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Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.announce,news.answers,comp.answers
Distribution: world
Followup-To: poster
From: corsini@labri.greco-prog.fr
Reply-To: linux@numero6.greco-prog.fr
Organization: Greco Prog. CNRS & LaBRI, Bordeaux France
Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions 1/4 [monthly posted]
Summary: Linux, a small and free unix-like for 386-AT computers.
Archive-name: linux-faq/part1
Last-Modified: 93/03/28
Version: 1.17
*********************************************************
* *
* Answers to Frequently asked questions about Linux *
* *
*********************************************************
This post contains Part 1 of the Linux FAQ (4 parts)
Hi Linuxers!
The original FAQ 1st version was posted on Dec. 19, 1991 by Robert Blum.
Most credits to Linus, Robert and Ted for the departure point of this
work. The first X11 section was written by Peter Hawkins, the rest was
either on the list posted by many (real) activists, not me ;-), either
in some other news groups, or else by direct posting to me (thanks
Humberto, Dan, Michael, Drew, Audoin). I haven't systematically
copyrighted them, so thanks to every one who participated even
indirectly to this FAQ.
Since September 1992, the FAQ is co-written by:
WHO (WHAT) E-MAIL
=============================================================================
Matt Welsh (META-FAQ) mdw@tc.cornell.edu
Mark Komarinski (DOS) komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu
Matt Welsh (GENERAL INFO) mdw@tc.cornell.edu
Matt Welsh (INSTALLATION) mdw@tc.cornell.edu
Drew Eckhardt (SCSI) drew@headrest.woz.colorado.edu
Hongjiu Lu (GCC) hlu@eecs.wsu.edu
Krishna Balasubramanian (X11) balasub@cis.ohio-state.edu
Zane Healy (BBS INFO) healyzh@holonet.net
Philip Copeland (NET INFO) p_copela@csd.bristol-poly.ac.uk
Rick Miller (DEVICE INFO) rick@ee.uwm.edu
Peter MacDonald (SLS INFO) pmacdona@sanjuan.uvic.ca
Rick Sladkey (EMACS) jrs@world.std.com
Dirk Hohndel (PROOF READER) hohndel@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.dbp.de
Marc-Michel Corsini (FAQ collector) corsini@{labri,firmin}.greco-prog.fr
=============================================================================
If anyone is interested in participating with this FAQ, just send me a
note with: your name/e-mail and the section you want to maintain.
Many of the questions could be avoided, if people had read the FAQ of
the following newsgroups: news.announce.newusers, comp.lang.c,
gnu.emacs.help, comp.unix.questions, comp.windows.x.i386unix.
[The last-change-date of this posting is always "two minutes ago". :-)]
This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ
for short) about Linux with answers (Yeap!). This article contains a
listing of the sections and queries.
This FAQ is supposed to reduce the noise level ;-) in the
comp.os.linux newsgroup, and spare the time of many activists. I will
cross-post it each month to news.answers. This FAQ is NOT an
introduction to UNIX, there are many books for unix, and there is
*also* a FAQ for unix (it's the one of comp.unix.questions which
contains things such as "How do I remove a file named -". I DO NOT
WANT TO ADD SUCH THINGS IN THIS FAQ DEVOTED TO LINUX.
Some books to read:
The C Programming Language: Kernighan & Ritchie
POSIX Programmer's Guide: D. Lewine
Unix System Administration Handbook: Nemeth, Snyder & Seebass.
Unix for the Impatient: Abrahams & Larson
Unix System V Release 4, An Introduction, by Rosen, Rosinski and
Farber; Publisher Osborne MacGraw-Hill.
The X Windows System in a Nutshell: O'Reilly.
.....
This FAQ is available at the main Linux sites in the doc directory,
the addresses are given in section II. of this FAQ. There is also an
archive of (all) FAQs at rtfm.mit.edu [18.172.1.27]. Have a look in
the anonymous ftp directory: /pub/usenet/news.answers/linux-faq.
If you do not have anonymous ftp access, you can access the archive by
mail server. Send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the words
"help" and "index" in the body on separate lines for more information.
The information in this multi-parts FAQ is likely to change relatively
quickly. If this is more than two months old (it was released on
February 1993) then you should obtain a new copy. See the paragraph
above for details of where to find a more recent version.
Please suggest any change, rephrasing, deletions, new questions,
answers ...
Please include "FAQ" in the subject of messages sent to me about FAQ.
Please send them to linux@numero6.greco-prog.fr whatever will be the
>From part of this message. Finally discussion about the FAQ can be
done on the DOC Channel (see section II).
Thanks in advance,
Marc
The FAQ can be found in LaTeX version, thanks to Pepe Flores Peters.
Future Plan:
- provide FAQ as diff too, since it seems to stay stable
except for very few sections.
- perform automatic post to c.o.l, c.o.l.a, c.a and n.a
every month as I promised long time ago.
================================8<=====8<==============================
CONTENTS (of this part)
0. WARNINGS (part1)
I. LINUX GENERAL INFORMATION (part1)
II. LINUX USEFUL ADDRESSES (part1)
================================8<=====8<==============================
0. WARNINGS
===========
The FAQ contains a lot of information sometimes I've put it down
in 3 different ways because people seems not to understand what they
read (or what I wrote, you know I'm just a froggy and english is not
my natural language). What I mean is that not all is in the FAQ but
many things are there, so please just take time to read it this will
spare a lot of the other linuxers [and if you think I should rephrase
some Q/A just drop me a note with the corrections].
As the Linux kernel changes monthly (and even more ...), I define 2
pseudo variables a la C one for the version, and one for the date of
the release.
#define CURRENT_VERSION 0.99 /* the current version */
#define PATCH_LEVEL pre8 /* the patch level */
#define KERNEL_DATE 31, Mar. /* Date of the CURRENT_VERSION */
In what follows I'll consider CURRENT_VERSION as the current version.
> From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi>
> Subject: I'm back: new ALPHA-diffs on nic.funet.fi
> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 20:44:44 +0300
>
>
> I'm back in circulation (although "somewhat" behind with news: 980
> messages to go), and I have already uploaded new kernel diffs to
> nic.funet.fi. The directory is the same old pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus,
> and the files are called ALPHA-diff.z (diffs against clean 0.99pl7, not
> the "7A" version), or linux-0.99.pre8.tar.z (for the full sources).
>
> Changes relative to pl7A:
> - fixed a silly (and major) bug in the keyboard driver which can result
> in problems under some circumstances (among them X11 crashes)
> - changed the way signals are handled: I don't like the idea of doing
> signals in a pre-determined order, so I decided to try to fix some
> other problems with signal-handling instead. The fixes should
> hopefully be enough to remove the problems with bash: if they don't,
> I'd call it a bash bug.
> - upgrading the ext2fs to the newest version: this fixes problems with
> named pipes on ext2fs partitions. I also did some additional changes
> to the named pipe code, mostly due to comments from Bruce Evans.
> - Another fix suggested by Bruce: the minixfs rename() call should
> finally work correctly under all circumstances (ie renaming
> directories over each other etc).
> - I did some final coding to try to remove the old race-condition where
> the same name can occur multiple times in a directory. The problem
> probably exists in all other fs's, though.
> - SCSI patches from Eric Youngdale. These should recognize the new
> AHA-1542C controller as well as fixing some other problems.
> - I'm trying out a different way of recovering from 387 errors: there
> are timeouts and some resetting code in the kernel now, and it might
> be enough.. It will result in problems, but at least it should work
> most of the time at full speed, and if the 387 fails, you should get
> an appropriate error message..
> - FPU emulation patches from Bill Metzenthen. They fix the problems
> with v86 mode as well implementing the full rounding control
> functionality.
>
> As always, the more alpha-testers, the merrier... And problem- or
> success-reports are always welcome.
>
> Linus
I. LINUX GENERAL INFORMATION
=============================
*** This section is maintained by Matt Welsh (mdw@tc.cornell.edu). Mail
*** him if you have corrections, additions, other questions, etc.
*** Last update March 1993.
I.01) What is linux?
