HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: danubius@halcyon.com (Joseph R. Pannon)
Subject: Optimal Partition Sizes
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. (206) 455-3505
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 08:29:32 GMT

Given plenty of HD space, could somebody provide some guidelines about
the optimal partition sizes for root, usr and swap partitions? I have 12
MB of RAM and I doubt I gain much by setting the swap partition to the
max of 64 MB.  Or do I?  

I can see the usr partition getting the max size, but I am not sure
about the other two.

Also, I assumed that Linux partitions had to be primary ones, but lately
I've been noticing that people are using logical ones within extended
partition.  Is there a rule about that?  Since a single HD can only have
a max of 4 primary partitions, but more logical ones within the extended
partition, using the latter could provide some additional flexibility in
the use of HD for multiple OS'.

I am very new at this, so forgive me if I sound dense here. I am still
trying to figure out, for instance, what compilers/assemblers I need to
create the executable LILO, and whether it's a DOS or a Linux
executable.  BTW, is there any reason why the LILO binary is not kept
along with the source on ftp distribution sites?  That would remove a
great headache from newbies like myself.

Thanks for your forbearance,
Joe Pannon
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: rchen@fraser.sfu.ca (Robert Chen)
Subject: Re: What's happening to my memory?
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 00:30:30 GMT

In article <dpn2.195.724208247@po.CWRU.Edu> dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil) writes:
>First of all, thanks to all the people who responded to my question about 
>running X with 4 megs RAM!
>
>So far as I can tell, something is happening to a fair chunk of the memory 
>on my machine when I run under Linux. I just tried to compile NetHack, and 
>get out of memory errors...with a six meg swap partition active! Something 
>is wrong here...

Perhaps, but probably not.  GCC -O likes to eat memory like it is going
out of style.  I have 16M RAM and still swap every once in a while if
I have a few X terms and whatever around and do a big compile (try
compiling xv sometime).

>
>Is there a way that I can check how much available memory I have? The Linux 
>equivilent of DOS mem?

Use "free".  Running "top" in another VC (or other xterm :-) is a good
way to see what processes are doing what.

>
>Anyone have any idea on where my memory is going? I'm using the latest SLS 
>distribution.

4M is really not enough (IMO) when you are talking about C development
and X windows.  I have been recommending at least 8M to my clients for
years now (when memory was a lot more expensive than it is now).  16M
seems about right these days if you are doing C development under X11.

>
>Thanks again!
>-----
>Damien Neil   dpn2@po.cwru.edu    "Until somebody debugs reality, the best

Have fun.

- Ken
From: garyf@uts.amdahl.com (Gary Faulkner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Linux 0.99 FPU question
Summary: where does linux detect fpu??
Keywords: LINUX, FPU
Date: 18 Dec 92 05:27:54 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

Hello all,

After finally getting 0.99 up (and STILL running!!), I now have a
fairly big question, related to how I got 0.99 up.

First, I had to rebuild my kernel with FPU-emulation in, even though
I have a 486-DX (i.e., I have a real FPU).  Once I did that (actually,
the only change I made), the 0.99 kernel came right up.

So, I am left with the question...why??  I read somewhere that even if
you have FPU emulation in the kernel, that Linux will only use it if
there isn't a real FPU.  When does it detect the FPU (source file
would be fine...if it really is in 808x6 assembler, I'll just get the
old assembler book out and figure out what it is doing)????

Even better, does anyone have an idea about why I am having to have
FPU emulation in my kernel? I realize that not many people (guessing
here) have 486's running linux, but if so, has anyone else tried NOT
including the FPU-emu stuff in their kernel?

I'd hate to think that I'm using the FPU-emu when I *really* don't
have to.

Thanks!!

-- 
Gary Faulkner -- My views are no more Amdahl's than Amdahl's views are mine.

     Brought to you by the letter 'G'.



Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: vernard@cc.gatech.edu (Vernard C. Martin)
Subject: Trident Card Woes
Reply-To: vernard@cc.gatech.edu (Vernard C. Martin)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 00:06:51 GMT

I have been running LINUX on my 33MHz 386 for a good while now with no
problems. I have been fighting to get Xwindows up on my Trident SVGA graphics
card for two weeks now. I have been reading the newsgroup for about 3 months
now and I have tried everything that the net has suggested. What I think may
be the problem is that perhaps my Trident 8900 card is not a Trident 8900C
card. How do you tell what version of the card you have?

