Linux-Misc Digest #482, Volume #21 Fri, 20 Aug 99 23:13:15 EDT
Contents:
Re: Compiling Sound support for Sounder Blaster 16bit PnP (Mark Buckle)
UMSDOS: Gotcha! (Rick Slater)
shutdown&reboot for normal users??? (demon)
Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it? (Robert Lynch)
Re: Boot crashes at module dependancies. ("Kovalev")
Re: Real player G2 installed but? (William Burkett)
wvdial (demon)
Re: ISO9660 Joliet extensions bug? -- Slackware 3.5Kernel 2.0.34 (Pug Fantus)
Re: Can OS/2 users grow up and think like Linux users? (was: Can I switch from OS/2
to Linux and be happy?) (Michael Perry)
Re: /etc/fdprm and High Capacity Formatting ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Tape backup utilities: Banging my head agains the wall. (Shuo)
Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it? (michael james obrien)
Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it? (Jeff Greer)
Re: dpms without X? (clee)
Re: *nix vs. MS security (Oystein Viggen)
Re: OPL3-SA3 souncard won't play sound!!! (Sonny)
Re: No core file (Paul D. Smith)
Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it? (Bob Martin)
Re: Zip 100 under Linux-Mandrake ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it? (Jeff Greer)
Re: Journalling FS (Errin Watusikac)
Can't nice find: monolithic kernel effect? (Carl Fink)
Re: GIF manipulation under linux (Carl Fink)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Buckle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Compiling Sound support for Sounder Blaster 16bit PnP
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:22:28 +0000
Mark Buckle wrote:
PS, The thing's in an old ISA 486 motherboard with no PnP support.
>
> Hi, since I switched my old 16bit Value SB card for a new PnP model,
> sound has refused to work for me on Linux, on any version of the kernel
> from 2.0.27 up to present 2.0.37. I've used the IRQ, and I/O addresses
> and DMA values etc from my Win95 installation which dual boots with
> Linux, as I have no other info to rely on for these values when
> compiling the kernel. Any-one any ideas, or can point me towards tools
> to probe the sound-card. The damn-thing won't work under NT3.51 either,
> but I'm not looking for help for that here :)
>
> Cheers, Mark.
> PS Pls mail replies if possible as well as posting.
------------------------------
From: Rick Slater <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: UMSDOS: Gotcha!
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 19:13:56 -0500
I squeezed Linux onto an unused, 200 Mb portion of my workplace PC which
had been delivered with that part unused (it has to do with the FAT
structure, and the manufacturer's unwillingness to bother with the left
over hard drive space).
I had a dual-boot machine which defaults to booting Windows, the (ugh)
office standard, and all was going quite well.
But 200 Megs is a small space when you start to add various packages
such as "R" (a statistical package) or Octave (a matlab clone). I was
running out of Linux space and decided to use some of the mostly unused
1.2 Gig space that had been set aside for Windows. I had played around
with umsdos before and decided to use it again.
The idea was that the dos partition could be mounted as type umsdos, and
that I could devote a subdirectory there to holding Linux files. After
adding umsdos support to the kernel (2.0.36), I remounted the dos
partition as type umsdos by hand, and everything worked extremely well.
That having been tested, I entered the dos partition into /etc/fstab so
that it would be mounted as type umsdos automatically each time I
booted. That was a mistake.
For some reason, when the dos partition is mounted as type "umsdos" from
/etc/fstab at boot time, the kernel goes out and "initializes" the dos
root directory. It creates one of those "---linux.---" files AND
TRUNCATES ALL LONG FILE NAMES IN THE ROOT DIRECTORY.
The very common "C:\Program Files" gets turned into something else, and
if you don't notice it, a subsequent attempt to boot Windows leads to
some very annoying problems.
Naturally, I did all of those things and spent the next hour figuring
out how to unscrew up the Windows partition. Luckily, I succeeded.
But I'm still confined to 200 megs unless I repartition my employer's
machine, and that is out of the question at the moment.
But watch out for UMSDOS. It can clobber a vfat partition.
Regards,
Rick Slater
------------------------------
From: demon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: shutdown&reboot for normal users???
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 22:17:28 +0200
How can I make it possible to let normal users use the shutdown&reboot
command??
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:03:02 +0000
From: Robert Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it?
Jeff Greer wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I really hate the bullshit checking passwd does to make sure you
> enter a pass word it likes. How do I get that pig fucker to
> accept anything for a pass word? Don't give me any lecture about
> security either. I should have a choice. I can handle the risk.
> I also jump out of airplanes.
>
> I run RH 5.2 and kernel 2.0.36
>
> one other question which is simple: how do I copy all hidden
> files in a directory? There is no -a option for cp.
