Linux-Development-Sys Digest #893, Volume #7 Tue, 23 May 00 02:13:12 EDT
Contents:
Re: Why no defrag? (bill davidsen)
Re: HELP: 8 Bit Linux ? (Ronald Cole)
Re: Problems with shared memory in 2.3.99 + (Jerry Peters)
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux (Eduard Bloch)
Re: linux tools advice (Marc Britten)
Re: What !@#$ moron colorised g++? (Alexander Viro)
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux (David T. Blake)
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: source code of shutdown (Paul Kimoto)
Re: Two really easy (I'm sure) questions (Lew Pitcher)
Re: HELP: 8 Bit Linux ? (Lew Pitcher)
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux ("Peter T. Breuer")
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux (Leslie Mikesell)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (bill davidsen)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Why no defrag?
Date: 22 May 2000 22:21:37 GMT
In article <39239f25$0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Peet Grobler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| I've seen the question posted to this group many times now, is there a
| defrag for linux? The conclusion is there is not. I'm sitting at my desk,
| thinking, why not?
|
| Is there any specific reason for defrag not being written? I mean, can
| anybody tell me something that would stop me from writing one?
Best reason, there are (at least) two, a commercial version and a free
version. In general ext2 filesystems are resistant to fragmentation. It
can and does happen, but not often.
Two causes are (a) filling up the filesystem, and (b) applications
which write many large files which start small and all grow at the same
time. Even then, the performance doesn't get bad unless you need to read
those files sequentially, at which point the performance can and does
get suboptimal. This is not a common access pattern, so most people
don't benefit from defrag.
Don't believe anyone who tells you ext2 can't frag. Do believe that
the normal user will never see enough effect to justify something as
dangerous as defrag.
--
bill davidsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
"Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979"(tm)
The hardest test of maturity is knowing the difference between
resisting temptation and missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
------------------------------
From: Ronald Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: HELP: 8 Bit Linux ?
Date: 22 May 2000 15:49:43 -0700
Dan Mathias <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Is there any 8 Bit Linux or Unix for the 68HC11 or 8088 cpu ?
You might want to look into OS-9. I had a version for my Tandy Color
Computer 2 (6809E) about 17 years ago. IIRC, Microware owned it then.
But like UCSD Pascal, I have no clue who owns it now.
--
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412
Ronald Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152
My GPG fingerprint: C3AF 4BE9 BEA6 F1C2 B084 4A88 8851 E6C8 69E3 B00B
------------------------------
From: Jerry Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Problems with shared memory in 2.3.99 +
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 23:04:04 GMT
C. Folstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> First off, all is as the /usr/src/linux/Documentation/Changes files
> says it should be, including the system software; everything meets or
> exceeds version minimums.
> Linux ravenblack.org 2.2.15 #3 Sat May 13 01:23:33 CDT 2000 i586 unknown
> Kernel modules 2.3.11
> Gnu C 2.95.2
> Binutils 2.9.5.0.37
> Linux C Library 2.1.3
> Dynamic linker ldd: version 1.9.11
> Procps 2.0.6
> Mount 2.10f
> Net-tools 2.05
> Kbd 0.99
> Sh-utils 2.0
> Modules Loaded ppp slhc serial
> mount shows /var/shm mounted, as does /proc/mounts. free, on the
> other hand, shows no shared memory.
AFAIK the "shared" item from free is supposed to be the memory shared
by multiple processes for things like common pages of executables.
Mine shows zero, too (kernel 2.3.51), but shm works, at least gimp
uses it. To see shm use the ipcs command.
Just tried it. Did an ipcs which showed no shared mem, then started gimp:
====== Shared Memory Segments ========
key shmid owner perms bytes nattch status
0x00000000 65537 gap 777 16384 2
free still shows:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 62368 44272 18096 0 576 15556
-/+ buffers/cache: 28140 34228
Swap: 130748 16 130732
> 2.3.99-pre3 runs w3ell enough, but 2.3.99-pre8 runs like very slowly.
> When I first used 2.3.99-pre3 I noticed there was a pseudo-file in
> /var/shm, but now there is not.
> I discontinued to use 2.3.99-pre3 because it didn't handle the
> framebuffer stuff well even though the shared memory stuff worked.
> I have a Tekram motherboard, with onboard Trident Cyberblade graphics
> that uses part of system ram as video ram, and onboard sound. Both of
> the two subsystems work fine in Linux. The proccessor is a AMD K6-II
> 350 3d-Now.
