HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: big@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Alan Porter)
Subject: HD interrupts and IDE
Summary: cough, sputter, barf
Organization: Computer and Technologies Theme Program, NCSU, Raleigh
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 16:10:30 GMT


I hope some of you guys can help me out with my Linux problems.  I am
really excited about running Linux at home (key word: running :)

I have been getting the infamous "Unexpected HD interrupt" messages 
whenever I do anything that requires a lot of disk activity (like tar,
or worse yet, rebuilding the kernel).

Even more annoying, I also get the "HD timeout", the 4 second wait, and
then the "HD-controller reset".

First, my system:
386-40, IDE drive (KLOC KL3120, 115 MB), 4 MB RAM, 60 MB Minix FS, 5 MB swap.

I had heard that these error messages happen a lot on ESDI drives, but I
have never heard of IDE drives giving these errors.  As a quick fix, I
commented the printk lines out of /usr/src/linux/fd/blk_drv/hd.c, but I have
also been having trouble getting the linux source to compile (I get the
problems with tools/build.c).  What compounds the problems is the fact
that my hard disk spends about 50% of it's time "timed out" when I am
doing a kernel build, so it takes about an hour.

Is there a way that I can get rid of my HD problems?  Should I consider
exchanging my hard disk and controller for SCSI?  Do I have something
wrong with gcc (that's giving me the tools/build.c errors)?  Should I
try to download the source from a different site (is the one at tsx-11
"sane")?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
                 Alan Porter   (big@catt.ncsu.edu)
         address: 104-A Darlena Court, Cary NC 27511 USA
     home phone: (919) 481-4255    work phone: (919) 481-8161
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: efs - no bitmap?
Date: 31 Aug 92 17:42:37 GMT
Reply-To: davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center, Schenectady NY


  I was just looking through the README files for mcc 0.97p2 and noted
that the efs claims to use a linked list instead of a bitmap, "saving
all that wasted space" or some such. Since one of the major improvements
between the original Sys5 filesystem and bsd/usf was changing from a
linked list to a bitmap to reduce disk fragmentation and improve
performance, I hope this doesn't mean what I think it does.

  Use of a linked list saves space, but you pay forever in performance,
either by having fragmentation of by searching the list to insert newly
freed disk space in order. In either case it's a bad idea and I hope
that's not what is being used in efs. If it is someone should start
working on efs2 now, but I assume the people who wrote efa knew about
all this and the README is just unclear.

-- 
bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
    I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: bibhas@pico.engr.mun.ca (Bibhas Bhattacharya)
Subject: Want to buy a linux PC...
Keywords: Buy PC
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 17:51:07 GMT

I did some shopping again for the nth time to buy a 386 good for
linux+X. My budget failed me once again :(
I don't know if I ever will see X running on my own PC :(
			        		        `
Is there anybody out there who wants to sale a compatible PC for a
reasonable price?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to where can I buy cheap noname 386?
Thanks...
Bibhas.
From: t-piersh@microsoft.com (Piers Haken)
Subject: Re: Errors building tools/build.c
Date: 24 Aug 92 23:48:17 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA 98052

