Linux-Misc Digest #816, Volume #18 Fri, 29 Jan 99 23:13:11 EST
Contents:
install problem ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: encrypted file system (David Magda)
Re: linux max RAM is 1GB? (William Burrow)
Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?) (Dan McGregor)
Re: PPP dial-up connection with RH5.2 (Mark Murray)
Re: Advice for Microsoft-haters (jedi)
How to have the NUMLOCK key on by default in X-Windows? (Stephen Anthony)
Re: UNIX - Who, What, Where? (Gregory J Smith)
Re: Linux on PC's not ready for Enterprise (Christopher Browne)
Re: New to Linux (Melancon)
ps aux oddity ("David Wall")
Re: Newbie help with Linux, IBM PS/2 30-286 (William Burrow)
Re: (Symbolic) Links Again (William Burrow)
Help, Kernel too big ("Wael Sedky")
Re: Advice for Microsoft-haters (jason majors)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: install problem
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 05:04:40 GMT
Hi, I'm a newbie at Linux. I obtained a copy of redhat 5.2 deluxe (the one
put out by MacMillan publishing). I advise non-experts to avoid this product
since no support is provided by redhat. By directly from Redhat and get
access to their tech support. In any case, I'm having a major problem with
the installation. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. The
gory details:
After booting from the boot floppy, I get the menu asking for my boot
choices.
I press entrer for the default and after loading the install program,
the system will hang, requiring a hard reset or power off. At the point of the
hang, the last few lines of the screen are:
Real Time Clock Driver v1.09
Ramdisk driver initialized : 16 ramdisks pf 4096k size
ide i82371 PIIX (Triton) on PCI bus 0 function 57
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007
ide1: BM DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f
At this point, the system hangs up completely.
I've tried disabling the cache, both the on-board L1 cache and the L2
cache and same thing happens.
I have Windows NT workstation 4.0 on there now and it boots fine.
My system configuration:
233mhz Pentium II 233mhz
512k L2 Cache
128mb dram
Iwill Mother board p55xub/xubwb w/intel 430TX chipset
Award modular bios v4.51pg and Award Plug and Play Bios extension
v1.0A
Adaptec aha-2920 scsi adapter card
Adaptec aha-2940au pci scsi adapter on the system board (no devices
connected)
Western digital 8.4 gb eide hard drive on pirmary ide interface
conner 1gb scsi drive connected to 2920 card
fujitsu 1gb scsi drive connected to 2920 card
Toshiba 3401TA scsi cd rom connected to 2920 card
Diamond viper pc 2mb video card weitek p9100 chip
Serial mouse
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Magda)
Subject: Re: encrypted file system
Date: 30 Jan 1999 02:41:44 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Norm Dresner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>You need a password to get onto the machine (if it's set up properly), why
>do you need to password-protect the files too?
>Are you worried about other users seeing them? Then create (or get your
>sys-admin) to put you in a separate group.
[...]
Why not just chmod 600 (and chmod 700 for directories)? Then the only
person who could access them is himself and root.
--
David Magda <dmagda at acs.ryerson.ca>, 2nd Year Electrical Eng.
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best--" and then he had to stop and
think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do,
there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better
than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.
- A. A. Milne, _The_House_at_Pooh_Corner_
--
David Magda <dmagda at acs.ryerson.ca>, 2nd Year Electrical Eng.
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best--" and then he had to stop and
think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do,
there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (William Burrow)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: linux max RAM is 1GB?
Date: 30 Jan 1999 02:48:31 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:59:28 -0800,
Mark Ramos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I am trying to bring Linux into our environment at work along side some
>Sun Ultra's and Enterprise systems but I became disappointed to hear
>that Linux only supports up to 1GB of RAM? That is unfortunate when
It is a design decision of the Linux kernel. I believe that the 2.2 kernels
can access close to (within a part of a gigabyte, can't recall the exact
figure) 4 gig. The later Intel CPUs allow addressing directly much more
than this, but there are several layers of memory management involved at
the programming level. Linux implements a memory model suitable for a 386.
(Yes, the 386 can access terabytes, but not the way Linux does it.)
--
William Burrow -- New Brunswick, Canada o
Copyright 1999 William Burrow ~ /\
~ ()>()
------------------------------
From: Dan McGregor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 03:05:07 GMT
Ken Pizzini wrote:
> Was this based on some *real* issue(s) with Linux, or just a
> blind presupposition that "Linux is merely a hobbyist OS"?
> I am at a loss to think of how Linux would be a security
> risk in a manner that FreeBSD would not also be.
The only problem with linux is it's lack of standardization. Stability
and security vary greatly from distribution to distribution, but all can be
made to be stable and secure. I use Debian Linux and FreeBSD, I am pleased
with both's stability and security.