ANSWER: Linux is a small unix for 386-AT computers, that has the added
advantage of being free(*). It is still in beta-testing, but is slowly
getting useful even for somewhat real developement. The current
version is CURRENT_VERSION, date: KERNEL_DATE.
(*) Free means that you may use it, change it , redistribute it, as
long as you don't change the copyright. Free does not mean public
domain.
Linux is a freely distributable UNIX clone. It implements a subset of
System V and POSIX functionality, and contains a lot of BSD-isms.
LINUX has been written from scratch, and therefore does not contain
any AT&T or MINIX code--not in the kernel, the compiler, the
utilities, or the libraries. For this reason it can be made available
with the complete source code via anonymous FTP. LINUX runs only on
386/486 AT-bus machines; porting to non-Intel architectures is likely
to be difficult, as the kernel makes extensive use of 386 memory
management and task primitives.
I.02) Does Linux support GCC, TCP/IP, X-Windows, MGR, etc.?
ANSWER: Linux currently supports and uses a large amount of the GNU
software (i.e. GCC, bison, groff, etc) so all of that functionality is
there. X-Windows is also available, along with many client
applications. MGR is there too. TCP/IP is in testing, and is available
for you to try out.
(Dirk Hohndel:) TCP/IP is available. I use Linux boxes as Xterminals
and my "own" asterix has mounted half a Gig via NFS. Mitch DSuoza is
running an anonymous FTP server on his Linux box. This is definitely
more than testing. The newest SLS has a TCP/IP kernel by default.
See section VIII of this FAQ ("Features")!
In short, Linux supports many, many features and programs. One of the
biggest questions is:
"Does ***** work on Linux? Does Linux have *****?"
The answer, usually, is "yes". Just check out the rest of this FAQ,
the newsgroup, as well as the files on the FTP sites.
I.03) What is the current state of Linux?
ANSWER: read the comp.os.linux newsgroup, where the INFO-SHEET is
periodically posted. You can also read comp.os.linux.announce.
I.04) I've just heard about linux, what should I do to get it?
ANSWER: FIRST read this FAQ, and especially section III
(installation). Choose a "release" of Linux (such as MCC, SLS,
bootdisk/rootdisk, etc). Download from your nearest FTP site, use the
"rawrite" program as needed to write the images to high-density
floppies (5.25 or 3.5). Specific instructions are given in section III
and in the README files for each release.
Note that some releases only give you the kernel and a few utilities,
and others give you everything you need (including X11, GCC, and more)
in that latter case the downloading is close to a douzen of SOFT. Just
check out section III for more info.
I.05) Does it run on my computer?
ANSWER: Linux has been written on a clone-386, with IDE drives and a
VGA screen. It should work on most similar setups. The harddisk should
be AT-standard, and the system must be ISA. (though *some* EISA
success has been reported [T. Koenig], Linux doesn't take advantage of
the EISA structure). A high density floppy drive -- either 5.25" or
3.5"-- is required.
{Drew's information:
Linux supports anything that's register compatable with a WD1003 MFM
disk controller (ie, the original PC-AT disk controller.) Most AT
MFM, RLL, ESDI, and IDE setups look like this.
XT compatable disk controllers won't work.
Generally, the rule is if you have the disk configured into the
CMOS setup of your machine, it will work (because the BIOS is talking
to a WD 1003 compatable board), otherwise it won't.}
IDE and MFM seem to work with no problem. It works, also, for some
ESDI drive (you might have to comment out the "unexpected hd
interrupt"-message from hd.c). There exists a high-level SCSI driver,
under which low-level drivers are placed; a ST-01/ST-02 low driver has
been completed see the FEATURES and the USEFUL ADDRESSES sections.
Otherwise the requirements seem relatively small: a 386 (SX, DX or any
486). Any video card of the following: Hercules, CGA, EGA, (S)VGA.
It needs at least 2M to run (with SWAP), and 4M is definitely a plus.
It can happily use up to 16M (and more if you want).
BTW There are problems with some MAXTOR drives on high speed machines
(sometimes switching off "turbo" helps). There may also be a problem
with "slow" memory (under 60ns) on fast machines. Again, the solution
is to turn off "turbo". Mixed SIMMs (3 and 9 chip versions) have also
reported to be problematic.
NOTE1: It doesn't run (yet?) on a MCA machine
NOTE2: There is a driver for XT but not tested by me (see below)
NOTE3: There is also a support for 8514 and S3.
> From: smackinla@cc.curtin.edu.au (Pat Mackinlay)
> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
> Subject: New version of XT (8 bit) HD driver
> Keywords: XT disk driver
> Date: 18 Mar 93 15:09:14 GMT
> This is post to announce the newest (and hopefully last) version of the
> XT hard disk driver for Linux. This version will only work with Linux 0.99p7
> or better due to a couple of kernel changes. The files should be available
> on tsx-11, nic and sunsite FTP sites as soon as the administrators process
> their incoming data. The files are:
>
> tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/BETA/xtdisk/xtdisk6.tar.z
> nic.funet.fi:/pub/OS/Linux/BETA/xtdisk/xtdisk6.tar.z
> sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/ALPHA/xtdisk/xtdisk6.tar.z
>
> and there's the complete README in those directories too.
>
> Note that this will probably be my last version of this driver because I'm
> upgrading to a 200 meg SCSI drive and don't have any more room in my machine.
> I'll be listening out for volunteers to take over the code <grin>, although
> the only changes needed now will be to keep up with rest of the kernel.
>
> What follows is an extract from the README:
>
> INTRODUCTION
> ------------
> This is version BETA-6 of the XT hard drive driver for Linux. The patch is
> for Linux 0.99p7, and will not work for earlier kernels.
>
> First, a quick introduction to the reason for this driver. There are, in
> general, three different types of hard disk controller:
>
> a. Generic AT style controllers (includes IDE drives) - all 16 bit
> b. SCSI style controllers - all incompatible <grin>
> c. XT style controllers - all 8 bit
>
> Each of these three different types of controllers has to be programmed in
> it's own way, and they use different DMA channels/IRQ lines etc. in order to
> communicate with the computer. Generic AT and SCSI controllers are already
> supported in the "stock" Linux kernel, but XT controller are not. This driver
> will allow you to use one of these older controllers in your machine running
> Linux.
>
I.06) How much space will Linux take up on my hard drive?
ANSWER: It depends on which release you choose. See the section
INSTALLATION below. Usually it's somewhere between 10 megs (for a
nominal system+swap space) and 30-40 megs (for everything plus space
for user directories, etc.).
BTW the full SLS needs around 60 MB (including TeX and other goodies).
I.07) Will Linux run on a PC or 286-AT? If not, why?
ANSWER: Linux uses the 386 chip protected mode functions extensively,
and is a true 32-bit operating system. Thus x86 chips, x<3, will
simply not run it.
I.08) Will Linux run on a 386 Laptop?
ANSWER: It works, including X on most of them.
I.09) Why the suggested 4Meg, for Linux?
ANSWER: Linux uses the first 640k for kernel text, kernel data and
buffercache. Your mother board may eat up 384K because of the chipset.
Moreover there is: init/login, a shell, update possibly other daemons.
Then, while compiling there is make and gcc (2.01 ~770k).
So you don't have enough real memory and have to page.
I.10) How would this operate in an OS/2 environment?
ANSWER: Linux will coexist with *ANY* other operating system(s) which
respects the "standard" PC partionning scheme - this includes Dos,
Os/2, Minix etc.
WARNING: Linux and OS/2 *can* co-exist on the same machine. BUT, you
cannot use Linux's fdisk to make Linux partitions! See the warnings in
section III about Linux and OS/2.
I.11) (Dan) How long has Linux been publicly available?
ANSWER (partial): Few months, v0.10 went out in Nov. 91, v0.11 in Dec.
and the current version CURRENT_VERSION is available since
KERNEL_DATE. But even it is pretty recent it is quite reliable. There
are very few and small bugs and in its current state it is mostly
useful for people who are willing to port code and write new code. As
Linux is very close to a reliable/stable system, Linus decided that
v0.13 will be known as v0.95. Believe it or not: the whole story
started (nearly) with two processes that printed AAAA... and BBBB...
