Linux-Hardware Digest #663, Volume #14 Sat, 21 Apr 01 18:13:09 EDT
Contents:
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: RAID 5 or 0 for performance? (Dan Smith)
Re: Where can I buy bridgeboards? ("j.cammell")
Re: RAID 5 or 0 for performance? ("Ron Reaugh")
Re: Where can I buy bridgeboards? (Don Maslin)
Re: howto properly access serial devices in Perl or C (Nix)
Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ? ("Monte Milanuk")
IDE plexwriter 12/10/32
Re: Where can I buy bridgeboards? (Rick)
Re: Red Hat 7.1, Promise FastTrak100, install issues. ("Stuart Cianos")
Re: today's harddrives will surely fail before dialup users manage to fill them up?
(David A. Lethe)
Re: Soundblaster Vibra 128 (Dances With Crows)
Re: Buying a Dell Laptop, compatability feedback please (Harold Stevens
US.972.952.3293)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 13:41:17 -0500
"Charles Lyttle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> >
> > "Charles Lyttle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Mind you, I can't vouch for the accuracy of that report. But is was
> > > offered as proof that the crash wasn't the fault of the OS. "It was a
> > > misbehaving application that caused the OS to crash." The Navy had to
> > > clear the OS or justify to congress why it insisted on MS when most
> > > contractors were saying it couldn't (or shouldn't) be done. The
> > > contractor had to clear the OS because he promised that it could be
> > > done. But he was late, and the Navy had to either cancel a test at a
> > > loss of millions, or go to test with a beta version. So the vendor
says
> > > "we were only a little late, if they had just waited a few more days".
> >
> > This is all completely untrue.
> >
> > Read all the info collected by Jerry Pournelle on the issue
> > http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/Yorktown.html
> >
> > The contractor in question also stated specifically that the navy had
gone
> > against their recomendation of installing newer software that didn't
have
> > the problem PRIOR to the event.
> > http://www.sciam.com/1998/1198issue/1198techbus2.html
> >
> > "... the fault was with certain applications that were developed by CAE
> > Electronics in Leesburg, Va. As Harvey McKelvey, former director of navy
> > programs for CAE, admits, "If you want to put a stick in anybody's eye,
it
> > should be in ours." But McKelvey adds that the crash would not have
happened
> > if the navy had been using a production version of the CAE software,
which
> > he asserts has safeguards to prevent the type of failure that occurred.
"
> >
> > You should also read the original article which is the source of all
this:
> > http://www.usni.org/Proceedings/digiorgio.htm
> >
> > Notice that in an article of great length, only 2 paragraphs are devoted
to
> > NT, and none of the say the OS crashed.
> >
> > Further, the same author that wrote the gcn article (which quotes from
the
> > usni article) also clarifies his statements in a followup article:
> > http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/november9/6.htm
> That last one is even worse than my story. A divide by zero in the
> controller for a fuel valve caused the entire LAN to go down crashing 27
> remotes?
The navy uses different terminology than the rest of the industry. To them,
the "LAN" is their networked application, not the OS or hardware it's
running upon. When the database contained invalid data, the applications
running on the remotes all crashed as well, thus causing a Local Area
Network failure.
> Industry (mostly) fixed that problem 30 years ago. For what its
> worth, I had an NT machine I was working with bring down an entire LAN
> of over 1000 machines. It was called the "ping of death". Some
> applications could cause the NT software to start issuing network pings
> at high speed. These faults often also caused a BSOD, but not always.
Ping of death was a specific type of exploit that needed special, invalidly
formed packets to work. There was no way to cause normal applications to
generate POD packets.
Unix also suffered from this bug.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 19:16:36 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Charles Lyttle
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sat, 21 Apr 2001 14:30:09 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>>
[snip for brevity]
>>
>> Further, the same author that wrote the gcn article (which quotes from the
>> usni article) also clarifies his statements in a followup article:
>> http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/november9/6.htm
>That last one is even worse than my story. A divide by zero in the
>controller for a fuel valve caused the entire LAN to go down crashing 27
>remotes? Industry (mostly) fixed that problem 30 years ago. For what its
>worth, I had an NT machine I was working with bring down an entire LAN
>of over 1000 machines. It was called the "ping of death". Some
>applications could cause the NT software to start issuing network pings
>at high speed. These faults often also caused a BSOD, but not always.
