532 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
532 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
From: Digestifier <Linux-Activists-Request@news-digests.mit.edu>
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To: Linux-Activists@news-digests.mit.edu
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Reply-To: Linux-Activists@news-digests.mit.edu
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Date: Tue, 4 Feb 92 16:00:34 EST
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Subject: Linux-Activists Digest #37
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Linux-Activists Digest #37, Volume #1 Tue, 4 Feb 92 16:00:34 EST
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Contents:
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Re: Serial support (Charles Hedrick)
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lp patch 0.12 (jim wiegand)
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new mg (micrognu) (Charles Hedrick)
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Re: Assembler info (Drew Eckhardt)
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Anomalies with vixie-cron (kleinow@engin.umich.edu)
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cannot open lock file? (mounting a new drive) (Morgan Schweers)
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Re: more and icon ports available (Pietro Caselli)
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Re: TODO List (Is there such a beast?) (Robert Blum)
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tubes (Lawrence C. Foard)
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Re: Q: What is POSIX limit on filename length? (Tommy Thorn)
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hang again (Mika Matti Jalava)
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could you distribute the sources? (Mika Matti Jalava)
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Re: Serial support (Peter Galbavy)
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Re: Serial support (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
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Re: Help: bug in ld(?) and where I can find its source code (Derek Lieber)
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Deadline for 0.13 (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: hedrick@dumas.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
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Subject: Re: Serial support
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Date: 4 Feb 92 04:55:23 GMT
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I think the problem is that the interrupt level code calls the streams
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processing, and finishes with a character before sending EOI and
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dismissing the interrupt. What you want it to do is to put the
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character into a buffer and dismiss the interrupt. Then the actual
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processing would be done at a higher level that does not lock out the
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tty interrupts. Microport SV/AT used this strategy, and could handle
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9600 bps on a 286, though it was sort of marginal. Since the minimum
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system that can run Linux is a 386sx, that ought to be enough CPU to
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handle 9600 bps reliably if things are coded correctly.
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------------------------------
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From: jim wiegand <V5068U%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
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Subject: lp patch 0.12
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Reply-To: V5068U%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
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Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1992 06:33:34 GMT
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hi all;
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sorry to hear about the problems you are encountering.
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what i think is happening here is that there are port
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addresses that are weird. i used only the PC port
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numbers & since DOS is an OEM product, the ports can
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take on ANY unused port number(!).
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in order to make the patch work for everybody,
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I NEED YOUR HELP.
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Please provide the following info:
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1. Computer model
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2. Name of parallel/serial card if add-in
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3. Any messages that begin with "lp:"
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4. All printer port addresses
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what i can suggest immediately is to get a hold
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of something like Norton SI or Check-It! to find out
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exactly where your ports are at. Then you can patch the
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addresses into lp_table & get on with it.
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If it turns out there is a more pathological problem
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with the driver i can provide a debugging version.
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jim wiegand *** v5068u at vm.temple.edu *** v5068u at templevm.bitnet
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* Please send all bug reports directly to v5068u at vm.temple.edu
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*
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* "When you have elinimated the impossible, whatever remains, however
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* improbable, must be the truth." -The Sign of Four, Arthur Conan Doyle
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------------------------------
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From: hedrick@dumas.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
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Subject: new mg (micrognu)
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Date: 4 Feb 92 07:22:54 GMT
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I just put a new mg on athos.rutgers.edu:/pub/linux. mg is the
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binary, mg.tar.Z the source (include TeX source for the manual).
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Changes from last time:
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- ^Z suspends it
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- changed several fields from short to int
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The second change was necessary to fix problems caused when editing
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files with very long "lines", e.g. the linux binary Image file.
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If there were more than 32K characters between successive newlines,
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the line length field would become negative.
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Again, mg requires a patch to the kernel to implement nonblocking
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I/O. It's nonblock.tar.Z (unchanged from last time).
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I would recommend using mg as the editor in the distribution, rather
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than em. It's both smaller and better (in my view). It's certainly
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closer in style to Gnu Emacs. (I'm assuming that Gnu Emacs is large
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enough that we won't want it in the basic utilities distribution.)