> Between the first time I compiled and used 2.3.99-pre3 and recently
> when I tried 2.3.99-pre8, I did a standard system upgrade using
> dselect / apt to get it from the Debian mirror. The compilers and
> libs were done at that time.
> So, there it is. Make of it as you will. Thanks for your time;
> C. D. Folstrom
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eduard Bloch)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
Date: 22 May 2000 22:35:07 GMT
Am Don, 18 Mai 2000 um 19:36 GMT schrieb
Someone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in comp.os.linux.development.apps:
>What I would like is a kde multitrack recording application. I would like
>at least 8 tracks, loops, effects, mixing, bouncing, dehiss using a
Sure, this would be cool. But don't use the f***ing KDE as environment
for such good apps.
Eduard.
--
=====================================================================
Eduard Bloch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; HP: http://eduard.bloch.com/edecosi
0xEDF008C5(gpg): E6EB 98E2 B885 8FF0 6C04 5C1D E106 481E EDF0 08C5
**
Do bl Sp ce is a v ry saf me hod of driv compr s ion
------------------------------
From: Marc Britten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: linux tools advice
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 20:59:29 -0400
well, that depends, how much money do you have? :)
sniff+ if i remember right, can cross compile and allow development of
unix apps on windows. some sort of debugging facilities too
plus w/ cygwin you can get a gcc crosscompiler made for linux on a
windows box.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> "sllai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > what do I need to develop an GUI application in linux system. Must I develop
> > it in linux environment or can I do it in the PC environment and then
> > transfer it into the linux based system.
>
> As others have pointed out, Linux is a PC (among others) OS.
>
> The short answer is that you can't. You have to develop, test, and
> debug on Linux. With substantial work, you could change this, but
> even then you'd need to recompile the source on the two OSes.
>
> --
> Eric P. McCoy ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>
> non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.
> - Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Alexander Viro)
Subject: Re: What !@#$ moron colorised g++?
Date: 22 May 2000 21:02:38 -0400
In article <8gc1ao$mh7$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Chetan Ahuja <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] spoke thusly:
>> On Mon, 22 May 2000 04:06:36 GMT Thaddeus L. Olczyk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> The key is there needs to be a way to turn it off. Once that is in place
>> then the debate is whether it should default on or off and I would not
>> have a problem with either course on that.
>
> Actually there is a way... ( but I'm not sure it works) In my
> mandrake7 distro, gcc is actually a perl script which runs the
> "backend" gcc and colors the output. Near the top of this script are
[snip]
<gaaaaack...>
Who is responsible for that piece of idiocy? I mean, could the author of
that bright idea please stand up, name himself and receive his, erm, due?
--
"You're one of those condescending Unix computer users!"
"Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a better computer" - Dilbert.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David T. Blake)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
Date: 22 May 2000 13:02:19 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
David Steuber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David T. Blake) writes:
>
> ' David Steuber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> '
> ' > What TrollTech is currently doing with Qt 2.x and higher is a
> ' > good thing. People who produce GPL software can use Qt without
> ' > worrying about the QPL.
> '
> ' That is not even close to true. Trolltech has rights to a copy
> ' of everything that even links with QT. They could EASILY take
> ' your QT linked code, and fold it into proprietary software.
>
> http://www.trolltech.com/products/download/freelicense/
>
> Show me where in this license TrollTech can take GPL code that links
> to Qt and make it proprietary.
Section 3b) (on modifications to QT)
When modifications to the Software are released under this
license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the
initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification.
And section 5c) (on linking to QT)
If the items are not available to the general public, and the
initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items,
then you must supply one.
You can note that there are no restrictions on this copy being
made available, no licensing issues mentioned. QT has quietly
assured themselves of the right to have a copy to every program
that modifies or links to QT. Especially in the case of 5c
it is not at all clear that they need to stick to ANY license
in how they use it. Fair use would certainly allow them to
use substantial chunks of such code however they like. Either
your program is open and GPL, or they have (some) rights to it.
Things like this bother me. Why can't the author of a program
that links to QT have as many rights as the library authors ??
They clearly do not right now.
--
Dave Blake
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 01:56:56 GMT
Followups set to colda.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows) writes:
I thought I'd seen you here before!
> > I much, much, much prefer being able to right-click on something and
> > hit "Properties." I also like being able to press F1 when the mouse
> > is over a confusing field and get an explanation of it. (The
> > explanation often isn't a help, and I expect that would carry over
> > to Linux, but at least there's no flipping around between screens.)
> Agreed. The right-button and F1 idioms are good ones, as are button
> bars on apps and scrollwheels on mice. Writing decent documentation
> is a different skill to writing a decent GUI. I have yet to meet
> anyone at all who was good at both in the same application.
