From: Digestifier To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Fri, 7 Oct 94 20:13:10 EDT Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #898 Linux-Misc Digest #898, Volume #2 Fri, 7 Oct 94 20:13:10 EDT Contents: Re: Yggdrasil Linux Plug and Play CD ver1.1 ? (Paul Bash) Re: Mosaic for Linux? (Jochen Diehl) Re: P5-90 MHz beats SGI R4000-100MHz. (Eric Kimminau) Re: [Q]Linux on PPC a hoax? (Christopher D Dukes) Re: X News-reader for LinuX (Robert S. Cauthorn) Unix driver for OPL4 soundboard(SoundMan Wave). (Ken'ichi Uenami/=?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRAPmVPMhsoSiAbJEA4LDBsGyhK?=) dumb terminal just prints ansi codes, doesn't use them. (zachary brown) Re: X News-reader for LinuX (Michael Zill) VL-SCSI Card supported by linux?? (Jens Krauss (Steinfath)) Re: Notebooks: _Backups?_ (Christian Kumpf smurf) Re: Flame on the attitude of Linux towards GCC development (H. Peter Anvin) Pen for Linux? (harmon seaver) Re: Curious: Why is Linux DOOM so much slower than DOS doom (Bigfoot) Text Editor for (La)TeX (was Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?) (davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu) Word (Text) Processors for Linux? (Ted Harding) Help with Mosaic (Goran Devic) Re: New Linux Distribution (Cornelius Krasel) Vines under dosemu (glue baby) Dialup problem (Stinger) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: pbash@netcom.com (Paul Bash) Subject: Re: Yggdrasil Linux Plug and Play CD ver1.1 ? Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:10:44 GMT In article , Jeff Kesselman wrote: > >>My comments were constructive and to the point. Hopefully Yggdrasil will >>read these and others here and take more care the next time. In the meantime >>the Slackware distributions I've used have always worked perfectly and give >>much finer control over the install process. Jan asked if there was a better >>CD out there and I told him. >> > >Umm, I hate to diagree with you, but you didn't start out by saying 'In >response to your asking if there are other CD-ROMS available...' >Rather if you look above, you will see that your opening reads: > "Having worked with both, the obvious solution to the yygdrasil problem > is..." >I think it is QUITE reasonable to read that as a response to the question > "Is there a solution to the above problem?" >Said problem having been deleted. Can you now perhapse see why the >deletion annoyed me? > To the rest of this group: ========================= Sorry this has descended into a flame war. I had a bad day too and having this snit publicly jump on my case, trying to put me down, solely because I expressed a negative opinion about his current favorite toy, was more than I chose to take. I got onto this topic because of major install problems I was having with Yggdrasil Fall 94 and hoped I was just missing something. Reading through the Linux newsgroups a common refrain emerged (and I paraphrase): "I'm having major problems with the Yggdrasil install. After attempting x [where x > 1] installs, I still don't have this thing figured out...". Yggdrasil's install process would be a thing of beauty, and a major reason to buy the product, IF IT WORKED. Unfortunately, it is inflexible and bug ridden. It tries to do too much automatically and holds no options for recovering when things don't work. Here are some examples: 1) At the beginning of the install process, you are prompted for the disk device to partition. I have two SCSI drives attached to an Adaptec 1542B controller. When I attempt to say /dev/sda it says FATAL ERROR: Bad logical partition Press any key to exit fdisk Funny, Slackware, OS/2 and DOS (all installed on the same disk) don't see any problems. I have no other option except skipping the disk partition phase of the install. 2) Once I've selected the partition I want to install into, the install process insists on formatting and verifying all 257MB of it. No matter if it is the 1st install or the 10th install, I'm still forced to wait the 10 minutes or so it takes to analyze the partition even though I know it doesn't need it. Aaaarrrggggh. 