Linux-Misc Digest #684, Volume #19 Thu, 1 Apr 99 12:13:13 EST
Contents:
Microsoft Patents Open-Source (Ben Kremer)
Re: FrameBuffer Questions! (Radovan Garabik)
Re: dumb rpm question (afterstep rpm) (Dave Brown)
Re: Redirecting to Nowhere (James Cook)
Re: Why Linux still isn't my standard boot-up OS, or what are the Linux-equivalents
for these Windoze programs? (Ed Young)
Interesting postgres questions
Re: IRQ's (Dave Brown)
what gcc? (Jason Rotunno)
Re: Distributions with 2.2.x kernel ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
OFF-TOPIC: UserFriendly is down! (Keith Phillips)
Re: Slow ethernet LAN driving me crazy!! (Markus Wandel)
Re: rescue root diskette ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: kernel 2.2.5 and strange message in syslog (Wide Area Network Advice)
Re: fun with [MS] spellcheckers... (Stuart R. Fuller)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bkremer#@at#rocketmail.com (Ben Kremer)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,rec.humor,ox.os.linux
Subject: Microsoft Patents Open-Source
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 10:19:59 +0100
Microsoft Patents Open-Source
In a move that today stunned industry observers, Microsoft Corp (MSFT) has
defused what is widely viewed as the biggest threat to its operating
system monopoly by patenting the Open Source movement.
Open Source is considered to be the biggest rival to monolithic
application and operating system development, methods epitomised by
Microsoft but used by almost all other major software companies with the
recent exception of Apple Computer (APPL). Instead of all work on a
computer program being done in-house by one company, which then jealously
guards the instructions needed to make it -- the "source code" -- the
Open Source movement freely distributes the source code with the programs.
It is there for anyone to examine, modify, tweak or, more importantly,
fix. "Bugs often take a while to be discovered, tracked down and then
fixed." said Raymond S. Eric, a leading light of the Open Source movement.
"Instead of waiting for the company, a user can simply fix it himself".
The user would be encouraged, though not forced, to make this change
available to others but cannot charge money for it. "The Open Source
concept has been proved in Linux, networking security and cryptography and
it looks set for the big time" said Mr Eric. But now, perhaps not.
Microsoft appears to have nimbly side-stepped this threat by a clever use
of intellectual property laws. In its patent, headed "Multi-Optional
Nodeless Open Protocol Outsourced Licensing Yield", Microsoft has laid
claim to a method for "program development by multiple authors given
almost unrestricted access to source, subject only to the necessary
conditions needed to self-support the enterprise". According to Microsoft
spokesman Mr A.C. Doyle, it is a perfectly legitimate application: "Well,
we knew we couldn't beat it, so we did a quick search of the USPTO [US
Patent & Trademark Office] database to see if anyone else had registered
it and when it was free, we thought 'sod it, it's as much of a 'process'
as any other in the decided cases', so we nabbed it, along with a couple
hundred other unclaimed things, like cold fusion, bottomless bit buckets
and a machine to recycle 'chad' '."
Microsoft also reportedly paid $10,000 to acquire the "opensource.org" and
"monopoly.com" domains, after sending around men in dark glasses to
convince the former owners of the inevit^H^H^H^H^H^H wisdom of this move.
The success of this initiative has spurred other efforts on the software
giant's behalf. Microsoft is also expecting final evaluation of its Boies
patent, which should end the long-running antitrust suit against it. The
patent, "Effective Methods of Cross-Examination by the Utilisation of
Contradictory Circumstantial Evidence", would mean that Microsoft would
own all means of asking embarrassing questions and showing up
inconsistencies by directly contradicting witnesses' testimony with their
own previous words.