------------------------------
From: Mark Murray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Re: PPP dial-up connection with RH5.2
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:08:12 -0500
"Michael 'BeLFrY' S. E. Kraus" wrote:
I haven't had the chance to verify that this is why the
> > modem was hanging up but my theory is that the misconfigured IRQ was
> > causing the modem buffer to fill up and then the thing simply gave up
> > and dropped the link. Why it worked *at all* on the wrong IRQ is still
> > puzzling. Hope this helps even though the original message I posted
> > seems to have been aged out. - Greg
>
> This is because (when the interrupt is set incorrectly or without one) the
> kernel will poll the device rather than use interrupt lines. Polling occurs
> at regular intervals - you have to wait for these intervals rather than the
> serial port being able to interrupt the kernel directly - hence the delay.
>
> > BTW - the command to change IRQ
> > "setserial /dev/your.modem.device irq arg" - as root.
>
> Better yet, set them up correctly in the configuration file. (Ack... its
> aftert pumpkin hour, sorry I cannot remember which one it is)
>
I think I'm having a similar problem. I'm connecting (to my ISP) ok and
I can surf the web, but SLOW. Throughput never seems to get above 600 -
900 Bps (that sux considering it works just fine in windoze).
Anyway it's a PCMCIA modem on COM2 and setserial -a /dev/ttS1 tells me
it has been assigned irq 0. I tried to set it to IRQ=3 (like I think
it's supposed to be) with setserial /dev/ttyS1 irq 3 and it appeared to
have done it, only then I couldn't communicate with the modem at all (in
minicom).
What configuration file are you talking about that initially sets the
irq - I was under the impression that it was set automatically at boot
up (when the PCMCIA module loads). Any pointers here would be greatly
appreciated my head is bruising badly from the constant banging against
the wall.
Thanks
Mark
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (jedi)
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Advice for Microsoft-haters
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:44:09 -0800
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:16:17 -0600, Melancon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Frank Sweetser wrote:
>
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>
>> > You pledge
>> > : allegiance to the flag at *school* in the USA AFAIK.
>> >
>> > Yup. I think they do.
>>
>> yup, we do.
>
>I don't know what school you went to, or how old you are, but that silly pledge
>dissappeared back in the 50's or 60's...
That pledge was lingering around AT LEAST until the 70's
as I was personally subjected to it during that decade.
--
Herding Humans ~ Herding Cats
Neither will do a thing unless they really want to, or |||
is coerced to the point where it will scratch your eyes out / | \
as soon as your grip slips.
In search of sane PPP docs? Try http://penguin.lvcm.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stephen Anthony)
Subject: How to have the NUMLOCK key on by default in X-Windows?
Date: 22 Jan 1999 18:49:00 GMT
I looked everywhere for a way to do this. I finally came across a way to patch the
kernel so that the NUMLOCK key is on by default in VC's (at the console). But as
soon as I startx, the LED goes off. When I exit X-Windows, back to the console, it
comes back on again!
Tried using xset led ..., didn't work for me. PLEASE, somebody help me with this !!
If this is in an FAQ somewhere, then I apologize, please direct me to it :)
Thanks,
Steve
------------------------------
From: Gregory J Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.unix,comp.os.unix.misc,comp.unix,comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: UNIX - Who, What, Where?
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:17:03 -0500
StressedOut wrote:
> Similar to what,exactly? the basic Unix command line and utilities
command line -- csh, ksh, sh
utilities -- awk, grep, sed, vi, emacs and so many too numerous to list
GUI -- X11
>
>
> I am wondering what the heck "UNIX" is. I mean _real_, unadulterated,
> up-to-date, commercial grade, UNIX - THE Operating System.
UNIX "all" caps was originally an AT&T developed OS, sold to USL , then SCO????
or was it Novell??? runs on AT&T proprietary hardware (68xxx --right?)
then there is the variants
AIX--IBM, IRIX--SGI, OSF and ?? DEC, Solaris-- SUN, HP-UX -- HP NCR -- MP-RAS
and lots of others, these are licensed Unix's with vendor added stuff
>
>
> Is there any advantage to using UNIX vs Linux? Yes and no advantage is ports
> of expensive software CAD, Databases(not so true anymore) and vendor supplied
> support for their hardware and software (this is in the advantage/disadvantage
> column COST's money.
>
> How much is it on average, and how and where might one "get" it? single user
> licenses for SUN and IRIX I believe are over $6000 U.S. dollars (I could be
> wrong however I worked at a smaller proprietary/Unix vendor and our RTU
> (Real-Time UNIX oxymoron) cost more than that. Where to get it --- www.sun.com
>
> What machines will it run on? mostly proprietary hardware SUN, IBM, SGI and HP
> all have proprietary hardware systems. (SUN does have an x86 port but it is
> not supported as well)
>
> Can I get an x86 version? SUN and NCR yes
>
> Thanks.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux on PC's not ready for Enterprise
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 01:32:13 GMT
On Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:12:17 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Yeah you can say put Linux on the Sparc's but when we
>> already have Solaris why convert to Linux on those? Just because it's
>> "Linux"? I don't think so.