Yeah, but is the BSOD on the machine pinging, or one of the
many machines being pinged? :-)
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 5d:12h:04m actually running Linux.
We are all naked underneath our clothes.
------------------------------
From: Dan Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: RAID 5 or 0 for performance?
Date: 21 Apr 2001 15:06:42 -0400
I see it, but I thought that it was a reference signal. I didn't
think I was supposed to put a jumper on it...
(These are SCA drives, so the spindle sync is on the adapter...)
Thanks for helping me with this..
--Dan
------------------------------
From: "j.cammell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.os.cpm,comp.sys.tandy
Subject: Re: Where can I buy bridgeboards?
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 07:36:49 +1200
I think you both may be wrong in assuming that MFM and RLL drives are
the same.
I don't know a thing about the subject. But I do have an article that
states the RLL controller fools the computer into thinking the drive (
Heads, Sectors, Tracks ) are not what they physically really are. MFM
has limitations as to the number of sectors per track and tracks per
drive and the controller doesn't know computer doesn't know this only
the controller.
When RLL came along the Controller Manufactures were able to fool the
computer into accepting larger capacity drives.
If you want I can E-Mail the disk with the more detailed explanation
Jack
B'ichela wrote:
>
> On Sat, 21 Apr 2001 01:51:28 GMT, CBFalconer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Hook up the MFM drive, low level format it, and then test the
> >result. The 40M should become 64M, and you will have more sectors
> >per track.
> WEll I would if I could get the ACB-4070 to REZERO to track
> Zero properly. This is the whole problem. the only two MFM units toat
> are available are a SEGATE 225 and a Ancient IBM branded Miniscribe.
> Being both drives bomb out.. Either its the data cable or the 20 pin
> control cables or worse the board itself is faulty (I will have to
> find another 20 pinner as I cannot find my spare! On the standard XT
> MFM controller the ST225 formats fine. Thus it is NOT the drive itself
> as my test with the Miniscribe confirms.
> I just found that I left a jumper on pins N-O on the board,
> according to the manaul that was supposed to handle drives that drop
> the Seek Complete line during head switching. Perhaps with the other
> Control Cable I found I might get lucky this time. The Data cable (the
> 20 pin one) is also used on the XT controller, works fine there. Thus
> I doubt that cable is faulty. The original cable was a modified cable
> with the connectors changed to the non-slotted 34 pin card edge type,
> for the ACB-4070 does not have the slot after pins 2 and 4.
> I needed a longer one so I modified a floppy cable (removed the twist)
> and crimped the original Non-slotted ACB-4070 connector to it. using a
> REAL IDE crimping tool.
> Possibly a wire is not making contact with the Track-0 pin. Thus as I
> kept hearing the drive kept slamming into the head stops. (both are
> stepper motor type drives) The sound reminds me of my Commodore 1541
> during a disk format! (This was the dead give away of a Track-0 or a
> seek compete signal not getting to the board. AFter this happens the
> drives continued to work on the XT. Therefore no immediate damage was
> done to the drives. Still I really would like to find the MFM version
> if possible of this board. When you are designing a driver. The best
> thing is to elimate as many external varibles as possible, This allows
> one to focus on the drivers themselves without worrying if the drives
> have the inability to deal with the additional Data on each cylindar,
> Some disks don't have the BPI to deal with this additional sector
> information without read errors.
>
> --
>
> B'ichela
------------------------------
From: "Ron Reaugh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: RAID 5 or 0 for performance?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 19:40:50 GMT
Dan Smith wrote in message ...
>I see it, but I thought that it was a reference signal. I didn't
>think I was supposed to put a jumper on it...
Right.
>(These are SCA drives, so the spindle sync is on the adapter...)
------------------------------
From: Don Maslin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where can I buy bridgeboards?
Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.os.cpm,comp.sys.tandy
Date: 21 Apr 2001 19:54:35 GMT
In comp.periphs.scsi j.cammell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: I think you both may be wrong in assuming that MFM and RLL drives are
: the same.
