Linux-Misc Digest #308, Volume #25 Tue, 1 Aug 00 19:13:02 EDT
Contents:
kernel build (Tim)
Re: PostScript problem (Grant Taylor)
Re: i386 i586 i686 I'm confused??? (Alex Chudnovsky)
Re: Only root can run StarOffice 5.2 (Alex Chudnovsky)
Re: File extensions (Alex Chudnovsky)
Re: I feel bad for RH/Mandrake users. ("Andrew N. McGuire ")
syslog, local7 & /var/log/boot.log ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
RPM crashes my Linux (Elliot Williams)
Re: MP3's skip : How I solved it (Gordon Gilbert)
Re: Download rate diminishes (Gordon Gilbert)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 17:26:12 -0400
From: Tim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: kernel build
Hello,
I'm trying to build a kernel with a modified ethernet device driver.
The problem that I'm having is that I cant seem to get all the symbols
loaded correctly. I've modified ksyms.c to export what I want, rebuilt
the kernel, did a make modules make modules-install, moved my new image
to old image location and reran lilo, then rebooted, but whenever I
insmod the driver I get an 'unresolved symbol' error.
Any generic ideas?
Tim
------------------------------
From: Grant Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: PostScript problem
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 21:44:14 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I have an old Apple LaserWriter Plus hooked up to my Linux box
> running RedHat 5.2. This is a PostScript printer. Files which I
> produce using dvips print fine, but those produced using a2ps don't
> print for some reason. I see the light on the printer flashing so I
> know that the printer is receiving the file, but when the light
> stops flashing, nothing happens. It isn't the size of the file
> that's the problem -- this happens even for very small files.
Your printer may (in fact probably) only understand Level 1
PostScript. Most modern software tends to assume you can take Level 2
Postscript.
Use the ps2ps script included with Ghostscript to "distill" your
Postscript down to Level 1 before sending it to the printer.
--
Grant Taylor - gtaylor@picante<dot>com - http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/
Linux Printing HOWTO and Website: http://www.linuxprinting.org/
I offer consulting in most things Unix/Linux/*BSD/Perl/C/C++
------------------------------
From: Alex Chudnovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: i386 i586 i686 I'm confused???
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 23:25:48 +0300
Packetgeek wrote:
> I want to update my Apache server. I went to their site and see that
> they have i586 and i686 binaries available. Many of the programs I've
> DL'd before were i386. I'm running RH6.1 on a 233 MHz pentium MMX. Does
> this mean I can use i386 and i586 but not i686??? Any help would be
> appreciated. Thanks
You're completely right. i686 is the architecture of Pentium Pro / Pentium
II / Pentium III. You are better using i586.
--
Regards,
Alex Chudnovsky
e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ : 35559910
------------------------------
From: Alex Chudnovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Only root can run StarOffice 5.2
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 23:36:18 +0300
Nick Evans wrote:
> I am having the same problem. I think that the problem is knowing how to
> perform the network installation from the .bin files that you can download
> from the sun site. I have read about the -net and /Net options but they
> make no difference if they are used as parameters to the .bin execution.
I
> also do not see the screens that the installation guide describes when
> attempting a user install following the standard installation. If anyone
> has an answer to this question then it would be greatfuly
> appreciated........
>
>
> Nick Evans
Worked for me :
<don't_remember_what>.bin -net
Installed the networked installation in /usr/local/office52
Then as user :
/usr/local/office52/program/setup
Enter all the details, installation completed, up & running.
--
Regards,
Alex Chudnovsky
e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ : 35559910
------------------------------
From: Alex Chudnovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: File extensions
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 23:43:47 +0300
Grischa Stegemann wrote:
> hi
>
> astorwilliam wrote:
> > show FILE EXTENSIONS to all files when I use it ? [...]
> > files of different formats and I need to know what
> > is what when I go to the file manager in KDE.
>
> The KDE file manager (kfm, at least up to KDE 1.1.2) has no such
> "feature" to hide parts of the filename which you call "extensions".
> If kfm doesn't show something like ".txt" after a file containing your
> text the simple reason is that you have not specified ".txt" while
> creating/saving this file.
>
> Of course there is an option to hide all so called dot-files (files
> which names have a leading dot) but that's not what you were speaking
> about...
>
> Anyway, since you're using KDE I suggest you to voluntary name your
> files using a appropriate extension.
> And last but not least there is no rule saying that there are only
> three letters allowed after a dot in a filename.