3) When installing optional products, you have almost _no_ flexibility in chosing what code will be installed. Sure, you can install major pieces seperately, but what if I don't want to do X development, nor load server versions for 20 or 30 different video cards when I only have one in my system? I'm given no option. I must load all 73MB on my system then manually delete those parts I don't need (assuming I even know what I can delete without hosing the entire X server). 4) When attempting to auto-detect my modem and mouse, the install process detected the mouse on the port where my modem is attached and detected no modem _at all_. Even though Linux has been happily using this modem and mouse for the last year. The result was that I'm thrown onto the X desktop with no mouse but fvwm waiting for me to click the mouse button to indicate where I want it to place the Control Panel window. I'm given absolutely no chance to override what the install process detected. I have to reboot the system, manually edit the Xconfig file, and start again. Good thing I know where to find the Xconfig file. Many newcomers wouldn't. Nice. Not exactly "Plug and Play", I'd say. With Slackware, none of these were problems. The install process isn't as flashy but, dammit, it doesn't need to be. Its an _install_ process for God's sake! If I'm lucky, I'll never have to see it again. I installed a working Slackware Linux distribution with GNU C, emacs, man pages and a VGA X server on my laptop with an 80MB disk (AND that was with a 5MB swap file and 11MB free disk space left over!). The only way that could ever be done is by providing the installation flexibility that Slackware does. With the current Yggdrasil state of affairs, this installation would be next to impossible to do. My experience with Yggdrasil is that Unix running from a CD-ROM is an interesting curiosity but when I want real work done I don't have time to figure out what hoops I have to jump through to get rid of that damn CD-ROM or cram those many megabytes of software into my few megabytes of disk space. Instead, I look for solid and dependable software and Slackware has always provided that to me, both in terms of the clean, flexible installation process and Patrick's choices of stable software versions to include in his releases. I wasted $35 on the Yggdrasil Fall 94 CD-ROM that I will never use. That won't keep me from buying Yggdrasil in the future, particularly when they get their install problems worked out, but it will make me more careful to check here before I plunk down my cash. (If you aren't interested in Jeff and I bitching at each other, please press "n" now) Back to Jeff's comments: ======================== Hmmm. You start out conciliatory, but... Sorry you were annoyed, Jeff, but I stand by the age-old net practice of deleting unnecessary or irrelevant content from posts one follows-up to. Doing so illustrates those items I care to respond to while making _my_ posts easier to wade through and saving bandwidth. That's one of the reasons News servers keep weeks of posts online... so you can fully review threads before you post to them. Use your newsreader's capabilities and stop expecting others to cater to _your_ whims. I answered _Jan's_ question with the solution I thought best and I, roughly, responded to each of his questions/comments in order. All the information you needed to place my post in context was available to you. All you had to do was a bit of homework before you started bitching. If I didn't do things the way you would have done them, and it bothered you, it's _your_ problem not mine. I think its safe to say we disagree about the relative worth of the Yggdrasil Fall 94 CD-ROM. Accept that. Try being constructive and telling the group what is so great about Fall 94 instead of sarcastically attacking me for relating my negative experience with the product. I don't think anyone else here cares to watch us battle this out in public. This has _nothing_ to do with Yggdrasil's Fall 94 CD-ROM release. We _could_ start another thread about "Acceptable posting practices according to Jeff", but that's a topic for another newsgroup, not comp.os.linux.misc. If you do find an alternate newsgroup, particularly one that gives a damn, make sure and let me know. I'll come over and join the thread. Better yet, just take it to email. Thanks. -- Paul Bash pbash@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: diehl@orville.