The most success I have had so far is with XFree86 1.1 and one of the
Xconfigs that was posted to the net. I have a cheapo SAMPO brand
non-interlaced SVGA monitor. The X server dies after I start it up and one
thing that I noticed it told me that that my card had an id of 0x03 while
every other person that has posted to the net has had that id set to 0x13. Does this mean that I have old version of the Trident ROMS? Can I get new ones?

In a fit of frustration I went and pulled down the MGR sources and compiled
them. It came up fairly painlessly but I could only get 640x480 resolution
which is pretty pathetic. I also couldn't figure out how to resize my fonts
so as to get a smaller font. There was some Trident specific stuff about SVGA
in a subdirectory but it was fairly incomprehensible. Is it possible for MGR 
to work on  a Trident card in a higher resoltuion than 640x480. I don't
really have to have X but I do have to have some kind of graphical windowing
environment.

Any help on either X or MGR would be greatly appreciated. You can post or
email replies. I will summarize and post whatever email replies I get.

V
Vernard Martin (vernard@cc.gatech.edu) Georgia Tech College of Computing
From: 93jay@williams.edu (Jonathan Young)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: disk errors during SLS install (v.99)
Date: 20 Dec 1992 17:58:06 GMT
Organization: Williams College, Williamstown, MA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: hancock.cc.williams.edu

In a giddy post-exam high I decided to download and install linux on
my 386sx clone last night. Everything went well (although I must say
that floppy support on the sun, while simple is slllloow) up through
disk c4 which reported sector errors.

c4 is the disk with Clisp right? Not something I need badly but is
there a way of re-installing just that disk from the c series? The
disk checks out fine under DOS as does disk t1 which "sysinstall
-series t" requests but refuses to accept (and yes it does have the
file diskt1) Is there any way to install these manually? 

On a side note, is there a good (heck any) comm program that runs
under basic linux (not X) that can access an internal 2400 modem?

Thanks, and wow what a thrill to see a login prompt on *my* machine

Jonathan Young
Williams College

-oh yeah one more thing : how to change system name from
"Softlanding"?

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: roberts@cray.com (Michael Roberts  {67000 CF/DEV})
Subject: 0.99 directory bug?
Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Chippewa Falls, WI
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:00:32 CST



My recent upgrade to 0.99 from 0.98.5 has yielded a bug involving
floppy disks. When I mount a floppy disk with a minix filesystem
on it and I change directories to the floppy disk, I get errors
using "pwd" and "du". "pwd" gives the error:

	pwd: No such file or directory

but it works fine when my current working directory is on a hard
drive partition. "du" works fine on floppy directories, but if I'm
in a floppy directory and "du" a hard disk directory, like "du /",
I get the error:

	du: cannot get current directory: No such file or directory

I tried recompiling the utilities with no difference. I also grabbed
libc.so.4.2 but that made no difference. I tried booting from floppy
so my root directory was a floppy and mounted the hard disk 
partitions and then everything worked happily.

Has anyone else experienced this minor inconvenience?

Mike Roberts
From: krej@electrum.kth.se (Kristian Ejvind)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: linux=BIG PLUS  comp.os.linux=???  (==> you VOTE)
Date: 20 Dec 92 12:37:14 GMT
Organization: The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

In article <17636@umd5.umd.edu> colbert@astro.umd.edu (Edward J.M. Colbert) writes:

>    I'm taking a simple vote: would like it split/don't need it split.
>    Then, I'm just going to post the results of the vote.
> 
>    To vote:
> 
>    mail -s YES colbert@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu		to vote yes, favor a split
>    mail -s NO colbert@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu		to vote no, don't want split

  Oh, come on! We have gone through the procedure of a usenet vote in which
only one newsgroup passed; comp.os.linux.announce, look at the announce
of the results of the vote (it's in comp.os.linux and news.groups).
According to the usenet rules there won't be another CFV whithin six
months and therefore we cannot create another group(s) until June next
year. Please stop these 'Please split comp.os.linux'-articles and we will
all be as happy as we can be. I do want to split c.o.l. as much as you do
but I do not want to read zillions of articles without any value!

