Linux-Misc Digest #456, Volume #20 Wed, 2 Jun 99 00:13:13 EDT
Contents:
Re: Lilo+W98=No boot-why? ("Crap")
My horror story ("theoddone33")
VooDoo 2 Graphics Accelerator (Timothy Bryant)
Re: Alpha, PowerPC, Intel, and Sparc (Christopher Browne)
Re: help with fdisk (Floyd Davidson)
Re: syntax of cron commands (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Rebuilding SRPMs (David Wragg)
Re: choosing an OS for a retired Sun workstation (David C)
Converting Netscape mail from Win to Linux? (Greg Coit)
Re: PHT TurboLinux (John Hong)
Re: RAID 1 setup (Chip Piller)
Re: A Capitalists view of freedom (Herb Stein)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Crap" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Lilo+W98=No boot-why?
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:56:10 -0700
Lilo and linux need to be installed before the 1024th cylinder of a large
drive or your harddrive will be rendered unmountable in windows and linux.
Use the linux installer to delete previous partions.
Contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you have questions.
4season <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> At least part of this is probably an FAQ, but I couldn't find anything
> real specific, so...
>
> Why did installing lilo render my Windows98 non-bootable, and in fact,
> rendered the drive unmountable from within Linux as well? No files
> visible from DOS either. I can guess *what* happened; I'm wondering
> *why*
>
> I am running Red Hat Linux 6 on hdc
>
> Windows98 resides on hda1. Only one FAT32 partition. It was a clean
> install (not an upgrade) onto a new drive, done not so many months ago.
>
> hda1 and hdc are identical 8.4G Maxtor DiamondMax drives
>
> I installed Lilo on the MBR of hda1. It works great, just so long as you
> don't select Windows98, in which case, you're bumped back to Lilo.
>
> Now I've seen plenty of coverage on how to rebuild or restore an MBR,
> but before I bother, can anyone explain why this problem happened in the
> first place? Is Lilo just plain incompatible with FAT32 systems? This
> boot menu business would be very handy--if it worked!
>
> And if it turns out that Lilo simply doesn't work well on a W98 FAT32
> MBR, would I fare better with Norton Commander? I already have a
> workable Linux boot floppy, but was looking for something more elegant.
>
> And finally, getting back to the matter of the MBR, what is the
> preferred method of making it Windows-friendly again:
>
> --use fdisk /mbr from DOS?
>
> --use lilo to restore it (I made a couple of changes to lilo already, so
> this is only an option for me if it stores the pre-lilo config, not just
> the previous one)
>
> --have MS ScanDisk or Norton Utilities (latest) rebuild it
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Jeff
------------------------------
From: "theoddone33" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: My horror story
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 22:02:50 -0500
Well, I wrote this nice little shell script to recompile the kernel. It
compiles the kernel and modules, renames the current kernel, runs lilo, and
reboots the system. I fired it up this afternoon and just let it run. For
some reason, my zImage didn't go quite right, so after it rebooted, I was
left staring at a lilo prompt that wouldn't load. DOH! Guess who didn't
make a boot disk at install time. That's right, me! My first 5 attempts to
boot the system failled, but I think I've got it figured out now. I'll try
to get it all fixed tomorrow. The moral: Always have a spare boot disk.
--
theoddone33
"Brevity is the soul of wit"
AGQ2 Configs Page:
http://www.quakefiles.com/agq2configs/
My homepage:
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/2541/
To email, descramble the pig latin
------------------------------
From: Timothy Bryant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: VooDoo 2 Graphics Accelerator
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 20:44:23 -0500
I recently purchased a V2 1000 PCI by STB and can not get it configured
with Linux. Does anyone know where I might find the drivers for this
card for Linux?? I have looked, but I tend to miss stuff real easy on
the web. Thanx!!!
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.alpha,comp.os.linux.powerpc,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Alpha, PowerPC, Intel, and Sparc
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 03:15:13 GMT
On 31 May 1999 14:55:47 GMT, Carlos Wexler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Christopher B. Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 30 May 1999 17:22:12 -0500, B. J. Rowland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted:
>>Seeing as how hardware has had the tradition of getting *cheaper* over time,
>>the result is pretty nonsensical. Furthermore, it's going to scare people
>>off of using 'em, if they're so expensive, and that's not how you get
>>Economies of Scale so as to pull down the cost per unit.
