Linux-Development-Sys Digest #152, Volume #7 Sat, 4 Sep 99 03:14:19 EDT
Contents:
Re: TAO: the ultimate OS (Nicholas Dronen)
Re: The conceptual sandbox? (Peter Samuelson)
Re: TAO: the ultimate OS (Peter Samuelson)
Re: PCI card question (Peter Samuelson)
Re: LINUX AND COREL (Peter Samuelson)
Re: A novice question to all linux developers (Peter Samuelson)
Re: Linux standards compliance (Peter Samuelson)
Re: Help Compiling GCC 2.95.1 (Please!! ) (Peter Samuelson)
Re: help with .so libs ! (Peter Samuelson)
Re: HP Night Director PLus 10/100 ethernet driver? (Peter Samuelson)
Re: I am a dope. Re: LILO oddity. (Peter Samuelson)
Re: Hi, How can I diPPP over Ethernet? (Peter Samuelson)
Re: LINUX AND COREL (Robert Komar)
Re: Can I install Linux on an IBM PS/2 model 95 XP 486? (Peter Samuelson)
Re: problems with put_user (Mark McDougall)
Re: Question on ATM on Linux (Peter Samuelson)
Re: TAO: the ultimate OS (void)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Nicholas Dronen)
Subject: Re: TAO: the ultimate OS
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 04:23:22 GMT
Vladimir Z. Nuri ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: In comp.os.misc EdToy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: : Sounds like your agenda. So pay 'em then.
: the agenda is open.. the agenda is to create a new OS.
: is linux Torvald's agenda? do you ask him to pay
: contributors?
: : It seems everyone wants to own developers instead of learnind how to do
: : become a productive citizen.
: talk is cheap, but I strongly disagree that it is useless.
: the regulars who constantly gripe about useless talk should
: consider how much of their own time/energy their are wasting
: with their own recriminations.
: : _You're_ the one who is scanning for free labor or some such thing.
: it exists.. it is what built linux.. perhaps you could
: indicate why you seem to think I am a megalomaniac..?
: but it seems rather paradoxical. I presume such sniping
: went into the development
: of linux from the beginning.. maybe thats why it took something
: like 6 years for it to cohere.. do you think the next
: OS should be as timeconsuming? or perhaps you consider
: linux the pinnacle of software engineering for all time..
: that we might as well stop, because no better OS can
: be invented? /... "rofl"
: again, anyone who agrees with the goal of creating a new
: superior OS, please sign up for the list. and please consider
: contributing even when I am silent or occupied. not because I am lazy,
: but because I am busy too... and I will post when you
: are silent. together we can advance, that
: is all I am saying.
: gosh its starting to sound downright religious. hahaha
: bless you edtoy, because the Tao loves you too. hahaha
I think EdToy is the same Ed who started the 'Why fork?'
thread on comp.unix.programmer a month or two back.
If it's really him, you're right to laugh. In the
'Why fork?' thread he was asking for someone to
redesign the standard heirarchical process model
in Unix to be more like NT's CreateProcess (which
is somehow more 'elegant' and 'intuitive', to use
his own meaningless words) and being evasive and
foppish when some rather smart folks came up with
many good reasons why his thinking was non-sensical.
Nicholas
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: The conceptual sandbox?
Date: 3 Sep 1999 23:26:10 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Christopher B. Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> [And some randomly selected .signatures are too appropriate for words
> to express... A 1-in-777 chance rings true...]
> --
> "Intel: Putting the `backward' in `backward compatability'"
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
Is that how many you have? Wow. Obviously you have been collecting
quotes for awhile.... Oh, and let me take this opportunity while I'm
already offtopic to congratulate you on the average quotability index
((2*wit+insight)/3) in your collection. Also, can we assume the
unattributed ones are your own?
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
P.S. "compatibility". Three I's, one A.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: TAO: the ultimate OS
Date: 4 Sep 1999 00:15:04 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Peter da Silva <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> > > I guess the monarchy's royalty backup procedures were inadequate.
> > > They should have had an offsite heir in Martinique or something.
[Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> > Useless without the mechanism to restore him. You can't reinstate
> > the heir without bootable media, i.e. an offsite army.
[Christopher B. Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> Remember that the further away from the equator the backup is, the
> more likely it is to be a cold boot.
Meanwhile the offsite army is kept at ... a boot camp?