: I don't know a thing about the subject. But I do have an article that
: states the RLL controller fools the computer into thinking the drive (
: Heads, Sectors, Tracks ) are not what they physically really are. MFM
: has limitations as to the number of sectors per track and tracks per
: drive and the controller doesn't know computer doesn't know this only
: the controller.
: When RLL came along the Controller Manufactures were able to fool the
: computer into accepting larger capacity drives.
: If you want I can E-Mail the disk with the more detailed explanation
: Jack
I think you are confusing RLL and LBA, Jack. RLL is a scheme for writing
data to the disk and followed FM and MFM. Each succeeded in packing more
data in a given physical sector.
- don
: B'ichela wrote:
:>
:> On Sat, 21 Apr 2001 01:51:28 GMT, CBFalconer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> >Hook up the MFM drive, low level format it, and then test the
:> >result. The 40M should become 64M, and you will have more sectors
:> >per track.
:> WEll I would if I could get the ACB-4070 to REZERO to track
:> Zero properly. This is the whole problem. the only two MFM units toat
:> are available are a SEGATE 225 and a Ancient IBM branded Miniscribe.
:> Being both drives bomb out.. Either its the data cable or the 20 pin
:> control cables or worse the board itself is faulty (I will have to
:> find another 20 pinner as I cannot find my spare! On the standard XT
:> MFM controller the ST225 formats fine. Thus it is NOT the drive itself
:> as my test with the Miniscribe confirms.
:> I just found that I left a jumper on pins N-O on the board,
:> according to the manaul that was supposed to handle drives that drop
:> the Seek Complete line during head switching. Perhaps with the other
:> Control Cable I found I might get lucky this time. The Data cable (the
:> 20 pin one) is also used on the XT controller, works fine there. Thus
:> I doubt that cable is faulty. The original cable was a modified cable
:> with the connectors changed to the non-slotted 34 pin card edge type,
:> for the ACB-4070 does not have the slot after pins 2 and 4.
:> I needed a longer one so I modified a floppy cable (removed the twist)
:> and crimped the original Non-slotted ACB-4070 connector to it. using a
:> REAL IDE crimping tool.
:> Possibly a wire is not making contact with the Track-0 pin. Thus as I
:> kept hearing the drive kept slamming into the head stops. (both are
:> stepper motor type drives) The sound reminds me of my Commodore 1541
:> during a disk format! (This was the dead give away of a Track-0 or a
:> seek compete signal not getting to the board. AFter this happens the
:> drives continued to work on the XT. Therefore no immediate damage was
:> done to the drives. Still I really would like to find the MFM version
:> if possible of this board. When you are designing a driver. The best
:> thing is to elimate as many external varibles as possible, This allows
:> one to focus on the drivers themselves without worrying if the drives
:> have the inability to deal with the additional Data on each cylindar,
:> Some disks don't have the BPI to deal with this additional sector
:> information without read errors.
:>
:> --
:>
:> B'ichela
------------------------------
From: Nix <$}xinix{[email protected]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,de.alt.comm.isdn4linux
Subject: Re: howto properly access serial devices in Perl or C
Date: 21 Apr 2001 20:25:26 +0100
On Sat, 21 Apr 2001, Jonadab the Unsightly One gibbered:
> A language easier than Perl?
>
> [Adds Expect to languages-to-investigate list.]
It's dependent upon TCL. Be warned.
( ;) )
--
`There are other possibilities for stopping people from snoring;
for instance, just killing them.' --- Rainer
------------------------------
From: "Monte Milanuk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Could Linux be used in this factory environment ?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 20:26:12 GMT
Charles Lyttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> A good project for Linux open source would be a ladder logic
> development/run-time enviornment. It should have provisions for
> constructing and printing ladder diagrams. It should have a runtime
> enviornment that intreprets the diagram routing signals to/from the
> external hardware. For emergency situations, it should have provisions
> for over-riding the state of objects (password required).