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I've also put my .mg (startup file for mg) in /pub/linux. It defines
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the keypad arrow keys and other things, and it sets up automatic paren
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and brace matching.
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I'm assuming that the masters of the archives are tracking my
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postings, and putting stuff onto the archive machines. I don't
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want to keep it on athos forever.
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------------------------------
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From: drew@anchor.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt)
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Subject: Re: Assembler info
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Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1992 07:55:08 GMT
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In article <1992Feb4.013752.23676@athena.mit.edu> satishc@microsoft.com writes:
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>The assembler syntax used by GCC is markedly different from the Intel
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>assembler syntax. Where can I find a ps or nroff document that describes
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>the syntax used by GCC? Could someone give me a pointer?
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>
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>Thanks.
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>
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Find some one with TeX installed to change the GNU texinfo to postscript
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for you - most gnu software has TeX manuals, available from the usual
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places (ie prep.ai.mit.edu, etc.)
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------------------------------
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From: kleinow@engin.umich.edu
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Subject: Anomalies with vixie-cron
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Date: 2 Feb 92 19:51:46 GMT
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I'm having difficulties with the cron program that's on tsx-11.mit.edu,
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Paul Vixie's cron ported by Dave Rivers. It never executes any commands,
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but it does fork off a new process periodically, and after an hour, the
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results of the "ps" command show about 50 copies of /etc/crond running.
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The system is Linux-0.12 with floppy driver, lp driver, "ps" patches,
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and the crond and crontab programs are those on tsx-11. Can anyone diagnose
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this error? Anyone got this cron working correctly?
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Thanks,
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Leonard Kleinow
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kleinow@warhol.art.umich.edu
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------------------------------
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From: mrs@netcom.COM (Morgan Schweers)
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Subject: cannot open lock file? (mounting a new drive)
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Date: 4 Feb 92 09:18:24 GMT
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Greetings,
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I just did a 'mkfs -c /dev/hd3', and attempted a 'mount /dev/hd3 /u1'
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and it returned 'mount: unable to open lock file'. Any suggestions? (As
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I recall, this is the standard patched mount.)
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Any help would be mucho appreciato!
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-- Morgan Schweers
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--
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Hacker, Furry, SF reader, gamer, art collector, writer. 24 hours isn't enough.
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mrs@netcom.com | I'm a practicing furry! Some day I hope all the practice
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Freela @ Furry | will pay off, and I'll grow fur! -- me
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K_Balore @ Furry |___________________ CLEAN C:\USR\SPOOL\*.* [SigVir] /SUB
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Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Add me to your .signature and join in the fun!
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------------------------------
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From: pietro@deis35.cineca.it (Pietro Caselli)
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Subject: Re: more and icon ports available
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Date: 4 Feb 92 11:26:53 GMT
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In <Feb.3.23.15.23.1992.9519@dumas.rutgers.edu> hedrick@dumas.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:
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> doesn't seem to be in libc. I had to hack on regex
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> slightly, since it uses bcmp and bzero, which also aren't
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> in the library, and alloca. I tried using alloca from
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> the Gnu Emacs source, but it ran me out of memory. It
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> turns out to be easier (and I think results in better
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> code) to remove the use of alloca.
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Why did you removed alloca ?
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alloca is builtin with gcc, so ... are you using a different
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compiler ?
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Perhaps we could
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> add this regex to libc, and probably also add bcmp, bzero,
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> and bcopy, or the System V memxxx versions. Don't
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> take them from regex, by the way -- this version of bcmp
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> probably doesn't do quite what you want the library
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> routine to do.
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I didn't studied regex source wery well, but It seems that regex
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changes from sources to sources. ( well at least it changes in
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size. ).
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Regarding bcopy, bzero and bcmp you can add some defines in
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include/sys/types.h.
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Ciao.
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--
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Pietro Caselli |
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Internet: pietro@deis35.cineca.it | IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA
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zaphod@petruz.sublink.org | ON THE ROAD,KILL HIM.
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------------------------------
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From: blum@rama.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Robert Blum)
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Subject: Re: TODO List (Is there such a beast?)