>
>In addition, why would anybody pay more for these relatively non-standard
>machines when you can get a celeron-k6-cyrix machine for under $800...
>I've looked through the specs of these new machines and they are not
>impressive: they are not faster than a low-end pc, and having a price
>comparable with a pIII machine clearly makes them a dead end.
They're "better" than the IA-32 systems in that they run cooler, using
less power.
Unfortunately, StrongARM has no FPU, which is liable to be hurtful for
fancy graphics and spreadsheets.
At $600, they'd be an OK deal, with a premium that isn't unacceptable in
light of the tiny size of the boxes. At $800, they're a bit too
expensive. And at higher prices, well, I think there's no disagreement
there...
--
"The program is manufactured by Quantel, a Silicon Valley company
located in Clearwater, Florida."
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/linuxvars.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Floyd Davidson)
Subject: Re: help with fdisk
Date: 2 Jun 1999 03:24:59 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[posted and emailed]
Bill Damon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Charles Sullivan wrote:
>
>> The simplest thing to do is to entirely delete hdb3 and recreate it with
>> Linux
>> fdisk as a native Linux partition. You can create it either as a Primary
>> partition
>> hdb3 or as a Logical partition hdb7 within the Extended partition hdb2.
>> In the latter case hdb2 should automatically expand to contain it.
>>
>
>O.K. I deleted hdb3 and recreated it with Linux fdisk as a native Linux
>primary partition. I then ran mkfs on hdb3. What I would like to do now is
Deleting and recreating it wasn't necessary. All you really needed to
do what run mkfs on it.
>move some big directories from my single "newbie install" root partition and
>then change fstab so that the system mounts those relocated directories
>(/usr and /home and perhaps /var and /src) on hdb3 rather than on /hdb5 as
>it currently does.
You probably don't want to move /usr _and_ all the rest to the
new partition. Either move /usr to a separate partition, or
move other things (including some of the major directory trees
on /usr).
>Looking in the tips HOWTO it shows that the following command should be used
>to move entire directories between filesystems:
>
>(cd /source/directory && tar cf - .) | (cd /dest/directory && tar xvfp -)
>
>Is that right? Do I include the parenthesis when I type that command with
>my directories?
Yes. It looks good to me... though I would use "cp -a source/*
destination", but that won't copy dot files in the source
directory, so you might want to stick with using tar rather than
get into the complications of "cp -a".
But for moving any single directory, "cp -a source destination" is the
easy way.
>How do I mount the new /dev/hdb3 so I have a /dest/directory to use with the
>above command? Normally with mount I would give it a directory name, but
>initially I won't have a directory to mount it with...??? You can see I am
>confused about the steps I need to follow now.
>
>Do I need to boot linux from a bootable floppy so that the directories I
>want to move will not be in use? If so, then wouldn't I have to manually
>mount my current hard disk so it is available under the booted floppy
>version of linux?
>
>This is probably a lot simpler than it looks like to me right now. Any help
>would be much appreciated...
>
>thanks...
Here is a way to do it...
With the system booted, go to single user mode:
> init 1
Then log in as root, and temporarily mount your new partition.
> mkfs -t ext2 /dev/hdb3 # skip if already done
> mount -t ext2 /dev/hdb3 /mnt
You can now copy whatever directory you want to have mounted on that
partition to it.
> cp -a /usr/* /mnt
or use the tar command.
Then move /usr to a new name, create a new directory and mount your
new partition on it.
> umount /dev/hdb3
> mv /usr /usr1
> mkdir /usr
> mount -t ext2 /dev/hdb3 /usr
> ldconfig # reconfigure ld.so to know where libs are at
You can then verify that it works, and put a line in /etc/fstab
to cause /dev/hdb3 to automatically be mounted at boot time. Then
reboot to verify that it works. When you are convinced that all is
well, "rm -rf /usr1" will clean off the disk space.
However, if you want to keep /usr on the root partition and move
various major directories to your new partition (I find this to
be a much more flexible solution), here is the way to do that:
Go to single user mode,
> init 1
> mkfs -t ext2 /dev/hdb3 # skip if already done
Make a new directory to mount your new partition,
> mkdir /u1
Mount it,
> mount -t ext2 /dev/hdb3 /u1
Now copy major directories to the new partition and then make
symbolic links back to the original,
> cp -a /home /u1
> mv /home /home.old
> ln -s /u1/home /home
> cp -a /usr/local /u1
> mv /usr/local /usr/local.old
> ln -s /u1/local /usr/local
> cp -a /src /u1
> mv /usr/src /usr/src.old
> ln -s /u1/src /usr/src
... do the same with whatever others are reasonable. Major candidates
are /usr/lib/texmf, /usr/X11 and/or /usr/X11R6, /var, /tmp and /usr/tmp.
