HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Can X run with only 4 megs RAM?
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 22:50:52 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
NNTP-Posting-Host: b63519.student.cwru.edu

Well, I just reinstalled SLS for the third time. (It gets easier with 
practice!) And this time...X works! Many many thanks to the people who 
mailed me Xconfigs to get me going!

However, I have a slight problem... X is slower than MS Windows on an XT! It 
took it about an hour to start up, mouse movements are recognized only after 
a 2-3 minute wait, and it takes almost ten minutes for keystrokes to appear 
in bash...

Since I see a large amount of disk thrashing, I assume that there is a lot 
of swapping going on. Since I have only 4 megs of RAM, and a ~6 meg swap 
partition, this is not surprising. But does it have to be this slow? I had 
thought that X was usable with 4 megs RAM -- was I wrong? Please say no!

My system is a 486 SX/25.

Many thanks!
-----
Damien Neil   dpn2@po.cwru.edu    "Until somebody debugs reality, the best
Case Western Reserve University    I can do is a quick patch here and there."
CMPS/EEAP double majoring masochist               - Erik Green
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: jlaiho@ichaos.nullnet.fi (Juha Laiho)
Subject: Re: MONEY + Linux
Organization: NullNet r.y.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:14:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.033917.2963@midway.uchicago.edu> goer@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>Can Linux go on forever without some commercial support?  I mean,
As far as I know anyone is free to offer commercial support for Linux.
I think the moral/ethical questions about offering commercial support
to a free product have already been discussed, so no flames about this, please.
If, however you can prove that commercial support for linux is illegal/against
some rules/license agreements/whatever, please do followup.

>implementation.  Is there some way that a useful remuneration path
>can be arranged.  E.g. could universities be site-licensed, thereby
I suppose not..

>gaining the right to have attention paid to their bugs and config-
>uration problems, and to receive regular updates?
I think this whould eventually lead to the point that these "paying customers"
state what should be incorporated with Linux and what should not. And farewell
to the free development.

..Wolf
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: keiblin@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Alexander Keiblinger)
Subject: Re: V.99 MAKE dep BOMBS with irq.c: linux/interrupt.h: no such file or d
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Organization: Techn. University of Berlin, Germany
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:30:26 GMT

jerrys@holly.wimsey.bc.ca (Jerry Sturge) writes:


>we regarding header, i fixed the inode things re linus suggestions.
>did a make dep and i got the irq.c: linux/interrupt.h: no file or dir
>...suggestions anyone.
>thanks 
>
>jerrys@holly.wimsey.bc.ca

You have to set the Links as described in README. Maybe to your GCC Subdirectoy.
This solved the problem for me.
From: tranter@Software.Mitel.COM (Jeff Tranter)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Problem with X11 on Trident VGA
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:26:03 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.

I'm having problems getting the X-Window system to run in colour. I am
running the 921126 SLS release, Linux 0.86pl5, and XFree86 Version
1.0Ya.  My VGA card is a Trident 8900C chipset with 512K RAM. The
monitor is an AAMAZING Super VGA. The computer is a 40MHz 386DX with
4MB RAM.

In monochrome mode everything works fine, in both 640x480 and 800x600
resolutions. I used the standard VESA settings in the XConfig file.
There is a minor problem in that the text mode is not properly
restored when I shut down the X server.

In colour mode, I can get a stable image at 640x480, but the mouse
pointer, windows, and text are all garbled. I also get some "snow"
when moving the mouse. I can see that xterm and xclock are running
okay, and the background and window colours are correct, but the
window borders and characters are not readable.  When I shut down the
X server, I get a totally black screen.

I've tried various options in Xconfig, and turning off shadowing
of various memory areas in the ROM BIOS setup, to no avail.

