HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: shite@sinkhole.unf.edu (Stephen Hite)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: DTK Motherboards
Date: 3 Sep 92 01:58:20 GMT
Organization: University of North Florida, Jacksonville

In article <3429@ra.nrl.navy.mil> deal@hightop.nrl.navy.mil (Richard Deal) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.211748.22040@mksol.dseg.ti.com> kylscott@mksol.dseg.ti.com (kyl w scott) writes:
>>Hi. I am looking at buying a DTK 486-33/50 (haven't decided which yet).
>>I remember someone saying that the DTK boards suffered from 
>>"spurious interrupts" which DOS didn't care about, but UNIX
>>hated.  Does anyone have any info on this?  Is anyone running
>>unix or xenix on a DTK systems?  Is there a better 486 board
>>to buy?
>
>I don't know about 386BSD on DTK's but I used to support several DTK 
>machines running SCO and Interactive UNIX.  The DTK's were very nice
>machines I particullarly liked the designe and layout of them.  We had
>486/33 towers.  I also preffered Interactive to SCO, SCO was very difficult
>to install and maintain and often had random crash fits.  The SCO box's 
>had problems with the 150 meg Archive tape drive hanging the system.  The 
>Interactive machine rarly crashed and was up for months.  
>16 MRam, 3.5, 4.25, 150 Meg Archive tapes, 650 Meg SCSI Hard disks, 
>(up to 4) Chase 16 port serial boards, mono display, Keridge BASIC interpriter.
>We used the machines to replace WANG equipment.  The Keridge interpriter 


   Eric S. Raymond in his hardware guide posts to the net says to
avoid the DTK motherboards like the plague for use as a 386/486 Unix box.
Hmm, it's interesting to hear someone with *real* experience and 
obviously several versions of the DTK boards have no complaints. ;-)
Perhaps the company has fixed some problems they used to have?


P.S. Don't ask me for Eric's hardware guide because I don't have it.
     I *think* he posts it here and in comp.unix.sysv386 from time to
     time. 
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: gpw10@phoenixcd.amdahl.com (Gary Ward)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: What is 386BSD ?
Date: 3 Sep 92 03:28:24 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA


jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel) writes: 
> 
>    4. I have 386-33, 130meg HD, 4meg RAM, ET4000 card, microsoft mouse.
>       (no 387) will this config work?

This sounds like it should be fine for 386BSD.  You should be aware that with
only 4 Meg of RAM you may be doing quite a bit of swapping with X-windows
running.  This was my experience running ISC unix and X11R4 about a year ago.
It ran unix fine but swapped continuously under X.  I then upgraded to 8 Meg
and have had no problems with either ISC or 386BSD swapping excessively.

-- 
+------------------------+---------------------------+
| Gary Ward              |  Amdahl Corporation       |
| gpw10@cd.amdahl.com    |  1250 East Arques Avenue  |
| Phone : (408)746-8865  |  P.O. Box 3470 M/S 142    |
|                        |  Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3470 | 
+------------------------+---------------------------+
From: pbd@runyon.cim.cdc.com (Paul Dokas)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Is ISA ok?  or should I wait for EISA?
Date: 1 Sep 92 15:32:13 GMT
Organization: ICEM Systems, Inc.

I broke down yesterday and ftped the distribution boot floppy
and booted 386bsd on a minimally configured portable.  Amazing!

However, this has only increased my desire to buy a machine.
I've been holding out for 386bsd to support machines that have
a higher bus bandwidth (EISA, local etc), but I realized this
that I probably can't afford such a machine as my target price
is around or below $3000 (CPU, 300MD disk, SVGA, lots of memory...)

My question is:  how does 386bsd perform with an ISA bus
386/486?  I'm especially interested in SCSI (Adaptec 1542B)
throughput and X performance.

I know that this is a really broad question to ask and that
an answer will depend on many variables (how much memory,
speed of the processor, size of disk, type of disk, etc).
But I want to avoid saying, "I really should have bought
some other component."  In short, I want to be relatively
satisfied with the performance of what I buy.

So, here's your chance.  If you bought/have a machine and are
disappointed or really happy with some piece of it (CPU, DISK,
SVGA, etc) please let me know.  I'm especially interested in
whether an ISA bus is capable of supporting X performance and
SCSI disks without sluggishness.  If there is interest, I will
post a summary.

BTW, I've read the FAQ and Eric Raymond's (sp?) PC Buyer's guide
but neither one really addresses subjective user's experience.