/Kristian


--


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kristian Ejvind - krej@electrum.kth.se   I   The best way of accelerating
The Royal Institute of Technology, KTH   I   a macintosh is by 9.82 m/(s*s)
Stockholm, Sweden                        I
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Xref: sparky comp.os.linux:20148 comp.unix.questions:14643
Organization: Ryerson Polytechnical Institute
Distribution: na
Date: Friday, 11 Dec 1992 12:37:09 EST
From: <ACPS7221@RyeVm.Ryerson.Ca>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Interviews/DOC

   This may be a misconception perpetuated by me.  Ibuild, idraw, idemo,
ifc, all work fine ( as far as I can see).  The reason we hack doc is because
it doesn't work properly yet.  But this may be a compiler or kernel problem
and not a IV problem.  The IV package compiles "out of the box" with only the
most trivial patching.  This is an excellent package, and would suggest others
check it out.  Bottom line, Linux is a very good platform for InterViews!
Please e-mail me if you want my patches and config files.

                           Join the INTERVIEWS channel.

                                          Regards, Michael.
From: geek+@CMU.EDU (Brian E. Gallew)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: How do I provide the floppys to normal users????
Date: 15 Dec 92 14:47:18 GMT
	<andrewc.724369870@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au>
Organization: Administrative Computing & Info Services, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

andrewc@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Andrew J. Cosgriff !) writes:
> Well, it depends...If you don't mind the security risk you could just make
> mount and umount setuid root, although this is NOT a Good Thing (tm) if
> you've got dial-in access...

Really bad idea!  Not only is there dial-in, but we've also also got TCP/IP!.
> 
> i guess you could make a setuid root script that checked what tty they're on
> and what they're mounting, so they can only mount floppies and only when

The only problem with this is that linux ignores the setuid bit for
shell scripts.  Too much of a security risk.  Write a simple C program
which will exec mount to mount the drive passed as a parameter.  Make
this executable setuid root.  Maybe get fancy and have it try
different parameters depending on the return status of mount.  Maybe
have it only mount certain devices for users on certain ttys.  Be creative!

                                  -Brian

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| "Are they dead?"                                                      |
| "Does it matter?"                                                     |
|   - Pugsley and Wednesday in "The Addams Family."                     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: csg203@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Bluebeard)
Subject: Re: Linux 0.99 still unbootable
Organization: Elf Bashers Anonymous
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 23:39:35 GMT

In article <BzHKLu.B3J@techbook.com> kosina@techbook.com (Martin Kosina) writes:
>I am still unable to boot 0.99. I am running 0.98p-1
>now with extended FS and sysvinit. Applying the two
>little patches posted earlier helped to get rid of
>the 'paging request;' error but boot now 'hangs'
>after printing the 'Linux 0.99 (root@...' banner. 
>I can type on the keyboard but nothing happens, no
>prompts or disk access, nothing. I am booting off
>a floppy which I made with 'make disk'.
>
>Does anyone have the same problem ? 
>

Yep, I've got exactly the same problem. 98 patch 6 works fine and I've tried
booting off the hard disc using shoelace and from a floppy. I've even tried to
use a floppy as the root file system, but the kernel still insists on hanging.

One thing I have noticed though. 98 patch 6 use 40k of data in the kernel, but
99 tells me it is using 400k of data !

Why the big increase, or has this got something to do with the problem ?


-- 
***********************************************************************
* FLESH: Charlie Freckleton * JANET: csg203@uk.ac.cov.cck             * 
* ALIAS: Bluebeard          * or   : stliaise@uk.ac.cov.cck           * 
***********************************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: arm@helix.nih.gov (Andrew Mitz)
Subject: Re: nubie returns: how to fdisk drive 2?
Reply-To: arm@helix.nih.gov (Andrew Mitz)
Organization: National Institutes of Health
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:04:54 GMT

Thanks to the netters for the Email.  So fdisk takes
command-line parameters?  It is nice to know...

# fdisk /dev/hdb


-------------------------------------------------
Andrew Mitz          |    NIH Animal Center
Biomedical Engineer  |    Poolesville, MD
-------------------------------------------------

All opinions expressed are my own.
From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Is ``lint'' available for Linux?
Date: 13 Dec 92 16:24:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: wam.1992Dec13.162429.4184
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

I didn't find lint on tsx-11, nor on prep.ai.mit.edu.  Where might I
find it?

Thanks.