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,redhat.general
Subject: Re: PCI card question
Date: 3 Sep 1999 23:50:49 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
[...]
> ------------------ Posted via CNET Linux Help ------------------
> http://www.searchlinux.com
So which is it? And is it true that CNET Linux Help is masquerading as
some sort of support service with their own staff rather than just a
Usenet sponge?
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: LINUX AND COREL
Date: 3 Sep 1999 23:45:58 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Dr H. T. Leung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> What do you mean?
[...]
> I think you mean a full Office (e.g. "CorelOffice" or something like
> that) suite?
WordPerfect Office 2000 aka WP 9 etc (oooh, let's follow in Microsoft's
naming conventions footsteps again, remember when real version numbers
all but disappeared from 'doze software in favor of two-digit year
numbers?) is apparently being ported as we speak. Corel has taken the
strategy of helping develop winelib with the goal of being able to
recompile rather than rewrite their own code.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: A novice question to all linux developers
Date: 4 Sep 1999 00:30:38 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Tilli Weissenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> I have started using linux a couple of month ago. I find it _very_
> hard compiling anything on my RH6 machine because it seems as there
> is always some package with common routines missing.
This is why the Debian package format has started moving (finally!)
toward source dependencies i.e. what is needed not to use but to build
a package. I have no idea where RPM is on that one.
As another poster said, it sounds like you're trying to build things
not from SRPMS but from third-party tarballs. I can only say it takes
experience. When you've been compiling things for awhile you start to
recognize error messages that indicate you need Motif, or you need
curses, or whatever. Nobody (well, almost nobody) packages something
that depends on *obscure* libraries without mentioning these libraries
prominently; it's the *common* ones they don't mention, and that's why
you get to recognizing them.
In Debian most if not all libraries have a *-dev package which installs
header files and statics. I believe Red Hat has a similar convention
though I don't know what it is.
> Is there anyone who can tell a novice like me how to understand which
> packages I should have installed by default, which ones I can get
> where or where there is a common place to find *.o files within
> packages etc?
Library packages shouldn't have *.o files but *.so files which are
shared objects which will generally install into /usr/lib or if they're
really important into /lib. Header files generally install into
/usr/include. The X libraries, of which there aren't nearly as many,
are in /usr/X11R6/lib and /usr/X11R6/include.
> Any help on this would be apprechiated - linux might be great - once
> you get something to compile successfully on it :)
If you think compiling on Linux is hard, try Solaris 2.2 from 1993. It
was mostly SVR4 but with just enough quirks that much if not most
software needed tweaking, and it was new enough that nobody had done
this yet. It had a BSD compatibility library but we were warned to
stay away from that because it was even buggier than the native libs.
Also it might be my imagination but it seems more free software was
BSD-biased back then. Or maybe it's just that SysV has become more
BSD-compatible since then.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: Linux standards compliance
Date: 4 Sep 1999 00:03:27 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Nix <$}xinix{[email protected]>]
> It makes the kernel harder to maintain, slows it down (extra
> indirection layers for no good technical reason, and in a damned
> time-critical area of the kernel, too), and has little apparent
> reason other than so that the commercial Unix developers can sponge
> off free software driver development.
That's probably the biggest reason, but another one is so that hardware
mfrs can hoard their secrets and release binary-only drivers without
the normal maintenance burden that normally goes with not letting your
users recompile for a new Linux version.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Help Compiling GCC 2.95.1 (Please!! )
Date: 3 Sep 1999 23:55:16 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[John McDonald, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> Okay, so I'm trying to install Gcc 2.95.1 on an Ultra Enterprise 450,
> running Solaris 2.5.1.
Do these look like GCC newsgroups or Solaris newsgroups? (:
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: help with .so libs !
Date: 4 Sep 1999 01:03:06 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Delayen Laurent <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> I just moved from Windows to Linux, and i wish to port a program i
> was coding. I used DLLs under windows for plug-in support. i heard i
> could use .so libs to do the same.
Yup. They don't work quite the same way -- I understand some of the
binding happens later in Linux shared objects -- but they'll probably
do fine for what you're doing.