The output from startx is as follows:

.no SIOCGIFCONF
XFree86 Version 1.0Ya / X Window System
(protocol Version 11, revision 0, vendor release 5000)
Configured drivers:
  VGA256 (256 colour SVGA):
      et4000, et3000, pvga1, gvga, ati, tvga8900
VGA256: tvga8900 (mem: 512k numclocks: 8)
VGA256:   clocks: 25 28 45 36 57 65 50 40

I looked at the file tsx-11:/pub/linux/packages/X11/devel/trident.doc.
It seemed to imply that that driver may assume the video card has 1MB
of RAM. Could that possibly be my problem?
-- 
Jeff Tranter            internet: Jeff.Tranter@Software.Mitel.COM
Mitel Corporation          uunet: uunet!mitel!software!tranter
Kanata, Ontario, CANADA      tel: (613) 592-2122 X3099
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: gabrius@herman.gem.valpo.edu (David Gabrius)
Subject: Re: 0.99 boot problems (was Re: sls install problems)
Organization: Brainpower R&D
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 06:34:06 GMT
X-Posted-From: gellersen.valpo.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <FRIDLUND.92Dec16155720@stingray.micro.umn.edu> fridlund@mermaid.micro.umn.edu (Jim Fridlund) writes:
>In article <1992Dec16.020848.27723@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> gabrius@herman.gem.valpo.edu (David Gabrius) writes:
>
>   I've gotten *very* similar errors when I've tried to boot with 0.99.
>   I'm also knocked back to 0.98.5.  If machine-specific info is required
>   don't hestitate to ask me what hardware I've got...
>
>
>   -- 
>    David Gabrius                                        gabrius@gem.valpo.edu
>    Pro Student, Computer Engineering            perfessr@imsa.edu  (IMSA '90)
>    "And you can find/Your own way out/You can build/And I can will..." -U2
>    "You miss too much these days if you stop to think..." -U2 (again)
>
>I, too, am having problems very similar to what was described.  I'm
>still using 0.98 pl 5 kernel because of this.  I did the standard
>build procedure.  Luckily, I tried the new kernel on floppy instead of
>installing it as /vmlinux.  Can someone out there help us out?  Many
>thanks.
>
>BTW, I'm using mostly SLS binary distribution.
>
>
>--
>Jim Fridlund                                     U of MN - Computer Science
>fridlund@mermaid.micro.umn.edu                   Institute of Technology

Actually, I hadn't seen Linus's patch at that point, so I added those lines,
and it helped -- it got rid of one type of kernel panic.  

Now the system boots, inits everything, and then attempts to mount /dev/hda1,
which is a minix filesystem, and it panics.  Magic numbers don't match or
something like that (I apologize for not being able to report the actual
message, but I'm in the lab, not in my dorm room :-).  Kernel panics and
dies, leaving no diagnostic messages.  I don't have any other filesystems
compiled into the kernel except /proc.  

Has the fs code changed *significantly* between versions?  My fs was set up
using SLS 0.98.1 disks.  

If anyone else has run into this, then drop a line.  This is almost out of my
range.....

BTW -- has anyone proposed adding (in the great newsgroup split) c.o.l.problems
?

Thanks...

-- 
 David Gabrius                                          gabrius@gem.valpo.edu
 Pro Student, Computer Engineering               perfessr@imsa.edu  (IMSA '90)
 "And you can find/Your own way out/You can build/And I can will..." -U2
 "You miss too much these days if you stop to think..." -U2 (again)
From: baloo@nx09.mik.uky.edu (kevin s coupal)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Linux install will not recognize my SCSI drive! HELP
Keywords: linux scsi help
Date: 15 Dec 92 00:12:16 GMT
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
X-Path: nx09.mik.uky.edu!baloo

I'm trying to install the small version of linux on my 486 machine.  I have
the first for A disks.  And it boots just fine except it sais SCSI drives
found 0 tape drives found 0 but it finds my two floppy drives.  I havve
a colorado memory 250 meg tape drive, and a CDC 87 meg SCSI drive.  Any
help would be greatly appreciated.  And the hard drive controller is 
DTC if that helps any.  After the machine is booted and i get my #  prompt
i type fdisk and it sais command not found, i assume that is cuz it can't
find the hard drive to fdisk.  Doinstall does work but i don't know what
to do with that yet.  Please help if you know anything about this.
Kevin coupal
baloo@mik.uky.edu
From: bob@cs.umd.edu (Bahman Adeli)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Linux Include Files
Date: 13 Dec 92 05:34:56 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

I just got SLS package from sunsite.unc.edu.  When I try to compile
lilo or any other program that uses include files in /usr/include/linux/,
I get a lot of "File or directory not found" errors.  Looking at
/usr/include/sys/types.h and a few other header files shows that they
just include files from the linux directory, but I can only find
const.h in /usr/include/linux/.  Anyone know what the problem is or where
I can get these .h files?

Please send me mail if you have any suggestions.