>
> thanks in advance
> --
> Jeff Greer
You could use Kodis' "autologin", see the Linux Gazette article or my
copy on:
ftp://shell3.ba.best.com/pub/rmlynch/RPMS/kodis.txt
If you're not into .tgz, etc., I put together some rpm's that install
the necessary stuff:
ftp://shell3.ba.best.com/pub/rmlynch/RPMS/mingetty+autologin-0.9.4-1.i386.rpm
ftp://shell3.ba.best.com/pub/rmlynch/RPMS/mingetty+autologin-0.9.4-1.src.rpm
Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to REALLY do it, so you have to
force the install (I've got to revisit that thingie some day and fix
it.)
I use it to get a no-login VT1 on my own box, it's cool IMO.
Bob L.
> B.S. computer science, University of MO - Rolla
> --------------------------------------------------
> Windows NT has crashed,
> I am the Blue Screen of Death,
> No one hears your screams...
>
> If you don't have anything mean to say about
> Microsoft, don't say anything at all.
--
Robert Lynch-Berkeley CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.best.com/~rmlynch/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ("Kovalev")
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: Boot crashes at module dependancies.
Date: 20 Aug 1999 19:59:12 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Edward C."
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
|: I've just recompiled my kernel (2.2.5) on my RedHat6.0 system for the first
|: time. When it's booting up, it get's stuck at "Finding module dependancies"
|: after a little disk-reading. I did 'make modules' and 'make
|: modules_install' when recompiling, and also 'depmod -a'.
|: Does anyone know what the problem might be?
I had exactly the same problem after my first kernel recompilation.
Still don't know what's the matter, but after I moved the old
lib/modules directory away and during compilation chose _only_absolutely_
necessary features to be compiled as modules, that solved it.
Cheers
------------------------------
From: William Burkett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Real player G2 installed but?
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:50:14 -0500
Paul wrote:
> I installed Real player but don`t seem to be able to run the program,
> and don`t seem to be able to find where it is on my system!
> If i try to re-install i get the message "program already installed!
> How can i find it??
> Paul
What method did you use to install it? I'm guessing by your message
that you used something like an rpm or deb package. If so, the binary
is probably in /usr/bin/. The name of the executable is rvplayer, at
least for version 5.0. Type "which rvplayer" at the command line. If
it doesn't find it, then it means rvplayer is not in a directory that's
listed in your PATH. If which doesn't work, try locate or find.deb, the
shared lib, then update .bash_profile or whatever config file you use to
include the directory in your PATH.
------------------------------
From: demon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: wvdial
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 22:22:01 +0200
I tried to allow the normal users on my machine to use wvdial, but the
only way I found was to set the x-bit for everyone (chmod o+x pppd) to
pppd, otherwise I get the error permission denied.
Is there any other way, than allowing _everyone_ (not only the users) to
use wvdial???
------------------------------
From: Pug Fantus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ISO9660 Joliet extensions bug? -- Slackware 3.5Kernel 2.0.34
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 20:30:59 GMT
Ok, there are three problems here, one, it sounds like either yer kernel
doesn't support Joliet (that kernel is soo old, I don't even remember
anymore) or you at least don't have it installed on yer box. Two, I'm not
sure about slack, but you can't burn a RedHat cd in windows, and expect it
to install. Windows does not copy the perms over, and it messes up the
file names and some times the sizes. Three, and most importantly of all, I
seen from several other posts on here, that the Adaptec software writes the
CD in the UDF format, which linux doesn't have support for, yet, I believe
that they are working on this in the 2.3.xx kernel. So even if you got
Joliet working, all yer file sizes will be WRONG! That's what I've found
on all my cd's I burn at work, I have to mount them on a winbox, and copy
them over my network via samba to my linux box, and reburn the cd there...
it's a pain in the ass... I hope this helps.
Psybermac wrote:
>
> Many happy greetings,
>
> I downloaded a whole bunch of stuff (using the LAN @ work), including
> Slackware 4.0 and burned it onto a CD-R using Win98 and Adaptec's
software
> to create an ISO9660 disc w/ Joliet extensions. The burn seemed to come
out
> fine, but when I view the contents on my Linux machine, all of the files
> without file extensions (such as README) have a dot appended to the end.
Of
> course the dots don't show up on a Windows machine. Is there a bug in
this
> kernel that makes the dots show up on CD's with Joliet extensions?
Besides
> being annoying, it renders Slackware's setup program unable to read the
> tagfiles to install the packages.
