HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hlu@phys1.physics.wsu.edu (Hongjiu Lu)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Shared Libraries Considered Harmful
Date: 12 Aug 92 20:24:38 GMT
Organization: Washington State University

I am not sure about that. With jump table, we just added one jump for
each function. If the libs are compiled with -O -fomit-frame-pointer,
I don't think you will notice a thing.

-- 
H.J.
Gcc/libc maintainer for Linux.
In article <1992Aug12.182534.12667@unislc.uucp>, erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp) writes:
|> william E Davidsen (davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM) wrote:
|> 
|> : I know Linus got some new info about libraries from my question in
|> : comp.arch, it may be possible to get the portability of a jump table
|> : without the performance drawbacks. Of course everyone else may be
|> : running a 486-50 and not notice the performance hit.
|> 
|> Yeah, right ... can you say 386SX/16? :(
|> -- 
|> Ed Carp, N7EKG     erc@apple.com                801/538-0177
|> "This is the final task I will ever give you, and it  goes  on  forever.   Act
|> happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love,
|> and do what you will."           -- Dan Millman, "Way Of The Peaceful Warrior"
From: frank@cs.yorku.ca (Frank Pikelner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Where are these DIGESTS/ how to use them?
Date: 20 Aug 92 18:57:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: yetti.1408
Distribution: world
Organization: York University, Dept. of Computer Science

The FAQ and other docs seem to mention cetain digests, where can I find them?
Are they from an FTP site? If so which?

Thanks,

Frank Pikelner
frank@cs.yorku.ca
From: tthorn@daimi.aau.dk (Tommy Thorn)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Who can use SLS..NOT!
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:22:29 GMT
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark

pmacdona@sanjuan (Peter MacDonald) writes:

>People are starting to ask if SLS can be used for various and
>sundry purposes, such as redistribution or selling.   Since I
>didn't state so in the README, let me clear the air here.  Anybody
>can use SLS for anything they want (except  restricting others
>of course).  In short, the same rules that apply to the Linux
>kernel, apply to SLS.  If you wish to sell it for $5,000.00
>(support extra) and can find someone to buy it, you are free
>to do so.  If you wish to siphon it through to Bullitin (sp?)
>boards or Fidonet, by all means.  After all, SLS is designed
>to save people the agonizing task of collecting and integrating
>a system themselves.  And it is hoped it will catapult it 
>to greater availability.

>Peter

Your are omitting one very important fact here. You are *required*
to make sources available on demand for at least three years for
a distribution fee, *and* state this fact *clearly*.

While make life easier for many is a Good Thing (tm), it's *no* excuse
for taking away peoples basic right. This is not meant as a flame, but
take into account that people who has difficulites get binaries from
FTP sites, has exactly the same problems with source.

The message is: *STOP THESE BINARY-ONLY RELEASES*!! It's ok to make
a complete packages, and to distribute binaries and sources seperate, but
there *must* be a 1-1 corespondence. Who are you to break GPL?

-- 
/Tommy Thorn, another LPF member. Terminate software patents.
Join The League for Programming Freedom, mail league@prep.ai.mit.edu.
XT350 '88 - You either make dust, or you eat it.
From: jefftep@cs.utexas.edu (Jeffrey Grills)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: anyone have bootb.exe?
Date: 19 Aug 1992 00:26:02 -0500
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: ozona.cs.utexas.edu

In article <1992Aug19.044104.21392@sol.UVic.CA> pmacdona@sanjuan (Peter MacDonald) writes:
>I am looking for bootb.exe, so it can be included in the SLS
>distribution.  This will allow installation even on machines
>with the wrong format of boot drive.  Anyone help me out...
>
>Peter.


Yes, I have it.  It is available from SIMTEL and any mirror in the
appropriate directory, in the DSKUTL directory.


  NOTE: This list was created on Sun, 16 Aug 92 15:27:56 MDT.
  Some files may have been added or deleted since that date.
  See file PD1:<MSDOS.FILEDOCS>AAAREAD.ME for additional information.