"Microsoft is finally taking as much control of the courtroom as it does
of the desktop", said one observer, "although we hope they won't try to
make us use active channels in court". Said Mr Doyle: "If the patent is
approved, Mr Boies will now have to pay substantial licensing fees if he
wishes to continue pursuing us in court, or change his methods to avoid
infringing on it. Maybe he could stick to asking questions about the
weather or the great new features of Windows 2000". If the patent is
approved, there should also be no opposition to acquiring Mr Gates'
ultimate objective, the patent on "The Use of Metal or Paper Medium as
Currency", in which the Government would be forced either to use
Microsoft-minted currency for circulation in the economy, or license the
greenback. "We don't really want to get rid of our trusty old currency,
but the nifty little OEM code and holographic sticker should help the
treasury defeat counterfeiting, or money piracy as it would know be
known," said Doyle. However, he refused to be drawn on claims that the
licensing move might also require putting Bill Gates Jr's faces on all
banknotes, claiming that only the ones on the front of the banknote might
need to be replaced, perhaps in a compromise for putting Steve Balmer on
the 20 dollar note. The Governments of several African and European
countries are said already to have agreed, in principle, to start using
MS-Money(TM) instead of their own currencies, as part of a
Microsoft-sponsored equity for debt bail-out. But, as Mr Doyle conceded,
"we don't really know how popular the MS-Drachma or MS-Mark would be among
the populace".
--- Ben Kremer 1 April 1999
<benk#at#vislab.usyd.edu.au> http://users.ox.ac.uk/~magd0672/
Copyright (c) 1999, Ben Kremer. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Radovan Garabik)
Subject: Re: FrameBuffer Questions!
Date: 1 Apr 1999 14:07:31 GMT
Fluor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Radovan Garabik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> : The first one: Why does catting a long file with FrameBuffer consoles take
:> : up 100% CPU time, and what to do about it? This is really really annoying.
:>Because it has to scroll the whole screen.
:>Try adding video=vesa:ywarp to your kernel parameters
:>(or video=vesa:ypan if your card does not support ywrap)
:>It will be still slow, though... using less colours helps.
: I already added video=vesa:ywarp to my kernel parameters..
: Does this mean my card does not support ywarp??
Probably.. I know that it helped a lot in my case
You can also usr mtrr registers if you have Pentium II processor to speed up
thinks a bit.
And you can overclock your videocard (this cured an anoying flashing in 24
bpp for me (!))
There is a www page describing how to do it, but unfortunately (for you :-))
in Slovak: http://www.penguin.cz/~stano/
:>You don't. Once you booted into framebuffer display, the mode cannot be
:>changed.
Well, since that time I did some reading... there is a way to change
frequency, though not resolution with fbset program, but it seems to need
glibc 2.1 - I have to try it sooner or later (later, because I have not
much time now :-))
: Yeah, but isn't there a vesa-videomode number to set the card in
: 1024x786x16bpp@80hz? How does Windows do it? Or isn't that a VESA mode?
AFAIK, windows have their own drivers (you've got a floppy or cd with the
videocard, haven't you?)
hth
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabik http://melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk/~garabik |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ fmph . uniba . sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Subject: Re: dumb rpm question (afterstep rpm)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Brown)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 1 Apr 99 14:18:19 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>Jason Rotunno wrote:
>
>> i want to install afterstep on my redhat box. i installed it on my
>> slackware box and i liked it so downloaded the rpm for redhat. this is
>> my first time using rpm and i know it's supposed to be very simple. when
>Ah, yeah, you need the entire path. I think it installs to
>/usr/local/bin/afterstep Try that, see what happens. the funny thing is, I
>have to put it into .Xclients to get it to load when X starts. Anybody know
>what the difference is?
Or, if it does in fact put it in /usr/local/bin/afterstep, you could put a link
in /usr/X11R6/bin (or /usr/local/bin) to the executable, rather than dinking
with pathnames.
.xinitrc is used to start up clients when using xinit or startx to bring up
the Xserver. If a display manager, such as xdm or CDE (or KDE, I suspect) login
programs are in control, they look for .Xsession (or .Xclients, I presume).
--
Dave Brown Austin, TX
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (James Cook)
Subject: Re: Redirecting to Nowhere
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 13:43:52 GMT
I understand the redirection that you described from my DOS experience. (That's
kind of ironic). What I need help with is directing a programs output to a file
(interbase.log) to go into the bit-bucket. The program will know nothing about
the bit bucket.
Someone had alluded to a type of ?soft-linking? that would direct any i/o
against a file to go to /dev/null instead.
Any ideas on how to do this?
thanks,
jim
On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 16:08:02 -0800, Gregory Greenman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>James Cook wrote:
>
>> I've got Borland's Interbase 4 running on Linux. It's really cool and almost
>> always works. I use it for home development. There appears to be a problem with
>> its log file however. I've seen posts by others regarding an ever growing log
>> file, until there is no more disk space. Alas, the rumors are true.