>
> On a related note, when I mount this CD at boot-time, I get the message:
> "Unable to load NLS charset ISO8859-1 (nls_iso8859-1)"
>
> That's all I have for now. I'd like to know the answer before I go
through
> the hassle of compiling a new kernel or recreating the CD.
>
> Thanks
> Psybermac
>
>
>
>
================== Posted via CNET Linux Help ==================
http://www.searchlinux.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Perry)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps,alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: Can OS/2 users grow up and think like Linux users? (was: Can I switch
from OS/2 to Linux and be happy?)
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 06:32:12 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 01:27:42 GMT, Marko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 20:38:18, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Zephyr Q)
>made history by saying:
>
>->
>-> Or, more importantly, how can I make the switch with as
>-> little grief as possible?
>
>I tried Linux twice - InfoMagic and then RH5.2. I was happy to wipe
>Linux off and re-install OS/2. No sleight intended to the people
>working on Linux. I think they're doing a great job. As a programming
>geek, I found the UI fun, and I like the open source movement.
>
>With Linux, configurability is its strength and its weakness. It takes
>time. And the Linux UIs have a long way to go. YMMV.
>
>IBM hasn't supported OS/2 for the client in a long time. Aren't
>people's tears dry yet? When you need something for Linux, you either
>wait for someone to make it, or you make it yourself. Why don't you
>have the same attitude about OS/2? The tools are available just the
>same.
>
Not quite the answer for the question that the original poster asked I
believe. He wants to switch not get commentary on how IBM has not supported
its clients (which really is not true; it all depends on how you define
clients). I did OS/2 for quite some time from 2.1 forward. A person can
switch to Linux and find exciting and great tools to make computing either
fun or challenging depending on what mode you operate in. I found OS/2 to
be a stable and mature operating system which excelled in multithreading and
communications. Linux offers so many avenues of personal and professional
fulfillment that one cannot possibly define each possible path. As far as
making the tools for OS/2, many people have made great tools for OS/2 and
many people make tools for linux.
I can see that Linux needs some maturing in some areas but I believe with
recent announcements by IBM, Corel, Lotus, and others that these are coming.
OS/2 needed more than just that. They needed acceptance by their own
company. Its unfortunate that this could not be delivered in a cohesive
manner.
So I would answer that Linux is a great alternative to OS/2 but why limit
oneself. I do both and happily. What is it always an either-or situation.
LILO is one of the most flexibly boot managers I have ever seen. I still
maintain an OS/2 Warp partition here. I still enjoy things like Galactic
Civilizations in Os/2 and Civilization:Call To Power in LInux. So the real
answer is that there is no question. Do both and be happy; do one and be
happy. There is choice and flexibility.
--
Michael Perry - "No one can give you wiser advice
[EMAIL PROTECTED] .o O than yourself" -Cicero
' )
\ Gnome: at www.gnome.org!!
\ _) where happiness is a state of foot.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: /etc/fdprm and High Capacity Formatting
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 18:19:53 GMT
It isn't enough to do an 'mke2fs /dev/fd0u1722', you have to low-level
format it first. If the disk is _already_ 1722, this would seem to
work, but on a 1.44 floppy, it would _not_ work.
You have to use "superformat" or "fdformat" to do the low-level format.
-Tom
Jayan M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> do a 'mke2fs /dev/fd0u1722', that should do it, I guess.
> > >Hi everyone! I want to know how to format floppies to high
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: Shuo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Tape backup utilities: Banging my head agains the wall.
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:42:12 -0400
Hi,
After banging my head against the wall for two weeks, our boot/root disk
is made.
Here comes head-banging time again:
The problem is that I cannot fit libc.so.6 on the disk (4 meg alone
itself). So the utilities
compiled against it (/sbin/restore, /sbin/dump) I cannot put them on the
disk.
Do you guys have the old restore and dump compiled against libc.so.5?
Thanks very much
for saving my from brain damage.
Shuo
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (michael james obrien)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it?
Date: 21 Aug 1999 01:08:32 GMT
If this is your system, run passwd as root. If your login name is
jgreer, you can (as root) type
passwd greer
It will bitch at you for poor passwords but it WILL take what you enter.
If it is not your system, then you shouldn't try. Security policy is the
choice of root.
-MOBRIEN
Jeff Greer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: Hello,
: I really hate the bullshit checking passwd does to make sure you
: enter a pass word it likes. How do I get that pig fucker to
: accept anything for a pass word? Don't give me any lecture about
: security either. I should have a choice. I can handle the risk.
: I also jump out of airplanes.
: I run RH 5.2 and kernel 2.0.36
: one other question which is simple: how do I copy all hidden
: files in a directory? There is no -a option for cp.