  NOTE: Type B is Binary; Type A is ASCII

  Directory PD1:<MSDOS.DSKUTL>
   Filename   Type Length   Date   Description
  ==============================================
  BOOT_B.ZIP    B    4349  910626  Boots machine with A: and B: drives swapped


Here are some sites:
  oak ()	{ ftp 141.210.10.117 }
  simtel ()	{ ftp 192.88.110.20 }
  wu ()		{ ftp 128.252.135.4 }


(Oh, and if I made and grammer/spelling mistakes in *this* post, please
feel free to happily send your flames to /dev/null.  I really couldn't
-- 
-------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
jeff grills              | "Sometimes i see myself so clearly, because I
jefftep@cs.utexas.edu    |   see nothing at all.  This feeling of emptiness
Undergrad Lab, UT Austin |   flees my soul, leaving even less behind."  -me
From: davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Stabilizing Linux
Date: 13 Aug 92 13:33:13 GMT
Reply-To: davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center, Schenectady NY

In article <1992Aug12.173012.17552@colorado.edu>, drew@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) writes:

| Loadable device drivers are bad because you need to relocate them 
| at load time.  Loadable device drivers may be impractical - for 
| instance, if your disk driver is on the root disk which you can't
| read, you are SOL.  I don't like loadable device drivers - you
| don't really gain anything significant that you don't get with a 
| good config utility.

And the person trying to install on a new machine can't rebuild the
kernel, so s/he needs another working system to get going. Bleh.
Relocation at load time might take 1-2 sec of cpu. Big deal. Without
loadable device drivers you must have a working system to generate a new
kernel.

As for generating a new kernel in 30 sec, some Linux users don't have
the disk to keep the kernel sources and objects online all the time (or
even any of the time).

For those without a 486-800 to recompile the kernal in 30 sec, here's
how loadable dd's work. If you want to install on a new dipthong50 disk
controller, you boot the floppy kernel, and then add the device driver
for your HD controller by reading it off a floppy. Then install as
usual, and write the enhanced kernel on the hard disk. No sources, no
compile time, just snuggle some position independent code up to the
kernel and adjust the vectors in the kernel to use it.

Same ease of testing new device drivers, load them with the kernel in
memory, and if the drive panics the kernel, as might ahppen now and
again, you can just reboot. Beats rebuild kernels, booting from floppy,
etc.

You may be able to rebuild your kernel in 30 seconds, but I doubt that
many other linux users can. Besides, this o/s is breaking a lot of new
ground, and the kernel needs virtually no extra code, since the memory
allocator and disk io is there already. Just a bit of code to actually
add the driver to that vectors. If the system was limited to only what
every single user needed, it wouldn't be very righ (or open).

-- 
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: rohrer@fncrd6.fnal.gov (Keith Rohrer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Diskette Changeline (was: Need Help: Mtools)
Date: 21 Aug 92 14:29:26 GMT
Followup-To: rohrer@fncrd0.fnal.gov
Organization: Fermilab

In article <1992Aug21.023532.28214@athena.mit.edu> tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) writes:
>   From: jhuang@Chaos.mcs.kent.edu (Jing Huang)
>   Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 20:39:10 GMT
[Possible typical diskette changeline problem deleted]
To be certain, you ought to try this under MS-DOG (or DR-DOS, take your pick,
even OS/2 ought to do it; if you're considering testing this with the Windows
NT pre-release developer's kit, Begone Evil One, though that might work too...)
just to make sure; I've got some nasty hard drive problems that don't
show up under MS- or DR- DOS (or OS/2 2.0) at all...

>It sounds like your floppy drive doesn't have its "diskette change line"
>working correctly --- apparently that's a common problem.  The meaning
>of that line (I think it's pin 34 on the ribbon connector) changed from
If I remember my lore correctly, not so much changed as became useful.

>XT floppy dirves to AT floppy drives.  On AT systems, that line is
>supposed to signal to computer that someone has opened the driver door
>(on a 5" disk) or ejected the floppy (on a 3" disk), so the computer
>should flush its disk buffers.  
>On some diskette drives, there is a jumper you can set to enable/disable
>that line.  If you have the documentation for your drive, you might look
This line is (1) not present on most, if not all, 360K drives, and (2)
usually selectable between Diskette Changeline and Standard Ready.  Do
*not* specify standard ready!  That signals when there's a disk loaded
properly in the drive, and the computer interprets that as "diskette
unchanged"....