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (Jochen Diehl) Subject: Re: Mosaic for Linux? Date: 6 Oct 1994 12:05:57 GMT Daniel MORRISON (draker@cs.mcgill.ca) wrote: : I've been trying to compile NCSA Mosaic under Linux 1.1.13 and having no luck. : I can't seem to configure it properly - can't find a bunch of files in an Xm : directory. Can anyone help? There seems to be a version of Mosaic that can be compiled either with Motif or with Athena. This is the Tuebingen-Version. But since I have Motif, I can't say for sure, I only saw the option 'Do you have Motif?' in the config file Jochen ------------------------------ From: ekimmina@eve180.cpd.ford.com (Eric Kimminau) Subject: Re: P5-90 MHz beats SGI R4000-100MHz. Date: 6 Oct 1994 22:08:57 GMT In article , lera@zeus.chem.wvu.edu (Valery Petrov) writes: |> Some benchmarks comparison: |> |> DELL XPS-90 SGI with R4000 cpu (100MHz): |> Integer: 19.2 sec. 23.3 sec. |> Floating point: 200 sec. 199 sec. |> |> I used gcc-2.5.8 with Linux-1.1.51 on DELL's Pentium and C 3.18 with Irix 5.2 on Silicon Graphics machine. Programs were written in plain C using double precision for floating point. Considering |> the price difference (similarly equipped SGI is ~3 times more expensive) I wonder who whould like to buy those Indigos nowdays. When you find anyone porting GL or Alias to Linux, you may have an argument. I dont care what graphic adapter you may have or what windowing system you may have on Linux, until it does GL and it can do the POWER animation and surfacung things that are possible in IRIX, Linux won't be replacing SGI's anytime in the near future. Dont take this wrong. I love Linux. Its the best thing Ive ever had on my madchine at home. But show me a modeling package capable of doing solids modeling, capable of using assumptions to perform surface analysis and render in 24 or 48bit color, something capable of importing IGES data and making it a solid, something capable of doing real-time 3D rotation and animation, something able to load a 600+MB model file and then rotate it under Linux or stop trying to compare them. Yes it may be there someday, b ut not today and not tomorrow and probably not in the next 6 months. -- Eric Kimminau ekimmina@eve180.cpd.ford.com Ford Motor Co. (313)845-55361 "I am not an official Ford spokesperson" ------------------------------ From: cddukes@n00059-118dan.unity.ncsu.edu (Christopher D Dukes) Subject: Re: [Q]Linux on PPC a hoax? Date: 6 Oct 1994 01:31:06 GMT Well the project was undertaken by a couple of college kids that also had college to deal with... And never gripe about a slipped released date unless you are paying by the hour... or you are doing the software yourself. . -- Chris 'The PakRat' Dukes. The telephone is a tool of the devil. cddukes@eos.ncsu.edu cdukes@nyx.cs.du.edu pakrat@vnet.ibm.com -- "...like dynamite fishing in a barrel..." cddukes@eos.ncsu.edu cdukes@nyx.cs.du.edu pakrat@vnet.ibm.com html://www2.ncsu.edu/eos/users/c/cddukes/mosaic/PakRat.html ------------------------------ From: cauthorn@indirect.com (Robert S. Cauthorn) Subject: Re: X News-reader for LinuX Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:30:42 UNDEFINED In article <36lmdk$4in@news.u.washington.edu> dave@nonematups.fr (dave delaune) writes: >From: dave@nonematups.fr (dave delaune) >Subject: Re: X News-reader for LinuX >Date: 2 Oct 1994 07:10:44 GMT >Keywords: news >In article <36hj41$kts@news.tamu.edu>, wrath@myhost.subdomain.domain (Wrath Child) writes: >|> I'm looking for an Xnews reader for LinuX. If anyone has >|> any info about something like this...I would be a very >|> happy camper. >|> >|> Thanx, >|> wrathchild >try sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/X11/xapps/networked/xrn-6.17.tar.gz >Dave DeLaune But are any of the X news readers threaded? I haven't found one yet, unless I'm using older versions of xvnews and xrn. Incidentally, is there a faq or something that lists the major X internet clients? I'd love to see it in case I'm missing something. Bob ------------------------------ Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.misc From: uenami@ok.cow.melco.co.jp (Ken'ichi Uenami/=?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRAPmVPMhsoSiAbJEA4LDBsGyhK?=) Subject: Unix driver for OPL4 soundboard(SoundMan Wave). Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 04:27:46 GMT Reply-To: uenami@ok.cow.melco.co.jp Hi!! I'm user of FreeBSD1.1.5.1. I built my kernel with FreeBSD sound driver(orignated from Linux), but it doesn't recognize my "Logitech SoundMan Wave". SoundMan Wave uses OPL4 chip(compatible with OPL2,3) and Logitech says it is 100% clone of SB and MPU401(uart mode). I guess that it needs the special initialization sequence for compatibility. Any suggestion? Thanks in advance. -- =============================================================== Open System, Open architecture.| 三菱電機 情報システム製作所 -- Open Strategy, Open mind!! | 上浪 謙一 ------------------------------ From: zbrown@lynx.dac.neu.edu (zachary brown) Subject: dumb terminal just prints ansi codes, doesn't use them. Date: 7 Oct 1994 17:13:09 -0400 Hi. I recently set up a dumb terminal, and I can log in just fine and run programs, but anything using ansi codes to control the screen, just prints the ansi code instead of updating the screen. So ls, clear, joe, and a whole bunch of others are broken. Is this familiar to anyone? -ZB- ------------------------------ From: mzill@saturn.RoBIN.de (Michael Zill) Subject: Re: X News-reader for LinuX Reply-To: mzill@saturn.RoBIN.de (Michael Zill) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 22:54:16 GMT I use xrn 6.18 it's very nice !!! All you need is nntp. Michael -- ******************************************************************* * Michael Zill * Phone : +49 6171 72175 * * Steinbach/ Germany * Email : mzill@saturn.RoBIN.de * ******************************************************************* ------------------------------ From: krauss@charlie.igd.fhg.de (Jens Krauss (Steinfath)) Subject: VL-SCSI Card supported by linux?? Date: 7 Oct 1994 09:55:29 GMT Reply-To: igd.fhg.de Is there a cheap VL-SCSI card supported by linux. If so how cheap, where can I get it?? Thanks in advance ciao Jens ------------------------------ From: kumpf@igd.fhg.de (Christian Kumpf smurf) Subject: Re: Notebooks: _Backups?_ Date: 04 Oct 1994 17:37:39 GMT In article <35qr7j$fr6@news1.digex.net> mustang@acy1.digex.net (Comfortably Numb) writes: Brian M Berry (berry@ee.cornell.edu) wrote: : I'm running Slack 2.0 on a ZDS notebook, and have completely moved in. : With each day that passes by, I get more nervous about losing information : (due to my own mischief, of course :-). So far, I've been backing up : irreplaceable items (home directories, etc) via multi-volume floppy tarfiles. : Does anyone know of a method, say, a via a parallel port backup device : of some kind, to make larger-scale backups? Even though this would : likely require non-existant software/kernel features, I am interested : enough in this to code myself. If you do find a way, please let me know. I have a Conner 250MQ tape backup that plugs into my parallel port. CN I'm doing backups with a parallel cable and a Iomega Drive in my stational linux-box as follows: 1) connecting both computers 2) set up TCP/IP-connection via plip 3) mount the disk of the notebook on the stationary via NFS and vice versa 4) use my favorite backup-scripts and backup to tape with ftape To use this method, you have to a) compile PLIP-support in the kernel b) by an INTERLINK-cable (available in nearly every computer or electronic store) c) choose two __different__ IP-numbers for both computers d) enter them in /etc/hosts and create a /etc/exports-file for NFS e) set up the connecting with # ifconfig plip1 THIS_SIDE pointopoint OTHER_SIDE # route add OTHER_SIDE plip1 f) mount the filesystem: # mount -t nfs OTHER_SIDE:/ /DIRECTORY_FOR_OTHER_SIDE Don't expect high bandwiths! I get ~30kByte/sec via FTP and only ~15kByte/sec via NFS, but it's quite comfortable and easy. Ciao, Christian >> Standard Disclaimer << -- |-------------+---------------------------------------------------------| | | |_|_|_|_| Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Graphische Datenverarbeitung | |__|__|_|_|_|_| Abteilung Imaging | | | |_|_|_|_| | |__|__|_|_|_|_| Christian Kumpf email: kumpf@igd.fhg.de | | _ __ | Wilhelminenstr. 