In article <1992Aug14.034700.15023@athena.mit.edu> hammond@kwhpc.caseng.com (Kevin W. Hammond) writes:
>I installed the inc.tar.Z and 0.97pl1inc.tar.Z files you sent me under
>/usr, as per your instructions.  Once again, I am performing the
>build with 0.97 source (no patches) and GCC 2.2.2.  I also installed
>type symlink from /usr/include/linux to /usr/src/include/linux/include.
>I have not replaced the linux include files with the GCC 2.2.2 include
>files as is indicated in the README.  I also have the -nostdinc in my
>Makefile.
>
>When the make reaches tools/build.c, the following errors occur:
>
>In file included from tools/build.c:25:
>/usr/include/stdlib.h:55: conflicting types for `div_t'
>/usr/include/linux/types.h:68: previous declaration of `div_t'
>/usr/include/stdlib.h:62: conflicting types for `ldiv_t'
>/usr/include/linux/types.h:69: previous declaration of `ldiv_t'
>In file included from /usr/include/unistd.h:188, from tools/build.c:29:
>/usr/include/sys/utsname.h:16: `MAXHOSTNAMELEN' undeclared, outside of functions
>/usr/include/sys/utsname.h:16: size of array `nodename' has non-integer type
>In file included from /usr/include/unistd.h:191, from tools/build.c:29:
>/usr/include/signal.h:14: parse error before `SignalHandler'
>/usr/include/signal.h:14: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
>/usr/include/signal.h:35: parse error before `signal'
>/usr/include/signal.h:35: parse error before `__sighandler_t'
>/usr/include/signal.h:35: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
>tools/build.c: In function `main':
>tools/build.c:90: `O_RDONLY' undeclared (first use this function)
>tools/build.c:90: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
>tools/build.c:90: for each function it appears in.)
>
>What would be causing this problem?  I'm almost there....  unfortunatly I go on
>vacation tomorrow and won't have a chance to test any corrections, but I'll
>still be checking my mail to keep updated.
>
>Thanks.
>
>-kwh-
>-- 
>Kevin W. Hammond
>hammond@kwhpc.caseng.com
>
>                 Looking for a real operating system?  Try Linux.
>
>  CASE Engineering * 575 W. Madison #1601 * Chicago, IL 60661 * (312)902-2161

I get these errors as well. I have installed the kernel sources and
gcc 2.2.2d using install.2.x and removed the -nostdinc -Ixxx flags from
the makefile(s). I haven't applied any patches (that I know of) to my
.97 kernel. Is there something missing or is this something new?

Piers.
-- 
Disclaimer: These views are my own and not necessarily
            those of the company for which I work.
From: U20565@uicvm.uic.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: What's LINUX? And other misc questions....
Date: 4 Sep 92 06:49:58 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

First off, I looked for a FAQ list. The only thing I found was information to
sites that had the LINUX source. This may be useful down the line, but not
right now. Other searches such as a thread on "Linux history," more
specifically, followups to the latter, seemed like a personal conversation
and yielded nothing.

Specifically, I would like to know what LINUX is? Yes, I know an operating
system. Yes I know, very similar to UNIX. But what's the catch or impetus for
people to own it? How old is it? How stable?

There's MINIX which offers you all the source to the OS and utilities. There's
Coherent, now in its fourth version, supporting COFF executables and a 32
OS and compiler. Not to mention all its utilities and other facilities, such
as UUCP.

So, iterating, what's LINUX's tune? Why should one bother with it now that
you can get BSD's UNIX for the 386 for free? MINIX and Coherent looked good,
however personally I don't see much motivation to use them now that you can
get the "Real McCoy," 386BSD UNIX for free.

So what does LINUX offer that these other operating systems don't?

Please respond directly, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
Mario Pacheco
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: burkert1@platon.fmi.uni-passau.de (Klaus Burkert)
Subject: Re: Are S3 cards ET4000 compatible enough to run X11?
Organization: University of Passau, Germany
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 15:39:22 GMT

In article <1992Sep01.105831.5198@donau.et.tudelft.nl> wolff@zen.et.tudelft.nl (Rogier Wolff) writes:
>I am considering buying a VGA card to run X11 under Linux. However the
>shop tells me that they are out of ET4000 cards, but are willing to sell
>me a more expensive S3 card. They say that the card is compatible with
>ET4000. Should I expect it to work?

No, the S3 (82c911) and ET4000 (Tseng) are definatly NOT compatible on
register level, so I'll doubt X11 running on it (with ET4000 drivers)!
Of course, there might be S3-drivers too, but I'm sure about it.

>I don't beleive the guy when he said that this card supports a mode
>with 32000 colors out of a palette of 1.6 milion. 1) the number is 16
>milion. and 2) isn't 32K * 3 bytes of FAST table lookup memory very 
>expensive?

There are palette chips out there that can do
 - 256 out of 256K
 - 256 out of 16M
 - 32K fixed
 - 64K fixed
 - 16M fixed
combinations of the above are possible and available.

But there's no such beast with 32K out of 16M neither announced nor
available (at least not from Sierra, AT&T, Brooktree or Inmos).
I know since I looked heavily into that stuff recently...