There is also no rule saying that only a single dot is allowed in the
filename. Filename can get multiple "extensions", this way. Anyway, there
is one BIG, I'd like to say HUGE difference between DOS way of naming files
(Win95/98 native filenames are slightly different) and UNIX/Linux way of
naming files :
- In DOS, the dot IS NOT a part of the filename - the filename is stored as
8+3 without the dot.
- In UNIX, the dot IS A PART of the filename - the dot doesn't differ from
any other symbol allowed to use in filenames.
>
> --
> Grischa
--
Regards,
Alex Chudnovsky
e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ : 35559910
------------------------------
From: "Andrew N. McGuire " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I feel bad for RH/Mandrake users.
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 16:59:33 -0500
On Mon, 31 Jul 2000, D. C. & M. V. Sessions quoth:
$$ "Andrew N. McGuire" wrote:
$$ >
$$ > On Sun, 30 Jul 2000, William R. Mattil quoth:
$$
$$ > $$ FYI Three different unicies AIX, Slowaris, and RH all agree.
$$ > $$
$$ > $$ file /etc/passwd
$$ > $$ /etc/passwd: ASCII text
$$ >
$$ > I am sure they do. I did not make any claims about this affecting RH
$$ > as well.
$$
$$ Now I'm confused. If you're not making claims about RH, why did
$$ you post the lead article in this thread with
$$
$$ Subject: I feel bad for RH/Mandrake users.
I generally refer to Mandrake as RH/Mandrake just to clarify much
of the lineage of Mandrake. Much like many say Linux, and some
say GNU/Linux to clarify the lineage of most of the tools for the
OS. If this is a bit confusing, I apologize. Perhaps I should just
say Mandrake.
anm
--
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Andrew N. McGuire |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| perl -le'print map?"(.*)"?&&($_=$1)&&s](\w+)]\u$1]g&&$_=>`perldoc -qj`' |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: syslog, local7 & /var/log/boot.log
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 21:57:18 GMT
I am trying to configure syslog to store PIX router messages on Redhat
6.2. PIX routers can only log to the local7 facility..this is
apparantly unconfigurable. By default, the local7 facility is used for
logging boot messages to /var/log/boot.log. I have gone through the man
pages, source code, etc.. for syslog/klogd and can't find what is
actually logging to local7. Does anyone know how to change boot logging
to another local facility to free up local7?
Thanks in advance!
Kerri
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Elliot Williams)
Subject: RPM crashes my Linux
Date: 1 Aug 2000 22:21:38 GMT
This is very weird. RPM reliably and exclusively hangs up
my computer. Hard to believe, but true! Here's what I've done. Does
anyone know where else I should look?
I first noticed the graphical packages (kpackage and gnorpm) crashing, but
not the console-mode rpm program. However, recently I have gotten the
command-line rpm to hang the computer too by giving it multiple files to
install at once. It does this when called with roughly >6 packages to
install, but not with one or two.
I thought it could be the scsi cdrom drive I was using, (even though I can
read and burn CD's just fine in all other applications...) so I copied the
contents of an install CD to my harddrive and tried installing those files.
Again, the same thing. A few files install fine. Many files crash.
By crash, I mean a full lockup. No response from mouse or keyboard. No
switching virtual terminals, no ctrl-alt-delete.
I've tried compiling a few versions of rpm 3.x and they all have the same
problem.
Since this (seems) to be unique to me, I would add a bit about my system
and hardware, although I have no other problems with crashing but rpm.
Abit BP6 motherboard with two Celeron 550's. Not overclocked or pushed in
any way.
Two adaptec scsi cards running cdroms and a zip drive. Reliable read/write
from other programs. Plus I get the same problems off of the hard drive.
Western Digital hard drive on IDE. Nothing special there.
256M micron 100mhz memory, checks out fine through stress tests in both linux
and windoze.
The linux is Abit's Gentus 6.1, which is a modified redhat 6.1. It is kernel
2.2.13. SMP. But I get the same problems with a 2.2.16 smp kernel I compiled
myself as well as with the abit uniprocessor and 2.2.16 kernels.
I'm running this by Usenet to see if anyone's familiar, but I'm sending a
bug report to redhat pretty soon. What else should I try?
====================================
Elliot Williams ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Economics Department, UCSD
San Diego, CA
------------------------------
From: Gordon Gilbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.mandrake
Subject: Re: MP3's skip : How I solved it
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 18:37:49 -0400
Stewart Honsberger wrote:
> Most drives work well with these features,
> but a few drive/controller combinations are not 100% com-
> patible. Filesystem corruption may result. Backup every-
> thing before experimenting!