7 Tel. : (+49)6151-155-226 | | / /_ /\| D-64283 Darmstadt | | _/ /_/ /_/| Deutschland | |-------------+---------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------ From: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin) Subject: Re: Flame on the attitude of Linux towards GCC development Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:29:38 GMT Followup to: By author: xjzhu@math.uwaterloo.ca (Xiaojun Zhu) In newsgroup: comp.os.linux.development > > I want to start a flame here. Please feel free to flame me as well. > > Ever since the gnu c 2.6.0 compiler coming out, there are always some people > out there telling people that gcc 2.6.1 is coming out R.S.N., because > they know(yeah, I know you, you are an expert ?!?!), gcc 2.x.0 always > have bugs!!!, whenever some people > ask "could we get the new version for my linux version, PLEASE", and > no matter how sweet the plea may sounds. Because they just want to > WAIT until more bugs are fixed. > #1: DON'T CROSSPOST BETWEEN COMP.OS.LINUX.* GROUPS! #2: If you are willing to deal with a buggy version, then go and compile it yourself. But if H.J. Lu makes a binary distribution for Linux, people will expect him to support it, which he for good reasons doesn't want to do. Check out the GCC channel on linux-activists to see what actually goes on. Now please go and get a clue. /hpa -- INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu --- Allah'u'abha --- IBM MAIL: I0050052 at IBMMAIL HAM RADIO: N9ITP or SM4TKN FIDONET: 1:115/511 or 1:115/512 STORMNET: 181:294/1 or 181:294/101 "We are receiving two hundred and eighty-five thousand hails." -- Lt. Crusher ------------------------------ From: hseaver@nyx.cs.du.edu (harmon seaver) Subject: Pen for Linux? Date: 4 Oct 1994 12:31:48 -0600 Is there any Pen stuff available for Linux? ------------------------------ From: bigfoot@pentagon.io.com (Bigfoot) Subject: Re: Curious: Why is Linux DOOM so much slower than DOS doom Date: 6 Oct 1994 14:02:52 -0500 Anybody can tell me the exact location/subdirectory/filenames of the latest versions of DOS doom and LINUX doom, do that I can ftp them ? Please email me. ------------------------------ From: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions Subject: Text Editor for (La)TeX (was Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?) Date: 6 Oct 1994 01:53:47 GMT Reply-To: davis@amy.tch.harvard.edu In article , fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu (David Fox) writes: : The main advantages are color highlighting of latex keywords : and syntax elements and automatic conversion of double quotes : to pairs of open or pairs of close quotes as appropriate. : Also cursor bouncing to indicate matching quotes, parentheses, : equation delimiters, etc. The latest version of Jed also offers syntax highlighting in (La)TeX mode as well as ``smart'' and delimiter blinking (even matching `$' pairs). Perhaps best of all, you do not need X to get this nor do you need 20 Megs of hard disk space. That is, Jed is small and offers color syntax highlighting on any color terminal. In fact, recently on comp.text.tex, Jed was chosen as best editor for LaTeX under MSDOS. The latest version of Jed is 0.97-5b and is available only from amy.tch.harvard.edu in pub/jed. -- _____________ #___/John E. Davis\_________________________________________________________ # # internet: davis@amy.tch.harvard.edu # bitnet: davis@ohstpy # office: 617-735-6746 # ------------------------------ From: Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Ted Harding) Subject: Word (Text) Processors for Linux? Date: 7 Oct 1994 19:38:16 -0400 Reply-To: Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Ted Harding) | BTW, I use vi as the editor for my LaTeX documents, so I'm probably brain | dead myself. | Not at all, not at all. Linux 'vi' (elvis in person), especially with the capabiility to block-mark text with the "v" and "V" commands, allows almost all normal word-processing functions (in the sense of manipulating the character stream in the file) to be done very quickly and very easily. An intelligent choice, say I (for this purpose). Of course you have to know a thing or two, but the fact that "dw" deletes the next word is less obscure than the WordPerfect "Ctrl-Del" and indeed more logical: "db" deletes the previous word by the same logic; what's the logical correlate in WordPerfect? (It's Home,BackSpace if you want to know). There is some confusion in this thread between word-processing (in the above sense), text style (in the sense of font, bolding, point-size