> ldconfig # reconfigure ld.so to know where libs are at
When done, again you want to put an entry into /etc/fstab to
cause that partition to be mounted, this time to /u1 though.
And then reboot to see if all is well. And once again, when you
are comfortable that all is well you can delete the various old
directories using "rm -rf directory" to do the job.
As you suggested this actually is fairly simple! But what is
not simple at all is getting out of any trouble you will be in
when something goes wrong... that is the hard part. But the only
difference between you and guru status is how many times you've
done it wrong and how much you learn each time you do.
Floyd
--
Floyd L. Davidson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
North Slope images: <http://www.ptialaska.net/~floyd>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: syntax of cron commands
Date: 2 Jun 1999 01:57:06 GMT
On 1 Jun 1999 13:09:30 GMT, Otavio Exel wrote:
>hello all,
>
>any clues?
I don't have any clues, but I'd have a guess that quoting your quotes
(eg \" instead of " ) might fix the problem.
Then again it might not.
--
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Buying computer parts ? How do you know which vendors to trust ?
http://www.resellerratings.com
Impartial and accurate. Straight from the buyers mouth.
( disclaimer: i'm not affiliated with resellerratings.com )
------------------------------
From: David Wragg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Rebuilding SRPMs
Date: 01 Jun 1999 22:45:03 +0000
Johan Kullstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> David Wragg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Unfortunately, there have been bugs in the cmov support of all release
> > versions of egcs so far. So you get a faster kernel that doesn't work
> > reliably.
>
> i agree that cmov has potential. it's also rarely emitted by egcs. i
> am not sure how much real improvement there is.
I've redone some simple tests with egcs-1.1.2 and linux 2.2.9 (my
config is fairly modularised, and SMP is enabled).
Building linux 2.2.9 with -mpentiumpro gives a vmlinux of 1068035
bytes. I measured the number of conditional branches:
$ objdump -S vmlinux | awk 'BEGIN {FS="\t";} $3 ~ /^j/ && $3 !~ /^jmp/ {print $3;}' |
wc -l
20866
Then I rebuilt with -march=pentiumpro, giving a vmlinux of exactly the
same size.
$ objdump -S vmlinux | awk 'BEGIN {FS="\t";} $3 ~ /^j/ && $3 !~ /^jmp/ {print $3;}' |
wc -l
20130
$ objdump -S vmlinux | grep cmov | wc -l
800
So slightly less than 4% of the conditional branches were converted to
cmovs. I'm sure it is possible to do better than that, but it's a
start.
As for performance, I ran some benchmarks I developed a while ago to
measure process creation, signal propogation and context switch on
both kernels, on a dual PPro machine. I saw a general improvement
between 1% and 2% with the cmovs. (As I said in another thread, I
believe that egcs-1.1.2 has bugs remaining in its cmov support. Do not
use a -march=pentiumpro kernel on a machine that you don't want to
crash etc.)
It's not much, but given that many people rebuild their kernels
anyway, it's fair enough. As a conservative estimate, I think that the
use of cmovs could be extended to remove 10% of conditional branches
in the kernel code, and it is reasonable to expect the improvement to
scale accordingly.
After posting this, I ought to work on a decent bug report for the
cmov problem egcs-1.1.2.
David Wragg.
------------------------------
From: David C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: choosing an OS for a retired Sun workstation
Date: 01 Jun 1999 23:25:44 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Volker Borchert) writes:
>
>> installing and configuring SunOS is a pain-and-a-half.
>
> I don't think so. Admittedly you can't install it "point&click" but I
> have never had problems. You should work out your disk partitioning
> scheme in advance, however.
That was the hard part. The only docs I had at the time were man pages
from another already-working system and a coworker with more experience.
Once I got the core system installed and running, installing everything
else I like to use wasn't too terrible, though.
When I installed Solaris 2.6 on that same box, it was far easier.
>> I would recommend a larer hard drive than 1G if you choose to go with
>> a Sun OS. Most of that 1G will be consumed by the system.
>> Fortunately, 2G and 4G drives are pretty inexpensive these days.