BTW consult the digest#136 Vol2 for a complete story.
I.12) What is the proper pronounciation for "Linux"?
ANSWER: (Linus himself)
'li' is pronounced with a short [ee] sound: compare prInt, mInImal etc.
'nux' is also short, non-diphtong, like in pUt. It's partly due to
minix: linux was just my working name for the thing, and as I wrote it
to replace minix on my system, the result is what it is... linus' minix
became linux.
I originally intended it to be called freax (although buggix was one
contender after I got fed up with some of the more persistent bugs :)
and I think the kernel makefiles up to version 0.11 had something to
that effect ("Makefile for the freax kernel" in a comment). But arl
called the linux directory at nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux, and the name
stuck. Maybe just as well: freax doesn't sound too good either (freax
is obviosly free + freak + the obligatory -x).
(Rick's note for English speakers: Linux - "LIH-nuhks".)
I.13) What's about the copyright of linux?
ANSWER: This is an except of the RELEASE Notes v.095a: Linux is
NOT public domain software, but is copyrighted by Linus Torvalds. The
copyright conditions are the same as those imposed by the GNU
copyleft: The GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 is part
of the source tree.
I.14) Should I be a UNIX and/or a DOS wizard to install/use Linux?
ANSWER: Not at all, just follow the install rules, of course it will be
easier for you if you know things about Unix. Right now Linux is used
by more than BIGNUM persons, very few of them enhance the kernel, some
adds/ports new soft, most of us are only (but USEFUL) beta testers.
Last but not least, various Linuxers work on manpages, newuser_help,
file-system organization. So join us and choose your "caste".
It is even used in production environments (Dr. G.W. Wettstein)
I.15) Does Linux use TSS segments to provide multitasking?
ANSWER: Yes!
I.16) If my PC runs under Linux, is it possible to ftp, rlogin,
rsh etc.. to other Unix boxes?
ANSWER: Kermit and ka9q have both been ported to Linux. Also, TCP/IP is
quite reliable, only a few clients are missing.
Read section XI. devoted to Ethernet and Linux.
I.17) Does linux do paging? Can I have virtual memory on my small
machine?
ANSWER: Yes, it does. Generally you set up a swap file or partition, and
enable it with the "swapon" command. Voila! Virtual memory.
I.18) Can I have tasks spanning the full 4GB of addressable 386
memory? No more 64kB limits like in coherent or standard minix?
ANSWER: Since 0.97 it uses 4 GB Process Space, 3 for userspace and
1 for the kernel space.
I.19) Does the bigger program sizes mean I can run X?
ANSWER: Yes! See section XII below for details on X11.
I.20) What are the differences, pros and cons compared to Minix ?
ANSWER (partial):
Cons:
- Linux only works on 386 and 486 processors.
- Linux needs 2M of memory just to run, 4M to be useful.
- Linux is a more traditional unix kernel, it doesn't use message
passing.
Pros:
- Linux is free, and freely distributable, BUT copyrighted.
- Linux has some advanced features such as:
- Memory paging with copy-on-write
- Demand loading of executables
- Page sharing of executables
- Multi-threaded file system
- job control and virtual memory, virtual consoles and pseudo-ttys.
- Linux is a more traditional unix kernel, it doesn't use message
passing.
I.21) What are the pros and cons compared to 386BSD ?
ANSWER: Linux and 386BSD started out as completely different projects,
with completely different goals and design criteria in mind.
there are newsgroups devoted to 386BSD : comp.os.386bsd.*
- I haven't seen a recent FAQ for 386BSD :). Nevertheless the Linux
FAQ is not bug free, and contains some outdated information.
- 386BSD can do POSIX and BSD
- Linux can do POSIX, SYSV and some BSD stuff
For most of the *nix* users both systems are fairly usable, but none
of them are bug free.
I.22) Why can't we split comp.os.linux ?
ANSWER: (Ian Jackson)
There is a procedure for creating new newsgroups, involving discussion
periods and votes; it can be found in news.announce.newgroups.
In November last year I (Ian Jackson) started a formal discussion
under that procedure and duly held a vote for four new groups,
comp.os.linux.announce (moderated), comp.os.linux.questions,
comp.os.linux.bugs and comp.os.linux.misc.
There was quite a heated argument, with many people (esp from Fidonet
and the news->mail gateway) complaining that if the group split they
wouldn't be able to read it.
At the end of the vote the results were as follows (culled from the
announcement at the end of the voting period):
yes no abs diff ratio result why to change
.announce 479 131 3 348 3.6564885 PASS 249
.questions 380 217 16 163 1.7511521 FAIL (ratio) 54
.bugs 390 212 11 178 1.8396226 FAIL (ratio) 34
.misc 390 207 16 183 1.8840580 FAIL (ratio) 24
diff = number more yes than no votes - this must be >=100 for a group
to pass.
ratio = ratio of yes to no votes - this must be >=2 for a group to
pass.
to change = the minimum number of votes which would have been
required to change the result (if they were all "yes" or "no"
as appropariate).
The guidelines say that unless a group gets at least twice as many
"yes" as "no" votes and at least 100 more "yes" than "no" votes it
won't be created. Hence all the new groups except .announce failed.
The guidelines also say that you have to wait at least 6 months after
a failed vote before trying again - this to stop the obvious problem
of failed groups coming back over and over again.
Hence any more discussion of proposed splits is futile until at least
very late in June. In any case, such a discussion should take place in
the group reserved for that purpose, news.groups, not in
comp.os.linux.
II. LINUX USEFUL ADDRESSES
=========================
II.A. LINUX ON THE NET: ftp, mailing-list
II.B. OBTAINING LINUX FROM BBS'S: everything about bbs
II.A. LINUX ON THE NET
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
II.01) Where can I get linux?
ANSWER: Linux (all the software, binaries, sources, releases, and so on),
can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from :
[ Major sites ]
EUROPE:
nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100):
directory /pub/OS/Linux
ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (131.159.0.110)
directory /pub/Linux
US:
tsx-11.mit.edu (18.172.1.2):
directory /pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu (152.2.22.81):
directory /pub/Linux
[ Mirroring sites (some of them, there are lots now) ]
AUSTRALIA:
kirk.bu.oz.au (131.244.1.1)
directory /pub/OS/Linux
EUROPE:
src.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.2.1):
directory packages/Linux
ftp.mcc.ac.uk (130.88.200.7):
directory pub/linux
ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de (137.226.4.105):
directory /pub/linux
ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (137.226.112.172):
directory /pub/Linux
ftp.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (134.169.34.15):
directory /pub/os/linux
JAPAN:
kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp (130.54.20.1):
directory /Linux
/Linux/mirror (for the tsx mirror)
KOREA:
cair.kaist.ac.kr (143.248.11.170):
mirror of sunsite; directory pub/Linux
US:
wustl.wuarchive.edu (128.252.135.4):
directory /pub/mirrors4/linux
ftp.eecs.umich.edu (141.212.99.7):
directory linux
You might want to check out which of these is the most up-to-date.
> (From: Lee M J McLoughlin <lmjm@doc.ic.ac.uk>)
> src.doc.ic.ac.uk:
>
> We are also on Janet (the main UK academic network) as
> uk.ac.ic.doc.src (000005102000).
>
> More useful perhaps is we are the only big archive available via FTAM,
> the ISO equivalent to FTP. We can be reached either over the
> internet or janet (see above addresses) or via the European IXI
> network on 204334504108
If you have no FTP capability, you are in trouble. See the next Q/A.
Also, you'll need the "UNCOMP.EXE" and "RAWRITE2.EXE" programs for DOS
(to make your install disks). These are usually found in the Linux
directories on the above FTP sites.
II.02) I do not have FTP access, what can I do to get linux?
ANSWER: You can either read the next subsection related to BBS's
otherwise, read the following.
The SLS release is distributable by snail-mail on floppies for those
without net access; see the SLS section in section III of this FAQ for
more.