Ciao, Klaus.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Klaus Burkert        email: burkert1@kirk.fmi.uni-passau.de
Brandweg 11          voice: +49-851/83993 (only pm please)
D-W-8390 Passau   /  Federal Republic of Germany
From: wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Swap files versus swap partitions
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:28:00 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

jepstei@afterlife.ncsc.mil (John Epstein) writes:
>I use GNU tar to backup Linux to MS-DOS partition to backup with QIC-40 tape.
>I haven't got +exclude swapfile to work.

Simplified (but not tested) from my modified level-0 backup script (the
original came with GNU tar 1.10 sources):

	echo swapfile | tar /bin/tar -c -f /dev/fd0 +exclude-from - -C / 

It seems that tar strips the leading / from the filename, and only after
this compares it with the name of the file to be excluded.

You have to have GNU tar, of course, I don't think the pax thingy
supports +exclude.

I can mail or post my backup scripts if there is interest.  I did some
ugly things to them, since I'm lacking things like mail (but "cat
>>/usr/spool/mail/root" works well :).  They seem to work somewhat well,
and it's them that I use, but I'm not going to recommend them to
anybody.

--
Lars.Wirzenius@helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: bir7@leland.Stanford.EDU (Ross Biro)
Subject: Re: Microsoft bus mouse support
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:29:16 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.070642.3751@unibi.uni-bielefeld.de> upsyf108@unibi.uni-bielefeld.de (Wolfgang Thiel) writes:
>The bus mouse driver and the ethernet use the same device number (I think
>it's Major 10, Minor 0). So one of them has to be changed. 

	/dev/eth is obsolete and should be removed.  Use the beta tcp/ip
code instead.

Ross Biro bir7@leland.stanford.edu 
Member League for Programming Freedom (LPF)
mail league@prep.ai.mit.edu for information
From: frank@cs.yorku.ca (Frank Pikelner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Linus security/Non root access
Date: 25 Aug 92 21:36:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: yetti.1412
Distribution: world
Organization: York University, Dept. of Computer Science

In article <3000@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>, pdp@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU (Paul Douglas Page) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug21.051117.17172@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> platt@coos.dartmouth.edu (The Crouton Man) writes:
|> >In article <1992Aug21.020626.20221@unislc.uucp> erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp) writes:
|> >:Frank Pikelner (frank@cs.yorku.ca) wrote:
|> >:
|> >:: I'd like to find out if it is possible to say install several machines to run
|> >:: Linux and allow the public to use them. The problem I'm trying to resolve is I
|> >:: need the machines to have access to a floppy drive, but I do not want anyone
|> >:: to be able to boot the machine using their own floppy, and maybe gain access as
|> >:: root. 
|> 
|> Is it esential to have floppy access? I simply run my public access machine with out a floppy drive and do all the maintenance from a remote system across a serial line, seems to work o.k.
|> 
|>  -paul.

Yes. The machines were intended to be used in a lab for some student work/hacking.
-- 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ---  ---    Frank Pikelner                                          /~\
 \    \  \   Technical Assistant, Department of Computer Science    <v.v>
  \-   \--   York University (Toronto, Canada)                      ,\^/;
   \    \    Internet: frank@cs.yorku.ca                            _{!}_
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: hlu@phys1.physics.wsu.edu (Hongjiu Lu)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: zsh
Date: 23 Aug 92 18:26:56 GMT
Organization: Washington State University

In article <3004@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>, pdp@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU (Paul Douglas Page) writes:
|> After using zsh for a couple of months I have grown to like it.
|> Could someone direct me to a site that has the zsh source and Linux diffs ?
|> 
|> I would also be interested in knowing what the differences are between zsh
|> and ksh ? I have not seen ksh yet though I beleive there is a port for Linux
|> under way if not already available. 
|> 
|> What is the recomended shell to use with Linux? I know ash is shipped often with Linux root disks but I think it's a bit simple as shells go.
|> 
|> thanks in advance.

I just fixed a few bugs in zsh. I will put the source on tsx-11 under
pub/linux/GCC since it will be tied up with the compiler.