The problem is, of course, that the programmer usually knows far too
much about the application to be able to strip out the bits that
nobody else cares about. When I try to write documentation, about 3/4
of it usually ends up being an in-depth description, complete with
code examples, of the internal aspects I find most interesting.
> [attribution lost]
Oops. Sorry.
> >> This is the problem though, they don't care enough to create
> >> programs to help newbies install and use linux and so linux is
> >> being held back.
> > I care enough. I'm just no good at GUI programming.
> It isn't that hard with something like Tcl/Tk, Perl/Tk or TkInter.
Yeah, I know. But either way, I have to learn Tcl, Perl, C, or what
have you, as well as the toolkit it uses. If I want to use GNOME,
which I do, I have to learn IDL, too. (Actually, I know that already,
via SOM.)
> You just have to remember that users aren't necessarily going to work
> through things the same way you do, that they want *both* mouse and
> keyboard navigation, plenty of help and a chance to undo things where
> possible (and a really hefty warning where you can't undo!)
With decent development tools, keyboard shortcuts are absolutely
trivial. The bitch-ass part is implementing a proper (meaning
multi-level) undo.
--
Eric P. McCoy ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.
- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 02:14:51 GMT
"Anthony W. Youngman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I am led to believe (in other words I may well be wrong...) that rpms
> basically have a required/not-required status. If the system MAY require
> a package, then either it is flagged as required and the system tries to
> make you install it, or it's not flagged and gets ignored.
Well, technically, some is either required or it isn't. If you're
right (I have no idea), the problem seems to be more on the package
maintainer's end, rather than the rpm developer's end.
> dpkg has far finer graining - required (ie it'll break without it), and
> various other grainings.
Well, there are basically two levels of dependencies: OS and package.
Some packages (like init and glibc2.1) are required for the OS to
work. Those packages depend on other packages in order to work. So
there are settings for both of those two. Debian is a little likelier
to recommend packages for the OS rather than for another package, for
obvious reasons.
> So in my example OSS and ISDN4LINUX should be
> flagged optional. SuSE/rpm apparently has no way of marking something as
> optional.
Actually, in Debian, I believe they'd be marked "extra."
> In other words, it's not the package maintainer's fault if the
> maintenance package has no way of correctly marking-up the dependency.
I don't really understand how this can be so. If the required bit is
set, the package is required; if it's not, it's not. Even the most
basic usable package-management system has to have at least these two
states.
--
Eric P. McCoy ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.
- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul Kimoto)
Subject: Re: source code of shutdown
Date: 22 May 2000 23:00:09 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[posted and e-mailed]
In article <8gadfr$mg8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Sake wrote:
> Where can I find the source code of the shutdown utility and/or its
> relatives
> (halt, reboot, poweroff)
Your distribution should provide it.
Most systems use the ones that come with sysvinit, whose source is at
(for example) ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/slink/main/source/base
(the sysvinit maintainer is a Debian developer).
--
Paul Kimoto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: Lew Pitcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Two really easy (I'm sure) questions
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 04:10:08 GMT
Charles Bryant wrote:
>
> In article <brsR4.50603$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Mark Graybill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Again - please explain in technical terms WHY 2<&1 (and void main()) is
> >incorrect. I'm looking for solid technical reasons - not ethical reasons.
[snip]
> In the case of void main(), if you're using a Unix-like system a
> program does return a value, so why would you try to declare it as
> if it didn't? Again it's a case of saying what you mean. Even if you
> call exit() the program returns a value (and why would you call
> exit() directly from main() when you could use 'return'?), so it
> makes sense to declare it properly.
Although these are excellent and correct reasons for the Unix
environment (which Linux shares), the real and absolute reason why
void main() is incorrect is "because the standards say so".
If you want to know _why_ the standards say that void main() is
incorrect, I guess you'll have to ask the ISO C Committee. My guess
(not being one of the committee) is that
a) an unexpected return value given to the caller of main() can be
ignored by the caller, but if the caller expects a return value and
doesn't get one, then all heck breaks loose, and there are
circumstances where main() must return a value, and
b) it maintains backward compatability with prior (working) code.
Even platforms for which authors recommend void main() (i.e. MSDOS)
expect a value from main(). Other platforms sometimes recommend void
main(), but violate the standards by not using main() functions anyway
(i.e. MSWindows, where WinMain() is the system entrypoint).
--
Lew Pitcher
Master Codewright and JOAT-in-training
------------------------------
From: Lew Pitcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: HELP: 8 Bit Linux ?