Try to contact a friend on the net with those access, or try
mailserver/ftpmail server otherwise contact tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU. You
might try mailing "mailserver@nic.funet.fi" with "help" in the body of
the mail. If you choose ftpmail server (example: ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk,
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com), with "help" in the body, the server will send
back instructions and command list. As an exemple to get the list of
files available at tsx-11 in /pub/linux send:
mail ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
subject: anything
reply <your e-mail>
connect tsx-11.mit.edu
chdir /pub/linux
dir -R
quit
In Europe ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de is accessible via e-mail (send
"help" in the body to ftp-mailer@informatik.tu-muenchen.de)
II.03) Is there a newsgroup or mailing-list about linux?
ANSWER: The comp.os.linux newsgroup is literally *teeming* with postings.
So, to the first question, yes. :) The older newsgroup, alt.os.linux,
is being phased out and shouldn't be used anymore.
If you don't have news access you can get the digest of postings via
e-mail from: Linux-activists-request@news-digests.mit.edu. This list
is gatewayed to the newsgroup as well. Only use the 'request' address
for subscribe/unsubscribe messages; don't post those to the newsgroup
or to the actual mailing list.
And last but not least there is the original mailing-list, which is
now a multi-channel list.
contact linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi
II.04) Where can I get my questions answered? How about bug-reports?
What do I put into a post to comp.os.linux?
ANSWER: (Paul Gortmaker pg@cain.mmtc.rmit.oz.au)
You can post your problem to the above group, comp.os.linux. BUT, BEFORE
YOU DO THIS, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING GUIDELINES.
If you have read the FAQ, man pages, etc, and you still haven't
solved your problem, then check to make sure you have got the latest
version of whatever it is that you are working with. Check the dates
and revision numbers of your versions with the versions on your local
ftp site (tsx-11.mit.edu , sunsite.unc.edu ?). This includes (most
importantly) the kernel itself. Make sure you have applied the latest
patches and recompiled the kernel, or have got the kernel "Image"
from someone who has done so. And, of course check comp.os.linux
for info too. If you have a genuine problem, chances are that you
aren't the first one to find it. So it has probably already been
reported (...and fixed???). For example, if you are having trouble
with say Xconfig for some strange VGA card, and you use nn to read
comp.os.linux, then you could invoke nn as follows:
nn -x -s 'config' comp.os.linux
and it will find all the latest articles with the word config in
their subject for you. This will be one of the most up to date
sets of information that you can get -- DON'T OVERLOOK IT !!!
(You can check the man pages of your news reader to determine
the options that do the same as the above.)
OK, so you've done all the above, spent 40 hours trying to figure
it out, have had a nervous breakdown, your girlfriend/boyfriend has
stopped talking to you, and you decide that you will turn to the
Linux community for help. Here are some guidelines on posting that
will ensure that you get a quick response, and that you hopefully
don't get flamed.
1) Choosing a Subject:
It is important to try and squeeze as much information into
as few words as possible. If you can manage it, try and
put the package name, version, and problem into the subject.
But don't make it too long, or the middle will get chopped
out. For example "I'm having problems with poeig-1.1.tar.Z
on my 486 with 0.99p6" will probably appear to everybody as
"I'm having prob <> ith 0.99p6" Not very useful...
What should have been used was something like:
"poeig-1.1 w 99p6 wont compile" would be much better, and
relays that you are having trouble with getting it to
compile. (Note that this is just an example, I have no
knowledge of problems with poeig!) Also, (unless you like
bugs -> getting flamed!) DON'T claim you have found a bug, unless
you are ABSOLUTELY SURE! Nothing p***es developers off more
than erroneous bug reports.
2) Keywords:
If your news poster program asks for keywords, try and put
in some useful descriptive words, so that others can use them
for a meaningful search.
3) Body of the Article:
There are some key things that need to be included in the
body of the article. (a) The name and version of the thing
that you are having the problem with. (b) The type of problem,
ie compilation, execution, etc. -- (c) versions of related
software, ie if compilation is the problem, then the version
of GCC you are runnning is relevant. If you are having trouble
with a program that uses X, then the version of X you are using
is relevant. (d) The version and patchlevel of the kernel you
are using at present. (ie. 0.99p7 or whatever) (e) the type
or brand of any related hardware, ie. if you are having problems
with networking, then you would want to say that you are using
a Western Digital SMC Elite 16 or whatever your ethernet card
is. (f) Any relevant error messages that were reported by the
system during the problem.
And, of course, there are some things that one should NOT put
in the article. For example, don't post a 30 page configuration
file and expect anybody in their right mind to look through it.
And similarly for any HUGE files. If they are relevant to your
problem, then someone will respond by asking you something like
"Did you check line 32 in file such and such???" And try to
avoid negative comments like "The documentation isn't fit for
my dog." If you have a bone to pick, do it via e-mail, so the
rest of us don't have to read a flame war! It just adds to the
amount of useless noise on comp.os.linux, which already takes
too long to scan through. Besides, the developers are doing this
FOR FREE. THEY ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO DO ANYTHING. DON'T ABUSE
THEM!!! (Or they might just go away, which hurts us all.)
Well, with all this in mind, hopefully you will get a quick response to
your problem, and maybe someday you will be able to answer someone else's
problem from the experience you gain!
II.05) Could you be more explicit about the multi-channel list?
ANSWER: Well, there are many things to say:
- these channels are rather devoted to hackers
- the ones I am aware of are: GCC, MGR, X11, SCSI, NEW-CHANNELS,
MSDOS (emulator discussion) , NORMAL, KERNEL, FTP, LAPTOP, DOC,
NET, CONFIGS, LINUXNEWS ...
- whenever you want to JOIN or LEAVE a channel you have to
contact the request address
- you have to use special header (X-Mn-Key and Mn-Admin); X-Mn-Key
is *ONLY* for regular post, the X-Mn-Admin is for *REQUEST*
(Ari Lemmke: 1 Nov. 1992):
Hmmm.... It seems our list has now about 1500 users
in 21 channels (mailing lists). 3960 without uniq.
"echo foo | mail linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi"
to get the Mail-Net User Guide.
II.06) How can I join the channel XXX on the linux-activists
mailing list?
ANSWER: just send a mail to the request address with help in the body;
you will get back a mail which gives you the list of channels and the
way to join/leave them. Basically you send mail to the request address
with the line:
X-Mn-Admin: join <channel>
II.07) How can I leave the channel XXX on the linux-activists
mailing list?
ANSWER: Same as above, basically. You send mail to the request address
that contains the line:
X-Mn-Admin: leave <channel>
II.08) I'm not an hacker, what are the channels I could be interested
in?
ANSWER: Probably these are the most interesting for you (IMHO)
Channel NORMAL:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Channel normal is the former Linux-Activists mailing list
(all the people who were on the old Linux-Activists list
are moved to this channel).
Channel DOC:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This channel is for Linux document "project". Discussion about Linux
documents, manuals, papers, etc.
Channel CONFIGS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This channel will be devoted to send submissions of systems that have
Linux already running, AND those that, for any reason, can't get it
to work yet.
Mainly, what it's need from all the channel users is to send their
hardware configuration list (as complete as possible). Include
anything that you feel pertinent for information: CPU,
motherboard, RAM amount, HD & floppy controller, BIOS, monitor,
video card & memory, network adapter, etc. If you are having trouble
with your current system, or you find out that a program doesn't work
properly on your system due to a HARDWARE problem, it may be useful
for us to know your configuration; maybe you can get a lot of help.
Channel LINUXNEWS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The LINUXNEWS channel will be used for distribution of Linux News, a
weekly (if I can find the time) summary of things that happen in the
Linux community. Discussion is not encouraged, if you have complaints
or suggestions, send them directly to me (Lars.Wirzenius@helsinki.fi).
Channel NEW-CHANNELS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the future users on this channel get the information about new
channels created.
By this way you can join the channels you want, and do not need to
send mail to Mail-Net info server or listen rumours.
II.09) Does there exist a place where the traffic of the newsgroup
is kept?
ANSWER: Yes, on nic and tsx-11 (see the ftp addresses above), and since
12th March, a Gopher server is up at beryl.daimi.aau.dk (130.225.16.86).
The archives go back to Nov. 18. 91. Also recently a WAIS server for the
linux mail archive has been setup at fgb1.fgb.mw.tu-muenchen.de. Contact
tw@fgb1.fgb.mw.tu-muenchen.de for more info.