>
> Well, a *possible* advantage might be that it's free, without license
>restrictions costing you hundreds of dollars per machine... although this, I
>must admit, is more of an argument of Linux vs. NT or NetWare. On the upper-
>end portion of the spectrum, you are indeed correct... I don't think that
>Linux is quite mature enough to be giving Solaris, HP-UX, or IBM mainframes a
>run for their money yet.
>
> This is partly due to Linux not being mature enough, and partly due to the
>i386 platform not being mature enough. I doubt that it ever will be... the
>whole deal with the Intel platform is that it sacrifices performance in
>exchange for open-system compatibility (arguably a *good* exchange, as it
>allowed the platform to proliferate and avoid Macintosh-closed-system-
>obscurity).
>
> Maybe the day will come when Linux is a serious challenge to other
>enterprise solutions, but it will only advance as fast as the Intel platform
>does. Therefore, it today is only competing against other Intel-platform
>solutions (NT and Novell)... in which realm it holds clear superiority.
The *massive* growth of IA-32 has occurred because:
a) It is "good enough" for much of the lower end "enterprise stuff."
It may not be good enough for data warehousing, or for serious TP, or
for serious SMP number crunching.
But the fact that it offers *reasonably* reliable and fast multitasking
and memory protection made it feasible to deploy UNIX-like systems on
top of it.
b) IA-32 is *cheap* because it is diversely used and diversely
produced.
There are on the order of a half-dozen producers of *fairly*
substituable alternatives for each major sort of IA-32 component.
- Intel, AMD, Cyrix, IDT, Rise, ... for CPUs
- Various makers of BIOSes
- Various makers of motherboard chipsets
IA-32 is not a "niche" product, and thus doesn't command a premium as
such.
In contrast, the other architectures have far less diversity in
deployment of designs. Compaq controls Alpha; Sun controls SPARC; ARM
and MIPS are less clear, but seem to have been relegated to niches; PPC
may have multiple "partners," but they sell distinct variants that
don't compete with each other.
IA-64 may be oft worshipped, but will likely suffer from the "single
source" problem. Intel will assortedly try to figure out if they should
charge low to gain market, or charge high to take advantage of market
control.
The fact that Linux is *not* beholden to IA-32, but provides a
relatively easy path to get to 64 bit platforms as they come along is
important for Linux, and likewise for the producers of such platforms.
The problem for High Availability applications is not particularly with
Linux, but rather with the consideration that they are a niche, and have
generally required custom hardware that requires customizing the OS.
I2O may, by allowing this custom hardware to become closer to
"commodity," provide a route towards better HA support. (With various
assumptions about "getting docs" and "getting technology access" and so
forth...)
--
OS/2: Why marketing matters more than technology...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: Melancon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,alt.os.linux.redhat,at.linux,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: New to Linux
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 21:08:45 -0600
> Linux has trouble booting if it is beyond the 1024th cylinder. It can
I've read that and I keep seeing it talked about, but it has not been my
experience. I currently have my 8.4G drive partitioned with Win98 on the first
2 gigs and Linux (RedHat 5.2, FTPed to the vfat partition and installed from
HD) on the last 6.4. LILO and Linux work perfectly, as does Win.... er...
Windows loads and works as well as can be expected.
Can anyone explain this? Has the 1024 cylinder limit been overcome and no
longer a concern? Or did I do something along the lines of defying gravity?
------------------------------
From: "David Wall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ps aux oddity
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 17:37:49 -0800
I'm running RedHat 5.1 on Intel.
If I run the command 'ps aux' by itself, I get a full list of processes
running including the user account it is running under, including a list of
httpd processes (as I'd expect), with the process file listed as
/usr/local/apache133/sbin/httpd.
If I run the command 'ps aux | grep httpd' I get nothing.
If I run the command 'ps aux | grep -v httpd' I see that the process file is
listed only as /usr/local/apache133/ and has truncated the 'sbin/httpd'
part, which is why grep can't find it.
The same will happen if I redirect 'ps aux > TT' the file will contain
truncated output. It seems that ps is doing something odd and using a
shorter "record length" (80 characters!) when it's being redirected.
Any ideas on how to resolve this?
