From: jwinstea@fenris.claremont.edu (Jim Winstead Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Whining...I don't want to hack on the kernel
Date: 18 Aug 92 06:00:54 GMT
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, WIBSTR

In article <1992Aug18.011305.27223@access.usask.ca> dzubin@skorpio.usask.ca (Thomas Dzubin) writes:
>Sorry if this is sacreligious, but I DON'T WANT TO HACK THE KERNEL.  It
>would be absolutely *wonderful* if someone (ANYONE!?) would put the
>binary of 0.97.pl1 somewhere FTP-able.

It would be nice, granted, but hardly necessary.  If you don't want to
hack the kernel, don't.  I rarely if ever do, unless you consider
doing a patch -p0 < patch1 'hacking', which I certainly don't.

People are stilling running businesses on machines running CP/M.  I
don't think it would kill you to be running Linux 0.97 vs. 0.97.pl1.

>I got into Linux just as the 0.97 new bootimage and rootimage were released,
>so I used them...now people tell me that my version has a bug in it and
>should be patched.

Who said there's a bug in 0.97?  I actually think it was a
(relatively) bug-free release.  Until yesterday, I had been running it
for over 7 days - continuously, with X running the whole time!  Now my
machine has been up (still on 0.97, since I haven't taken the time to
recompile 0.97.pl1) for over a day.

>Only C source patches seem to be available.

They are the only feasible means of making patches available.  I would
be willing to bet that binary patches would be roughly as large as a
new bootimage.

>Here's the problem:  I have only a 2400bps modem to connect to the Internet.

Welcome to the club.  I'm also working at 2400 baud - not by my lack
of equipment (I'm doing it over a rather nice 9600+ baud modem), but a
restriction in my local net access.  Be happy for what you have.  I
would hazard to guess that your connection to the net is more stable
than mine - I'm going over a sometimes flaky terminal server halfway
across the country, culminating in a 56KBps link from my school to
Caltech.  Mind you - I'm not complaing.  I'm still getting all of this
free.

>I noticed that there is a new rootimage-0.97.1 on nic.funet.fi!  This
>is *exactly* the type of thing that we need...an update of the (fixed?)
>*BINARIES* [sorry for yelling] every couple of weeks on the various FTP
>sites.  Anyone willing to upload a 'bootimage-0.97.1'?

You don't have the slightest bit of need to upgrade to 0.97.1 root if
you don't want to.  You'll notice that the ones on the 0.97 root disk
work just as well as they did before - the bugs are small and harmless.

>Is there any way to implement reliable binary patches?  Something like
>"Change the word at location 0508 from '1234' to '0203'"

It would be nice if it were that easy - but we're not dealing with
small changes to an assembly-coded package.  When you're dealing with
changes in high-level code, the changes in the generated code can be
enormous compared to the change in code.

>I'm sure there's gotta be other people like me around...people who
>a) prefer a Un*x system over MooSe-DOS

Um, why?  Frankly, from what you've said, you aren't really in need of
anything more powerful than MS-DOS.  That's not meant as an insult,
but a statement of what I see.

>b) just want to putter around...maybe compile a few programs, learn gawk, 
>    etc.. (or even play rogue :-)

Fine, stay with 0.97.  Stay with 0.96c.  Heck, you could go back and
grab copies of 0.12 and still do what you want.  You don't need to be
on the bleeding edge of Linux developments to be able to do simple
tasks with Linux.  It's when you want more - networking, X, shared
buffer space - that you need to keep up to date.

>c) don't have the machine resources (Internet connection speed, disk space)
>   to be running a FULL development system.

I think you'd (or anyone else, including me) have a hard time running
a FULL development system on Linux, in any case.  Things are changing
too fast.  You've already said you have GCC up and running - that's
more than you get with MS-DOS without shelling out a goodly sum of
money.

>ps: to avoid pissing people at my site off, I downloaded the GCC2.2.2b
>    stuff between midnight and 6am...it took *THREE* days before I could do 
>    anything.

Seems a little slow to me, even at 2400 baud - it only took me 4 hours
or so to pull down all the vital parts of gcc 2.2.2d yesterday, and I
only got cut off three times.

Now, uploading root-0.97.1 took longer - two nights - because I can
only successfully upload (most of the time) 64k chunks before
something along my net connection dumps me off and I have to start all
over again.

>psps: I will scream if someone sends me mail saying 'buy a faster modem'

I won't say it, you did.

My point isn't to drum up sympathy for myself by detailing all this -
just to point out that you're not alone in having a difficult
situation.  What you need to do is make the most of it, not bitch
about it endlessly on comp.os.linux.  It's worked quite well for me.

(Some small part of me is screaming at me for replying to this, but
I'm sick of all the bitching that goes on around here, as if nobody
else has problems.  I should have known not to read something that has
'whining' in the subject.)
-- 
                                    +      Jim Winstead Jr. (CSci '95)
                                    |      Harvey Mudd College, WIBSTR
                                    |   jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
                                    + or jwinstea@fenris.Claremont.EDU