All back issues of the Digest are available on tsx-11.mit.edu
[18.172.1.2] in the following place(s):
pub/linux/mail-archive
~/Volume? /* where '?' in volume #
~/digestnnn.Z * and nnn is issue #
*/
II.B OBTAINING LINUX FROM BBS'S
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** This section is maintain by Zane Healy (healyzh@holonet.net)
*** Last Update November 1992.
II.10) I don't have access to FTP, how can I obtain Linux?
ANSWER: Linux is available from various BBS's around the world.
II.11) I got this FAQ from a local BBS, or a friend, and I see there
is a newsgroup called comp.os.linux . I don't have access to USENET or
mail, so how can I get the messages?
ANSWER: Some of the BBS's on FidoNet carry comp.os.linux as a FidoNet
conference. Also some of the other BBS's carry it in some form or other.
II.12) Do BBS's offer anything that the Internet does not?
ANSWER: Yes, on the information side there are the UNIX conferences on
both the RIME network and FidoNet. Although they are not dedicated to
linux, a large amount of the messages are linux related. Also at least
one software package being developed for linux, and also one port is
available via BBS's long before they are available via anonymous FTP.
II.13) What is a BBS?
ANSWER: A BBS is a Bulletin Board System, it let's you transfer
message's and file's via your phone line and all you need is a
computer with communications software and a modem. Some BBS's
transfer message's among each other forming large computer network's
similar to USENET. The most popular of these in the US are FidoNet
and RIME.
II.14) How can I get a (Near) complete list of BBS's that carry Linux?
ANSWER: I (Zane Healy) post a list of all known BBS's that carry Linux
to comp.os.linux as well as the RIME and Fidonet UNIX conferences on the
1st and 15th of each month.
II.15) Now that I have a phone number, how do I go about accessing a
BBS?
ANSWER:
1. You need a computer equipped with communications software and a modem.
2. For ALMOST all BBS's you will need to set the comm software up for:
8 - Data Bits
N - Parity
1 - Stop Bit
Although certain BBS's and Communication services require that the
software be set for:
7 - Data Bits
E - Parity
1 - Stop Bit
You will also need to set the comm software for the correct speed,
either the top speed, or the max speed for your modem.
3. Using the comm software, call the BBS. Once you connect with the
BBS (this may take awhile, as other people are likely to be using it),
you will be asked some questions.
If you are a registered user of the BBS it will normally only ask
for your name and password. However if you are not a registered user,
it will most likely require that before you do anything, you register.
The method of registration varies from BBS to BBS.
Normally the first thing that will happen is, you sign on to the
BBS, and tell it your name. It will then check it's list of user's
and see that you are not one of them. At which time it will ask you
if you are a new user, or if you wish to re-enter your name. When you
tell it you are a new user, it will then ask you some questions about
yourself, such as where you are calling from and your phone number. A
lot of BBS's will want some statistical info such as what type of
computer you are using, your communications software, your age, etc,
etc.
After this, most BBS's require some sort of validation, this is for
the System Operator's (SysOp's) protection. One type is where you
give the BBS software your phone number, hang up, and the BBS calls
your computer to verify that you gave it legitament phone number.
Some BBS's require that you mail the SysOp a postcard. Most, however
just require that you give the SysOp the request info and then he
upgrades your level of access a couple of day's later.
For the most part you will find that the registration process is
easy to follow and well documented.
II.16) There is a local BBS that carries Linux, but it isn't on the
latest Linux BBS List. How do I go about submitting it for inclusion in
the list?
ANSWER: Send the following information on the BBS to me:
BBS Name:
Phone Number:
Modem Speed:
City and State/Country:
Whatever Network it's on (i.e. FidoNet, RIME, etc.):
First Time access to D/L Linux Files (Y/N):
Free Access to Linux Files (Y/N):
Allow File Requests (Y/N):
BBS Rating (1-5):
I can be reached at one of the following E-Mail Addresses:
Internet -- healyzh@holonet.net
CompuServe -- 70332,14
Prodigy -- SCNN49A
Fido NetMail -- Zane Healy at 1:109/615
RIME UNIX Conference -- Zane Healy
II.17) What can I do to help ensure the continued development of
Linux?
ANSWER: PLEASE UPLOAD FILES TO BBS'S
I would like to point out that a very large number of the Linux
enthusiasts don't have FTP access. In fact it is possible that by now
most of the Linux fan's don't. So I would like to suggest that those of
us that do, find at least one BBS to post the Linux file's to. I, for
one post every file that I get to at least one of the local BBS's, and
from there they the file's tend to find there way to other local BBS's.
I've seen posts about the future of Linux etc., well here is a way to
help guarantee it. I think it's safe to assume that most people with FTP
access also have a modem. So how about doing other Linux fan's a favor
and finding a BBS to upload the Linux files to.
II.18) How do I read the data contained in the Linux BBS List?
ANSWER: The list uses the following format:
State YYY BBS Name Phone Number Modem Speed
Rating City Other data
The BBS's are rated by the number of Linux related file's that they
carry. This is so you can choose one's that has a better chance of
carrying the file's you are looking for if you are calling long distance.
The BBS's are rated on a scale of one to five.
1 -- Only enough the most basic of files
2 -- The basics and a little more
3 -- So, so
4 -- A respectable amount
5 -- Pretty much everything you need
Information about the boards access policies can be obtained by
checking a three digit field.
YYY -- Either a Yes/No/? answer to the question
|||
||Free access to Linux files
|Allow file requests (FidoNet)
First time D/L of Linux related files
NOTE: Just because a board has N's in the first two fields does not
mean that it is a board to stay away from. A lot of boards require
that you register and be verified before you can access most of their
features, hence the first N. The second field is, to the best of my
knowledge, limited to BBS's that are part of FidoNet.
II.19) What are some of the best BBS's to check out?
ANSWER:
In the US:
CA YNY hip-hop 408-773-0768 14.4k V.32bis/HST
5 Sunnyvale Login: guest (no password)
DC NNY When Gravity Fails 202-686-9086 14.4k
5 Washington
FL ??? Slut Club 813-236-1232 14.4k
5 Tampa/St.Pete Fidonet 1:377/42
GA YYY Information Overload 404-471-1549 9600 HST
5 FidoNet 1:133/308
ID ??? Rebel BBS 208-887-3937 9600
5 Boise
IL YYY EchoMania BBS 618-233-1659 14.4k HST
3 Belleville Fido 1:2250/1 (f'reg LINUX)
F'reqs from unlisted nodes, online callback verifier (works L.D.)
MD ??? Brodmann's Place 301-843-5732 14.4k
5 Waldorf RIME ->BRODMANN
NC ??? MAC's Place 919-891-1111 DS modem
5 Dunn RIME ->MAC
NY YYY Prism BBS,Middleton 914-344-0350 9600 HST/v.32
5 Middletown, NY Fidonet 1:272/38
NY YYY The Laboratory 212-927-4980 16.8k HST, 14.4k v.32bis
3-4 FidoNet 1:278/707
OR YYY Intermittent Connection 503-344-9838 14.4k HST v.32bis
5 Eugene, Ore 1:152/35
TX YYY Advanced BBS 512-578-2720 9600
5 Victoria, TX Fidonet 1:3802/215
VA ??? VTBBS 703-231-7498
5 Blacksburg
WA YYY S'Qually Holler 206-235-0270 9600
5 Renton Fidonet 1:343/34
And here are all the known BBS's outside the US:
AUSTRALIA:
NSW YYN Linux-Support-Oz +61-2-418-8750 2400
2-3 Sydney Intlnet, SBCNet
? ??? 500cc Formula 1 BBS +61-2-550-4317 V.32
? (2-3)
CANADA:
ON ??? EX-10 Kitchner 519-725-4400
?