>>
>> Someone mentioned a technique where the file (interbase.log) can be redirected
>> to /dev/null. (Or something like that. I think they mentioned soft-linked? I'm
>> doing this from memory, sorry if I get it wrong). Being completely new to Linux
>> (or Unix) what are they talking about and how do I do it? Step-by-step for the
>> neophite would be nice.
>>
>> thanks,
>> jim
>
>Jim,
>
> In your /dev directory you have a "device" called /dev/null. It is not a real
>
>device - it is a "bit-bucket" - anything sent here will be discarded.
>
>You redirect your standard output via the ">" operator, as follows:
>
>cat foobar > /dev/null
>
>will "cat" or copy file "foobar" to /dev/null, which means the copy will
>be discarded. File foobar will still be there.
>
>You can use redirection to real files too.
>
>cat foobar > foobar.bak
>
>will make a copy of foobar called foobar.bak. That's redirection, because
>cat would normally print to the screen, but you have redirected the output
>to file foobar.bak or the the "bit-bucket" /dev/null.
>
>Dr. Gregory Greenman
>Physicist
>
------------------------------
From: Ed Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Linux still isn't my standard boot-up OS, or what are the
Linux-equivalents for these Windoze programs?
Date: 1 Apr 1999 14:23:53 GMT
Harry wrote:
>
> > I use NT when I have to. Linux when I have a choice [snip]
> > P.T.Barnum
>
> I don't think it's a case of there's one born every minute. Until
> very recently the typical business didn't have a choice. Linux only
> recently came on the scene as an OS ready for business use (though
> not yet, in my opinion, for all forms of business computing) and NT
> is way cheaper than commercial brands of Unix.
>
> Yes, hard as it is to believe, for some years NT was the low-cost
> option!
>
> Harry
True...
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Interesting postgres questions
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 14:36:32 GMT
Hello,
I am not sure if my question is relevant to the group, but I'll ask it anyway.
Suppose I have a clipper database file. Would it be possible to convert it to
postgres?
Another question, let's say the files were somehow converted, would it
be possible for a clipper program to access the postgres database? I probably
know the answer, but I just want to make sure. I would say that if the program
uses SQL it can.
-- ::
Wael Sedky
Lennoxville, Quebec (819) 573-0168
http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/5174
http://sedky.dyn.ez-ip.net
------------------------------
Subject: Re: IRQ's
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Brown)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 1 Apr 99 14:43:34 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>The PC architecture is such that the CPU doesn't know if a particular
>device is going to interrupt with IRQ n until it does. Of course, the
>OS can usually ask the BIOS which IRQs it has handed out to various
>devices, so I'm not sure why cat /proc/interrupts doesn't show up IRQ 3
>and 4 on my system.
I have a video card that apparently claims irq 10 (according to the
ROM boot messages reporting PCI bus). But it doesn't show up in
/proc/interrupts either. I've also tried to look at /proc/dma to
figure out why my sound card won't allow the high DMA to be set. (It
doesn't show anything on the DMA line that the sound card software says
it's in use. Makes me wonder how reliable the entries in /proc are.)
--
Dave Brown Austin, TX
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jason Rotunno)
Subject: what gcc?
Date: 1 Apr 1999 15:34:35 GMT
when i installed mandrake (which is redhat + kde) i guess it didn't
install gcc because i tried to install a program and got "could not find
gcc, could not find make" etc during ./configure. i went to
sunsite.unc.edu to download gcc and found many files. i'm not sure what i
need. here are just some of the files that i found:
gcc-i2.6.3.tar.gz
gcc-2.6.3-i2.6.3.diff.gz
gcc-2.7.0.1.aout.bin.tar.gz
gcc-2.7.2p.bin.tar.gz
gccaxp-2.7.2.1.tar.gz
gcc-2.7.2.3.spec
gcc-2.7.2.3-2.spec
gcc-objc-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-g77-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-c++-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-c++-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-g77-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-objc-2.7.2.3-5.i386.rpm
gcc-2.8.1-1.i386.rpm
gcc-libc5-2.7.2.3-1.i386.rpm
what exactly do i need? also, does gcc include make or do i need to
download that seperately? thanks.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Distributions with 2.2.x kernel
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 15:35:21 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Andreas Jonsson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Right now there is only one distribution with 2.2.x kernel, ant that is
> RedHat Starbuck -- BETA build of RedHat 6.0, so there may be some problem.