-Joel
(joel@wam.umd.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: tree@midget.towson.edu (Denise Tree)
Subject: Weird corruption w/0.99
Reply-To: tree@midget.towson.edu (Denise Tree)
Organization: The Internet
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 17:19:02 GMT


Hi Activists,

I just booted the new 0.99 kernel (the new scsi code is FAST ),
but I seem to have a scary problem which I hope can be solved by
upgrading binaries... all my stuff is currently 0.98pl3.

Here is is: Whenever I untar (Gnu tar) something, it's filled
up with long rows of \377's (^?)!!!! I'm not sure if this is related 
to changes in the kernel or the scsi code or anything.....

I do the untarring onto my scsi disk (Maxtor 3280) where my src
partition is.

BTW The new kernel compiled easily with Linus's changes.... the little 
config script seems like it would be pretty handy for Kernel-Kompiling
newbies who don't know yet where all the little bits to change reside 
in the kernel src.

A couple more weeks and Treehouse will be celebrating her one year 
anniversery as a "Real Computer with a Real OS (tm)"!!
______________________________________________________________________
_______________ Denise Tree
____________________________tree@midget.towson.edu
_________________________________________.... . . .   .   .    .     .
                                                                     .
                                                                     .
                                                                     *
    
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: laeeb@rivm.nl (Erminio Ballerini)
Subject: Buying this system, any comments?
Organization: RIVM, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:09:25 GMT

OK, I'm going to order my system for Linux at the end of the week.

Please give any comments that you may have about this system:

motherboard:	UMC 486DX-33C, 256 Kb cache, AMI BIOS
		1 local bus (VESA)
memory:		8 Mb (60 nano)
harddisk:	Conner 210 Mb
video:		S3 1Mb (P86C911) (not local bus)
monitor:	MAG 14" (trinitron, bandwith 100 Mhz, dot-pitch .26)
mouse:		Logitech Pilot Mouse
diskdrives:	1.44 & 1.2 Mb (TEAC)

I've followed c.o.l pretty close, but I may have missed something, so
post any comments here or e-mail them to me.

Thanks in advance,

Erminio

--
Erminio Ballerini             laeeb@rivm.nl               Phone +31 30-743681
Laboratory for Waste Materials and Emissions (LAE)        Fax   +31 30-293651
National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection
PO Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: adams@pdv2.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de (Adams)
Subject: Re: Serial IRQ polling
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 01:38:12 GMT
Organization: TH-Darmstadt

In article <1gi6saINNaq4@life.ai.mit.edu> jimc@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (James Carpenter) writes:

>   Does Linux poll serial ports (i.e. can I use COM2 and COM4 at the same time
>   if they are both on IRQ 3). I have looked at the serial code but it just
>   gets me dizzy. And I do not see any mention of polling (which is what I 
>   always thought was the correct phrase). But is Linux suppose to do this?
>   And if so PLEASE tell me that there is a trick to enabling it because
>   nothing I've tried works.

There is no reasonable way to poll a device in a multi user or
realtime environment. Attaching to a timer
will lead to a desastrous performance loss, and hooking the
CPU will disable multitasking.

If there would be enough interest, it would be neither too hard nor
too expensive to throw an expansion card together, handling 2-4 serial
ports without any intervention of CPU..... Those by commercial vendors
cost up to 4000 DM, devices used sum up to 150 DM ....

(Remember: 16 bit wide ethernet cards, together with DOS setup software
cost about 260,-- DM)

best adams
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: ianj@citrus.SAC.CA.US ( Ian Justman )
Subject: Re: Can't make 0.98pl6 !
Organization: Citrus Grove Public Access ( 916 ) 381-5822    Sacramento CA.  USA
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 01:07:10 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

h235_003@ccvax.ucd.ie (ARE WE HAVING FUN YET) writes:
: 
: I'm having trouble making the 0.98pl6 kernel - everything goes fine until
: it gets to linking things, then I get a load of Undefined symbols - mostly
: _put_fs_long, _put_fs_byte, and things like _set_bit and _clear_bit.
: 
: How do I get this to compile  ??? (I have the SLS 0.98 distribution with 
: the 2.2.2d gcc libs)

The compiler that came with your system will work just fine.  It does for
me.  Anyway, it sounds like you have a few files not being included (or
more appropriate, the appropriate files are not being included).  This
is mainly because you need symbolic links in the /usr/include directory
which point to /usr/src/linux/include/linux and /usr/src/linux/include/asm
named linux and asm respectively.  Then the kernel will compile properly.