ON ??? Ned's Ottawa 613-739-1591
2
ON ??? Bytown 613-236-1232
2 SmartNet
PQ ??? Synapse 819-246-2344 819-561-5268
5 Gatineau RIME->SYNAPSE
GERMANY:
??? bakunin.north.de 00 49 421 870532 9600
? D 2800 Bremen kraehe@bakunin.north.de
??? ?????????????? +49-40-735-5349 14.4k
1
??? Hipposoft's Mail Server +49-241-875090 14.4k V.32bis/HST
3 D-W5100 Aachen Fidonet 2:242/6
IRELAND:
??? TOPPSI +353-1-711047 or 773547 9600
? Fidonet 2:263/151
NORWAY:
??? Thunderball Cave 472567018
? RIME ->CAVE ?
NETHERLANDS:
??? DownTown BBS Lelystad, Linux Support BBS 14.4k
? +31-3200-48852 FIDONET
SOUTH AFRICA:
??? Andre Skarzynski - Linux Activists of Southern Africa
? +27 2231 78148 (Is this voice or data?)
UNITED KINGDOM:
NYN The Purple Tentacle +44-734-590990 HST/V32bis
3-4 Reading Fidonet 2:252/305
??? A6 BBS +44-582-460273 14.4k
? Herts Fidonet 2:440/111
II.20) What are File Requests?
ANSWER: FidoNet BBS's with the right type's of front-end mailer's can
call other Fido BBS's and request their front-end mailer to send them
files that they want. All this can be done automatically. File
Requests (freqs) are basically the FidoNet equivallent to UUCP.
===================8<==========>8================
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.announce,news.answers,comp.answers
Distribution: world
Followup-To: poster
From: corsini@labri.greco-prog.fr
Reply-To: linux@numero6.greco-prog.fr
Organization: Greco Prog. CNRS & LaBRI, Bordeaux France
Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions 2/4 [monthly posted]
Summary: Linux, a small and free unix-like for 386-AT computers.
Archive-name: linux-faq/part2
Last-Modified: 93/03/28
Version: 1.16.1
*********************************************************
* *
* Answers to Frequently asked questions about Linux *
* *
*********************************************************
This post contains Part 2 of the Linux FAQ (4 parts).
It must be read *after* the first part.
================================8<=====8<==============================
CONTENTS (of this part)
III. INSTALLATION, and COMMON PROBLEMS (part2)
IV. SOME CLASSICAL PROBLEMS (part2)
V. LINUX and DOS (part2)
===================================8<====>8============================
III. INSTALLATION, SETUP, and COMMON PROBLEMS
=============================================
*** Note: this FAQ section should be kept up-to-date, and should
*** be the most 'reliable' source for installation info. Please mail
*** any corrections or changes to this section's coordinator,
*** Matt Welsh (mdw@tc.cornell.edu). Last update March 93.
III.A. WHERE TO START: What are the reliable sources of information
III.B. LINUX PACKAGES: Where and how install a complete Linux package
III.C. SOME COMMON PROBLEMS: Simple problems and simple solutions
III.A. WHERE TO START
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
III.01) I want to install Linux on my machine. Where do I start?
ANSWER: The first thing you should do is read through the various
introductory files, and ESPECIALLY the FAQ (this file). Especially
this section :). A lot of effort has been done on these intro files,
but note that some of them conflict with each other and cover older
versions of Linux. When in doubt consult this file.
These files are all found on tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/docs...
FAQ
The Linux Frequently Asked Questions list
It's sitting in your hands now. This section is probably the best
place to start to get the most up-to-date Linux installation
information.
INFO-SHEET
Linux Information Sheet, by J. Winstead/L. Wizenius
This is a collection of general info about Linux. It's
a good place to start if you've never heard of the package
before.
README.kernel
Kernel compilation README file, by L. Wirzenius
This is the README notes for recompiling the Linux kernel from the
sources. You don't need it unless you're planning to upgrade
your kernel by compiling it yourself.
Others
Every "release" of Linux (such as SLS, boot/root, HLU's disks, etc.,
see below) has its own up-to-date README files and docs that explain
how to install that release. This FAQ section summarizes, but for more
info on how to install Linux, read the READMEs and docs for the release
that you choose.
Old docs
There are a number of obsolete, old docs lying around. Most of these
tell how to install Linux from the old boot/root disk combo. I DO NOT
SUGGEST that you use these docs unless you know what you're doing--
the best thing for beginners to do is read this FAQ and install the SLS
release (using the docs and READMEs for the SLS release).
These old docs are things like "install.txt", "guide.txt", "RELNOTES",
"CHANGES", and so on, and are all geared towards old versions of the
boot/rootdisk. They are *NOT* relevant to current versions of Linux.
III.02) Is there some kind of limit on how large my Linux partitions
and/or filesystems can be?
ANSWER: There's no limit on partition size (just the size of your drive),
but Linux mainly uses the minix filesystem which limits filesystems to
64 megs each. You can also use the extended filesystem (which is still
in testing, but has been included with recent kernel versions) which has
a limit of 4 terabytes. Probably enough unless you have a disk array. :)
See section III.C below on creating partitions and filesystems for more info.
III.B. LINUX PACKAGES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This section contains information about *SOME* of the current Linux
packages available.
III.03) Does there exist a way to get all (or nearly all) of the Linux
stuff?
ANSWER: Yes. To install Linux, you're going to want to choose one of the
"releases" of Linux, all of which have a different method of installation
and set up. Each release also has its own README and installation docs,
which you'll want to read first. But I'll summarize here. The major
releases are:
* The "Softlanding Linux System Release"
Also known as the "SLS" release, consists of 14 disks for Linux
and 8 for X11. The nice thing about this release is that you can
pick and choose which disks and packages you want to install. The
first 2 disks must be "rawritten" (using rawrite.exe) on floppies,
and the rest of the images are put onto DOS format floppies.
Contains all of the softs you'll ever need, and is easy to install
for newcomers.
This is the release that I suggest everyone new to Linux should
install. It's the most complete and up-to-date package. HLU's
disks, below, are good for upgrading, and (unfortunately),
the MCC-interim is quite dated at this point. If you install
SLS you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.
* The "TAMU" (Texas A&M University) Linux Release
This release is supposedly like the SLS release, but has some
different softs and a different installation procedure. From Dave
Safford, "The installation procedure is the main difference from
SLS. A single boot diskette is used, and it boots directly into
an automated installation program." This installation program
asks a few questions about the desired configuration, and sets up
everything, including your filesystems, booting from the hard
drive with LILO (see section III.C below), and a simplified
X-Windows configuration.
This humble author has never installed the TAMU release but I've
heard good things about it.
* H.J. Lu's "bootable rootdisk"
This is a release of the Linux kernel and basic binaries on
a single floppy. It, along with HLU's 'gccdisk', 'libdisk',
and so on, are good for upgrading or installing basic
Linux system by hand. It's not reccommended for newcomers,
because there's no real install script, it's mostly meant
as an upgrade of the basic system software. Beginners should
install SLS or MCC-interim (see below) instead.
The images and docs are found at tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux.
* Others but OUTDATED
There are other releases and distributions of the Linux software,
such as the "MCC-Interim" and "MJ" releases. There is also an older
"boot/root" disk combo (0.98.1) which is like HLU's bootable
rootdisk, above, but it's no longer supported (as far as I know).
The MCC-Interim release (the previous de facto Linux standard)
isn't going to be updated anymore, according to Owen LeBlanc. So
if you install it, be warned that you'll have to upgrade it all
in some other way (the last version of MCC-Interim was 0.97.2,
quite dated).
The "MJ" release, according to Martin Junius, is no longer
maintained. The last version was 0.97.1.
III.04) Where can I get these versions of Linux?
ANSWER:
The SLS release is at tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/packages/SLS and
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/SLS.
H.J. Lu's "bootable rootdisk" release is found at tsx-11.mit.edu:
/pub/linux/packages/GCC, as well as the mirror sites.
TAMU.99p4 is available from sc.tamu.edu in pub/free_unix/TAMU.99p4.
III.05) What should I do to install the SLS release?
ANSWER: Basically all of the releases are alike. You need to get the
DOS program 'rawrite.exe' (or 'rawrite2.exe'). This program takes a
binary file and writes it, block by block, to a blank formatted
floppy. This is the way to take a Linux floppy image and put it onto a
disk from DOS.