etc), document formatting (headers, titles, layout), document formatting (footnotes, sections, chapters etc), specials (equations, graphics, tables), and creation of document components (TOC, index, bibliography, importing from databases/spreadsheeets, cross-references). Almost any approach will handle all these different things as, in effect, so many different modules. Approaches differ in the extent to which these modules are bundled into one package or spread over several, and in how well each module is implemented, and in whether the approach is document-mark-up or "intrinsic" (like DTP appears to be), though "intrinsic" is really hidden markup. The classic UNIX approach (vi, document-tools, troff, tbl, eqn, pic, refer ... ) splits it maximally (not always to good advantage); TeX tends to bundle it; WordPerfect bundles it extensively; DTP is monolithic. Then there is the WYSIWYG factor .... I'm inclined to agree with those who find the markup->formetter approach quickest and most productive, and that WYSIWIG can be distracting; that's my experience after trying a lot of alternatives. I'm a WUGIWYW man myself (What You Get Is What You Wanted), and find I can get it with troff most of the time. But that's just a function of age and experience ... Ted. (Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk) ------------------------------ From: goran@cs.utexas.edu (Goran Devic) Subject: Help with Mosaic Date: 4 Oct 1994 13:51:09 -0500 Hi, there! I just d/l Mosaic for Linux (1.0.9) and I am running it and it runs fine but it cannot connect to any site. Yes, I am running SLIP in the background and can use telnet, ftp etc. directly from the command line. Please someone tell me what type of configuraion change I have to do so that Mosaic will be able to connect to other sites. Thank you. Goran -- o"o +----oOO--=U=--OOo------+ | goran@cs.utexas.edu | +-----------------------+ Smash your forehead on any key to continue... ------------------------------ From: krasel@alf.biochem.mpg.de (Cornelius Krasel) Subject: Re: New Linux Distribution Date: 7 Oct 1994 11:46:48 GMT Aaron K. Michalove (amichalo@liberty.uc.wlu.edu) wrote: : What the DOS user REALLY needs for using LINUX.... : GOOD DOCUMENTATION that relates common DOS commands to UNIX commands. I saw a book titled "Unix for VMS users" and can't imagine that there isn't something related for DOS. Of course, you can always get a good introduction into Unix for users. The problem with Linux is that you have to perform some essential system administration, so you have to get a book for that as well. --Cornelius. -- /* Cornelius Krasel, Abt. Lohse, Genzentrum, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany */ /* email: krasel@alf.biochem.mpg.de fax: +49 89 8578 3795 */ /* "People are DNA's way of making more DNA." (Edward O. Wilson, 1975) */ ------------------------------ From: nikw@astro.ocis.temple.edu (glue baby) Subject: Vines under dosemu Date: 4 Oct 1994 18:35:22 GMT i spent quite a bit of time trying to get Vines running under OS/2 the other day... it would quietly hang when booting. I never could get it to work. After that experience, I was pleasantly surprised when it took me about 5 minutes to get it running under dosemu 5.2. Way to go on that built-in packet driver! -nik w ------------------------------ From: stinger@romeo.rlmk.no (Stinger) Subject: Dialup problem Date: 7 Oct 1994 23:06:36 +0100 Reply-To: stinger@romeo.rlmk.no I'm having a small problem getting dialup to work 100%. That is; it works most of the times, but every once in a while nothing happens after I get the connect message. This means that I have to hangup and call again to get the "login:" prompt. The modem is a Zyxel 1496 Plus and I've got a 16550. The software I'm using is Slackware 2.0 with the 1.1.45 kernel. I'm using the recommended line for dialups in inittab with the exception that I've added RTS/CTS flow control. Any suggestions? -- ->Stinger<- ------------------------------ ** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is: Internet: Linux-Misc-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.misc) via: Internet: Linux-Misc@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites: nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux End of Linux-Misc Digest ******************************