" - so I don't see the >difference here. Alan is 100% correct. Its even worse than what he says too, the Amiga also does not pay any attention to where on the disk the track starts. It just sucks all the flux transitions into memory, then uses its blitter to find the start/end of track. By having only one sector without all the overhead of start/sync bits the Amiga was able to get 880K/floppy instead of 760K. This means that the track starts in a random location, rather than the 'real' track start that the drive indicates (using a hole in 5.25" disks, and I assume position of the disk motor in 3.5") As far as the hard/soft sectoring goes, that is referring to some really old drives. Hard sectored drives had a small hole to mark each sector, and a large hole to mark the track beginning. Soft sectored drives only have a hole to mark the track beginning. (rotate a 5.25" disk looking at the smaller hole in the middle to see what I'm talking about) Another weird disk drive was the old Apple ][ drive. It also payed no attention to the track hole, you could use both hard and soft sectored disks in it. Probably used the same trick the Amiga does because it had about 20% more capacity than other drives of the same class, a whopping 102K. -- Jay Denebeim Address: UUCP: duke!wolves!deepthot!jay Internet: jay@deepthot.cary.nc.us BBS:(919)-233-9937 VOICE:(919)-233-0776 ------------------------------ From: rene@renux.frmug.fr.net (Rene COUGNENC) Subject: Re: TTY overruns cost money. Date: 10 Mar 1994 12:46:40 GMT Reply-To: cougnenc@itesec.ensta.fr (Rene COUGNENC) Ce brave Ken Pizzini ecrit: > I realize that using a buffered serial controller (such as one using > the 16550 chip) is the best long-term solution, but as I have been > doing fine with this setup from 0.96 to 0.99p14 I am disinclined to > take such measures just yet. You were getting tty overruns whith 0.95 and more as well. The reason why you notice them now is that the message appeared to be printed as of one of the PL14 alpha patches. Before that, overruns were here but were counted as other more general serial errors (parity, frame) and no message was printed by the kernel. If you don't want to plug a 16550, just comment the code printing this message, your kernel will work as previous ones. (No 'overrun' message printed, and the communication protocols managing to transfer files proprely by retrying on some packets) -- linux linux linux linux -[ cougnenc@renux.frmug.fr.net ]- linux linux linux ------------------------------ From: rene@renux.frmug.fr.net (Rene COUGNENC) Subject: Re: if I crash the kernel, should I tell anyone? Date: 10 Mar 1994 13:05:05 GMT Reply-To: cougnenc@itesec.ensta.fr (Rene COUGNENC) Ce brave chris ulrich ecrit: > I decided to see how much abuse I could give my system before > it died. (quite a lot, actually) > so I did this: [lots of commands deleted ] I will never let you drive my car :-)) > Mar 9 14:10:18 context kernel: <6>Oops: 0000 > Mar 9 14:10:18 context kernel: <6>EIP: 0010:0018962a > (to the person who is going to tell me not to post this here, tell > me who to send this complaint to, as it could be the scsi drivers, A very useful thing for the kernel developpers when you get a crash like this is to read what Linus says in the /usr/src/linux/README file, and give some information about where the kernel seemed to die, by running "nm" on the tools/zSystem file, since all kernels are different, only you have the right file after you compiled your system. -- linux linux linux linux -[ cougnenc@renux.frmug.fr.net ]- linux linux linux ------------------------------ ** 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: Linux-Development-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.development) via: Internet: Linux-Development@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites: nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux End of Linux-Development Digest ******************************