For the SLS release, you need to get the files in the a1, a2, a3, and
a4 directories at least. You also need the README's there. Basically,
you use rawrite to copy the a1 and a2 images onto floppies. Or, you
can use 'dd' on your UNIX system to transfer the files directly to
floppies (assuming you have a floppy drive on your UNIX system) in
place of rawrite.
The rest of the files all go onto DOS-formatted floppies, just using
DOS copy. The SLS release is nice because it reads the DOS floppies
during installation, so you don't have to rawrite all of those disks.
Once you have these 4 disks, you're ready to go. You can also get all
of the files in the b1-b7 directories (for extras, like man pages and
emacs), c1-c4 directories (for the GCC compiler and libraries), the
x1-x8 directories (for Xwindows), and so on, but they're all optional.
I suggest at least getting the files in the a, b, and c directories.
Remember that only the a1 and a2 images need to be rawritten, ALL of
the other files just do onto the floppies in DOS format.
First you boot the a1 disk. It will load up Linux, and will ask you to
put in the a2 disk at some point. You'll be left with a prompt... from
here you want to look at the SLS README file on-line (it tells you
how). Then you'll run 'fdisk' to create your Linux partition(s), (see
section III.C, below, for info on making partitions), and
then reboot the a1 disk again (putting in the a2 disk, again, when
asked). Then you'll run 'mkfs' and 'mkswap' to make your filesystems
and swap space. Then you're ready to install the software-- type
doinstall /dev/PART
where PART is the main Linux partition you created with fdisk, above.
>From here on it's pretty automatic-- you simply flip disks while it
installs the software. First it will ask you how much software you
plan to install-- just choose the correct option depending on which
sets of disks you got.
You will need to have a blank DOS-formatted floppy on hand. The
installation procedure makes a Linux kernel boot disk out of it.
III.06) What's about SLS ?
ANSWER: (this is part of the FAQ written for SLS 0.98p5 by Peter
MacDonald).
SLS (Softlanding Linux System) Copyright 1992, Softlanding Software.
which is NOT just an image dump of someones Unix system.
Also note that in the interest of preventing ftp storms, the version
of SLS that appears on the internet, is not quite the same as the
version distributed by Softlanding. Softlanding regularly gets a
whole new version which has the changes integrated. But the updates
to the Internet version are tailored to minimize the amount that has
to be downloaded to become current. That is why bugs manage to creep
in on me. I am not installing and testing the Internet version,
although, functionally, it should be quite close to the Softlanding
one.
So, why am I telling you this? After the next period of stability
(few changes to SLS), I will be uploading the Softlanding version of
SLS to tsx-11.mit.edu.
This distribution is freely available if you have internet
access, or an obliging friend with access to it.
The purposes of the SLS are the following:
0) provide an initial installation program (for the queasy).
1) utilities compiled to use minimal disk space.
2) provide a reasonably complete/integrated U*ix system.
3) provide a means to install and uninstall packages.
4) permit partial installations for small disk configs.
5) add a menu driven, extensible system administration.
6) take the hassle out of collecting and setting up a system.
7) give non internet users access to Linux.
8) provide a distribution that can be easily updated.
SLS is a binary mostly distribution (except for the kernel), and is
broken into multiple parts, or series, each of which is denoted by a
letter followed by the disk number as follows:
a1-aN: The minimal base system
b1-bN: Base system extras, like man pages, emacs etc.
c1-cN: The compiler(s), gcc/g++/p2c/f2c
x1-xN: The X-windows distribution
i1-iN: Interviews (doc and idraw)
t1-tN: TeX (document processing)
This scheme allows new disks to be added to the distribution without
changing the disk numbering. Also, the sysinstall program doesn't
have to be changed when new disks are added as the last disk is marked
by the presence of the file "install.end". And when interviews is
added, say as a new series "i", it can be installed with:
sysinstall -series i
Highlights of the base are: gcc/g++, emacs, kermit, elm/mail/uucp,
gdb, sc (spreadsheet), man pages, groff, elvis, zip/zoo/lh and menu.
Highlights of X are: X, programmers libs, 75 dpi fonts, games (spider,
tetris, xvier, chess, othello, xeyes, etc) and utilities like xmag,
xmenu, xcolormap and ghostscript. Approximate usage is as follows:
Tiny base system: 9 Meg (Series 'a')
Main base system: 25 Meg (Series 'a', 'b' and 'c')
Main base system + X11: 45 Meg (Series 'a', 'b', 'c' and 'x')
Please read the file COPYING which outlines the GNU copying
restrictions. The linux kernel is copywrite Linux B. Torvalds.
Various other copywrites apply, but the upshot is that you
may do whatever you like with SLS, except restrict others
in any way from doing likewise, and you must leave all copywrites
intact, and you can not misrepresent or take credit for others work.
AVAILABILITY
SLS is available from the address:
Softlanding Software
910 Lodge Ave.
Victoria, B.C., Canada
V8X-3A8
(604) 360-0188
More details about SLS can be asked to pmacdona@sanjuan.uvic.ca
III.07) What should I get to install the bootdisk/rootdisk combo
release?
ANSWER: Essentially it's a lot like the SLS installation, above. You
get the boot disk and root disk, and use rawrite to transfer them to
floppies. Then you boot the boot disk, and put in the root disk when
asked. At this point you login as 'install' to install the software.
III.08) How do I get and install H.J. Lu's "bootable rootdisk" release?
ANSWER: It's just like the boot/root disk and the SLS release. Just
get the bootroot disk image and use rawrite to transfer it to a
floppy, and then boot it. You'll probably want to get the 'gccdisk'
and 'libdisk', etc. images and rawrite them to floppies as well. Note
that this release doesn't have a user-friendly installation script,
it's meant mostly to upgrade or install the system by hand. Unless
you're familiar with Linux this may prove difficult. :)
III.09) What is the MCC interim version of Linux?
ANSWER: The MCC-Interim release of Linux was put together by Owen
LeBlanc of the Manchester Computing Centre. Unfortunately, it's quite
dated, and isn't going to be updated anymore. :(
III.C. SOME COMMON PROBLEMS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
III.10) What filetype is the extension ".z"? What about ".taz",
".tpz", and ".tgz"? I see these files on the archives but I don't
know how to unpack them.
ANSWER: Here's a list of common filename extensions on the archives.
Extension Used by
--------- ----------------------------------------------------------
.Z compress/uncompress. Use "uncompress foo.Z" to
uncompress the file.
.z gzip. Gzip is now used by many archive sites instead
of compress; if you don't have gzip on your system,
get it! To uncompress one of these files use
"gzip -d foo.z".
.tar Tar file. Use "tar xvf foo.tar" to unpack it. Or, you
can fo "tar tvf foo.tar" to get an index listing of
the tarfile.
.taz Compressed tar file. You can do something like
"zcat foo.taz | tar xvf -" or "tar xvfz foo.taz" to
unpack it (some versions of tar don't have the z
option).
.tpz, .tgz Gzipped tar file. If you have gzip, zcat is linked to
it, so you can do "zcat foo.tpz | tar xvf -" to unpack
it. .tpz is the old extension; all gzipped tar files
should now end in .tgz instead.
The SLS distribution uses gzipped tar files (.tgz).
III.11) How do I make partitions and/or filesystems for Linux?
ANSWER: For most Linux installations (such as SLS) you'll need at
least two partitions: one for swap space (used as virtual memory) and
another for your "root filesystem" (that is, the actual Linux software
itself). You can also make seperate partitions for your /usr
filesystem, etc. (however, the SLS doinstall program, at this point,
mounts your root filesystem for you before installing, thus, you can't
have a seperate /usr filesystem to start out with).
But that's beside the point. First thing you need to do is resize the
existing partitions on your drive (if any) to make space for Linux;
for example, if you have a DOS partition taking up all of your drive,
you need to use FDISK under MS-DOS to delete it and recreate it with a
smaller size. Of course, in so doing you'll lose everything on that
DOS partition-- just back it up first and reinstall after you've
recreated and reformatted the partition. That's life! :)
Now you can boot up Linux (say, from SLS, or from the boot/root disks).