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Date: 4 Feb 92 10:04:08 GMT
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mrs@netcom.COM (Morgan Schweers) writes:
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>Greetings,
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> I've been told that some of what I'm hacking on is being worked on
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>by others. (Not that I'm going to stop because of that. I'm having
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>too much fun!) The one message that surprised me, was a reference to
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>a TODO list.
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I am(was?) maintaining the TODO list
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> I'd very much like to see this 'TODO' list, since the last one I
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>have suggested that VFS might be implemented in time for 0.11. (Got
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>an idea of how far back that was?)
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This was the time I stopped. I several times asked people to announce to me
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what they were going to port, but there was *NO* feedback.
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But let's give it another try: If anybody is working on any Linux
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enhancements, please mail to
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blum@messua.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
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The reason for this request for mail is simple:
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I have some exams coming, and almost no time to read every single mail/posting
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> I've picked up a bunch of login, etc., programs and will be
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>figuring out what I'm missing tonight, and hopefully implementing it.
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--
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UNIX should not be able to be crashed from user space.
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Crashes belong in the kernel! (paul@actrix.gen.nz)
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------------------------------
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From: entropy@ee.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard)
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Subject: tubes
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Reply-To: entropy@ee.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard)
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Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1992 12:36:01 GMT
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I decided to call the IPC stuff tubes, its similar to sockets but much
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simpler. A few questions about preferences:
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The standard linux pipes always return with the read buffer full except
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when the pipe has been closed on the writting end. This works well for
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one way pipes but doesn't work for server/client communications where
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you have requests and responces going back and forth. Here are a few things
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I'm wondering about.
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Read has several possibilities:
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1) Return only data in the buffer unless there is none then block (unless
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O_NONDELAY is on).
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2) Try to read as much as one write call produced even if it doesn't fit
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in the buffer. This is rather messy since it has to keep track of where
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write calls ended.
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3)Have it default to #1 and have an IOCTL to switch it back to totally
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fullfilling each read request when possible.
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I'm leaning toward 3 at this point, since this will work with the line
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based I/O that most demons expect. Demons expecting fixed sized data can
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switch it to the other mode. Does any one know of programs that would
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have problems with this?
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Write also has several possibilities:
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1) Write all data requested unless the pipe breaks, if O_NONDELAY then
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it will just write what will fit in the buffer.
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2) Always write only what will fit in the buffer unless it is 0 then block.
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I'm leaning toward 1 at this point, can any one see any reason why #2 would be
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better?
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(am I write in assuming O_NONDELAY is the same as FNDELAY?)
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I've got a system call tube(fd[2],type) working which creates a bidirectional
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connection and returns the descriptors for each end. type can be the following
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TU_STREAM- bidirectional stream
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TU_RANDOM- random access requests passed on the server (lseek works)
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TU_FS- file system requests passed on to server
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TU_FIFO- a plain old fifo (same as pipe(fd[2]))
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[possibly another type designed for datagrams]
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Currently only TU_STREAM is implemented. The next stage is making this work
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when a tube special file is opened. Does any one know where I can get the
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source to ls, mknod etc, I didn't see these utilities in the tsx-11 archives
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and I will need to patch them.
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------------------------------
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From: tthorn@daimi.aau.dk (Tommy Thorn)
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Subject: Re: Q: What is POSIX limit on filename length?
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Date: 4 Feb 92 08:34:17 GMT
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I don't think 14 is a POSIX standard, but anyway the limit
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will be 255 once we get Berkeley Fast File System (FFS (ufs)).
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VFS is not much (nothing?) in itself, but a stub for other
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file systems, like nfs.
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/Tommy
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--
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Tommy Thorn email: tthorn@daimi.aau.dk
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Computer Science Department "People shouldn't work because they love it,
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Aarhus University they should work because it hurts."
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DENMARK -- Bob Sparacino, former Xerox executive
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------------------------------
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From: r36110m@kaira.hut.fi (Mika Matti Jalava)
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Subject: hang again
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Date: 4 Feb 92 09:41:23 GMT
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I got my system hang again. As I reported once, linking GNU emacs
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caused sometimes the system hang so that in the other virtual consoles
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I could only execute one command (sync...) before they hung too.