>
I know... it's one of the things that is driving me to try to learn to
program... i.e. I'm very used to ladder logic, after dealing w/ large
programs on Reliance Automax DCS and AB PLC5 racks, and since in my new job
I will probably be not allowed near the techie type stuff (I'm an operator,
now ;p ) I will have to settle for doing some home automation stuff. And to
me, it seems like a decent ladder logic implementation would be just the
ticket for stuff like irrigation systems, lighting schemes, burglar alarms,
and what not. Hopefully someone more skilled than I will start it, because
if it has to wait for me to learn enough to start it, it'll be a long time
coming ;)
Monte
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Subject: IDE plexwriter 12/10/32
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 20:45:25 GMT
Having the plexwriter running might bring my system to its knees, acting like
having 40 other users on a vax 11/780, but FUCK it's fast. Actually, it's only
the "rip" (read) process that really chokes the system.
cdda2wav/cdrecord is at least 50% faster than the adaptec software under
windoze.
Somewhere on my toy list is a scsi version, probably w/ dvd capability.
------------------------------
From: Rick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.os.cpm,comp.sys.tandy
Subject: Re: Where can I buy bridgeboards?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 16:41:44 -0700
j.cammell wrote:
> I think you both may be wrong in assuming that MFM and RLL drives are
> the same.
> I don't know a thing about the subject. But I do have an article that
> states the RLL controller fools the computer into thinking the drive (
> Heads, Sectors, Tracks ) are not what they physically really are. MFM
> has limitations as to the number of sectors per track and tracks per
> drive and the controller doesn't know computer doesn't know this only
> the controller.
> When RLL came along the Controller Manufactures were able to fool the
> computer into accepting larger capacity drives.
> If you want I can E-Mail the disk with the more detailed explanation
> Jack
That doesn't sound quite right either. It sounds more like you are referring to
IDE drives and the necessary fakery of doubling head counts and halving tracks
counts etc. involved in logical block addressing so that the operating system can
mathematically deal with the total capacity of the drive.
The difference between MFM and RLL had to do with how the data is encoded on the
drive. MFM encoding is at 17 sectors per track and each sector containing 512
bytes. RLL encoding pushes that up to 25 or 26 sectors per track.
MFM is a fixed length scheme where the bit pattern is the same in all linear
spaces on the disk. The flux reverals are fixed at even spacing and so it the
timing. Under RLL the bit spacing is irregular between flux changes. For example,
in RLL 2,7 the first number stands for the minimum run of zero bits between two
one bits, the second number stands for the maximum number of zero bits between two
ones.
Because of the higher throughput and lack of fixed clocking involved in RLL there
are a lot of demands placed on the drives that older MFM drives aren't really up
to. Can you format an old ST225 voice coil drive with an RLL controller? Yeah, but
the drive was never certified by Seagate for RLL encoding. The problems you have
with track drift in the MFM stepper motor drives can be hell if you try to run one
as RLL. One bit error under RLL can screw as many as the next five bits in the
process. Can you do it? Yeah. Is it risky? Yeah.
------------------------------
From: "Stuart Cianos" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Red Hat 7.1, Promise FastTrak100, install issues.
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 14:16:09 -0700
Hi -
I live near Promise's office and called them personally, as I use their
controllers extensively at both my place of work and at my home. They stated
that they are working on updating the driver as we speak.
I have, however, been looking for a workaround so that we may use 7.1 w/
their current driver.
- Stu
"iQXth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I was able to install Red Hat 7.0 with no problem using the driver
> disk provided by Promise. Do I have to wait for them to put out
> another driver disk for 7.1 or is there some sort of generic
> compatibility mode that I can use to get this thing installed and
> working--even if not at peak performance?
------------------------------
From: David A. Lethe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.arch.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject: Re: today's harddrives will surely fail before dialup users manage to fill
them up?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 16:16:30 -0500
On Sat, 21 Apr 2001 19:48:09 +0200, Nils Holland
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Troy Bowman wrote:
>
>> You have not seen my hard drive. I just bought a 45GB drive and have
>> already filled over 1/2 of it.