Thanks


-- 
Spoken: Bahman Adeli   UUCP: uunet!tove!bob   INTERNET:bob@cs.umd.edu
From: ericy@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Eric Youngdale)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: status of QIC-80 driver on tsx-11.
Date: 14 Dec 1992 03:11:27 GMT
Organization: /etc/organization
NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu

In article <1992Dec13.055410.27559@sol.UVic.CA> pmacdona@sanjuan (Peter MacDonald) writes:
>By the same token, finding a CDROM that works with an IDE based PC
>would be great (could a CDROM be another read-only IDE drive, 
>theoretically?).  Having to plunk in a SCSI board seems futile,
>and adds to the cost and complexity of setting it up.  I am 
>unenlightened in this area.  Anyone who would care to talk about
>it to me, please drop me a line.  My main rational is establishing
>how feasible or when a CDROM of SLS would be practical/affordable
>for most of us.  I certainly am not willing to retool my entire 
>system just to have it, but I would consider spending $300-$400.
>Also, SCSI seems to be a bit problematic.

	I would guess that most people are having good luck with their scsi,
and it is only a small minority that are having troubles.  Even then, it
appears that most of the scsi troubles fall into two categories.  Most of the
scsi problems with the new code have now been fixed, although there are
intermittent reports of kernel crashes with people using the ST0x.
Motherboards that are unable to do bus mastering in a reliable way continue to
be a problem for some people, and this is something that we can do little
about.  Admittedly it does cost a little more up front, but no one has been
able to get any solid technical information on a non-scsi cdrom drive since the
interfaces are proprieatary.  I suspect that some of them are IDE drives of
some kind or another, but they all apparently require their own special
controller and apparently there is no standard way of adding a second IDE
controller.

>Also, is an EXT FS feasible for a CDROM?  Or are we doomed to using
>the ISO formats?

	No the ext fs is not feasible for the cdrom, because the iso format
works just fine, and it is an international standard format for cdroms.  The
Rock Ridge extensions make the cdrom look just like a unix filesystem, so
I can think of no good reason to try and use the extfs on a cdrom.

-Eric


Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: bangell@cs.utah.edu (bob angell)
Subject: Downloaded to MSDOS, now what?
Date: 15 Dec 92 23:35:10 MST
Distribution: w

I just downloaded all of the a1-4, b1-7, etc. diskettes from
tsx-11.mit.edu .... I have a few questions:

	I downloaded these to a PRIMARY dos partition on
		my HD, can I transfer/install to a Linux
		from there?

	I had to rename the .FSP_CONTENT file to get it
		downloaded for each diskette ... what is
		this file and what does it do?  I had to
		rename it FSP.b1, FSP.b2, etc. to get it
		downloaded.

	Can Linux reside on an extended partition? or does
		it need a primary partition??  Can I have 2
		active primary partitions under Linux? ( I
		have another MSDOS partition that is a 
		primary partition as well, along with OS/2
		and Boot Manager ... BTW, every thing was
		fdisk'd under OS/2 ... I need to install
		LILO first?? ... HELP??)

Thanks,

-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!]




Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: injoh@rz.tu-clausthal.de (Jochen Hein)
Subject: Re: Wanted: fidoware
Organization: TU Clausthal, Germany
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:47:33 GMT

In article <724297871.AA26347@remote.halcyon.com> Dave.Deavours@f303.n232.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Deavours) writes:

> UB> We got Cnews & Tin running...
> UB> We got Binkley (from TSX-11) to poll...

>Where'd you find it!?  I've been looking.  

On tsx-11.mit.edu. C-News & tin from Newspak. I don't remember the
directories, but you can look at ftp.tu-clausthal.de:/pub/systems/Linux/-
foreign-host-info. Binkley is also there with name bt203... or so...
I read news on a PC and can't look at the Directory...

> UB> There must be some ware (soft!) to interface between Binkley and
>the other
> UB> parts of this how-to-be-a-linux-fidonet-point-puzzle...

>You need a bit of software that will take the FIDOnet packets and turn
>them into something you can read.  A "tosser."  I don't know of one for
>Unix.