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Now I saw the same symptoms while mv'ing a couple of big files to
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another partition. I had kermit running in one vc, the mv was going in
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one, and I executed ls in the third when it hung. I could sync the fs
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from the remaining vc's, but after the first sync each of them died.
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The result was only a lot of blocks marked used but not really being
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used on the target partition, and fsck fixed it. But anyway, this
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doesn't seem to be as reliable as it should be.
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My system is a 386-25 with 4M RAM and 8M swap, 115M ESDI drive (the
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one that works OK, at least otherwise...) with 4 linux partitions
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(32M, 32M, 32M and 8M swap).
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Mika
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------------------------------
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From: r36110m@kaira.hut.fi (Mika Matti Jalava)
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Subject: could you distribute the sources?
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Date: 3 Feb 92 21:45:40 GMT
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I think it would be nice if also the sources of the programs ported to
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linux were available at the ftp sites. Or in the case of GNU emacs and
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such enormous packages, at least the diffs. Actually, I think in the
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case of GNU programs this is even required.
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This would be nice in case you want to change the configuration of a
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program, or just for learning what changes have been needed to port
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something to linux.
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Mika
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------------------------------
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From: peter@micromuse.co.uk (Peter Galbavy)
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Subject: Re: Serial support
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Date: 4 Feb 92 11:17:06 GMT
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ramesh@utdallas.edu (R. Ramesh) writes:
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>This is not trying to solve your problem but... I am running kermit at 19200
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>and not having any problem at all. In fact at times when a file is being
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>transferred I loaded the system using one of the other virtual consoles. But
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>I am a 486/33Mhz user. So the hardware may be more capable.
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>BTW, I even tried running at 38400 (by cheating kermit by doing "stty 38400
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>>/dev/tty65") and still it worked fine.
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Maybe a stupid question, but will FAS port to Linux ?
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>Ramesh
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--
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Peter Galbavy
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Tech Support, Micromuse Ltd
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Phone: +44 71 352 7774 E-Mail: P.Galbavy@micromuse.co.uk
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"Sometimes I get a hunch, not an idea, not even a feeling, more like
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a rabbit punch to the base of the brain." - Lobster Man From Mars.
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------------------------------
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From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
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Subject: Re: Serial support
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Date: 4 Feb 92 13:40:47 GMT
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In article <Feb.3.23.55.22.1992.9885@dumas.rutgers.edu> hedrick@dumas.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:
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>I think the problem is that the interrupt level code calls the streams
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>processing, and finishes with a character before sending EOI and
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>dismissing the interrupt. [ deleted ]
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This is how 0.13 will do things: my current driver just sets a bit (this
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is part of the better timer-routines I wrote just for things like this),
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and the characters are then processed under the timer interrupt. This
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way, we still get instant echoing (well, it waits for the timer-intr,
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but that happens fairly often: 100 Hz), but we don't get the
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copy_to_cooked() function call several thousands of times a second with
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speeds > 19200.
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The current linux still has a limit of 2kB of buffer, so if the
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characters aren't read out of the buffer fast enough, you still lose
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characters due to buffer overrun. Also, linux doesn't support the 16550
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chip in buffered mode: I don't have the hardware.
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Linus
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------------------------------
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From: derek@watson.ibm.com (Derek Lieber)
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Subject: Re: Help: bug in ld(?) and where I can find its source code
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Date: 4 Feb 92 14:06:18 GMT
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Reply-To: derek@watson.ibm.com (Derek Lieber)
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In article <1992Feb3.225424.20176@athena.mit.edu> hlu@eecs.wsu.edu writes:
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>Hi,
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>
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>I am trying to compile GNU's binary utilities 1.9. Everything works
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>fine, except ld, which reports "virtual memory exhausted". The one I
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You've been bitten by linux's malloc(0) == NULL "feature".
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You'll have to change the xmalloc() function to do a check for
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a 0 byte request.
