Linux-Misc Digest #894, Volume #20 Fri, 2 Jul 99 14:13:14 EDT
Contents:
Re: Fragile file system (Dave Smart x2890)
Re: RealPlayer G2 for linux (Silviu Minut)
mandrake installation trouble (henning hummert)
Re: bet you cannot solve this! (well probably will) (Brad McBride)
Re: Could Microsoft Cheat On The New Mindcraft Benchmark? (was: Mindcraft Retest
News (Anthony Ord)
Re: newbie - linux viruses? (Dionysus)
Re: vmware review ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: 10GB disk and LILO - I tried EVERYTHING! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: An "ls" question (Johan Kullstam)
Re: Help....After setting the Chinese Fonts... ("R.K.Aa")
Re: Please help!! ("Gene Heskett")
Tobit Software Time:LAN - synchronizes time via DCF77/MSF/Gorky ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: An "ls" question (James Knowles)
Re: Could Microsoft Cheat On The New Mindcraft Benchmark? ("Anthony D. Tribelli")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Smart x2890)
Subject: Re: Fragile file system
Date: 2 Jul 1999 16:35:50 GMT
Christopher Wong ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: Not too long ago, my Mandrake 5.3 system (kernel 2.0.36 based on Red Hat
: 5.2) crashed. While an OS crash is not too unusual for me -- having used
: Windows since its 3.0 days -- I am surprised by the apparent fragility
: of the Linux file system. A Dos or OS/2 system would typically dust
: itself and bounce right back up with a simple chkdsk or two. This crash,
: however, wreaked havoc all over my ext2fs partition. Why would a crash
: corrupt files that were not even being written to? Programs like rsh and
<<snip>>
Here's a vote of confidence for Linux and ext2.
I manage quite a few Linux hosts, and have found
the ext2 filesystem to be very stable -
even when abused by bad operators,
and recently by a spate of building power-failures.
Some suggestions:-
a) Is it possible that one of the necessary processes
(update, bdflush?) that manage disk cache write-back
are not running?
b) Is it possible that you have a minor memory error?
If memory glitch corrupted the in-memory disk cache - anything goes.
We have had experience with several systems that run for
weeks and months .. then take a hit on some operation.
I used to think that memory was very reliable - unless broke.
No longer. We have had 10% failure rate on our units
mostly with single-bit occassional problems.
We have used tools like AMIDIAG - but it don't catch the
problem reliably. AMIDIAG repeating continuous memory check
for 24 to 48 hours will catch 2 to 6 memory errors on these boxes.
Our simplest and most 'reliable' memory test has been
to gzip a file larger than free memory, and run "gzip -t".
tar -czf memtest.tgz /usr /bin /sbin
gzip -t memtest.tgz
So: in our experience ..
Uptime is no measure of memory reliability.
Memory is surprizingly suspect!
Fix memory .. problems go away.
--Dave
------------------------------
From: Silviu Minut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: RealPlayer G2 for linux
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 12:18:36 -0400
It's true, it's G2 for RH6. It must have happened over night, cause last
night it was still 5.0. Can you believe this?
Mircea wrote:
> I've just tried it again, and you can download it from the link I
> posted. Maybe you're trying the .rpm? I wouldn't know about that one,
> but the "G2 player for Linux 2.0/2.2" link is OK.
>
> MST
------------------------------
From: henning hummert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: mandrake installation trouble
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 12:24:07 -0400
is there any way to influence the kernel configuration during the
install of mandrake 6.0? when i install mandrake everything works fine
but when i try to boot the kernel (ver 2.2.5) hangs after/while
detecting my harddisk. i had the same problem with redhat 6.0 but i
found a solution with upgrading from 5.2 and not installing lilo at the
end of the installation {booting with my old 2.2.9 kernel}.
but i cant do this with a complete new installation.