-- 
H.J.
Gcc/libc maintainer for Linux.
From: greenfie@gauss.rutgers.edu (Greenfie)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: DISASTER AT MIT!!!!!
Date: 2 Sep 92 00:04:49 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


mal11@po.CWRU.Edu (Matthew A. Lewis) writes:
>Someone seriously need to do some housekeeping in the LINUX directories
>on TSX-11.MIT.EDU. It's a wreck.
>
>Anyone up to it???????

I agree!  I don't want to seem to whine to the kind admin who lets it
exist, but some indexes would be nice. (Especially using the ftp server
that gives the short, one line descriptions when you type 'dir'. An example
of this is at hobbes.nmsu.edu, the OS/2 archives.)

I'd volunteer to write a great deal of them, but I don't know what many
are. :^( A more coherent directory structure would be nice, too.

I hope people don't take this as a complaint... Just suggestions.
-- 
Larry Greenfield
greenfie(ld)@gauss.rutgers.edu
        ^^^^ for better mailing, delete these characters
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: najem@milton.cs.uiuc.edu (Ziad Najem)
Subject: Re: QIC 40 / QIC 80 ?
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:37:38 GMT

dje@cygnus.com (Doug Evans) writes:

>CMS wrote a device driver for SCO Unix and Xenix and it runs fine for me
>in both single user mode and full multitasking mode.

>--
>Doug Evans        | With views like these ...
>dje@cygnus.com    |                           who needs disclaimers.


Has anybody talked with CMS about Linux ?
If not, I will try to talk them into releasing the source code for the
device driver for a test drive. 

 - Ziad
   najem@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: cummings@tiger1.prime.com (Kevin J. Cummings)
Subject: Re: DR-DOS and linux boot, 14 char filenames
Organization: Prime Computer, Inc.
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:17:28 GMT

In article <1574@lysator.liu.se>, lien@lysator.liu.se (Jan Lien) writes:
> 
> How do I get DR-DOS 6.0 to recognize two diffrent bootable systems,
> i.e. DR-DOS and Linux ?   There should be some boot function switch.
> 
> When I try to run BOOTLIN as a normal program in DR-DOS it is possible
> to boot linux, provided I have no loaded device drivers, few buffers,
> no environment, etc...   When I try to run it as a program under

Read the documentation that comes with BOOTLIN.  It mentions a BOOT manager
that overwrites your DOS hard disk boot sector, and runs as the FIRST thing
in your CONFIG.SYS file.  While running, it lets you have multiple
configurations in your CONFIG.SYS file (one of which is the minimal DOS
boot, enough to run BOOTLIN in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file).  I think the
file I downloaded was BOOT142.ZIP.  I beleive that I got it from a SIMTEL20
mirror site.  Probably from the MSDOS.SYSUTL directory.  I beleive it is
SHAREWARE.

> DR-DOS with all my device drivers, himem, environment and stuff, it
> loads, loads linux kernel, I get as far as the message 'Press RETURN
> to see SVGA-modes...'.  However, regardless of whether I press RETURN
> or any other key, the machine hangs there.  Ctrl-Alt-Del is also
> disabled.   Is there something easy I can do about it?
> 
> and....
> 
> Where do I find the stuff for more than 14 characters in linux
> filenames?    Does it work properly?

the Extended File System (EFS) is in ALPHA test and is a part of the latest
kernel.  Use with caution.  They are promising to change the disk part
of the files system RSN (real soon now) in an incompatible but upgradeable
fashion.  Personally, I can work around most of the 14 char limit and will
wait for at LEAST a BETA test of EFS before I convert over.

By the way, in case any of the EFS team is listening, 256 character filenames
is overkill.  32 characters would have probably handled 95% of the problems out
there (not accounting for C++ generated names).  But I'm not complaining!