Thanks,
David
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (William Burrow)
Crossposted-To:
alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Newbie help with Linux, IBM PS/2 30-286
Date: 30 Jan 1999 03:04:46 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 29 Jan 1999 22:05:55 GMT,
Seven <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>A friend of mine gave me a Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 CD. He is insisting that
>I check out Linux as it is the future. I recently had a friend give me a
>IBM PS/2 model 30-286 PC and I wish to run Linux on this. In case you
>don't know or remember the specs of this ancient box, it has a 20 MB hard
>drive. I know Linux cannot run on a 286, however I have a chance to
>purchase an IBM PS/2 M30-286 Motherboard Upgrade w/486/66 and 8MB RAM.
Don't know what the upgrade is. Is it a whole new board? I'd assume that
it is MCA. I forget the current standing of MCA within the kernel, but it
isn't easy going yet.
>What I want to know is if this upgrade would be worth it to do as the hard
>drive is still only 20MB? I think the minimal installation for Linux is
>10MB and that you can't do squat with that. So how much better would 20MB
>be for Linux? If not, what hard drive would work in there and how much
>storage would I need to "get my hands dirty" with Linux? Or is it
>even worth it?
It doesn't seem worth it. The drive is ESDI, I believe, good luck finding
a larger ESDI drive anywhere. Wanna pay for an MCA SCSI card and go SCSI?
Thought not.
Does the power supply have ``standard'' connectors? Might be cheaper to
pick up a 486 board somewhere and some older parts for cheap. Heck, the
easiest solution might be to pick up a cheap 1G drive and add it to your
current system.
>Also, I would like to network this computer with my Dell Dimension XPS
>R350 as my friend is telling me that I should learn the networking
>capabilities of Linux. Does the motherboard upgrade have an ISA slot for
>an Ethernet card?
Do you see any ISA slots?
>I guess I am looking for advice on what to do as much as what NOT to do.
For an easy life, don't bother with Linux on this machine. If you want
to learn a lot, go ahead and try.
--
William Burrow -- New Brunswick, Canada o
Copyright 1999 William Burrow ~ /\
~ ()>()
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (William Burrow)
Subject: Re: (Symbolic) Links Again
Date: 30 Jan 1999 02:25:00 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 29 Jan 1999 09:03:59 -0500,
Alexander Viro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, gus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>3. Colour, Colour, Colour ... I like the idea of a file having only one
>>location in the file system, and then the link reference the file. Thus,
>>I like to see the referencing (symlinks) in a different colour when I do
>>an ls. Hard links would have all the files in the same colour. This
>>makes it easier to control and understand where a file logically
>>belongs. (basic, isn't it ;-)
> File *DOESN'T* have a location. Period. Files in UNIX are nameless.
Naive users tend to call those things that you see with ls -C files. I see
that ls --help calls them entries. It would be somewhat cryptic to
tell users to unlink their entries with rm, even though it is perhaps
perfectly correct nomenclature. Even the ls manpage refers to the entries
as files.
I will admit, that trying to explain the Unix filesystem concepts using
the word file to mean both the directory entry and the sequence(s) of octets
on the disk pointed to by an inode is confusing.
>is only one such reference. Symlink is not a reference to the file - it's
>a *different* file containing a string. When you are trying to open it/
If I recall, and interpret the source correctly (debatable -- the structures
have several levels), the symlink is stored in the inode (or indirect inodes
if the entry exceeds 59 characters?) (in the ext2_inode_info structure in
the i_data member).
Experiments with df and df -i tend to bear this out, except that to the
maximum of 255 or so characters allowed for a file name, the symlink
only takes one inode.
>>easier to deal with. BTW, can you hard link /dev/<device>?
> Sure you can.
Interesting.
--
William Burrow -- New Brunswick, Canada o
Copyright 1999 William Burrow ~ /\
~ ()>()
------------------------------
From: "Wael Sedky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]*>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.slackware
Subject: Help, Kernel too big
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:25:43 -0800
I compiled my kernel 2.0.35 with the default options plus some really few
others (sound & printer) options.
After I update my lilo.conf and type "lilo" I get an error "Kernel too big"
It is about 1M I think!! What do I do. I don't think I can make it smaller
than that. Should I delete the old one?
Please email
Thanks
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (jason majors)
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Advice for Microsoft-haters
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 03:27:28 GMT
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:44:09 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (jedi)
wrote:
>On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:16:17 -0600, Melancon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Frank Sweetser wrote:
>>
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>>
>>> > You pledge
>>> > : allegiance to the flag at *school* in the USA AFAIK.
>>> >
>>> > Yup. I think they do.
>>>
>>> yup, we do.
>>
>>I don't know what school you went to, or how old you are, but that silly pledge
>>dissappeared back in the 50's or 60's...
>
> That pledge was lingering around AT LEAST until the 70's
> as I was personally subjected to it during that decade.
my high school was still doing it in 1992. fortunately it's against
the law to force somebody to say it, so I just sat it out.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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