if anybody has an idea it would be really appreciated
h
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 13:02:07 -0400
From: Brad McBride <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: bet you cannot solve this! (well probably will)
Thanks for pointing this out. I'm having similar problems with my Zoom 56K modem
that has been upgraded to V.90. My modem was set to COM1 IRQ 9 in Win 98 so I
tried
setserial /dev/ttyS0 irq 9
and when I checked it with setserial -g /dev/ttyS0 I received the following (kind
of, I'm paraphrasing):
/dev/ttyS0 UART: unknown, PORT: 0x03f8, IRQ 2
I know that IRQ 9 redirects to IRQ 2 so that didn't worry me too much. What
worries me is that the UART cannot be detected properly. I tried setting it to
both 16550 and 16550A and still received a modem is busy message when I tried to
query the modem. Is there anything else to try to get kppp configured and get RH
6.0 to connect to the Internet? I desperately want to get away from Win 98 (I'm
sick to death of crashes!) and can't use Linux if I can't get connected to the
Internet (I need Internet to do my consulting). I've read through the PPP HOWTO
and the HOWTO on setserial, but have gotten no luck with configuring the
connection. Thanks for anyone who has a suggestion that I haven't tried yet.
Brad McBride
Silviu Minut wrote:
> setserial /dev/ttyS2 irq 9
>
> Tom wrote:
>
> > I have a Courier V.everything that is upgraded to V.90 and am using RH6.0.
> > The main reason I do not use Linux is because it will not work with my
> > modem.. The modem is set to use COM 3 and IRQ 9 in Win98 and there is no
> > problems, (hyperteminal works fine). Why does every time I start Minicom
> > that the INIT string is displayed very, very slowly? It takes about 30
> > seconds to display ATZ! It does dial but as I said it is extremely slow.
> > Kppp says the modem is not responding or is busy on every port I try. I
> > went to 3com's sight and read about some 1 page instruction on how to get it
> > to work in "unix" but all it said was which DIP switches to put down (which
> > I did) I bet no one on these news groups can give a decent answer because
> > no one has for a year.... good luck..
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Anthony Ord)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.networking,omp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix
Subject: Re: Could Microsoft Cheat On The New Mindcraft Benchmark? (was: Mindcraft
Retest News
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 17:03:12 GMT
On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 13:16:45 -0700,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ("Bob Taylor") wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Anthony Ord) writes:
>> On Tue, 29 Jun 1999 11:52:45 +0100, John Imrie
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>> >>It's just to appease the American public. Just like the
>>>> >>Second World War went from 1941 (when the Americans joined)
>>>> >>to 1945. What was it before that? A bun fight?
>>>> >
>>>> > Does Encarta say that? American public school textbooks
>>>> > certainly don't. Ours even covered the concentration camps.
>>>>
>>>> you mean, the american-run concentration camps?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Or the British run concentration camps
>>
>> Do they cover the US Army deliberately starving German POWs
>> to death immediately after the war?
>
>And how do you know this actually happened? Were you present? You read
>it in a book written by an American hater? On behalf of the Americans
>who died saving your sorry ass in WWII, I *demand* a retraction and
>appology for such a vicious attack!
No. It was a television programme which had as one of it's
witnesses the American Doctor who instituted the thing. Do
you want to hear the story?
Regard
Anthony
--
=========================================
| And when our worlds |
| They fall apart |
| When the walls come tumbling in |
| Though we may deserve it |
| It will be worth it - Depeche Mode |
=========================================
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dionysus)
Subject: Re: newbie - linux viruses?
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 17:14:38 GMT
yeah but is it true linux software (i.e. open source) or
commercialised? i really don't like the idea of capitalism moving in
on one of the last truly free platforms...oh well perhaps the
corruption of the linux ethic has to accompany its growth....oh
well...but i hope not......anyway, that's my thoughts, right there...
-dionysus
On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 21:16:52 -0700, Alex Lam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>jik- wrote:
>>
>> Dionysus wrote:
>> >
>> > i was just wondering as i had not seen any virus killing products
>> > available for the linux platform whether viruses are proving to be as
>> > prolififerant on the linux platform as they are on windows machines? I
>> > am assuming that viruses are platform-specific, and that if, for
>> > instance, i connected a linux box up to my win95 machine that i could
>> > transfer files between the 2 without having to worry about a win95
>> > virus screwing my linux setup? all knowledge much appreciated :->
>>
>> Trojans and Worms are basically all that can attack Linux. The "virus"
>> needs root access to do anything deadly...and afaik nothing will or can
>> attack the hardware.