> I haven't seen any yet and I've used it since monday.
SuSE 6.0 is 2.2-ready (haven't used RedHat for more than a month ;-), maybe
5.2 is as well). I compiled 2.2.1 (now running 2.2.5) and have been running
on it (Oracle, among lots of other things, e.g. daily work) without any
problems so far.
Yes, kernel README suggests a newer verison of kernel modules, but I have
gotten very knowledgable and (for me) convincing arguments (that I don't
remember, because after I heard them and decided it was ok I didn't _need_ to
know it any longer) from some people that say that the SuSE version was ok
(and my own computers agree with them). SuSE stayed with 2.1.85 on purpose,
because teh newer stuff has other problems (which I forgot, see above).
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Private Pilot (ASEL) since 1998
============= Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ============
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Keith Phillips)
Subject: OFF-TOPIC: UserFriendly is down!
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 1 Apr 1999 07:14:15 -0500
Well, it had to happen...the UserFriendly comic strip site
is down, pending legal wrangling.
--
Keith Phillips, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Ok, quick as you can, switch your PC on and
off about 30 times." --BOFH
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Markus Wandel)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Slow ethernet LAN driving me crazy!!
Date: 1 Apr 1999 15:11:15 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brian moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>(And, yes, you can see assymetric failures with bad twisted pair cables,
>since one pair is Tx and one is Rx, the system with the icky Rx pair
>will have problems receiving, though less problems sending.)
Permit me to add that in my experience, many if not most 10baseT cables
are bad. The pairing of pins on an RJ45 connector is
1,2
3,6
4,5
7,8
of which 10/100baseT use 1,2 and 3,6. A lot of cables, though are wired with
the twisted pairs hooked up to 1,2 / 3,4 / 5,6 / 7,8. This happens to work
for some fairly nontrivial lengths and 10baseT but it is WRONG and can cause
problems, and of course they will be asymmetrical ones because one direction
is in fact on a twisted pair.
It's hard to check if your cable is one of the "bad ones" unless you can see
enough of the wires though the connector. A twisted pair is usually a solid
colour and white wire with stripes of the solid colour.
I've seen 20-30ft runs of "bad" cable work fine for 10baseT but you never know.
Markus
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: rescue root diskette
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 16:00:28 GMT
In article <7dust0$2f0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
r d t@c s.q u e e n s u.c a (Bob Tennent) wrote:
> I find I can't make a working rescue disk. The boot disk (made by
> mkbootdisk) works OK, until it says "Insert root floppy and press ENTER",
> which I do. Then I get "Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs at 02:00"
> The rescue disk was made by
>
> dd if=rescue.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k
>
> on a Redhat 5.2 system running kernel 2.2.4 compiled by RedHat.
> Any suggestions?
Think you'll have to run "rdev" to set the root device, might be able
to pass this as a parameter via lilo. Try "man rdev".
Also, have a look at:
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO
--
Louis-ljl-{ Louis J. LaBash, Jr. }
============= Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ============
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
------------------------------
From: Wide Area Network Advice <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: kernel 2.2.5 and strange message in syslog
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 17:02:17 GMT
See the man page sysklogd
it's just a mark, as in an interval timestamp in the log. Guess
it's so you
can see if your daemon is still logging.
In article <7e05qq$b8m$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you write:
>Hi, I'm running RH 5.2 on our LAN with pcmcia ethernetworking and have just
>upgraded from kernel 2.2.2 to 2.2.5-ac1 (with apparently no problems
>whatsoever) so that I can hopefully get my maestro sound card to work.
>Anyway, everything seems to be running fine but since I upgraded I keep on
>getting the following strange messages in /var/log/messages:
>
>Apr 1 10:23:51 mypc -- MARK --
>
>Could anyone tell me what this means? It doesnt appear to be a breakin
>because everything checks out OK with SAINT and there are no other unusual
>problems or files.
>
>Thanks
>
--
May The_Source be with you
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stuart R. Fuller)
Subject: Re: fun with [MS] spellcheckers...
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 17:00:04 GMT
Tom Emerson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
:
: And when I posted about the "C" compilers gcc and ecgs, MS wanted to correct
: these to Gucci and EKGs -- I guess at least one division of microsoft knows
: we not only have "class", but we're not brain dead either... :)
Although, with "EKGs", I would expect that to show that we have a heart.
If we had a good EEG, then we would not be brain dead.
Stu
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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