-- 
#include <std.disclaimer>
#define FULL_NAME               "Paul Dokas"
#define EMAIL_PRIMARY           "pbd@runyon.cim.cdc.com"
#define EMAIL_SECONDARY         "pbd@power1.cim.cdc.com"
/*** "modern" humans are the embodiment of koyaanisqatsi ***/
From: jtsilla@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu (James Tsillas)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Configurable kernel?
Date: 31 Aug 92 18:13:37 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Northeastern University, Boston, MA


After installing the binary version of 386bsd I noticed there was no way
to relink the kernel without getting a source installtion. Is there any
work being done to provide a configurable kernel with all the libraries
and objects?

-Jim.
--
	***                                                      ***
	***  James Tsillas  jtsilla@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu   ***
	*** "He is after me. Jim is after him."                  ***
	***          - Hop on Pop, Dr. Seuss                     ***
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: migieger@delos.stgt.sub.org (Michael Giegerich)
Subject: Re: SCSI-2 tape and disk drives recommendations
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 23:19:56 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Delos Stuttgart, Germany

>
>Knowing someone from Conner, Maxtor and Seagate, and getting some honest
>feedback once in a while, I would say go for Maxtor. They've the most 
>experience in making 5 1/4" large capacity SCSI (>300Meg.).
>	One of my housemate use to run torture test in his QA lab (i.e.
>random read/write + low level format on a 7/24 basis). Never had a prob. with
>Maxtor. He kill several Seagate within a week. Not all Maxtor models are good.
>I would say stick with the field proven one, not the brand new model.
>Generally, go for 5 1/4" disk from Maxtor, and you should be OK.
>Fujitsu, might have some air-flow + heat control prob. especially on their
>3.5" disk.
>Seagate basically is a trash, not worth to mention.
>Micropolis is a decent drive too, dunno much about it.
>

I saw 100 and 200 MB Conner SCSI-drives in several DEC workstations.
One largely used 420 MB SCSI-drive (DEC, Sun) is the 1480N Seagate drive.
I'm not sure about the following, but I believe DEC is using also Micro-
polis drives for sizes over 1 GB,
If this helps...

Michael Giegerich


Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: Extracting 386bsd bin01 on another machine
Date: 31 Aug 92 08:16:02 GMT
Reply-To: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de
Organization: Uni-Duisburg FB9 Datenverarbeitung

In <1992Aug27.180957.5715@news.th-darmstadt.de> deeken@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (Hans-Christoph Deeken) writes:

>Holger Veit (veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de) wrote:
>>
>> If you do not have some "braindead-cpio" system which swaps bytes (Sun3 and
>> other 68xxx related systems have this "feature") you might try the following:
>> 
>> # have the bin01.* files HERE
>> mkdir distdir
>> cd distdir
>> cat ../bin01.* | uncompress | cpio -idvalmu
>> 
>> into a directory under 'distdir'. But be warned: there may be complaints about
>> some devices in distdir/dev/* which cannot be created if you are not root
>> (depends on whether you may execute mknod). You may have to rebuild the 
>> devices on the 386bsd system manually.
>> 
>> This procedure has been tested on a Sun4 Sparc.

>What makes you believe that a Sun 3 works different than a Sparc in this case,
>provided they run the same version of SunOS? They're both big-endian machines.

>My Sun 3/60 running SunOS 4.1.1 had no problems at all with the 386BSD archives.


>> Holger

>Hannes
>--
>Hans-Christoph Deeken                                        (Glenlivet on IRC)
>Inst. fuer theoret. Informatik		(deeken@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de)
>TH Darmstadt, Germany          (I don't speak for THD, they don't speak for me)
>        "Whisky ist fluessiges Sonnenlicht --- George Bernard Shaw"

It has been rumored (in this group) that there are problems with Sun 3's 
(probably running an older version than 4.1.1 and/or a bug in cpio of that 
version). If you tell us that it works with a Sun 3 under 4.1.1, it is okay.