>
>Anti Virus Pro have released a Linux virus scanner.
>
>http://avp.com
>
>Alex Lam.
>--
>*remove all the Xs (upper case X) if reply by e mail.
>** no more M$ Windoze.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: vmware review
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 17:20:33 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Mircea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > (..)
> > [minor] vmware seems not to remember where its configuration
> > guest operating system files are. It should. For now, you
> > have to invoke it as $ /usr/local/bin/vmware
> > directory/operatingsystem.cfg
>
> You can run the config files directly, they're actually scripts that
> call the executable.
>
> > [major] minimal personal email-based support. This is a
> > complex program, and not everything can be answered by the WWW
> > site. There is also a lot of info on the WWW site, but much
> > of it is poorly organized and difficult to interpret. Again,
> > this is because vmware is a complex program, as are its guest
> > operating systems.
>
> The way their licensing works, you can get personal e-mail support,
but
> only if you buy a commercial license, $299; there's no support other
> than their newsgroups (on news.vmware.com) for evaluation and
> non-commercial licenses. But some of their techs are all the time on
the
> newsgroups, and really useful.
And, in fairness to vmware, they have answered questions via email to
me. They do seem to be eager. It's more that this may be daunting
if one purchases the package and then gets stuck...again, not too bad
a problem yet. Let's hope it stays this way.
> > [major] programs ala mtools that allow one to move files from
> > and to the virtual disks from the linux system. (I know that
> > some of this can be done via networking when the virtual
> > system is running.)
>
> Have you tried their vmware-mount perl script? It allows to mount the
> virtual disk through loopback in a directory in the host OS.
> http://www.vmware.com/download/downloadaddons.html
Just tried it. Thanks for pointing it out. It goes 95% to where I want
it to go. I find the idea of having a program in one terminal running
to get access to a mounted volume somewhat strange. Again, 95%.
Again, vmware is a great program.
/ivo welch
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: 10GB disk and LILO - I tried EVERYTHING!
Date: 2 Jul 1999 13:50:40 GMT
This may be a daft question, however, with you saying that Win98 only
sees it as a 8GB hard drive it sounds like you motherboard may not
accept hard drives greater than 8GB. Not sure though?????? Might be
the root of your problem.
Ken
>
>
>Sorry if you already read about it many times, but I tried almost
>everything I saw on USENET about this topic, and failed...
>
>I got this WesternDigital 9GB disk.
>Windows fdisk says it's only 8GB, but I know about the 1024 cylinder
>problem, OK.
>
>I reserved with FIPS 2GB to Win98, and went to RedHat5.2 install
>
>No matter what I do in DiskDruid, I can't go beyond "L" at LILO
boot,
> -> geometry problem (LILO-HOWTO).
>From the floppy it boots OK, anyway.
>I tried making a /boot (in /hda5, it seems to me), but no way.
>I put "linear" in lilo.conf, but no way.
>
>HOW can I put a boot partition inside the damned 1024cyl limit?
>(By the way, diskdruid does not tell you where it creates its
>partitions,
>just how big they are).
>
>
>Thank you for any help
>
> Alessandro
>
>--
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>\ Alessandro Magni
>/ IEN Galileo Ferraris
>\ c.M.d'Azeglio 42, 10125 Torino
(ITALIA)
>/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>\ Fax (39)11-6507611
>/ Tel (39)11-3919757
>\ Homepage at:
>http://alpha.ien.it/~magni/home.html
>/
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
Please remove the XWLQNW before replying by email.
***** Posted via the UK Online online newsreader *****
Go to http://www.ukonline.co.uk to find out
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------------------------------
From: Johan Kullstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: An "ls" question
Date: 02 Jul 1999 13:06:33 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Carl Fink) writes:
> On 1 Jul 1999 01:04:52 -0400 Paul Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >I have e-mailed my concerns to Richard Stallman directly, however he prefers
> >info, so that's that... Any got manpages for libc6?