I guarantee it has nothing to do with the drive and controller (i.e.
Ultra 33 and Ultra 66 work fine in Windows). It has everything to do
with Linux being an average of 2-3 years behind Windows in terms of
hardware support. It simply doesn't support DMA or UDMA transfers
using a Promise Ultra 66 controller (apparently). It's only too bad
that you have to tinker with it to find that out explicitly.
Mandrake 7.1 added support for the Promise Ultra 66 controller, but
I guess it was only PIO support, which defeats the entire purpose of
having an Ultra66 controller. Of course that'll change, eventually.
But for now, I'm stuck with 3MB/sec when I Should be getting more
like 20. Heck, my new Maxtor drive (that Win98 is using) is rated
at 43MB/sec! How fast does Linux access it? You guessed it.
3MB/sec!
> As you can see, they told you explicitly that there is no guarantee,
> and that you should backup your data before fiddling. What you were
What does this have to do with getting my KDM login working again?
I see a lot of "you should have backed up" responses, but nothing
helpful in fixing my problem. Yes, you can rub that salt in all you
want, but it accomplishes nothing for the problem at hand.
> toying with, what seemed like a "good idea" was something that modified
> how any and all data (right down to the binary level) was written to/
> read from your hard drive(s). It's something that can be taken as a life
> lesson, as it should be. You should know why DMA wasn't enabled in the
Yes, and the lesson learned is that Linux sucks when it comes to
modern HD support. You either put up with the lousy 3MB/sec
transfers or you try to improve them by changing a parameter in
hdparm. There is no other choice.
> first place, know any caveats of your hardware, and know the consequences
> before you go playing with something you obviously don't understand.
What don't I understand Master Yoda? I don't need to understand the
source code of hdparm to *use* it. I read the man page. It wasn't
all that helpful (like most man pages). I took the risk. I hate
slow hard drive performance. Linux screwed my hard drive over a
bit. End of story. I still have slow hard drive performance and
always will until I decide to buy a machine that is completely Linux
friendly (i.e. 3 year old hardware) or until Linux catches up (at
which time I'll probably have even newer hardware).
> For the record, BTW, Linux systems aren't the only ones that can fail
> to activate DMA on 'capable' equipment and bomb miserably when it's forced.
The difference is that Windows enables it when it's supported. This
is because the manufacturer includes drivers for Windows. Linux
doesn't enable it half the time when it IS supported. So, you can't
trust it. You end up trying hdparm anyways. The man pages for
hdparm are hopelessly outdated (there's no *current* list of
supported hard drive controllers in the man pages). Oddly enough, I
can get 6MB/sec using hdparm with the -c3 option. Well, at least
that's an improvement. But if I don't mess with "things I clearly
don't understand" I'll never get 6MB/sec. I'll get 3.
The funny thing is that Promise did write a driver for Linux. I
guess it didn't include DMA support either.
> I've done it to my share of Windoze systems in past, and they sure didn't
> like the results to the point where a format was in order.
Oh, well you clearly didn't understand what you were doing, then, I
guess. :P
> >Not everyone has a backup solution for their hard drives.
>
> Not neccesarily for your hard drives, but for your important data. If this
> becomes a situation where you have to re-install, take this as a lesson.
> Keep your user data and config files seperate. I've almost always had my
> /home partition kept seperate from /, so that I could re-install without
> losing it and so that I could more easily back up all my user data. I have
> a script running on a cron job every Sunday night around 5 AM that backs
> my /home partition into a gzip2'ed tarball which I move to a ZIP drive.
I already said I had previously backed up all my downloads and my
home directory. There are configuration files scattered about the
system though (i.e. to get Glide to work, to get other apps global
configs to work, to set up global configs for window managers, etc.
etc.)
> >I have a CD-RW drive,
>
> Then you have 6.5 times more backup storage space than I have. You can
> make backups of static data to CDR's, and backups of other data to CDRW's.
I wouldn't put static data on CDRs for the reason that most linux
software isn't really static. Some software gets updated as often
as once a day. That would waste CDrs. And before I can put backups
on my CDRW drive, I have to get my CDRW drive working properly under
Linux. I guess I'll have to play with CDRecord because the
frontends for it suck. But that's the problem with Linux. You end
up doing most things in the shell because there are no better/easier
tools to do it with. Sure people can tout how POWERFUL the shell
is. That may be true, but most of the time that's just offered to
cover up the fact that most Linux software isn't user friendly.
