Linux-Hardware Digest #740, Volume #10 Mon, 12 Jul 99 00:13:29 EDT
Contents:
Re: TV-out on ATI/TNT2/Voodoo3 ("Larry Blumer, Jr.")
ati rage pro ("Larry Blumer, Jr.")
Re: HELP Tape Backup for Linux ("R.K.Aanestad")
Re: Cheap computers in Syndey? ("Little Fish")
Re: format >2GB hard - Win95 FDISK problem ("Teo Chun Lip")
Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers (Kenneth Kellum)
Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers ("Greg Daly")
Curious about root passwd (Davis Eric)
Re: Curious about root passwd (Justin B Willoughby)
Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers (Decklin Foster)
Re: Curious about root passwd ("Prasanth Kumar")
Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers ("Prasanth Kumar")
Problems with the new Nvidia TNT driver ("B. Joshua Rosen")
Re: TV Card Recommend Request ("Witness")
Re: 7895 SCSI Driver SMP Safe? (Robert Komar)
Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers (Ian Tester)
Re: BogoMips... (Johan Kullstam)
Re: Linux/KDE; KDat backup on dat tape proggy ("Gene Heskett")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Larry Blumer, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: TV-out on ATI/TNT2/Voodoo3
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 01:22:26 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> We are looking to purchase some cards for a project, and one of the
> requirements is that the machines have tv-out capabilities. My
> question is: do any of the above cards support TV-out in linux (and
> how well?)
>
> I have an older voodoo1 card, but that only supports tv-out on 3d (of
> course). What we are looking for is a card that we can use either the
> vga port, or the tv out port for the desktop. What would be even
> better would be if we were able to have two separate screens going,
> like an presentation running on the tv out, while a regular desktop
> would be running on the vga output.
>
> (BTW, if anyone knows of any tv-out _only_ cards that we could use in
> a similar manner, please respond.
>
> Thank in advance!!
I have used both an ATI All-in-wonder and an ATI Rage Fury card with
Linux, both of which have composite and s-video tv outputs. The cards
have configurations (tv screen size, resolution, etc) which are
accessible under Windows but not Linux. So your TV display might be
"half off the screen" and you can't fix it! I now use an external scan
converter (the TView Micro XGA from Focus Enhancements) which looks
better anyway (less flicker) and does not require any damn drivers!
Regards,
Larry Blumer
------------------------------
From: "Larry Blumer, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ati rage pro
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 01:31:08 GMT
I am using XFree86 3.3.3.1 with an ATI card (Rage Pro 3D chipset)
Xconfigurator allows only 640x480 8 bit (Mach64 driver), which works
fine. However If I alter XF86Config with a higher resolution, X will
not start. I have experimented with the ChipId and ChipRev settings to
no avail.
Regards
Larry Blumer
------------------------------
From: "R.K.Aanestad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: HELP Tape Backup for Linux
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 04:20:14 +0200
Malapropos...cause this is not DAT but SCSI/cartridge based stuff:
Tandberg Data last week announced they are Linux certifying their
tape storage range of products - first out is the SLR devices, later
also DLT.
They already support most OS'es and traditionally manufacture heavy duty
industrial type systems, but the hardware spectre should fit most
"wallet sizes",
they deliver solutions for single workstation as well as serverclass
tape rotation.
Since they already support major unix'es, including Linux shouldn't
take
them long. You might wanna keep an eye at http://www.tandberg.com,
or.. simply nag at them.
K.
Paulo van Eyken wrote:
> Need buy a Tape Backup DAT for linux.
> Does anyone have a sugestion for brand & model ?
>
> Thanks
> van EYken
------------------------------
From: "Little Fish" <Little Fish @ Bigpond.splash>
Subject: Re: Cheap computers in Syndey?
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 12:46:08 +1000
ECOM computers.
CHONG wrote in message ...
>I know this isn't a forsale ng or Sydney forsale, but i was wondering
>where is a place i can get a computer (ready built, for my sis) in Sydney
>that's cheap or at a reasonable price thanks
>
>Chong
>
------------------------------
From: "Teo Chun Lip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95,comp.os.ms-windows.win95.setup,comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc
Subject: Re: format >2GB hard - Win95 FDISK problem
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 09:43:43 +0800
Hi Friend ;
I can only comment on your message via Newsgroup as you return e-mail is
"ambigious""
You want e-mail reply,but you make it so difficult for others
I hardly receive any Spam e-mail ; so what the worry @ Spam
I have similar problem before
My BIOS has an option to change the HDD mode
Yours I understand has also done it but did you change it iwth Linux Fdisk
or you change it in BIOS ?
In fact ;before I finally discovered that BIOS can change the HDD mode
I have been struggling with 500+ MB HDD for lamost 1-2 months
Regards
Andrew Williams wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>My problem seems to be related.
>- a >Linux is absolutely happy with this disc's geometry, although I have
not
tried
>booting from it yet (for that I need to get to copy things across with PM4)
>
>When I first added the drive (this morning - 10 hours ago), I simply copied
>everything across using PM 4 and all looked fine, the problem started when
I
>removed my old 4.3Gb Disc (which I want to use in another machine) and
tried
>working directly with the new one.
>
>Any clues?
>
>Since my ISP 'loses' about 90% of all Newsgroup messages, I would be
grateful if
>replies could also be addressed to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
directly.
>
>
>
------------------------------
From: Kenneth Kellum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 19:10:49 -0700
Go to a lumber yard, buy a 2x4 and measure it.
Things could be a lot worse! ;-)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I recently bought a IBM-DTTA-351680 hard disk, which IBM claims is a
> "16.8 GB" drive. The drive actually has 33022080 512-byte sectors,
> which is 16.9 billion bytes or 16124 MB (binary). Why do they call
> this a "16.8 GB" drive?
>
> If GB=10^9 then it's 16.9 GB
> if GB=2^30 then it's 15.7 GB
>
> What strange metric is IBM now using to compute hard disk sizes that they
> come up with "16.8 GB" ? It's confusing enough already that there are
> two commonly used definitions of GB without having IBM invent their own.
--
You can't spell "anti-christ" without the "nt".
Kenneth R. Kellum
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.mathcs.sjsu.edu/faculty/kellum
------------------------------
From: "Greg Daly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:18:51 -0700
Well, some of these sectors could be ones that were bad from the get-go and
were subsequently remapped. You dont even see some of your hard drive space
ever.
It's the 16.9 GB one. Drive manufacturers try to make it as big as they can.
:)
===== Original Message =====
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.os.linux.hardware
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 1999 2:47 PM
Subject: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers
> I recently bought a IBM-DTTA-351680 hard disk, which IBM claims is a
> "16.8 GB" drive. The drive actually has 33022080 512-byte sectors,
> which is 16.9 billion bytes or 16124 MB (binary). Why do they call
> this a "16.8 GB" drive?
>
> If GB=10^9 then it's 16.9 GB
> if GB=2^30 then it's 15.7 GB
>
> What strange metric is IBM now using to compute hard disk sizes that they
> come up with "16.8 GB" ? It's confusing enough already that there are
> two commonly used definitions of GB without having IBM invent their own.
------------------------------
From: Davis Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Curious about root passwd
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 01:58:28 GMT
Hi, there,
It is not a question. I am just curious about the root password. I once
forgot my root password (I am a single user using my RH Linux box), and
after that, I fixed it by booting as linux single user. My question is:
Is this a security hole in Red Hat linux or not? Because I can use any
tools which are supposed to be used by root only without any password.
And I think I can even kick out the orignal root in this way.
Am I right? Thanks for your opinion.
Davis
--
I do not feel shameful if I was and am an idiot; I
will feel shameful if I haven't realized it.
--Myself
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Justin B Willoughby)
Subject: Re: Curious about root passwd
Date: 12 Jul 1999 02:23:33 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Justin B Willoughby)
Davis Eric ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes:
> Hi, there,
>
> It is not a question. I am just curious about the root password. I once
> forgot my root password (I am a single user using my RH Linux box), and
> after that, I fixed it by booting as linux single user. My question is:
> Is this a security hole in Red Hat linux or not? Because I can use any
> tools which are supposed to be used by root only without any password.
> And I think I can even kick out the orignal root in this way.
>
> Am I right? Thanks for your opinion.
Any one who has physical access to a server can do about any thing they want.
There have been quite a few threads about this in the past, just deja.com
to find out more...
It all boils down to physical access.
- Justin
--
_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ RULES!! * LINUX RULES *
_/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ Justin Willoughby
_/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ http://justinw.net
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ ---- Jesus Is Lord ----
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Decklin Foster)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 01:48:12 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> If GB=10^9 then it's 16.9 GB
> if GB=2^30 then it's 15.7 GB
This is the difference between advertising and reality.
MORAL: read the fine print.
:-)
--
"I could give two fucks less than half a rats ass."
-- Bowie J. Poag <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on Lynx, MIME, and
cross-browser compatibility.
------------------------------
From: "Prasanth Kumar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Curious about root passwd
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 03:17:26 GMT
Yes it can be a security hole if the culprit has physical access to the
computer. To prevent this
from happening you can do this:
Use password in LILO so single user mode needs a password.
Use bios passwords so things cannot be changed.
Prevent floppy boot via bios to prevent using custom boot disk.
Look up area where computer is kept so people wont open it up!
Davis Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:7mbi40$aj1$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hi, there,
>
> It is not a question. I am just curious about the root password. I once
> forgot my root password (I am a single user using my RH Linux box), and
> after that, I fixed it by booting as linux single user. My question is:
> Is this a security hole in Red Hat linux or not? Because I can use any
> tools which are supposed to be used by root only without any password.
> And I think I can even kick out the orignal root in this way.
>
> Am I right? Thanks for your opinion.
>
> Davis
>
>
> --
> I do not feel shameful if I was and am an idiot; I
> will feel shameful if I haven't realized it.
> --Myself
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: "Prasanth Kumar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 03:20:21 GMT
Kenneth Kellum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Go to a lumber yard, buy a 2x4 and measure it.
>
> Things could be a lot worse! ;-)
Atleast a lumber yard has a good reason for this!
Lumber is cut before it is fully dry and afterwards it
shrinks to a somewhat unpredicatable size.
------------------------------
From: "B. Joshua Rosen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Problems with the new Nvidia TNT driver
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 22:34:43 -0400
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
I was wondering if anyone else has tried the new TNT driver that Nvidia
put on their web site recently? When I tried it I had some problems with
Xemacs, specifically backspace leaves behind a red line when it is used
to delete text. The red line is probably the bottom part of the block cursor.
The old Nvidia TNT driver (The one that's include in redhat 6.0) works
fine on my system, except that it's a little slow.
<p>Josh</html>
------------------------------
From: "Witness" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: TV Card Recommend Request
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 22:34:52 -0400
I have a Hauppauge WinTV w/ dbxStereo & FM Radio. It doesn't use any
connections between it and the Video card. The only wires are the antenna
and the one going to the Sound Card (either by Line-in or ATAPI cable).
Very simple and nice. According to everything I've come across it should
work in Linux and is supported, but I haven't tried it in Linux. It works
great under Win'95, couldn't be more satisfied. The only thing I would
suggest is try to find one that either supports HDTV or is upgradable to it.
Witness
Jon Beniston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hi,
> I'm interested if anyone can suggest a TV card. Quality and not price
> is the most important consideration. Are there any cards that dont use
> the VGA output?
>
> Cheers,
> Jon.
>
------------------------------
From: Robert Komar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 7895 SCSI Driver SMP Safe?
Date: 12 Jul 1999 03:18:41 GMT
Jim Battin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: I was wondering...
: Are Linux's Adaptec 7895 (built into mobo) drivers SMP Safe, and will a
: motherboard's "RAID Port" work with it? We will be using Software RAID
: 1 most likely.
: I had read in the old howto (from 1998) that the 78xx drivers were
: really flakey, and that they weren't very SMP friendly, and weren't
: ideal for RAID or SMP machines. However, that was in the 2.1.9x kernel
: days.
: Any information would be great
Well, then how about half a response:
I've been using the 7895 driver on my dual CPU DK440LX board for well over
a year now without problems. It's got a RAID port, but I have never used
it; so I can't comment on that part of the hardware.
Cheers,
Rob Komar
------------------------------
From: Ian Tester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: Bogus hard disk sizes from manufacturers
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 12:39:03 +1000
On Sun, 11 Jul 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I recently bought a IBM-DTTA-351680 hard disk, which IBM claims is a
> "16.8 GB" drive. The drive actually has 33022080 512-byte sectors,
> which is 16.9 billion bytes or 16124 MB (binary). Why do they call
> this a "16.8 GB" drive?
Because it sounds bigger.
> If GB=10^9 then it's 16.9 GB
> if GB=2^30 then it's 15.7 GB
>
> What strange metric is IBM now using to compute hard disk sizes that they
> come up with "16.8 GB" ? It's confusing enough already that there are
> two commonly used definitions of GB without having IBM invent their own.
You've just discovered what all hard disk manufacturers have been doing
for the last decade or more. Expect it to get worse. As they get bigger,
the difference between the definitions of mega, giga, terra, etc for
binary and decimal will get bigger.
Floppy drives are even weirder. We started out with 360K disks and then
onto 720K disks. These were measured in the proper binary units.
i.e 720K = 720 * 1024 bytes
What happened when they doubled the size again? We get 1440K disks. Only,
this is too long, so they called them 1.44M.
i.e 1440K = 1440 * 1024
!= 1.44 * 1024 * 1024
All sorts of weird crap like this happens. Another example is that monitor
(and TV) sizes are measured from the outside of the CRT, not the viewable
screen size. So your 17" monitor only has about a 15" viewable diagonal.
bye
--
8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------
Ian Tester *8)# \7\ LINUX: because geeks will find a way
[EMAIL PROTECTED] \7\ http://www.zipworld.com.au/~imroy
------------------------------
Subject: Re: BogoMips...
From: Johan Kullstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 11 Jul 1999 22:52:09 -0400
"ChenthilWhelan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I got a simple doubt... What is this BogoMips...
this is a FAQ. consult
<URL:http://metalab.unc.edu/linux/HOWTO/mini/BogoMips.html>
essentially bogomips is a kernel timing loop calibration. hope this
helps.
--
J o h a n K u l l s t a m
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Don't Fear the Penguin!
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jul 99 22:01:43 -0500
From: "Gene Heskett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux/KDE; KDat backup on dat tape proggy
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.arch.storage
Unrot13 this;
Reply to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Gene Heskett sends Greetings to Barry Samuels;
[...]
BS> With an incorrect tape device setting e.g. /dev/tape it does give a
BS> 'no tape in drive' message on my machine. Have you checked the kdatrc
BS> file for any possible problems?
What 'kdatrc' file? According to locate, no such file exists on my
system. What generates/installs/configures that? BTW, setting the
prefs in the copy of kdat I have doesn't get saved, no save prefs item
exists in the menu's, and no docs apparently exist for KDat.
Hell of a way to run a railroad IMO...
BS> All I can say is that it does work on my system which probably isn't
BS> much comfort.
So it would appear. Does you know whats supposed to be in this 'kdatrc'
file, and in what directory it lives? I have no docs whatsoever on this
other than the help pulldown, which is not.
I've also been to the kde site and picked up a slightly newer version,
but it requires qt >= 2.0, which I've also downloaded. It in turn says
it needs an env var $QTLIB reset to point at the 2.00 source dir instead
of /usr/local/qt. And I've spent an hour grepping various dirs looking
for the init file that sets it to that without success.
Silly Q? If I can get qt-2.00 to compile, can I just replace 1.42 with
it, or do I have to recompile the other 99% the kde stuffs on the
planet?
In that event, I guess my system is frozen until such time as kde 1.2 is
released and installed, which supposedly *might* fix some of this.
I feel that I might have a little codeing experience to contribute to
linux in general, if I can get confident enough to play. But its taken
me a couple of months to get as much of it working as I have, and if I
screw it up and have to re-install, I'd be back to square one without a
working backup system. Since square one to here is at least a weeks
work, no thanks until such time as I do have a working backup method.
Chicken? Chuckaww...
Cheers, Gene
--
Gene Heskett, CET, UHK |Amiga A2k Zeus040 50 megs fast/2 megs chip
Ch. Eng. @ WDTV-5 |A2091,GuruRom,1g Seagate,CDROM,Multiface III
|Buddha + 4 gig WDC drive, 525 meg tape
|Stylus Pro, EnPrint, Picasso-II, 17" vga
RC5-Moo! 690kkeys/sec isn't much, but it all helps
email gene underscore heskett at iolinc dot net
--
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Hardware Digest
******************************