>
> I'm not a C programmer, but maybe the egcs fork of the gcc effort
> have better sense than Stallman?
the egcs folk also use info files. in reply to requests for
man-pages, i have seen messages on their mailing list to the effect of
`if you want man pages, don't bother us. write 'em yourself'. they
are not anti man pages per se, but they do not want to write and
maintain them.
don't just take my word for it. go to
<URL:http://egcs.cygnus.com/ml/egcs/1999-04/threads.html>
and look for the thread with the subject
`(Getting rid of) man pages'
especially
<URL:http://egcs.cygnus.com/ml/egcs/1999-04/msg00841.html>
imho man pages are good for short programs like ls or cat. they suck
for describing the bigger stuff like bash, awk, perl and gcc. i do
not really care for man pages longer than about 5 pages. no one wants
a man tome.
the info format itself with its organization and hyperlinks makes
sense. the info reader otoh is a different story. it's the reader
which sucks. somehow it's much more bearable to me from the emacs
interface despite having nearly the same keystrokes. go figure.
--
johan kullstam
------------------------------
From: "R.K.Aa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Help....After setting the Chinese Fonts...
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 18:45:22 +0200
Alleyoop Sam wrote:
>
> I have followed the steps for install chinese fonts under Chinese
> HOW-TO page, after make
> Zip file and "mkfontdir" I can't check for the exsitance of the big5
> font. Although I have
> download the file sepcified and get some taipei fonts, I still can't
> find the big5 fonts
> installed. (Try the "xlsfonts | grep big5", but no outcome ah)
>
> And it's even worse after I reboot the system, it halted with the
> responce:
> "According to /var/run/gdm.pid, gdm was already running, but seems to
> have been murdered mysteriously"
> This made my monitor to blink for 10 times, (with the above string
> printed on the screen for 10 times)
> after that it shows:
> "INIT: ld "x" respawing too fast: disabled for 5 mintues."
>
> There after, my machine will start to run the gdm but the same responce
>
> is shown for that, too.
> Then, I have shutdown my PC.
>
> Any help for that? I need your kindness help! pls.
gdm is the gnome display manager so you could try to switch to KDE while
solving the problem. What type of font is the big5 fonts? if it's a
truetype font you also have to make a fonts.scale file before you make
the fonts.dir. While in the dir the font-file is:
/usr/sbin/ttmkfdir fonts.scale
and then run this again:
/usr/X11R6/bin/mkfontdir
then you
/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --remove /that/font/directory
(IF you have it added - check that with chkfontpath --list )
and then you
/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --add /that/font/directory
Now: IF this is a TrueType font, the only way i finally was able to make
xfs serve tt-fonts was if they were located in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType
It wouldn't accept any other directory - i happened to find this out by
stubborn chance when i gave it ONE more try today.
xfs will rehash automatically when chkfontpath --add or --romeove is
run, and makes the fonts available on the fly.
If the big5 is a type1 font i have no idea what's wrong though ;)
K.
------------------------------
Date: 02 Jul 99 10:30:30 -0500
From: "Gene Heskett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Please help!!
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.x
Unrot13 this;
Reply to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Gene Heskett sends Greetings to Ionut Georgescu;
It rather sounds as if you are trying to run a gs that wasn't compiled
against the version of X on your machine.
Ghostscript, and the 'view versions of it, use the first device in the
builtin device list as the default if the command line doesn't contain
an over-riding -sDEVICE=device statement.
For the *nix's the default is X, but you may have to recompile against
your machines installed version of X.
Here, RH5.2 install, ghostscript 5.50 installed to replace the older
one, kernel 2.2.10. The GS is the linux version straight from the site
and was not recompiled, works great (with one minor quibble about
margins on printers that don't have full page bleed), once I put in
apsfilter, which does recognize my printer.
IG> Hi,
IG> Please help 'cause it's killing me. I have a Debian/GNU Linux 1.3 box and
IG> a2ps gives me a lot of trouble. If run as normal user, it wouldn't work.