>for such a jumper, or see if there's an obvious jumper whose trace goes
>to that pin on the edge connector.

>Even if you can fix your hardware, it sounds like, we need an ioctl in
>the floppy disk driver to artificially simulate a disk change event, for
>people who can't.  It wouldn't be hard to do, and it would probably be a
>good exercise for somone who wants to start learning how a Linux device
>driver works.  (Hint: look at the variable changed_floppy.)
Don't we need to have diskette changeline support disablable already, or has
nobody tested Linux with a 360K drive?

>If no one gets around to posting a patch in a week or two, though, I'll
>make the changes when I can find some time.
>						- Ted

	Keith
(rohrer@fncrd0.fnal.gov)

-- 
Disclaimer: None of Grinnell College, URA, Fermilab, and any other affiliated
persons or orginizations have licensed my ideas or opinions, and thus are
not entitled to any which may appear above.
From: platt@coos.dartmouth.edu (The Crouton Man)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Linus security/Non root access
Date: 21 Aug 92 05:11:17 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

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. 
:: 
:: One solution I can think of is getting a machine that has a password protected
:: BIOS, and allows the change in the boot order with the hard drive first. I would
:: love to hear other ideas, if any do exist.
:
:Hmmm...you could hack the loader to refuse to load the kernel from
:diskette - that might be easier than spending the $$$ to get a machine with
:a password protected BIOS.  If someone booted MS-DOS from a diskette,
:it wouldn't do them any good, anyway, 'cause you can't read a linux
:partition from MS-DOS.  Not yet, anyway... :)
:
:The loader code is in /usr/src/linux/boot/bootsect.S

this will not work as someone can come along with a boot disk
(make disk in the top of the source tree) with their own bootsect.S
that has not been modified. 

the problem must be addressed from the boot-rom, such as the afore-mentioned
passwd locking.  even this might not do it, depending on the bios setup.

my machine came with the passwd locking mechinism, but i have never 
explored it. 

croutons.
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Re: Hey!  Linux fs on DOS partition!
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 19:37:26 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.174026.3032@bernina.ethz.ch> almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch (Werner Almesberger) writes:
>In article <713720748snx@crynwr.com> nelson@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson) writes:
>> Hey, here's a cool idea I had yesterday: Make a Linux filesystem
>> driver that puts its filesystem in a file on an MS-LOSS partition.
>
>Sorry to disappoint you, but there are several people, who already
>had this idea. No shiny new patents .. ;-)
>
>Seriously: half of it is already there. The other half will be missing
>until the variable block size code is completed. The first half is the
>loop devices patch, that makes it possible to mount regular files on
>file systems that support bmap as file systems.

Actually I've got working user space block device code that will
do just this. No one had expressed any interest so I was holding
onto it until I could find some compress code to make a compressed
file system. However if someone wants to try this I can set it up
to work with .97 and send them the device driver and some sample
programs.

>Unfortunately, MS-DOS arranges its clusters in such an odd way, that
>bmap can't be used on hard disks and on some floppies. But it works
>with the old 360k (and I think also 1.2MB) format. If you have the
>loop devices patch installed, you can try something like this:
>
># mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /fd	# there's a 360kB floppy in /dev/fd0
># dd if=/dev/zero of=/fd/file bs=1k count=350
># mkfs /fd/file 350
># mount /fd/file /mnt

The way the user space driver works this shouldn't be a problem.
-- 
>>Unix/C Contract worker available 5 years C/unix work experience<<  ______
Available for Telecommuting/Travel and contracts on the T Line       \    /
in the Boston MA area. Send me e-mail for a copy of my Resume.        \  /
       -- VWIS 508-793-9568 (2400 baud), Linux support BBS.--          \/
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: thoth@uiuc.edu (Ben Cox)
Subject: Re: Linux documentation
Originator: btc30679@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: thoth@uiuc.edu (Ben Cox)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 04:25:05 GMT

Mark Komarinski <komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu> writes:

>I'll volunteer for working on the documentation for linux.  At this point,
>I won't be able to start writing until the end of august (Downloading 13
>megs of stuff at 2400 bps is really really slow...).  Once I get back to
>school, I'll be able to keep up to date and make some current
>documentation that can be printed out or whatever.
>All I ask is that I get a rough idea of what everyone wants to see in the
>documentation.