Maybe that fgate is such a "tosser"? I don't know, because I'm not
Fido-User, but I try it together with Ulf.

cu
    Jochen

Reply to HEIN@VAX.IN.TU-CLAUSTHAL.DE

Linux: The best text-adventure of the world!
From: ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Boot problems with SLS 0.99
Date: 16 Dec 1992 13:46:07 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Reply-To: ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
NNTP-Posting-Host: fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de

Looks like the SLS 0.99 distribution does not have the two fixes posted
by Linus in article <1992Dec14.201728.14054@tc.cornell.edu> compiled in;
check for that article under the Subject:  - line

IMPORTANT [BUG in 0.99] Re: [ANNOUNCE]: linux version 0.99

The solution...  uuuhhh...  wait for the updated version of SLS, or get
the kernel sources yourself, patch them by hand (a matter of seconds),
then recompile.  If you've never compiled before, don't forget the soft
link from /usr/include/linux to point to /usr/src/linux/include/linux,
and from /usr/include/asm to /usr/src/linux/include/asm.

Hope this helps
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
From: okir@monad.swb.de (Olaf Kirch)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Distribution: world
Subject: Re: Support for NS16550AFN UART (FAS driver) ?
Organization: Little Hole in the Ground
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 12:55:19 

On Wed, 9 Dec 1992 00:27:46 GMT, tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) said:
> Yes, Linux supports use of the 16550A chip; it doesn't use

Hi Linuxers!

I'm into replacing my v42.bis modem with something faster. Though, I
have a question first: Just how tight is timing at 38400 bps? I've
got an 486/50, but I just want to make sure. (I don't expect to be
able to start X during transmissions, though :-)

Any information greatly appreciated,
	Olaf

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Olaf Kirch          Darmstadt          | okir@monad.swb.de              |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: pmacdona@sanjuan (Peter MacDonald)
Subject: Re: A little linux xmas success story
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. CANADA
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 19:50:27 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.170202.496@anl433.uucp> Iain.Lea@anl433.uucp writes:
>The season of goodwill is almost upon us so I thought I would share a 
>little something to warm your hearts (sure as hell beats the recent
>linux vs. 386bsd BS).
>

[...Light hearted story mostly omitted]

>I rebooted with the a1 boot disk, created 55MB primary partition (type 81),
>a 5M swap partition (type 82), rebooted & put the a1 boot disk back in.

From the readme:
] to boot from your harddrive.  Note that if you have less than 4 Meg of RAM,
] you will need to make and activate a 4 Meg swap partition, prior to installation.
] For example, using /dev/hda3 for swap: "mkswap /dev/hda3 4096; swapon /dev/hda3"

You neglect to say if you did this or not!

>When I tried to mkfs /dev/hda1 it churned away for a few seconds and then
>core dumped. I had heard that linux would install with only 2MB of Ram but
>I now had doubts. Anyway I nobbled another 2MB from a friends notebook 
>(probably now an ex-friend - sorry Uwe) and installed it.
>

...

>My initial impressions, conclusions or whatever you want to call them follow:
>
>o /user/README did not *explicitly* state that I had to put the a1 boot
>  disk back in when I reset the computer after making a linux partition.
>o It does not *explicitly* state that one has to make a swap area. Both
>  this and the above point could do with better documentation.

I am really just replying to this to stress one point:  If people are using
SLS, and can post to this newsgroup, I assume that they can find out what the
current version of SLS is (.98p5 for the uninformed).  Just get the README
from tsx-11 if not.

It is rather pointless for people to post bug reports for previous releases.
Most often, the reported bugs are already fixed.

As for *explicitly* stating every step in installing SLS, well I don't think
Linux has quite recieved certification for toddlers.  Certainly the documentation
is not quite up to it, but I doubt that it will ever waste space stressing things
like "make sure the boot disk is in, when you boot your computer!".

On the other hand, I am seriously :) considering collecting the years 10 funniest
bug reports.  For courtesies sake, flame via email please.

Peter
pmacdona@sanjuan.uvic.ca
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: mliggett@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Mister Wizard)
Subject: WHERE is bootable rootdisk?
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:24:44 GMT

i looked for it on tsx-11 and couldn't find it.
I have a 486 w/ only 2MB ram and I want to install Linux, but I'm
not about to wait through the swapfest that SLS would put me through.
I will soon have 6MB but would like to get familiar with Linux first.
Also, does this installation contain emacs, lilo, elm, gcc, et. al.?
Thanks a bunch.