One note, if you already have directories called /usr/include/linux and
/usr/include/asm, and you don't want to erase the stuff in those director-
ies, use mv to rename them to something like "linux_bak" and "asm_bak"
respectively before applying the links.

Query: I myself have made said symbolic links.  I figure since now I'm using
pl6, should I keep the linux and asm links pointed to the directories con-
taining the Linux include files to guarantee compatiblity with pl6.  Is it
wise to operate under that philosophy?

Thanks for any pearls of wisdom.

-- 
Born to void warranties!	ianj@ijpc.UUCP
From: rogers@dms.agames.com (Bruce Rogers)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Help installing Xwindows under Linux with ATI Vantage
Date: 15 Dec 92 22:10:23 GMT
Organization: Atari Games Corporation

In article <18432@mindlink.bc.ca> Rob_Prior@mindlink.bc.ca (Rob Prior) writes:
>Help!
>
>I have an ATI Vantage graphics card and want to run XWindows.  Can someone
>mail me an Xconfig that will work with this setup, and any other info that I
>may need to get running?
Step A:
get x8514new.T.Z off tsx1 (sorry, can't remember dir its in)

Step B:
edit the Xconfig file:
Microsoft       "/dev/ttys2"      should be: Microsoft       "/dev/ttys0"
Changing the 2 to a 0 was what kept it from running on my friend's system.

Sorry, haven't used the busmouse on the card - but there are some
docs on it in x8514new.T.Z

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Bruce Rogers  Atari Games Co.  675 Sycamore Dr.  Milpitas CA 95035  408-434-1706
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: bangell@cs.utah.edu (bob angell)
Subject: SLS hosed??
Date: 17 Dec 92 10:26:20 MST
Originator: bangell@cs.utah.edu
Distribution: w

I have been FTP'ng the SLS from tsx-11.mit.edu ... and feel
that something might be wrong ... I have been able to down-
load all a* and b* diskettes, but when I get to c*, t* and
x* stuff, I can download some of it (ie. c1/* I believe
downloads ok ... but c2/* bombs out (gives me a divide by
zero and blows up my terminal program) .. this happens on
disk x2/* and also on about t3/*) but not the rest.  I dont
know if others have had the same problem?  Below is the
exact process I am using:

	tsx -> Net machine -> local machine -> MSDOS FAT
	   ftp		  Ymodem (blows up with all
			  Batch   protocols - at 14400)

Thanks for your help.

-Bob-

Bob Angell                               | Data Integration (multi-platform)
Principal, Management Systems Engineer   | Health Systems Engineering
Applied Information & Management Systems | Database design/development
1238 Fenway Avenue - SLC, UT 84102-3212  | Simulation/Modeling/Neural Nets
bangell@cs.utah.edu; Voice: 801-583-8544 | Product Reviewer-Major Publication

     [Standard Disclaimer: Speaking for the University of Utah, NOT!]
From: roskos@telerobo.rutgers.edu (roskos)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Can X run with only 4 megs RAM?
Date: 13 Dec 92 19:03:45 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

Wow.  I have been using 4 Meg of RAM on a 33MHz 386 with a 15Meg swap
partition (like to play it safe with swap space :-) without any real
performance troubles so far.  I can have 2 xterms, emacs, xdvi, and an
xconq game going, and bringing different windows up is a matter of a
few seconds at the most, often only a second or two.  I have been
running Xfree86 in 800x600 (color) physical resolution with a virtual
screen of 1024x768 (my card has 1 Meg of RAM, making the virtual
scrolling nice and quick.  And with all that I have running, I must be
swapping quite a bit.  I am a relative newbie, but I don't think that
from what I have seen, 4Meg of RAM is too big a problem.

				--Ed Roskos, roskos@caip.rutgers.edu
From: wang-i@acsu.buffalo.edu (Haohui Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: ET4000 or S3 or 8514 ? ( and ATI VGA WONDER )
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:34:35 GMT
Organization: UB

I have ATI WONDER V3, which is old and I was unable to run X on it.
So, I am thinking about upgrading to a new video card.  The problem comes down
to which card.  Is S3 a coprocessor based?  How about about ET4000?  
Performance wise, is 8514/a faster or is S3?

Since I bought my card 3 years ago, does ATI offer upgrades?

many thanks 

howie
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux