Linux-Development-Sys Digest #346, Volume #6 Fri, 29 Jan 99 10:14:03 EST
Contents:
Re: assert() change (Stefan Monnier)
Re: Linux 2.2.0 final won't compile. (Peter Samuelson)
Re: Linux Phase 2: A Consumer Operating System (Sam Holden)
Re: xinit causes SEGFAULTS under Linux-2.2.0 (Jens Kristian S�gaard)
Re: /dev/rdsk - help (InfoXchange Customer Service)
Re: Linux Phase 2: A Consumer Operating System (Matthew Kirkcaldie)
Re: System & Application Development with GTK (Mark Stolz)
Re: Linux Phase 2: A Consumer Operating System (Richard Taylor)
Re: disheartened gnome developer (Mike Willett LADS LDN X7563)
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Gordon Scott)
Re: Modest next goal for Linux (Simon Kinahan)
Re: ati rage lt and 2.2.0 release (Erik Kunze)
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Johan Kullstam)
Caching protocols in Linux/Intel (Maciej Golebiewski)
Re: Linux Unix98 (?) Certification (was Re: Microsoft is Exactly Like a Fermenting
Jug of Grape Juice...) (Simon Kinahan)
Re: linux-2.2.0 + broken scsi tape -> linux-2.2.0 crashes (Don Waugaman)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stefan Monnier
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: assert() change
Date: 28 Jan 1999 12:19:51 -0500
>>>>> "gilley" == gilley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> What incompatibilities, problems would this change cause?
Many. The problem is that you change the fundamental meaning of `assert'.
An `assert' statement should have no effect except for checking that the value
returned is indeed non-zero (because if it is zero it is a *bug*).
It should be used when you know *for sure* (modulo bugs) that something holds.
> assert(i = malloc(10)); //some real work inside the assert
This is bogus. `malloc' might return zero in case of a failure (not a bug).
So you want to use another macro that you could call `check' or `ensure'.
Stefan
PS: `assert' statements might contain (rather than expressions with effects
as in your example) expensive data-structre consistency checks.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: Linux 2.2.0 final won't compile.
Date: 29 Jan 1999 01:41:43 -0600
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Nathan Myers]
> > You did what lots of other people did: unpacked the new kernel on
> > top of the same source tree as the old one. Don't.
[Mark Swanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> No. I've never done that in the seven years I've been compiling
> Linux. After patching it endlessly I must have screwed up somewhere
> as downloading the latest full archive compiled just fine.
The other possibility is that you have the version of `patch' that
doesn't detect that an empty file needs deleting. This leaves an empty
"checksum.c" (IIRC) in place, which causes `make' to ignore the new 'n'
improved "checksum.S", and compile the empty "checksum.c" instead....
I make it a habit *always* to use -E with patch, just in case. It's
what you want 99.999% of the time.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sam Holden)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Linux Phase 2: A Consumer Operating System
Date: 29 Jan 1999 07:52:01 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 29 Jan 1999 02:40:59 -0500, Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 3) It really annoys me how it scans through the entire suite of 1500
> packages any time I want to add one new one. I don't see why it
> can't just jump right to the package I added/removed/whatever and
> deal with that one directly.
A workaround I used to use is to mount the cdrom so that you can
access it from your ftp server. Then you tell dselect to use that ftp
as the source. You get the best of both worlds.
I'm sure someone who actually understands dselect will know the real
solution though.
--
Sam
Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person
who has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens
in the wrong place. --Larry Wall
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jens Kristian S�gaard)
Subject: Re: xinit causes SEGFAULTS under Linux-2.2.0
Date: 28 Jan 1999 18:25:38 +0100
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> startx (or xdm) cause a floating point error. The offending program
> seems to be xinit, which dumps core. The X11 server (XF86_S3) still starts,
> Funnily enough, up to Linux-2.2.pre-8, in exactly the same environment,
Remembered to upgrade util-linux? ( a newer version is required by
pre-9 than pre-8 )
--
Jens Kristian S�gaard,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: InfoXchange Customer Service <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: /dev/rdsk - help
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 12:33:03 -0500
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
to clairfy my post a little more...
<p>/dev/rdsk/fd0q18dt
<p>raw ASCII device
<br>quad density
<br>18 tracks/sector
<br>d=double sided
<br>t=entire disk including track 0 is usable
<p>InfoXchange Customer Service wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>We have created a CPIO disk for Interactive Unix
to read into Linux.
<br>The device used was /dev/rdsk/fd0q18dt
<p>fd0H1440 does not read track 0 and not sure if it is a raw device.
<br>Extracts zero files.
<p>anyone have a suggestion as to what device to use?
<p>Thank you for your help.
<br>Wendy</blockquote>
</html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Kirkcaldie)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Linux Phase 2: A Consumer Operating System
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 01:56:00 GMT
Phase 1: get underpants
Phase 2: ... consumer OS
Phase 3: profit
I knew there was a reason the graphical environment was called GNOME.
(apologies to those unfamiliar with South Park).
MK.
------------------------------
From: Mark Stolz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: System & Application Development with GTK
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:55:03 +0000
"Robert H. Thompson" wrote:
>
> I am new to Linux system & application development and I was wondering
> if anyone out there knows of any good books to help get me started.
> I am an experienced programmer and have played around with gcc and g++
> to get familiar with the c/c++ compilers on Linux.
Any of the O'Reilly books
Stevens, Advanced Unix Programing
If you're newish to Un*x in general check out "Unix for Users and
Programers" by Glass (I used this as a course text and my students
really liked it -- covers everything from logging in to sockets
programming, with a good mix of breadth/depth)
> But how does one go about building a simple GUI application. Is c/c++
> the way to go? Would Tcl/Tk be a better place to start or would java?
> What about database applications? What would be necessary or involved?
> As a starting point I would like to write some simple application that
> would display the system date and time (much like the xclock utility).
> I am working with a RedHat 5.2 system on a home brew network.
All this depends on your goal. Depending on the graphics tools you use
and your abilities, writing a GUI app in c/c++ would tend not to be
trivial. Tcl/Tk? I'm teaching myself now (scripting w/ widgets) and its
pretty simple to bang out a reasobly complex application quickly,
however it's not the speediest of execution. Database applications?
Again it depends what the application is and how complex (i.e., how
many tables and what relationships, etc).
>
> I know that this is a real general type question but help a newbie out.
> Thanks in advance for any responses. You can post them to the group or
> send them to me personally at:
>
> Rob Thompson
> work: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> home: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Have fun!
--Mark
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Taylor)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Linux Phase 2: A Consumer Operating System
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:47:26 GMT
On 29 Jan 1999 02:40:59 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul D. Smith)
wrote:
>I recently switched from RH to Debian (I'm going to write something
>later describing my reason(s), because hopefully RH can fix them).
>
>I agree that dselect, once you get used to the (for me, being an Emacs
>person) very odd keybindings and understand the basics, is a nice
>tool--certainly head and shoulders above Glimpse!
>
>However, dselect/dpkg does have a few obvious shortcomings compared to RPM:
>
> 1) No idea how large a package is from within dselect. My first
> install of Debian 2.0 blew out my /usr partition with absolutely no
> warning.
>
> The _cool_ thing was that I just had to go back, deselect a bunch of
> stuff, and dselect reinstalled stuff and configured it just fine.
>
> But it would have been nice to get info about this issue up-front.
>
> 2) It would be nice to get a better organization of packages, and have
> a way to see an overview of packages, then open them up, etc.
> Esp. during an initial install it's pretty intimidating to see 1525
> packages listed...
>
> 3) It really annoys me how it scans through the entire suite of 1500
> packages any time I want to add one new one. I don't see why it
> can't just jump right to the package I added/removed/whatever and
> deal with that one directly.
Well....I have similar gripes to what you mention, but:
a) it's a work in progress, like most of Debian's distro.
b) it is, for me, by far and away the best tool of it's type.
c) It, and the rest of the Debian distro suit me best, of all
the ones I've tried.
..so, I can forgive it. :-)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mike Willett LADS LDN X7563)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: disheartened gnome developer
Date: 29 Jan 1999 10:03:28 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marcin Krol) writes:
>On Sun, 24 Jan 1999 14:03:47 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>wrote:
><snip>
>>>This may be true ideally, but I certainly never heard any evidence
>>>that it works in practice. Ask any recent emmigrant from the Union of
>>>Soviet Socialist Republics how efficiently their economic system was
>>>working when they left.
>
>>About the only way in which the USSR was socialist is in name.
>
>No, it was not.
>
>From what I read of Socialism - USSR was NOT a true socialist state
What features of USSR do you think it is a true socialist model.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Gordon Scott)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: 29 Jan 1999 10:42:50 GMT
Reply-To: Gordon Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: In article <78q174$bch$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
: [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
: >-- writing an (on-line?) beginners guide might be a better route.
: I dont think so.
: keep things simple.
: man pages is something everyone used to, and know about. and it is
: better to have all the informations in one place instead of having some
: in one plac, and some in another.
I agree whole-heartedly _except_ that I believe newbies get phazed by both
the concise (abrupt?) style and the sheer volume of information. Once
someone says "Oh! I'm not reading all that!", you've lost them IMHO. A
plain and simple wrapper that shows the essentials and offers links
to the relevant (existing!) man pages would help protect newbies from
information overload in the "cryptic unix style".
_I'm_ happy using apropos/man -k to find the clues, mentally or grep
filtering for the best candidate tools and reading the man pages. A
newbie faced with even 20+ one-line descriptions can just back away
in horror.....
% apropos file | wc
829 8588 55897
% apropos list | wc
201 1803 12859
% apropos directory | wc
66 626 4310
If we want Linux to be widely accessible (and I accept that's moot
anyway), then we have to give the poor devils a fighting chance.
Gordon.
--
Gordon Scott Opinions expressed are my own.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (official) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (backdoor)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) http://www.apis.demon.co.uk
Linux ............... Because I like to _get_ there today.
------------------------------
From: Simon Kinahan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Modest next goal for Linux
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:21:42 +0000
John De Hoog wrote:
> I tried what you suggested (on NT 4), but the CPU usage barely moved off of
> its 2% line. Maybe you're thinking of the Mac?
I am told most Mac apps will lock up waiting for the mouse up event as soon as
they get a mouse down.
Simon
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Erik Kunze)
Subject: Re: ati rage lt and 2.2.0 release
Date: 29 Jan 1999 08:33:03 GMT
Alakhai ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: ati rage LT is supported by the new kernel?
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~steveh/inspiron/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Date: 29 Jan 1999 04:37:40 -0800
Gordon Scott ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: If we want Linux to be widely accessible (and I accept that's moot
: anyway), then we have to give the poor devils a fighting chance.
im still a poor devil, have a year of constant casual use under my belt.
i take one look at a man page, and then scurry off to irc or email to beg
Someone Smarter for help.
about 9 months ago i added to my .signature rotation the following:
My goal in life is to go through all the man pages and
rewrite them into something vaguely resembling english.
ok, so im not a computer person. i was a creative writing major. :P
shayd
--
. __ . . . . . ... .
/ /__` |__| /_\ \,/ | | \
_____________/ ,__/ | | / \ | |_/ \_____________
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------------------------------------------------
- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -
Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
From: Johan Kullstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 29 Jan 1999 07:37:59 -0500
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson) writes:
> Not a tangent -- quite relevant, in my opinion. The original poster
> (whose identity I have lost track of) was complaining about having a
> lot of trouble figuring out how to use `find'. In my experience the
> hardest thing to figure out about `find' is quoting those metachars.
yes and after that there is the difficulty of using {} with -exec.
the {}'s need to be by themselves (i.e., set off by spaces) which
sometimes makes things harder than they need to be.
> Assuming that was the difficulty, a suggestion to read up on the shell
> is more than appropriate. If you are not willing to read about shell
> for use with `find', it will only bite you when you start having
> trouble with metacharacters for `sed'. And `tr'. And `grep'....
>
> > All what people are saying, is that one or two examples at end of a
> > man page helps many people understand something more. This is not a
> > new concept, VMS had this for more than 25 years now.