=================================================================
Kevin J. Cummings                       PrimeService
20 Briarwood Road                       A Computervision Company
Framingham, Mass.                       500 Old Connecticut Path
					Framingham, Mass.
Work:  cummings@primerd.Prime.COM
Home:  cummings@kjc386.framingham.ma.us

Std. Disclaimer: "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration,
		  I've come to the conclusion that your new
		  defense system SUCKS..."   --  War Games
=================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: QIC 40 / QIC 80 ?
From: billp@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (Bill Parquet)
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:49:18 EST

I've seen a lot of discussion about this.  The people who were working on
that for 386bsd complained that the timing requirements were extremely tight
for running qic 40/80... At least too tight for a multitasking environment.

If it were really necessary, I'd much rather have a tape backup program that
ran in some sort of exclusive mode than nothing at all.
From: epa@cis.ksu.edu (Eric P. Armstrong)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: GWM's MWM emulator
Date: 2 Sep 92 01:48:52 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: cygnus.cis.ksu.edu

khamer@sumax.seattleu.edu (Little Kenny Hamer) writes:

>I have installed GWM, and printed out the documantation.  However, I know
>nothing about lisp.  If anyone has sucessfully added entries to the MWM
>menus to activate xterms, xloads, xmans, etc, please tell me what code you
>use to do this.  I would like to use it, but I have no clue where to even
>begin.  

Edit the file mwm-menurc.gwm.  The sample menu's should be enough
help.  If you copy this file to a local directory and make your
changes to it, set then environment variable GWMPATH to be the
directory with your local file ':' the directory with the rest of the
distribution files.


-- 
Eric P. Armstrong        epa@cis.ksu.edu        cis.ksu.edu!harry!rtfm!epa
       "I plead the fifth, because I'm too dumb." -- Karl S. Hagen
From: card@masi.ibp.fr (Remy CARD)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: efs - no bitmap?
Date: 4 Sep 92 15:21:59 GMT
Organization: Laboratoire MASI - Universite Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris - France

In article <1992Aug31.174237.8185@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>
>  I was just looking through the README files for mcc 0.97p2 and noted
>that the efs claims to use a linked list instead of a bitmap, "saving
>all that wasted space" or some such. Since one of the major improvements
>between the original Sys5 filesystem and bsd/usf was changing from a
>linked list to a bitmap to reduce disk fragmentation and improve
>performance, I hope this doesn't mean what I think it does.

	Well, I think that I have to react.  Yes, I am going to disappoint you
but the ext fs really uses free inodes/blocks linked lists.  In fact, in
the linked list of free blocks, there is one list header per 256 free blocks:
the first free block contains the addresses of 254 other free blocks, which
can be addressed directly when the former block is in memory, and the address
of the next free block in the list which contains 254 addresses and so on.

>
>  Use of a linked list saves space, but you pay forever in performance,
>either by having fragmentation of by searching the list to insert newly
>freed disk space in order. In either case it's a bad idea and I hope
>that's not what is being used in efs. If it is someone should start
>working on efs2 now, but I assume the people who wrote efa knew about
>all this and the README is just unclear.

	I am not sure that a bitmap speeds up things: with a bitmap, you
have to load every block containing the bitmap until you find a bit set to
0.  Of course, you can keep the whole bitmap in memory but it means memory
waste if you mount a big fs.  With the current implementation of the ext fs,
the first block of the free list is always in memory so you can allocate
254 blocks without reading a block (the 254 blocks whose addresses are contained
in the first free block).  I think that it should be faster than the bitmap
scheme if you don't keep the bitmap in memory.

	Of course, this scheme may lead to some important seeks because blocks
can be allocated on different parts of the disk but I think that the problem
also exists if you use a bitmap.  

	In fact, I think that performance can be improved in other ways.
I have been working on the new ext fs and I think that performance should
be better because :
	- it uses a cache used by lookup() which is called by namei().
	  In fact, Linux (and other Un*x systems) spends a lot of time 
	  in namei() which converts a pathname to an inode number and 
	  and a cache really helps to get better performance,
	- bigger blocks may be supported so there will be less seek
	  delays.  Fragments may also be supported to reduce disk
	  space waste.

	I must admit that I have not made performance measurements yet.
I will do some soon and will try to tune the new ext fs to optimal
performance.


>
>-- 
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
>    I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.


--

	Remy Card
	card@masi.ibp.fr