: thanks in advance
: --
: Jeff Greer
: B.S. computer science, University of MO - Rolla
: --------------------------------------------------
: Windows NT has crashed,
: I am the Blue Screen of Death,
: No one hears your screams...
: If you don't have anything mean to say about
: Microsoft, don't say anything at all.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jeff Greer)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:12:41 GMT
On 21 Aug 1999 01:08:32 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (michael james
obrien) wrote:
>
>If this is your system, run passwd as root. If your login name is
>jgreer, you can (as root) type
> passwd greer
>
>It will bitch at you for poor passwords but it WILL take what you enter.
>
>If it is not your system, then you shouldn't try. Security policy is the
>choice of root.
>
>-MOBRIEN
>
>
Thanks, but my system must be fucked up somewhere. If I type
passwd <username> it says it updates the password, but the
password never changes.
If I type passwd -u <username> it won't let me type in a passwd
it disagrees with.
I am doing all this as root.
--
Jeff Greer
B.S. computer science, University of MO - Rolla
==================================================
Windows NT has crashed,
I am the Blue Screen of Death,
No one hears your screams...
If you don't have anything mean to say about
Microsoft, don't say anything at all.
------------------------------
From: clee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: dpms without X?
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:30:52 GMT
H.Bruijn wrote:
> simply do not plug your monitor into the power supply ;-)
> Just get a simple surge protector and plug it into that of your worries
> about frying it.
Thanks. I appreciate the practical advice. I originally had my monitor
plugged into a simple surge protector, but the electrical system in this
building is so bad, I often saw flickering on my screen. The flickering
appears to have gone away since I started plugging the monitor into the
UPS.
Note that I almost have what I want. The monitor goes into supsend mode
automatically when the computer keyboard and mouse are idle for a while.
So I only need to cover the 20 minute window of time after I leave my
computer and before the monitor suspends. If I'm actually in front of my
computer when the power goes out, I can just turn of the monitor myself.
I have started searching through the XFree86 source for references to dpms
and have found a dpms.c and some associated header files, but it's not
clear to me how the code actually ends up suspending the monitor. It looks
more like message dispatching functions than anything else.
I'm still hoping that someone has already written a something that handles
dpms without using X. It seems almost like setterm -powersave has options
that will work, but I've tried fooling around with them, and my monitor
doesn't seem affected.
Thanks again,
-chris
================== Posted via CNET Linux Help ==================
http://www.searchlinux.com
------------------------------
From: Oystein Viggen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux.security
Subject: Re: *nix vs. MS security
Date: 20 Aug 1999 23:12:39 +0200
"Scott MacDonald" wrote:
> could simply shut him up by asking him why the majority of Banks (I know
> many banks run on OS/2, please don't flame me for it),
> Universities/Colleges, "big businesses", etc., hell even many of Microsoft
> servers run on Unix flavors and see what his response is.
I actually worked in a bank this summer, and they use OpenVMS on their
servers.... :)
Oystein
--
"Speak softly but carry a big stick"
- Theodore Roosevelt
------------------------------
From: Sonny <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: OPL3-SA3 souncard won't play sound!!!
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:02:18 GMT
Sean wrote:
>
> In my mixer app I set volume to the max and still I hear nothing. I set
> the I/O ports to what they are set in windows and still nothing.
>
> ------------------ Posted via CNET Linux Help ------------------
> http://www.searchlinux.com
Sean,
Have you looked at the documentation in
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/OP3_SA2. That's where I got my info. I
think it's pretty good. Aren't sound cards a pain?
Luck
Sonny
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul D. Smith)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: No core file
Date: 20 Aug 1999 12:03:20 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
%% IceLava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
i> what do u mean by 'stripped'?
"Stripped" means that all the debugging info has been removed from the
application. You do that by running the "strip" program:
$ strip myapp
Also, if you've not compiled the appliation with debugging enabled (the
-g option) then there won't be much debugging info there even if you
haven't run strip on it.
Stripping an application makes the on-disk size much smaller (sometimes
less than half as big). But note this is disk space savings only:
even if your app is unstripped the debugging information isn't loaded
into memory when your app is run, so the app won't run any faster or
take any less memory if you strip it.
i> wat r the capabilities of gdb? I've not used it b4, & am trying to
i> recall how to use the debugging features in xwpe
GDB is the GNU project's source-level debugger: it's got about all the
capabilities you'd want _but_ it's a text-based debugger. No GUI, no
mouse, nothing like that. If you like things like xwpe, VC, etc. you
probably won't like it.
There are many graphical interfaces to GDB; there's one built into
Emacs, and there are a few X-based ones. The most advanced one is
probably ddd (the Data Display Debugger).