You need to read about the functions dlopen() and dlsym(). These open
a shared library and fetch a pointer to a function in one,
respectively. If you want to initialize a plug-in, do something like:
#include <dlfcn.h>
[...]
extern struct context OurGlobalContext;
int init_plugin(char *name)
{
void *lib;
int (*fn)(struct context *);
lib = dlopen(name, RTLD_LAZY);
if(!lib)
return 0; /* failed to open */
fn = dlsym(lib, "initialize");
if(!fn) {
dlclose(lib);
return 0;
}
return fn(OurGlobalContext);
}
And then of course each plugin has a
int initialize(struct context *);
to initialize it. Alternatively, if whatever is needed to initialize a
plug-in is available via globals, i.e. a plug-in can just add its own
`struct module_info' or whatever onto a linked list, then you can
initialize using the automatic constructor _init(): just have a
void _init(void);
in each plug-in. Then you just have to dlopen() it and _init will be
run by dlopen(). (And _fini() will be run by dlclose().)
> Also i'm interested to know what are the best combination of tools to
> code under linux.
Can o' worms. Most Linux coders including yours truly seem to prefer
using just a text editor, a compiler, a debugger and Make rather than
an IDE. All the tools except the editor are standard: GNU make, the
gcc suite and gdb. For the editor, I prefer xemacs but there are as
many opinions as there are editors. Note that xemacs starts to look a
little like an IDE when you use automatic indentation, color syntax
highlighting, a compilation buffer and the Grand Unified Debugger mode
(gdb frontend). Note also that I'd be flamed to death if I didn't
mention that other editors have some of these features too, and that
furthermore some people find them annoying so they use still other
editors which do not.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: HP Night Director PLus 10/100 ethernet driver?
Date: 4 Sep 1999 01:12:49 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Neeraj Purandare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> I have a HP Kayak XU PC, and this one came with a ethernet card which
> is called on HP's web site as "HP Night Director Plus 10/100". I
> have RH 6.0 installed on this, and try as I might, I cannot get any
> of the hp ethernet driver modules to load. I've tried hp.o, hp100.o,
> hp-plus.o. modprobe returns with "Device busy".
What does HP say? Do they support Linux? If not, why not? I don't
know your model, but HP has been making lots of noises lately (they and
everyone else) about supporting Linux. Ask them if it's true or just a
lot of hot air.
If the card is PCI, what does `lspci' say about it?
> It works OK on NT though, and this is the only reason I still need to
> run NT, to connect to my workplace.
Hey, even if you can't get it to work, look at it this way:
RTL8139-based card: $20
Real Fast Ethernet card: $40
Windows NT Workstation: $200
(Not to pick on Realtek but I've had mixed luck with cheap 10/100 cards.)
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: I am a dope. Re: LILO oddity.
Date: 4 Sep 1999 01:20:56 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Omri Schwarz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> There was a floppy in the drive.
>
> Okay, I wear a paper bag for the next week.
*grin* I knew there must be something. Just two weeks ago I attempted
to boot a Windoze machine from a Debian install floppy which I placed
in another machine's drive. Oddly enough, it booted Windoze....
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: Hi, How can I diPPP over Ethernet?
Date: 4 Sep 1999 01:17:48 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> How can I direct PPP to Ethernet device driver, so I can have PPP
> over , say Ethernet?
As with all questions like this, I have to ask: Why? Tell us what you
*really* want to do. It sounds like you have a half-formulated
solution to a problem for which there may well be better solutions.
I ask all this because PPP and Ethernet have parallel functionality (no
pun intended): to encapsulate packets from higher-level protocols so
they can traverse a medium (a point-to-point link for PPP, a multipoint
link for Ethernet). As well ask how to send an Ethernet frame over
PPP.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: Robert Komar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: LINUX AND COREL
Date: 4 Sep 1999 06:37:12 GMT
In comp.os.linux.misc Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: WordPerfect Office 2000 aka WP 9 etc (oooh, let's follow in Microsoft's
: naming conventions footsteps again, remember when real version numbers
: all but disappeared from 'doze software in favor of two-digit year
: numbers?) is apparently being ported as we speak. Corel has taken the
: strategy of helping develop winelib with the goal of being able to
: recompile rather than rewrite their own code.