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 04:10:11 GMT
Dan Mathias wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Is there any 8 Bit Linux or Unix for the 68HC11 or 8088 cpu ?
No.
However, there are a number of Unix look-a-likes (like Minix) that can
run on an 8088.
--
Lew Pitcher
Master Codewright and JOAT-in-training
------------------------------
From: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
Date: 23 May 2000 05:10:58 GMT
In comp.os.linux.misc [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: "Anthony W. Youngman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
:> I am led to believe (in other words I may well be wrong...) that rpms
:> basically have a required/not-required status. If the system MAY require
: I don't really understand how this can be so. If the required bit is
: set, the package is required; if it's not, it's not. Even the most
That's the problem. RPMs only have these two states. You can't have
conditionally required RPMs. There are no modal operators, such as
"necessary on mondays" ;-).
Peter
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
Date: 23 May 2000 00:16:15 -0500
In article <3P3W4.67733$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Christopher Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Dunno. I've just heard very bad things about some of the installers,
>>namely that they either work perfectly or not at all. And, of course,
>>we should be able to turn off the easy-to-use installer and get our
>>hands dirty.
>
>Actually, all you need to do to get at _that_ is to try installing
>Linux on a non-IA-32 platform. It gets _real_ easy at that point to
>need to get away from the "pretty, barnified installers."
Hate to disappoint you but RedHat 6.2 installs exactly the
same on a Sparc as on a pentium. Boot the CD in your
choice of graphic or text modes, fill in the forms and
let it chug away for a few minutes...
>I'm far more concerned with there being a solid basis underneath than
>there being a pretty veneer on top.
>
>Unfortunately, RPM seems a bit weak in terms of supporting
>construction of well-managed _sets_ of packages, in comparison with
>the set of dpkg tools.
Yes, the concept of sets seems to only exist in the installer.
You can boot it back up, pick the upgrade option and select
some other groups of things to install even if nothing is
newer on the CD, but it would be nicer if there was a way
to do this during normal operation.
>Frankly, part of what I'd like to see happen is for some of this stuff
>to get scripted in automated fashion.
>
>I've got an hourly process that runs:
> apt-get update
> apt-get -q -y -d upgrade
>which checks to see if there is anything out there needing to be
>upgraded.
>
>That's not going to automagically _do_ the upgrades; it merely
>downloads the updated packages. I get to run dselect [which needs a
>prettier face in these modern times...] to actually _install_ them.
There is something called autorpm, which I think does basically
the same thing. However much of the interesting stuff isn't
an update - it is an entirely new package. The only way
I've found time to even look at these things is to do
an 'everything' install of the new RH and Mandrake releases
and poke away at the menus to see what new things they
included.
>In effect, the friendliest user interface for system administration is
>the user interface that you don't _need_ to use because the computer
>did the Right Thing on your behalf.
In theory you can do an 'update' with the next RH release - and
it usually really works when you go from an x.1 to an x.2 version.
However, you won't get any of the new good stuff if you just
update what you have installed.
>You overspeak, _slightly._
>
><http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/> reports:
> "This archive hosts 64126 RPMs representing 99304 MBytes of data"
>
>Much of these represent duplicates, whether via being different
>versions, or versions for different RPM-based istributions.
>
>In contrast, Debian has somewhere around 5000 packages these days.
>With the _significant_ upside that they are each, at least initially,
>required to have an identifiable maintainer.
Most useful stuff can be found on the RH base and Powertools
set, and/or the Mandrake and VALinux variations.
>I would speculate that the same is true for Linuxconf; the site
><http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/modules.hc> only lists a limited
>number of third party modules.
Linuxconf appears to be an all-or-nothing situation in terms
of controlling the entire computer. If you change any single
thing with it, it examines and tries to 'fix' everything.
For example, if you fix your sendmail to run as a non-root
user, then do something like adding a user through linuxconf
it will change your sendmail queue directory ownership back
to root. It is configurable, of course, but having to configure
linuxconf sort of defeats the purpose...
>Contrast with WebMin, which combines a large number of standard
><http://www.webmin.com/webmin/standard.html> and third party
><http://www.webmin.com/webmin/third.html> modules. Admittedly, the
>wish list <http://www.coastnet.com/~ken/webmin/wish.html> is rather
>large...
Webmin is often handier to control a single item, but a browser
is only a so-so interface. It would be nice if there were
a real X GUI that could be used locally with the browser
interface optional for when you are working remotely from
a non-X platform.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.development.system) via:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Development-System Digest
******************************