>
> I learned Unix largely from manpages, with the occaional question for
> the gurus thrown in here and there. For those who cannot do what I
> did, and I know some people can, there are intro-to-Unix books. These
> always have plenty of examples.
>
> But there are many users who will not read man pages, examples or no
> examples. These are the same people who own "Linux Unleashed" but have
> never opened it either. Maybe you have never dealt with this type. I
> have. They have no interest in learning something new, they want the
> system to be intuitive enough that they don't have to learn anything.
> No command line is going to ever be there. Ever.
you call this is a reason not to give examples with the man pages?
just because *some* people don't RTFM no matter what you do, you would
deny people who *do* want to RTFM any examples? i can read man pages
fairly well, but there is often a case where a couple of succint
examples would have helped me out tremendously.
it seems that several people would also like examples in their man
page. why the hostility toward that view?
unix intro books are good but they do not cover more than the basics.
they also tend to be of the dead-tree variety and not available
on-line. (i use computers at home and at work and i am irked when i
am in once place and my books are in the other.) newer and more
esoteric commands could use a defining example or three in their
documentation.
the (much-maligned) info system does often give examples. it's not
the existance of the examples which makes people dislike info, it's
that they are not used to the reader. i find info much easier to use
from within emacs (i think all of that has to do with emacs-info
returning to where you just were when you pop back to a previous page
while stand-alone info doesn't.)
--
Johan Kullstam [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Don't Fear the Penguin!
------------------------------
From: Maciej Golebiewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Caching protocols in Linux/Intel
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:33:43 +0100
Hi,
Is the data segment of a user program cached as Write Combining,
Write Through, or Write Back? (Linux on PPro, kernel 2.0.34 with
SMP)
TIA,
Maciej
------------------------------
From: Simon Kinahan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux Unix98 (?) Certification (was Re: Microsoft is Exactly Like a
Fermenting Jug of Grape Juice...)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:27:36 +0000
Christopher Browne wrote:
> The problem with UNIX98 compliance is that it requires including
> STREAMS, which is a feature that many on the kernel team *STRONGLY*
> oppose.
Interesting. Why is STREAMS required ? and why are people opposed to it ?
As I understand it, it is just an alternative way of doing what is normally
done with sockets.
Simon
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Don Waugaman)
Subject: Re: linux-2.2.0 + broken scsi tape -> linux-2.2.0 crashes
Date: 28 Jan 1999 13:22:42 -0700
posted and emailed.
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Martin Pottendorfer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>hi,
>recently I found that my 2gb dat tape is somehow broken.
>well, 2.0.36 detects after trying a few minuts a hardware a
>`...hardware error...' and the user command (e.g. mt) terminates with an
>io-error.
>now I upgraded to 2.2.0 and here the same scenario leads to a
>completely locked up machine. the following has been written to
>syslog:
> Jan 27 09:24:44 attie9 kernel: aha1542.c: Trying device reset for target 1
> Jan 27 09:26:12 attie9 kernel: Sent BUS RESET to scsi host 0
>only a hard reset helps (ctrl-alt-del doesn't work either).
>here's my configuration:
> intel pentium 133 + aha1542 isa scsi controller
> 2gb hp (rather old) broken dat drive
> stock redhat 5.2 + updated modutils + linux-2.2.0
>
>I have another streamer in the box which is not broken and works
>flawlessly under 2.2.0.
>anyone else noticed this?
>martin
This is interesting. I have an HP C1534A 2 GB DAT drive which works fine
under 2.0.36, but has trouble with 2.2.0. I found this out when I backed
up my previous RedHat 5.1 system, then moved the drive to a new computer
with RedHat 5.2 + 2.2.0 installed. I got an I/O error when trying to
restore the tape under 2.2.0. Rebooting with the old 2.0.36 kernel was
the solution. I'm seeing this with a Celeron 333A computer with 64MB RAM
and a NCR 53C810-based controller (ASUS SC-200).
I'll try to do some experiments under 2.2.0 and see what my syslog says
when using the tape drive.
--
- Don Waugaman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) O- _|_ Will pun
Web Page: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/dpw/ | for food
In the Sonoran Desert, where we say: "It's a dry heat..." | <><
"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!"
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Development-System Digest
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