>
> Not really. I have a 500 MB system disk and it is big enough to hold
> pre-formatted man pages and about half a dozen kernel build
> directories and still has ample space in /var/tmp etc.
I should have been less ambiguous. I was referring more to Solaris than
SunOS when I said "a Sun OS". Installing a "developer" install of
Solaris 2.6 was impossible on the 500M drive the machine had built-in.
I had to attach an external drive to get everything to fit. (Later on,
when the hard drive finally died of old age, there wasn't any problem
putting everything on the 2G drive I replaced it with.)
> One thing to keep in mind is that SunOS 4.1.x does not support local
> file systems larger than two gig, though it can NFS mount almost any
> size.
Also, make sure to use 4.1.4 and not 4.1.3. 4.1.3 has a nasty bug in
its DNS client that will cause an app to crash if a hostname has more
than 8 "A" records. (www.geocities.com is one such site. It was
completely inaccessible under 4.1.3 because of this bug.)
-- David
------------------------------
From: Greg Coit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Converting Netscape mail from Win to Linux?
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 16:06:40 -0700
I'm slowly migrating from WinNT to Linux for my workstation. I can move
over my bookmarks very easily, but mail seems to be another story. Any
hints, suggestions, etc for moving stored mail folders and files from
Netscape 4.6 for Win to Netscape 4.6 for Linux?
PS I've done a search of newsgroups and Netscape's web site, and this
question doesn't seem to have come up before (which I find hard to
believe), but when I renamed the mail files and tried to open Netscape
mail, it crashed, so I'm assuming some thing within the files has to be
changed.
--
Greg Coit =�
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Phone: (707)826-6109 - FAX: (707)826-6100
Humboldt State University: Computing and Telecommunications Services
********************************************************************
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question.
********************************************************************
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hong)
Subject: Re: PHT TurboLinux
Date: 2 Jun 1999 02:52:13 GMT
Stanislaw Flatto ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: Anyway what is so special about this distro?
Double-byte character support I suppose... It's based out of
Tokyo, Japan if I have read correctly. IBM has also gotten into a deal
with TurboLinux as in regards to their DB2.
------------------------------
From: Chip Piller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: RAID 1 setup
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 18:05:45 -0400
Al Nios wrote:
>
> I'm trying to implement a RAID 1 (software) using linux 2.2.5 - I've read
> all the relevant FAQs.
> I've created two partitions /usr and /usr2 on different disks and would like
> to mirror them. When I follow the instructions (mkraid /dev/md0) in the new
> software FAQ, I get a "device is busy" error and I cannot umount the
> partition. If there a way (and is it a good idea) to create the raid before
> the devices are mounted?
>
> Any help on this matter would be grealtly appreciated.
>
> Al Nios
I am not familiar with raid but have encountered the device is busy and
cannot umount error. This is what I did, it might be the problem you
have.
Suppose I want to mount my cdrom. I start as my normal user piller. I
become user root and mount the cdrom with 'mount /mnt/cdrom'. This
works fine. I then use 'exit' to go back to being user piller. I use
'cd /mnt/cdrom' to get to the cdrom. That works fine.
Then I want to umount the cdrom so I use command 'su' to become root. I
then use the 'cd ' command to move out of the /mnt/cdrom path. I try
command 'umount /mnt/cdrom' but get the error "umount: /mnt/cdrom:
device is busy".
So to fix this I use 'exit' to go from root back to user piller. I then
move to another directory not in the /mnt/cdrom path. Then I become
root and am able to umount the device properly using 'umount
/mnt/cdrom'.
Chip Piller
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Herb Stein)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: A Capitalists view of freedom
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 03:57:16 GMT
This discussion is going nowhere. The bottom line is that the US Constitution,
2nd Amendment, gives me the right to "keep and bear arms." End of story.
I really doesn't matter what the world, or the country for that matter, would
be like without guns. It's a done deal. Generate an amendment to the
Constitution to change things or quit whining.
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ed Avis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Peter Seebach wrote:
>
>>That's one of the things Lott did - or rather, he studied numbers from places
>>where these things happen. In general, violent crimes go sharply down when
>>you start letting people carry guns legally.
>
>....in a country where criminals already have guns. I assume the
>studies applied only to the US.
>
>You would not necessarially get the same results in a situation where
>to start with, neither criminals nor the public had access to
>firearms, and then gun laws were relaxed.
>
--
Herb Stein
The Herb Stein Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
314 215-3584
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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