IG> gv, dvips instead do. When run as root they mess up my X and I have to
IG> quit it with Ctr+Alt+Backspace. When giving any of the commands a2ps,
IG> ps2pdf, pdf2ps in text mode as root I get the message "Using VGA driver"
IG> and nothing else. They create no output. What can I do? How are these
IG> things (PostScript and the graphics driver) linked together. ?
Cheers, Gene
--
Gene Heskett, CET, UHK |Amiga A2k Zeus040 50 megs fast/2 megs chip
Ch. Eng. @ WDTV-5 |A2091,GuruRom,1g Seagate,CDROM,Multiface III
|Buddha + 4 gig WDC drive, 525 meg tape
|Stylus Pro, EnPrint, Picasso-II, 17" vga
RC5-Moo! 690kkeys/sec isn't much, but it all helps
email gene underscore heskett at iolinc dot net
--
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Tobit Software Time:LAN - synchronizes time via DCF77/MSF/Gorky
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 14:27:00 GMT
Tobit Software has released a software which supports
serial devices DCF77/MSF and Gorky timing for time synchronisation.
You can download a beta/preview version http://www.tobit.com/3/1/2/3
It ships with a nice XWindows Monitor and a demon.
I was trying to post this to misc.announce but it didnt work,
so I send it here.
Regards,
engerim
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: James Knowles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,utah.linux
Subject: Re: An "ls" question
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 18:11:11 +0000
> > My actual point was that
> > Stallman's group should go back to using man pages for their
> > documentation, instead of the atrocious and near-useless info files.
>
> HEAR HEAR! I really dislike emacs and grew up on traditional man pages.
>
> How difficult would it be to convert the info files back into man
> pages? Maybe someone should start a project to do that... :-)
Overall I like man pages myself (nice format IMHO -- the content
sometimes sucks but that's the author's responsibility).
Not knowing the format of info files I assume that they're somewhat
man-ish, or at least regularly structured. If so, it (theoretically)
shouldn't be a horrible exercise with some home-rolled Perl to help in
the conversion. (I've done such things before, making pretty HTML-ised C
code and creating man-ish HTML documentation for COM objects from IDL
files but I'm still guessing here. Regardless, it would be somewhat
time-consuming.) The more the conversion can be automated, the better.
I tried several times to learn emacs, but between the learning curve and
inconvenience of reaching for the control key constantly convinced me to
stick with vim. emacs' not loaded on my system. I hear it's great if you
do learn it, though.
--
It's coming... http://www.countdown9199.com
------------------------------
From: "Anthony D. Tribelli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.networking,omp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix
Subject: Re: Could Microsoft Cheat On The New Mindcraft Benchmark?
Date: 2 Jul 1999 18:03:17 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Anthony D. Tribelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> = > The USA was *supposedly* an ally from BEFORE the war...
> = > So, Mr Taylor... What year was the start of WWII again??? 1939? Or 1942?
> = > WHERE WERE YOU LOT THEN?
> =
> = Keeping Britain armed and fed. There was also our 'secret' war against the
> = German submarines that pre-dated Pearl Harbor.
>
> Ahhh yes. I heard about that in a documentary about Alan Turing and the code
> breakers at Bletchley Park...
>
> apparently, they decoded a message saying that U-boats were on course for
> the eastern seaboard and reported this info. This info then got passed on to
> american "intelligence", where the admaral of the fleet, who hated the
> British, just ignored it and allows 100 allied ships to be sunk...
Actually I was referring to President Roosevelt secretly ordering the US
Navy to sink-on-sight any German submarines. When such incidents ocurred
the US Navy claimed the submarine comitted an unprovoked attack on the US
vessel and that the submarine fired first. Basically Roosevelt was trying
to manufacture an incident that would generate the public opinion needed
to officially enter the war, and secondarily to keep Britain armed and
fed.
Your opinion of 'allowing' is highly questionable. It is my understanding
that US Naval forces were spread very thin and that the 'eastern seabord'
is quite large. Many Americans died in sight of the US coast due to this.
Your emphasis on one incident and not the overall trend is like
Microsoft's emphasis on one particular test and claiming an overall
advantage over Linux. Hey is this post on topic now? :-)
Tony
==================
Tony Tribelli
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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