Where I can just copy files over to the CD-RW drive using explorer
in Win98, I have to use CDRecord from the command line in Linux. I
like having the CHOICE of using the shell. But I shouldn't *have*
to use it to get something done. Linux has a way to go in this
area. Even if I liked doing it that way, I guarantee most of the
general public won't. And if you ever want mainstream software
support for Linux, driver support, etc., then Linux has to be
acceptable to the mainstream, like it or not.
> Or, you could use an automated script to put everything into a tarball
> in the middle of the night and back it up once a week.
I don't leave my system running 24/7. Cron isn't much use when you
aren't running Linux at regular intervals. I don't use that sort of
thing in Windows either. Sorry, but I have no need to leave my
computer running, especially when the Linux bootup is faster than
Windows. If Linux is ever to be a successful home operating system,
programs need to realize it's isn't always going to be running,
especially on dual or triple boot systems. I boot into Windows a
lot. Automated scripts are also one of those user unfriendly
processes.
> It took me all of 20 lines, comments included, to have my /home directory
> backed up and a reminder mailed to me each week. Every time you find
> something else you need/want backed up, add a line or two.
A graphical frontend could make this much simpler.
> The Bash scripting language is extremely powerful. Learn it. Love it.
Ah, now we get to the punch. Linux will never become mainstream
with this kind of attitude. Sorry; it just won't. I shouldn't have
to learn a scripting language to backup a few files. This is not to
say *I* won't, but rather to say that the mainstream public
definitely will NOT. When Linux learns this lesson once and for
all, it might become mainstream.
> >Telling me "I got what I deserved" is not constructive and is little more
> >than a "ha ha" spit in the face response, IMO.
>
> Then you're not looking at it in the right light. What you're looking for
> appears to be a response of "You took fate into your hands, screwed up,
> but if you type xxx, everything will be back to normal". Sorry, but you're
> not going to get that. Instead, you got a lesson telling you not to play
Is that because you don't have a clue how to fix it? Just say so.
Stop telling me what I should have done. I can't timetravel back and
tell myself, "Hey that's going to corrupt KDM. Don't do it!"
That'd be nice, but the only way to find out whether or not the DMA
flag would work in Linux was to try it or find someone else that has
the same drive and controller and kernel and report to me whether it
worked or not.
> with things you don't understand.
No, *YOU* are the one telling me that. I understand hdparm just
fine. Use at your own risk. What else is there to understand Mr.
Wizard? Truly, what I don't understand is what you're getting at.
You're giving me a huge lecture about how ignorant I am, but that
really only amounts to, "You should have backed up first." You're
forgetting one thing. *I didn't lose any data!* I should have
backed up my configuration files? I didn't lose them! I already
did back up my downloads. The *ONLY* thing that's wrong is that KDM
doesn't work. Now either you know how to fix that or you don't.
Geeze. It's like talking to a brick wall.
> Stop thinking of Linux as a toy might be a good start.
Give me a break. I said I was using Linux as a learning tool to
learn Linux. Is that making it a TOY? (shrug) I'm done wasting my
time here.
------------------------------
From: Gordon Gilbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Download rate diminishes
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 18:42:05 -0400
"L.M. Dizon" wrote:
>
> Gordon Gilbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "L.M. Dizon" wrote:
> > >
> > > Any idea why when I download a file or surf the internet, the download
> rate
> > > just goes keeps on diminishing until the modem "stalls"? I use an
> Optiflex
> > > Speedcom 2000 56k modem and I get the following information when I use
> the
> > > command setserial:
> > >
> >
> > I had a similar problem in Linux until I changed my PPP device
> > setting to point to /dev/ttyS0 instead of /dev/modem. Don't ask me
> > why that would matter since /dev/modem is pointing to /dev/ttyS0
> > unless it was just coincidence.... Something to try though if you
> > have it pointing to /dev/modem.
>
> The modem still stalls regularly when I point the PPP device to /dev/ttySO
> instead of /dev/modem.
Try setting your serial port to 57600 instead of 115200 and see if
that makes any difference. Even when it was stalling here, it
wouldn't stall when I had it set to 57600. I realize that doesn't
really solve your problem and you would lose some compressed text
speed at that rate, but I'm curious if the stalling stops at that
setting.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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