Not only their own code. If Wine works well, then more Windows users
might be persuaded to leave behind their OS without abandoning their
applications. Corel apps by themselves may not persuade many people
people to move to Linux, but being able to use Windows apps within
Linux will probably attract more of them. I would guess that they
stand to gain more by offering Windows-like apps to a Windows-like
crowd of the recently converted rather than trying to market to the
"Linux-cause-its-free" crowd. With Linux presently being populated
mostly by propellor-heads that don't use productivity apps and
reactionaries that probably steal them if they use them, we are
probably the worst market imaginable for that kind of business to
cater to. However, creating a market by making Linux a friendlier
place for Windows-like application users with Wine is probably a
better strategy than rewriting the code to run on Linux and hoping
that we propellor-heads and reactionaries buy lots of copies.
And if their code happens to run flawlessly in that environment
while the others cough once in a while,...?
Cheers,
Rob Komar
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: Can I install Linux on an IBM PS/2 model 95 XP 486?
Date: 4 Sep 1999 00:43:12 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Alan Smeltzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> I have an IBM PS/2 model 95 XP 486. This thing uses an IBM SCSI
> controller that isn't on the list of drivers included with my copy of
> Red Hat Linux 5.2. Does anyone know if there is a driver for this
> controller out there anywhere?
Specifically, what controller is it? I know IBM has used a lot of NCR
SCSI chips (53C7* and 53C8*) in the past. Perhaps this is because IBM
signed a deal with NCR many years ago allowing IBM to use NCR's SCSI
technology. (NCR, in exchange, got to use IBM's Micro Channel
technology. Someone got shorted.) Linux supports most NCR SCSI chips.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: Mark McDougall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: problems with put_user
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 16:30:53 +1000
nightstalker wrote:
> i tried compiling the second example from the linux module programming
> guide (an ldp doc)
> while trying to load the module (using insmod) i always get an error :
> chardev.o: unresolved symbol __put_user_X
Have you #included <asm/uaccess.h> rather than <asm/segment.h> ???
Regards,
--
| Mark McDougall |
| Engineer |
| Virtual Logic Pty Ltd |
| http://www.vl.com.au |
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: Question on ATM on Linux
Date: 4 Sep 1999 01:37:25 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> 1. Is there any licensing problem if I use "ATM on Linux"
> architecture to write the ATM driver? To what extent do I have to
> open my source codes to the public? My concern is that my PHY or SAR
> driver code cannot be opened to the public under the restriction of
> certain license agreement for this project. Is it okay that I use
> "ATM on Linux" under this restriction?
Linus Torvalds long ago declared a special exception to the GPL: any
module code which does not modify the kernel other than to be loaded as
a module can be distributed under any license you want. Any
modifications to the kernel itself have to be released under the GPL,
because of the nature of the GPL.
But if you do not release source code, you are buying a headache. You
will have to compile your module separately for SMP and non-SMP
kernels, and release a specific version for most (if not all) kernel
releases you expect your customers to use. Ask the maintainers of AFS
(the Andrew File System) how much fun this is. Whereas Linux has
near-perfect source-level compatibility within a stable release cycle,
i.e. 2.0.x or 2.2.x for all x, so you basically don't have to support
nearly as many versions. Also, say a horrible network
denial-of-service bug is discovered in 2.2.19 and your customers all
want to upgrade to 2.2.20 immediately but can't because you haven't
shipped your 2.2.20 driver yet. Problem.
> 3. Is there any other common approach in addition to "ATM on Linux"
> that ATM industry adopt to develop ATM drivers on Linux ?
What is wrong with open source? The only credible reason for a
hardware vendor not to release source, in my opinion, is if your hand
is forced by an NDA with someone else. Alan Cox suspects that most
closed-source or closed-spec hardware vendors are so because they're
ashamed of their broken designs more than anything else. He may be
right. Derision of the device or its engineers in your source code
comments is a long and proud driver-writing tradition.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (void)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: TAO: the ultimate OS
Date: 4 Sep 1999 06:41:08 GMT
On 4 Sep 1999 02:27:30 GMT, Vladimir Z. Nuri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
>I don't understand what you are talking about. what is a "read-only
>compromise of sensitive data"? I think you are talking about
>an entirely different kind of security, i.e. that you don't
>want to divulge certain kinds of information.. but in fact
>this is a ridiculous requirement of an open OS system.. or
>at least it is a much higher standard than anything that
>we are interested in, that few entities other than defense
>contractors and the NSA are seriously interested in right now..
How can you have e-commerce without preventing the divulging of credit
card authorization data?
--
Ben
[X] YES! I'm a brain-damaged lemur on crack, and I'd like to
order your software package for $459.95!
------------------------------
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