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--
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Derek Lieber
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derek@watson.ibm.com
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------------------------------
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From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
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Subject: Deadline for 0.13
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Date: 4 Feb 92 14:27:32 GMT
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Ok, once more a new release seems to be in order: as far as I know I
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should get the VFS patches in a week, so I'll probably be able to come
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out with linux version 0.13 late February or early March (I'd guess
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March).
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The new version will be the first one where most of the patches weren't
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written by me: nice going. As far as I can see, the new features of 0.13
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will be:
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- virtual consoles patches: these are already in place in my kernel, and
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I'm happy to report that the scrolling speed is impressive once more.
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The VC's should also work on other than EGA/VGA's although there might
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be small problems still (I've been unable to test it, but I haven't
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changed the patches very much).
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- VFS. I haven't seen this yet, so I cannot say anything about it. I
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expect longer filenames will be in 0.14 (April-May?).
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- Floppy patch. This one I haven't yet even stared on, and I'll probably
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work on it a bit, but I'll expect floppies are much faster in 0.13.
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- The swapon-patch to swap from the filesystem. I've applied this one,
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but I expect it will have to be changed for the VFS, and I'll have to
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work on it a bit (making the swap-pointer buffer dynamic etc).
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- minor (but pretty important) fixes like the incorrect error code from
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a read past the end of a device, non-blocking IO on pipes/ttys etc.
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+ some fixes by me: changes in the serial interrupts and removal of some
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races with the VM etc.
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Additionally, I guess one of the init/getty/login packages should be
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included this time: if you have a working init/login, please mail me
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(not the full thing, just mail me /about/ it). Size is somewhat an
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issue: I want to fit it on the floppy with all the other programs.
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I still haven't applied the lp-patch, and I'll try to do that one too:
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but I don't have a printer, so I'm not really motivated ...
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Additional patches will be received until a **** deadline of February
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15th ****: if you think you have a neat patch, but cannot get it ready
|
|
for that, you can try to mail me about it. We'll work something out (or
|
|
then you might have to wait for the next release). Note that even
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patches received before the deadline might not make it if I have some
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good (or not so good) reason for it.
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==========
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That said, over to other (but related) business: future releases. A
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|
couple of points:
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- linux starts to get ready to be called version 1.0. It's not perfect
|
|
(and never will be), but it's useable on many machines. I like being
|
|
able to call it beta (and it /does/ warn people that there are bugs),
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|
but I guess it isn't really so much beta after two more releases. I
|
|
don't think it has to be able to run X etc before we can call it 1.0: my
|
|
original goal was to run gcc (one of my personal tests of a system), and
|
|
that I did under 0.01.
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|
- I'd also suggest we move away from me as the upkeeper of linux: my
|
|
resources start to get thin. Maybe not right now, possibly not for the
|
|
next release, but perhaps by summer? When SCSI (and even things like
|
|
printer support) means I cannot test the patches out, things won't work
|
|
very well any more. I'd like to hear some discussion on this (moving
|
|
1.0 to be under rcs, and some "linux-kernel" mailing list for patches
|
|
and discussions on the "canonical" system etc)
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|
- I hope people calm down in the feature-hunting: linux still needs some
|
|
things (sockets/named pipes, a better fs), but I'd like to keep linux
|
|
small ("keep" doesn't mean I will fight anyone if he wants to make a
|
|
"super-linux", it just means I think /I/ cannot support it). If linux
|
|
grows much more, ast's comments will actually mean something: I admit
|
|
that keeping up a big kernel without any underlying design philosophy
|
|
(other than "get it working") probably won't be worth the result.
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Linus
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------------------------------
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** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
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The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
|
|
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
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|
|
Internet: Linux-Activists-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU
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|
|
You can send mail to the entire list (and alt.os.linux) via:
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|
|
|
Internet: Linux-Activsts@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU
|
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|
|
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
|
|
nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux
|
|
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
|
|
tupac-amaru.informatik.rwth-aachen.de pub/msdos/replace
|
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|
The current version of Linux is 0.12, released on Jan 14, 1992
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End of Linux-Activsts Digest
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******************************
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