Holger

-- 
|  |   / Holger Veit             | INTERNET: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de
|__|  /  University of Duisburg  | BITNET: veit%du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de@UNIDO
|  | /   Dept. of Electr. Eng.   | "No, my programs are not BUGGY, these are
|  |/    Inst. f. Dataprocessing |          just unexpected FEATURES"
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: zsh for 386bsd
Date: 27 Aug 92 17:32:09 GMT
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de
Organization: Uni-Duisburg FB9 Datenverarbeitung

In <1992Aug26.204022.24768@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.COM (Robert Withrow) writes:

>In article <1992Aug26.144114.16304@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>, 
>  eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad) writes:
>| peter@panther.cosy.sbg.ac.at (Peter Burgstaller) writes:
>| : I don't have enough space on my harddisk to install the complete
>| : source-distribution. 
>| You do not need to install the entire source-distribution.
>| With my 60Mbyte space for 386bsd, I managed to install the kernel sources
>| and compile it.

>Could you summarize the necessary steps?  Lot's of us would like that.

>-- 
>---
> Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA 01907 USA
> Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Net: witr@rwwa.COM

Before Peter answers, I'll give you an alternative solution:

I have unpacked the kernel sources from the src01 archive and repacked them
in an "unofficial" archive.
This package is available from 
ftp.uni-duisburg.de (134.91.4.132) in /pub/unix/386bsd-0.1/unofficial/kerndist.

This is a tar.Z archive (in contrast to the other packages) and cannot be
installed by 'extract'.

Get the README.kerndist first.

The package is 1.3 MB compressed in size, and 3.5 MB as the uncompressed tree,
but you NEED 7-8 MB of free space on your disk (and of course the whole 
bindist package, which already contains parts of the kernel package).
The remaining 3.5 - 4.5 MB, which make the difference between the tree and
the required space, are needed for the compilation and the object files.

Have fun, but retrieve the archive at night (local time = GMT+1) only.

Holger

-- 
|  |   / Holger Veit             | INTERNET: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de
|__|  /  University of Duisburg  | BITNET: veit%du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de@UNIDO
|  | /   Dept. of Electr. Eng.   | "No, my programs are not BUGGY, these are
|  |/    Inst. f. Dataprocessing |          just unexpected FEATURES"
From: staylor@snidely.UUCP (Scott G. Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Controller manufacturers (was Re:Colorado Memory Systems)
Date: 4 Sep 92 05:59:14 GMT

in article <h!mn#wj.hasty@netcom.com>, Amancio Hasty Jr wrote:

> In article <1992Sep2.134522.13938@digi.lonestar.org> mfrohman@digi.lonestar.org (Matthew Frohman) writes:
>>Has anyone tried to use the DJ-20 from Colorado Memory
>>Systems under 386BSD? I talked to their technical support
>>and they said they have only tested the software under
>>SYS V implementations of Unix. Anyone used it under BSD?
> 
> Also, you may add that they will not release any technical information
> on their interface!

Colorado Memory Systems people are not special in this respect.  I have yet
to find a tape drive controller manufacturer who will even discuss the
programming of their tape drive controllers.  Do these people believe
they have God's Gift to tape drives, and to release *ANY* information 
would jeopardize their niche?  

These companies are not in the software business.  Most of them simply
tell you that "[brand X commercial Unix] already has a driver," and
continue to insist that either the driver included with the controller
or the commercial Unix is all that you need.

The Colorado tech support staff seemed to know nothing about their
own equipment, except to follow "procedures" for support calls.  The
guy I spoke with kept insisting I check the configuration, basically
ignoring anything I said.  For all he knew, I could have been calling
for support for an automatic breadmaker!

Overland Data would distribute a sample program (if you *REALLY* bugged
and begged them for it).  However, the program was undocumented and
completely unsupported.  *Any* attempt to inquire on the controller
or sample program's operation were dealt with extremely terse rudeness.
I have added them to my favorite list of companies not to patronize.

I have resorted to SCSI tapes.  It is really too bad, since all those
non-SCSI tapes drives are much cheaper than anything SCSI.  

And for anyone with other than an Adaptec 1542B controller, *NO*,
it is not compatible.  386BSD will have to wait for someone
to port or write a driver for it.  Future Domain
will sell you a Developer's kit for their controllers, but I will
wait for someone else to fork out the bucks for that.

It seems to me that all these companies try to sell their product 
through the availability of their software on a given platform.
Don't they understand that they should sell their HARDWARD by
making it easily integratable into *ANY* platform?  Why does
Adaptec charge *MORE*  money to get enhanced drivers for their
controllers--and it is difficult to find someone with a
bare-board package in stock.  

These companies should sell their Hardware, and make every effort
to make it work under ALL platforms if they really knew how to
work commerce. 