But, that doesn't really matter. Every debugger on Linux will be able
to process a core file. I'm sure xwpe can do it, too. I don't know how
offhand but surely there're some docs somewhere.
--
===============================================================================
Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Network Management Development
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
===============================================================================
These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
------------------------------
From: Bob Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it?
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:58:00 +0000
> Thanks, but my system must be fucked up somewhere. If I type
> passwd <username> it says it updates the password, but the
> password never changes.
>
> If I type passwd -u <username> it won't let me type in a passwd
> it disagrees with.
If you really want to do this, just edit /etc/passwd. For your account,
remove the password info leaving "::" in place. This will log directly
into a command prompt without asking for a password.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Zip 100 under Linux-Mandrake
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:09:53 GMT
"modprobe ppa" works just fine for me, then I can mount the drive as
before. I would like to get the modprobe to work at boot so that all I
have to do is mount the drive when ready. Thanks for your help,
appreciate it.
In article
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Michael McConnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Joseph L. Davis wrote:
>
> > I have found a strange problem and am not sure the best way to fix.
> > After upgrading to Linux-Mandrake (RedHat 6.0) my Parallel Port Zip
will
> > only allow me to insmod ppa after I have tried to print to my
printer on
> > lp. If I try to insmod lp or insmod ppa I will get error messages :
>
> Try modprobe instead of insmod. Insmod JUST tries to load a module,
failing
> as you describe if there are unresolved symbols. Modprobe loads every
module
> that is required to make sure all symbols are present, and only
complains if
> a module is completely missing.
>
> -- Michael "Soruk" McConnell
> Eridani Star System -- The Most Up-to-Date Red Hat Linux CDROMs
Available
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.amush.cx/linux/ Fax:
+44-8701-600807
> Eridani: Your PC doesn't need Windows or Gates.
>
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jeff Greer)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: passwd sucks, how do I get around it?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 02:25:32 GMT
Thanks,
I can change passwords to what I want now, but startx does not
work for other users. X starts up fine with root, but it dies on
other users.
I copied .xinitrc into the other users dirs and changed the
permissions on .xinitrc to their user and group, but it still
does not work.
--
Jeff Greer
B.S. computer science, University of MO - Rolla
==================================================
Windows NT has crashed,
I am the Blue Screen of Death,
No one hears your screams...
If you don't have anything mean to say about
Microsoft, don't say anything at all.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Journalling FS
From: Errin Watusikac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 20 Aug 1999 19:14:30 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Is any journalling file system with quota
> to prevent tooo long fscking a big FS (RAID)
> when SW & HW crashes are occured?
If I grok your pidgin correctly, no; fsck doesn't take tooo long.
How would you know anyway? What makes you think it takes tooo long?
If it is does, please file a bug report.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Carl Fink)
Subject: Can't nice find: monolithic kernel effect?
Date: 21 Aug 1999 01:36:09 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is a fairly technical question.
My Debian Linux box, like most *nix boxes, has a cron job that
updates the locate database. One thing this does is run a find over
my entire filesystem. In principle this runs at a wee hour, but
since my system is turned off at that time, anacron runs it five
minutes after I power up, when I'm trying to use my computer. As
most people reading this would know, this slows things down to the
point of making many tasks impractical, on a fairly fast (300 MHz M2)
system.
The obvious thing to do was to edit the script and nice the find, so
I did. I niced it to +19, the lowest priority there is. It was
(subjectively) *exactly* as paralyzing as before, which seemed odd to
me.
Here's my guess about why: although find itself is a user program,
most of what it does is probably kernel calls, so most of the time
find is running, what's really running is kernel code. The kernel
can't be given a lower priority, so the system experiences a very
heavy load because lots of very high-priority code is running until
find finishes.
This would also explain why copying a large file from one filesystem
to another is more of a drag on my system than running many other
programs simulaneously.
Is this correct, or even plausible? Would this be one of the
advantages claimed for microkernel based OSes (e.g. Hurd), the fact
that the filesystem code isn't part of the kernel and can therefore
have its priority adjusted?
Thanks for any answers.
--
Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Manager, Dueling Modems Computer Forum
<http://dm.net>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Carl Fink)
Subject: Re: GIF manipulation under linux
Date: 21 Aug 1999 01:37:17 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:33:05 -0700 vasant kanchan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hi,
>
> Can some one recomend a good app to create and
> manipulate GIF files under Linux or Win95 ?.
Yes.
You might check freshmeat.net for lots of programs, but the GIMP is
perhaps the most famous application to do this that will run on
Linux.
--
Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy."
-Martin Luther on Copernicus' theory that the Earth orbits the sun
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