Anyone who is interested in writing documentation for Linux should
join the Linux-Man mailing list; write to linux-man-request@stolaf.edu
to join.

Mark, and anyone else out there, please, if you're interested in
writing documentation, don't just do it on your own; try to coordinate
with the rest of us who are working on it too, to avoid duplication of
effort.

--
Ben Cox
thoth@uiuc.edu
From: wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Where's the FAQ ?
Date: 20 Aug 92 12:41:46 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

sac@cl.cam.ac.uk (Simon Crosby) writes:
>Could someone please post either an FAQ or the ftp site of 
>the FAQ and location of the source code for linux.

From my Meta-FAQ posted every Monday to this very newsgroup:

$ Major FTP sites for Linux
$ 
$         textual name                            numeric addr   Linux directory
$         
$         tsx-11.mit.edu                          18.172.1.2     /pub/linux
$         nic.funet.fi                            128.214.6.100  /pub/OS/Linux
$         ftp.mcc.ac.uk                           130.88.200.7   /pub/linux
$         kirk.bu.oz.au                           131.244.1.1    /pub/OS/Linux
$         utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp                   133.11.11.11   /misc/linux
$         ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de           131.159.0.110  /pub/Linux
$         fgb1.fgb.mw.tu-muenchen.de              129.187.200.1  /pub/linux
$         ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de                  137.226.4.105  /pub/linux
$         Tupac-Amaru.Informatik.RWTH-Aaechen.DE  137.226.112.31 /pub/Linux
D...E
$ The general Linux FAQ (FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions list, with answers)
$ 
$         The FAQ contains a LOT of information, and is pretty long
$         (posted as two parts).  Everybody should read it, 'cause it
$         really does contain solutions to the many common problems.  It
$         can be FTP'd from at least tsx-11 (docs/FAQ_xxx, where xxx is
$         the date), and nic.funet.fi (doc/FAQ_xxx).  Also check the
$         archives at pit-manager, send mail to
$         mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu with the word help in it.

>I need to know: 
>	1 - how much memory will I need to run linux happily

I have 4 MB and am fairly happy with it (although things get slow when I
try to run several compiles at once :).  More is merrier.

>	2 - how much disk space does the os + source take
>so that I can buy the right machine from the start.

The kernel image itself is about 300 kB, the sources + compiled objects
a couple of megabytes.  All the essential commands take about a few
megabytes, so the minimum is about 10-15 MB.  For practical use (I
assume you want several applications like TeX, etc, and X, and so on)
you will probably need about 80-100 MB.  Plus sources, which take a lot
of space (you need about 150 MB to compile X, I think).

--
Lars.Wirzenius@helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: drew@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt)
Subject: Re: Linux CDROM (Was stabilizing Linux)
Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 17:01:33 GMT

In article <3284@ra.nrl.navy.mil> eric@tantalus.dell.com (Eric Youngdale) writes:
>In article <1992Aug11.004325.9409@unislc.uucp> erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp) writes:
>are fairly fine points.  We could, for example, live with the fixed size
>buffer cache, if we needed to, but there are performance advantages to
>the dynamically sized buffer cache and variable size buffers.  Similarily
>Linus is talking about allowing a 3.75 Gb/process address space, increased
>from the 64Mb that we currently have.  The vast majority of people do not need
>more than 64Mb - those that do will have to wait.
>

Also note that the new system means we go to one page dir/table 
per process, rather than the one per system we have now.  The net 
effects will be that 

1.  The 64 process limit will be removed
2.  Each 386VM task (ie, DOS emulator) can have the first 1M + 64K in
	virtual memory like it needs 

I'm sure a lot of people would benefit from the later.

-- 
Microsoft is responsible for propogating the evils it calls DOS and Windows, 
IBM for AIX (appropriately called Aches by those having to administer it), but neither is as bad as AT&T.  Boycott AT&T, and let them know how you feel.
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: shared libs - can everyone be happy with this?
From: nop@theory.Mankato.MSUS.EDU (Jay A. Carlson)
Date: 16 Aug 92 22:00:27
Organization: Mankato State University
In-reply-to: hlu@phys1.physics.wsu.edu's message of Sat, 15 Aug 92 04:24:20 GMTLines: 24

In article <1992Aug15.042420.18914@serval.net.wsu.edu> hlu@phys1.physics.wsu.edu (Hongjiu Lu) writes:

   I am not sure if we are thinking the same thing. In up-coming gcc 2.2.2d,
   which I am planning to release this Sunday. There is only one version of the
   shared images, which is used by both jump table and good, old shared lib.
   If you use -jump in LDFLAGS, your executables are linked with jump table. The
   good, old shared lib is used by default, which uses the same shared images
   but bypasses the jump table.