				-scott
--
Scott G. Akmentins-Taylor        InterNet: staylor@snidely.pmdr.wlv.ca.us
MRY Systems				   staylor@cerfnet.com
                                     UUCP: snidely!staylor

	----	"Jerumani par Latvijas valsts presidentu"    ----
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: cosc16tt@menudo.uh.edu (Dennis Gray Jr.)
Subject: Tiny386BSD disk doesn't work!  Please help
Reply-To: DGray@uh.edu
Organization: /posole/cosc16tt/.organization
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 00:32:40 GMT


That's right; After waiting on the edge of my chair for over a week,
my Tiny386BSD disk got here!  But it doesn't work!  It tells me:

Ttrap type 19 code = 0 eip = fe00076e cs = 8 eflags = 2cr2 0 cpl ffffffff
panic!trap
hit reset please

When I hit reset it does this again.  What is wrong?  How do I fix it?
Thanks in advance.

-dennis
--
Dennis Gray, Jr.                 "What the hell were you doing???"

DGray@uh.edu                   "Attempting the hell to communicate."
                                     -from The Voyage Home


Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: craig@ec.uwa.oz.au (Craig Richmond - division)
Subject: Re: time for comp.unix.bsd.386
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 09:37:40 GMT

peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>FWIW, if we're going to have a bunch of comp.os.unix-alike groups, then
>this should be comp.os.386bsd. I think it would be better to put the
>unix-alikes together in a common hierarchy, but for political reasons
>we shouldn't single out 386bsd as a special case.

comp.os.UNIX.386bsd

*craig screams loudly*

Craig
--
Craig Richmond.  Computer Officer -  Dept of Economics (morning) 380 3860
  University of Western Australia    Dept of Education (afternoon)
craig@ecel.uwa.edu.au                              Dvorak Keyboards RULE!
     "Only users are allowed to make messes on their computers"  I.M.VI
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: What is 386BSD ?
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:58:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.Btyy9p.DD1
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana


    I know very little about 386BSD. I saw some articles in Dr Dobbs about
    porting Unix to 386, and I guess we can get it free, even the source 
    code. That's all I know about it.

    1. Is it really free ? 
    2. Where can I get it ? (I can FTP)
    3. How much disk space for:
	*kernel
	*X
	*source to kernel
	*source to X
    4. I have 386-33, 130meg HD, 4meg RAM, ET4000 card, microsoft mouse.
       (no 387) will this config work?
    5. How good does it work?
    6. Is there free developement kit, C, C++, libraries,etc..?

    Thanks for all information. 
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 John A. Slagel     "My old man used to tell me, before he left this
 j-slagel1@uiuc.edu  shitty world, never chase buses or women- you
                     always get left behind." -The Marlboro Man
From: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
Subject: Re: [386bsd] Virtual memory exhausted. Do I need more swap?
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 03:40:40 GMT

goran@astro.uu.se (Goran Hammarback) writes:
: In article <david.714981284@mlb.geomechanics.csiro.au>, david@mlb.geomechanics.csiro.au (David Le Blanc) writes:
: |> When compiling some programs with GCC, I get the message 'virtual memory
: |> exhausted'. I have 40Meg virtual memory, so I am sure that is not the problem.

I had the same problem compiling petdingo at the bison.simple parser output
with lots of macros, using g++. I have no problems compiling gcc-2.2.2 using
gcc only(no g++). I have 16Mbyte RAM and 15Mbyte swap.
I tried to increase it by 7Mbyte more but cannot create additional swap 
partition using disklabel 0.1. Maybe disklabel 0.0 may work but I do not
have that copy any more.

: |> 
: |> Is there a setting with GCC which I should raise or what??
: 
: You have probably encountered a software limit on memory.
: 
: In csh (maybe also in the other shells, but I use csh (well, actually
: tcsh 8-) )) there is command named limit.  I'm not at my 386BSD computer
: now, so I'm not sure of the names,  but do limit and look for things that
: may be called: stacksize, datasize, and memoryuse. 
: Increase these values as wanted.

I had tried running as root, ash, csh, and bash without success.
I'll try raising other parameters.

--
Othman bin Ahmad, School of EEE,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2263.
Internet Email: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
Bitnet Email: eoahmad@ntuvax.bitnet

Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: colin@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au (Colin Manning)
Subject: Re: Cgd's boot floppies
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 03:53:58 GMT

guido@gvr.win.tue.nl (Guido van Rooij) writes:

>I wondered it the boot floppies, e.g dist.fs-noIS, made by CGD also
>have tehe patch to allow a second fixed disk to be installed.