>
>How did you do that? Now, I also have a 45 GB drive and I have almost
>everything that comes with SuSE 7.1 installed. Then I have taken my
>favorite CDs (about 20) and put them on my hard disk in MP3-format. In
>addition, I have some more stuff, like the sources of the software I
>downloaded, compiled and installedmyself. Still, however, I have about 30
>GB available. I really don't think that I will get my HD filled up any time
>within the next 5 years ;-)
>
>Greetings
Nils - Surely you are joking ...
Remember Bill Gate's famous quote that 640KB (of RAM) is all thay
anybody would EVER need. Granted RAM is not same as disk, but same
holds true.
The pro's such as IDC and Forrester show annual growth of storage
requirements in the 50-150% range. I would bet you fit in there as
well.
It wasn't too many years ago that software you got at the local PC
store came on a few floppies, then it came on CD-ROMS, now some games
come on DVD's, and multiple CD-ROMS?
Over the last few years, how big were the disk drives you bought?
David
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dances With Crows)
Subject: Re: Soundblaster Vibra 128
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 21 Apr 2001 21:40:03 GMT
On Sat, 21 Apr 2001 19:22:10 +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] staggered
into the Black Sun and said:
>I try to get a Soundblaster Vibra 128 soundcard running under Linux.
>It's a PCI card but it seems to be not using the typical chipset !?
>Anyway, I have been looking in some HOWTos and some webpages but I
>can't find anything about it. Is there any way to get this card
>running ? Maybe with a "Soundblaster compatible" module or so ???
PCI card? Good, run "cat /proc/pci" and see what you get in the output
that relates to sound cards. "Vibra 128" is almost meaningless, and
there are a couple of different chipsets that the card could actually
have. If you can find out what chipset the card uses, it should be
pretty easy to get things working.
I would guess that the card uses the es1370 or es1371 chipset, so you
can just try "modprobe es1371" as a start. Naturally, if you
self-compiled this kernel, you have to make sure that's been compiled as
a module!
>PS: I'm running Suse Linux 7.0 with Kernel 2.2.18 and 2.4.3
Er... did you try alsaconf when you installed SuSE? And do you want to
use ALSA or use the kernel OSS-Lite drivers?
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / Workin' in a code mine, hittin' Ctrl-Alt
http://www.brainbench.com / Workin' in a code mine, whoops!
=============================/ I hit a seg fault....
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Harold Stevens US.972.952.3293)
Crossposted-To: linux.dev.laptop
Subject: Re: Buying a Dell Laptop, compatability feedback please
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 22:03:03 GMT
In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, charliew:
[Snip...]
>I just installed Debian on a CPi D300XT, runs great and installation boots
>off CD just fine. I'd imagine SuSE will, too.
Thanks to all who responded; I have a CPi A366XT dualbooting SuSE 7.1
and WinME. OK, the Winders is for my dad, so lay off. :)
This is a very nice setup, and I must agree the Latitudes deserve the
high regard they seem to get, for my experience to date.
>As for the floppy, get a
>cable
>from Dell or your admin and you can interchange either in the bay or cabled.
[Snip...]
Thanks for the tip; I felt this was the case, but didn't have time to
run down a cable. As it turns out, the A366XT seems to be tolerant of
swapping them, at least when I had to unload the CD for the floppy to
do a Tomsrtbt emergency floppy boot.
This extremum was needed after the *boot* locked up completely (and I
mean nuthin' but remove the battery/AC power reboot) during probe for
the nm-256 (Neomagic) sound support. The boot hung at
Starting sound driver: snd-card-nm256
and complete powerdown was the only way out.
I know sound works; SuSE recognized it and alsasound (or whatever it
uses) even played the test sound fine during install.
But it absolutely hates the nm256 probe at boot. Go figure. :)
I used Tomsrtbt to mount the root partition and comment out the line
which does the modprobe for nm256 in /etc/init.d/alsasound so I will
not have to excuse this naughty Linux flaw to my dad. :)
Any tips on this nm256 probe are certainly welcome.
--
Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS *
Pardon the bogus email domain (dseg etc.) in place for spambots.
Really it's (wyrd) at raytheon, dotted with com. DO NOT SPAM IT.
Standard Disclaimer: These are my opinions not Raytheon Company.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Hardware Digest
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