-

-- 
|\/|  __ -=> mliggett@silver.ucs.indiana.edu <=- (mliggett@iugold.bitnet)
|  |/\|| 'junk' collector, toys R us kid, antiauthoritarian...
   "...from the Marijuana plant; one acre makes four times more paper than one
        acre of trees."  -Jello Biafra .... Help lift the useless ban on hemp!
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale)
Subject: Re: How stable is extended filesystem?
Keywords: extfs
Organization: Naval Research Laboratory
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:48:56 GMT

In article <BzC542.8oF@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Jeff-Randall@uiuc.edu (Jeff Randall) writes:
>The extended filesystem as it is, has been very stable for me over the
>last 6 months.  However, there is a newer version of the extfs that will
>reportedly use bitmaps instead of linked-lists for a large increase in speed.

	The speed is definitely needed.  As some of you know, I had an IDE disk
die on me recently, and I had to restore everything from tape.  The fascinating
thing is that the scsi tape was able to read data *faster* than the extfs was
able to write it to disk.  The tape even had to stop and wait for a bit (the
red disk activity light was on continuously) because there were too many dirty
pages that needed to be written to disk.  Eventually it got caught up, but it
did seem kind of funny at the time.

	I tend to use minix for the root, and extfs for the /home partition.
I rarely have problems with extfs any more.

-Eric
-- 
Eric Youngdale
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: orman@iastate.edu (David L Orman)
Subject: ext fs question (.badblocks)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 06:47:33 GMT

does mkefs still make a /.badblocks with the -c option?  I was
reinstalling and tried it and I didnt get a .badblocks  I got made
errors as the scan was done however, so I know there is some bad spots. 
the command I used was:
mkefs -c /dev/hdb1 xxxxxx

I forget the number of blocks, anyway its an RLL drive with known bad
areas so whats the deal....  is it ok or not?
From: cullend@bnr.ca (Dave Cullen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Floppy DMA, question and patch (?)
Keywords: floppy,dma,patch,kernel,0.98.6,1MB,16MB,unofficial
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:36:10 GMT
Reply-To: cullend@bnr.ca
Distribution: na
Organization: BNR, Inc., Atlanta

In article <If=DXGK00Vp3MDgVMZ@andrew.cmu.edu>, fl0p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Frank T Lofaro) writes:
|> 
|> 	Is the 1MB DMA restriction in the floppy code necessary, or can
|> 386/486's handle 16MB DMA for the floppy? I have this patch (suggested
|> to me in e-mail) that ups the limit to 16MB from 1MB, and it seems to
|> work. This patch was made using 0.98.6, but should fit into just about
|> anything. (its really small). I am not posting in to
|> comp.os.linux.announce, since I am not sure that what it does is okay.
|> It seems to work for me, so far... Well, here is the patch, for
|> kernel/blk_drv/floppy.c. Sorry, you have to cd into kernel/blk_drv after
|> cd'ing into the root of your source tree (I made the diff in that
|> directory, and since it is unofficial, and I was in a hurry, I haven't
|> had a chance to fix it.). Well anyway, here is the patch, for those that
|> want to try it. *NO GUARANTEES THAT THIS WILL WORK. IT MIGHT EVEN CRASH
|> YOUR SYSTEM OR DAMAGE FILES*. Hopefully, we will all hear soon if this
|> change is okay.
|> 
|> *** floppy.c.olddma	Mon Dec 14 00:54:40 1992
|> --- floppy.c	Mon Dec 14 00:55:40 1992
|> ***************
|> *** 121,129 ****
|>   
|>   /*
|>    * The DMA channel used by the floppy controller cannot access data at
|> !  * addresses >= 1MB
|>    */
|> ! #define LAST_DMA_ADDR	(0x100000 - BLOCK_SIZE)
|>   
|>   /*
|>    * globals used by 'result()'
|> --- 121,129 ----
|>   
|>   /*
|>    * The DMA channel used by the floppy controller cannot access data at
|> !  * addresses >= 16MB
|>    */
|> ! #define LAST_DMA_ADDR	(0x1000000 - BLOCK_SIZE)
|>   
|>   /*
|>    * globals used by 'result()'

Sooner or later this will trash your system.  DMA can be done up to
16MB but thep DMA page registers need to be programmed with the high
7 bits of the address.  Currently the DMA page registers are never
programmed in linux and just left the way the bios programmed them at 0.

The DMA page registers are at I/O address 80H - 9FH.  I don't remember
which page register address corresponds with which DMA channel but I
can look it up when I get home if anyone wants to know.

David
 
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.sys.laptops