Yes they do.  Or so he says in the README.


>If not, is there a fixed kernel out there having both that patch and
>all other vital ones in it? 

>-Guido
>-- 
>Guido van Rooij            /        internet: guido@gvr.win.tue.nl
>Bisschopsmolen 16          \        phone: ++31-40461433
>5612 DS Eindhoven          /
>The Netherlands            \
-- 
Colin [colin@cs.curtin.edu.au]

"Knowledge is not knowing all the answers, but knowing where to find them."
                                                                  -anon.
--
Colin [colin@cs.curtin.edu.au]

"Knowledge is not knowing all the answers, but knowing where to find them."
                                                                  -anon.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com (Rob Warnock)
Subject: Re: 386BSD asboot problems (bug?)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 13:09:49 GMT

cchase@cs.cornell.edu (Craig Chase) writes:
+---------------
| 1) has anyone else had trouble succesfully labeling a SCSI disk with
|    DOS as the first partitions (and 386BSD after)?
+---------------

Yes. What I do is manually patch the binary image on disk of "asboot" to
have the right sector offset for the "a" partition. Ugly, but it works.
(I do the patching with MS-ODS's "DEBUG", typing/executing assembler
to do "INT 13" reads/writes. Now that *is* UG-lee!!!)

In the 0.1 asboot, the location to patch is 0x60 bytes into the file
(into relative block #0 of the partition). At bytes 0x60-63 put the
*BIG*Endian sector number of that same sector (first sector of the
partition). Then everything will work.

+---------------
| 3) Have I encountered a bug in disklabel, asboot, bootas, or...
+---------------

It's a bug in "asboot", or if you prefer, in the process which installs
the image of "asboot" on the disk (i.e., "disklabel"). One or the other...

I'm not sure yet what the cleanest solution would be...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510		rpw3@sgi.com
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		(415)390-1673
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA  94043

Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
From: eje@irenaeus.mlo.dec.com (Eric James Ewanco)
Subject: su behavior
Reply-To: ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 15:51:12 GMT


I noticed something unusual, at least to me, about su behavior on 386bsd.

I've used Ultrix in the past, Suns too, and they allow you to su on any
terminal. But 386bsd insists that the only ones who can su are those who are in
the group "wheel".  This is pretty stupid, though, because when I put my user
in group wheel, I automatically had root privileges!! This totally defeats the
purpose of su!  If you are allowed to su, then you don't need to because you
already have root access!!!

Is this standard behavior for su?  What is the reasoning behind this?

Of course if I don't like it I can just hack it and recompile it ;-)

Eric
--
/=============================================================================\
| Eric Ewanco - Software Engineer     For the rash and outrageous opinions ex-|
| Digital Equipment Corp, Maynard MA  pressed herein I alone am responsible;  |
| ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com          they do not belong to DIGITAL(TM).      |
\==============================- 2 Th 2:15 -==================================/

Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Date: Thu,  3 Sep 1992 08:17:58 -0400 
From: "Alex R.N. Wetmore" <aw2t+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: com port and more

I just installed 386bsd last night.  Anyway, here are a few of my
questions that have popped up early:
  1) I have a terminal on com1 (telix running vt100), and com2 (z29 in
ansi mode).  On the PC running telix, whenever I run an application that
uses curses (vi) it locks the terminal.  If I drop dtr 4 times I will
eventully kill vi and get a prompt back, but I was wondering what could
be wrong here.  The terminal is set up as std.9600 in /etc/ttys. 
According to telix I am at 9600,e,7,1,xon/xoff,no cts/rts though.  I
haven't tried this with another terminal package yet.

  2) I copied screen from wuarchive in
/mirrors/386bsd/386bsd-0.1/filesystem/usr/othersrc/screen-3.2/bin/screen
(or something like that).  Anyway, it seems to work fine, but locks on
both terminals (note that the terminal on com2 does work fine for
everything else).  I haven't gotten around to compiling screen myself,
but I thought that the pre-compiled one should work.

  3) How do I add swap space.  I looked in the faq, but it seemed to be
talking about swap space on a second drive.  I have left some free
(non-partitioned) space on my harddrive to make as swap, just need to
know how to go about setting it up.

Overall I am very impressed with the product.  Much fuller then linux,
and so far it seems to be much less buggy than mach (or at least less
weird).

alex