Could the jumptables be set up to look where they were called from and
then patch their target into the instruction from whence they were
called?  There then would only be overhead on the first call from each
point.

This would lose when functions were called through registers.  I don't
know how much gcc tries to do this and how much user programs make use
of libraries calls through variables.  I certainly use int (*foo)();
often in my programs but never when it points to library calls.  

For such calls, the overhead of identifying the instruction as neither
a direct jump or subroutine call would be incurred each time.

Jay Carlson
nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: kennu@mits.mdata.fi (Kenneth Falck)
Subject: Running X11 on a plain VGA?
Organization: Microdata Oy, Helsinki, Finland
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 21:17:48 GMT

I seem to remember hearing about a driver or something that allows
X11 to be run on a normal VGA card, but wasn't interested at that
time. Can I do it, and if I can, what should I do/read/ftp?

(I should really buy a SVGA but no money, no fun.)

-- 
kennu@mits.mdata.fi

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
From: peterw@archsci.arch.su.oz.au (Peter Williams )
Subject: Re: another proposed LINUX logo
Organization: Design Computing Unit, The University of Sydney
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 07:41:29 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.081509.13071@ucc.su.OZ.AU>, peterw@archsci.arch.su.oz.au (Peter Williams ) writes:
|> I have posted a proposed Linux logo in pub/linux/ll.ps on
|> archsci.arch.su.oz.au (129.78.66.1). It is a hand coded postscript image and
|> is only about 6kbytes. It depicts a seabird (freedom) forming the L of linux.
|> I have tested it under pageview, ghostview and an apple laserprinter.
|> 
|> Under ghostview the inux of linux does not show properly due to problems with
|> scaling the Helvetica font but you can still get the idea.
|> 
|> This is only a proposal (for the moment) and I will clean it up later.
|> I am also open to suggestions for enhancements to the proposal.
|> 
|> -- 
|> Peter Williams                |e-mail: peterw@archsci.arch.su.oz.au
|> Key Centre for Design Quality |phone: +61-2-692 2053 or +61-2-660 6156
|> University of Sydney          |+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've posted a new version (same file name). This one has no trouble with fonts,
has a colour version and demonstrates its scalability. If you want to fiddle
with the colours in the colour version change the rgb values in /colorappendages
and /colorletters. The current colours produce a "reasonable" image if printed
on a black and white device such as a laser printer.

There are two postscript macros LinuxLogo and LinuxColorLogo. They both expect
a single numeric argument on the stack before they are called. The value of
this argument determines the size of the logo. In particular the width of the
logo (tip of tail to tip of wing) will be equal to the value of the argument.
The 0,0 point of the logo is the left most edge and the base of the word Linux.
The logo extends 0.125 times the width below zero and 0.85555555555 times the
width above zero.

-- 
Peter Williams                |e-mail: peterw@archsci.arch.su.oz.au
Key Centre for Design Quality |phone: +61-2-692 2053 or +61-2-660 6156
University of Sydney          |+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: int177c@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Jae Won)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Motif Window Manager on Linux??
Keywords: is it possible?
Date: 20 Aug 92 03:18:01 GMT
Organization: Monash University

Just wondering: is there any possibility MWM will be ported to X386? Or is it
just a wishful thinking....is there copyright prob? Oh well. Like isaid,,just wondering.

Jae
From: khamer@sumax.seattleu.edu (Little Kenny Hamer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Screen Capture
Date: 14 Aug 92 03:23:19 GMT
Distribution: comp.os.linux
Organization: Seattle University, Seattle WA

Does anyone out there know where I can find a utility to save data from
GNU plot in, say, a .GIF or other common graphics form?  I'd really rather
not write my own if I have a choice....Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,        Ken Hamer