>From there you run 'fdisk' to create your partitions: it's very self-
explanatory. If you make a swap partition you need to change it's type
to "Linux swap" with the fdisk 't' command.
And, if you want a Linux partition larger than 64 megabytes, you'll
need to use the extended filesystem[*] (as opposed to the default, the
Minix filesystem). The extended filesystem ("extfs" for short) has a
4 terabyte size limit (and lets you have filenames longer than 14
characters). If you want to use it just set the type of the partition
to "Linux extfs" with the fdisk 't' command.
[*] You can also use the Xia filesystem (xiafs) or ext2fs (better version of
the extended filesystem). These two filesystems are proving to be more
widely used as both the extfs and the Minix filesystem are being phased out.
Both of them are now included in SLS. Use "mkxfs" to create Xia filesystems,
and "mke2fs" to make Extdended 2 Filesystems. As most installations are
phasing out the Minix and Extended filesystems I suggest using xiafs or ext2fs.
NOTE: "Extended filesystem" does NOT equal "extended partition". An
extended partition acts as a "container" for logical partitions, which
is nice because you can have many logical partitions inside the
extended partition, and only use up one of your four available primary
partitions on the drive. (You can have only one extended partition
per drive). Extended partition can't hold data on their own: you need
to create logical partitions on top of it first. They are numbered
/dev/hda5, /dev/hda6, and so on.
The extended FILESYSTEM on the other hand has nothing to do with
extended partitions. It's just the name of another filesystem used by
Linux which lets you have larger filesystem sizes and other features.
Once you've got your partitions created, you need to reboot the system
so that changes to your partition table are picked up. Then you need
to 'format' the partitions (i.e. create filesystems on them). For your
swap partition, use the command 'mkswap <partition> <size>'. For
example, if you have a swap partition on /dev/hda2 with a size of 8208
blocks (about 8 megs), use the command
mkswap /dev/hda2 8208
If you have a partition set up for a Minix filesystem (the default
type) use the command 'mkfs <partition> <size>'. If however you're
going to use the extended filesystem (a must for partitions over 64
megs) use the command 'mkefs <partition> <size>'. (Note: If you use the
ext2fs, you'll have to use mke2fs, and if you use Xia filesystem, you'll
have to use mkxfs when creating the filesystems).
III.12) Why does fdisk say "Linux cannot currently use XXXX sectors of
this partition"?
ANSWER: Fdisk is an older program which expected all filesystems to be
Minix fs, which limited filesystems to 64 megs. You can ignore this warning
because the extfs, xiafs, and ext2fs don't have this limit.
III.13) What does the message "MINIX-fs: Magic match failed" on bootup mean?
ANSWER: Basically, this means that you're trying to mount a non-Minix
filesystem as a Minix filesystem, and mount is croaking on it because the
type is wrong. If you use a root filesystem type other than Minix fs (i.e.
if you use the extfs, ext2fs, or xiafs) you'll probably see this message:
the kernel tries to mount root as Minix, then extfs, then ext2fs, and so on...
every time it fails for one type it tries the next type.
In most situations, this can be ignored, if the kernel is able to mount
your root partition as any one of its known types. However, if you have the
root device set to the wrong partition, for example, then the kernel should
hang at this point and you'll have to use "rdev" to set it correctly.
III.14) Linux mkfs doesn't accept the size I give the device,
although I double-checked with fdisk, and it's correct.
ANSWER: Be sure you give the size in Linux BLOCKS (1024 bytes), not
sectors. Also make sure that you have the right partition: partitions
are numbered "/dev/hda1", "/dev/hda2", and so on (and "/dev/hdb1",
"/dev/hdb2" for the second hard drive)... DON'T use "/dev/hda" or
"/dev/hdb" as they correspond to the entire disk, not just single
partitions.
Also remember that SCSI drives use /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2... and
/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, and so on for their partitions.
III.15) How can I get mkfs/mkefs to check for bad blocks?
ANSWER: Unfortunately the -c option on mk(e)fs does not work; it
cannot detect bad blocks on the drive, and thus if you create a
filesystem over a part of your hard drive with bad blocks, things will
eventually go wrong. So you need to generate a bad block list (in a
file) and use the -l option on mk(e)fs so it will flag those blocks
when making a filesystem.
NOTE: This is only needed for older RLL and MFM drives. SCSI and IDE
drives have bad block logic on-board.
Generating a bad block list for mk(e)fs
=======================================
Nov 11, 1992 Gerhard Kircher (kircher@neuro.tuwien.ac.at)
Introduction
------------
First of all: the -c option (check bad
blocks) of mk(e)fs does not work (the code used cannot detect any bad
blocks). Fortunately there is another option -l <file> to tell
mk(e)fs where the bad blocks are. SCSI and IDE drive users do not
need any bad block management - the drive logic does it for them.
However, users of old MFM or RLL drives do need it.
1 Where are my bad blocks ?
---------------------------
Every MFM or RLL drive is tested by the manufacturer and the locations
of bad blocks are usually printed directly on the drive case. If you
cannot find any bad block information on your drive, you can use the
common disk test software (Norton,...) to check your drive and obtain
a defect list.
Locations of bad blocks are given in terms of cylinder and head
coordinates. Cylinder and head together specify a certain track. Some
manufacturers are more specific about the location of the bad spot
within the track but if you know how to use this information you
probably do not need to read this guide. So if we know the track
where the bad spot sits, we declare the entire track as bad (even
experts do this).
What we have now is a table of the form
CYLINDER HEAD
... ...
... ...
... ...
2 calculating all bad sectors
-----------------------------
Each sector on the drive can be addressed by three cordinates:
Cylinder = [0..CYLINDERS-1]
Head = [0..HEADS-1]
Sector = [0..SECTORS-1]
where
CYLINDERS ... total number of cylinders
HEADS ... total number of heads
SECTORS ... number of sectors per track
The absolute address of a sector on the disk is then calculated
according to the formula
Abssector = HEADS*SECTORS*Cylinder + SECTORS*Head + Sector.
We can now calculate the absolute addresses of all sectors
of every bad track on our disk according to
for each bad track given by Cylinder and Head do
begin
for Sector=0 to SECTORS-1 do
begin
Abssector = HEADS*SECTORS*Cylinder + SECTORS*Head + Sector
end
end
obtaining a list of all bad sectors.
3 Converting absolute sectors to partition relative sectors
-----------------------------------------------------------
Partitions are like separate disks, that means that sector counting
starts with 0 for each partition. So what we have to do next is to
generate a bad sector list for each partition we want to use for
linux. To do that, we must know where each partition starts and ends.
We can get this information from fdisk. When we start fdisk and type
'p' to view the partition table, the begin, start and end information
will be given in terms of cylinders. When we type 'u' to toggle the
units, an then again 'p' we get what we need: Start and End of each
partition in terms of absolute sectors. Here is what I see on my
system (I use my second disk for linux):
# fdisk /dev/hdb
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hdb: 8 heads, 17 sectors, 1024 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 136 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 1 963 65483+ 81 Linux/MINIX
/dev/hdb2 964 964 1024 4148 82 Linux swap
Command (m for help): u
Changing display/entry units to sectors
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hdb: 8 heads, 17 sectors, 1024 cylinders
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 1 130967 65483+ 81 Linux/MINIX
/dev/hdb2 130968 130968 139263 4148 82 Linux swap
Sector counting (as counting always should do :-) starts with 0.
The first partition begins with sector one, as sector 0 is
always the boot sector.
This is how we calculate the addresses for one partition:
a) From the list obtained in section 2, cancel all addresses
that are not in the range [Start..End] (including limits)
shown by fdisk.
b) Subtract Start from each remaining entry.
4 Converting to blocks
----------------------
A disk sector has a length of 512 bytes (this is the usual size
BIOS/DOS can handle). Linux groups two sectors to an entity called
block. A block therefore consists of two physical sectors and has a
size of 1024 bytes (I read somewhere that larger blocks will be
supported in the future). The mk(e)fs program wants to know the
addresses of bad blocks, not sectors. So we convert our partition
relatve sector addresses to partition relative block addresses by
dividing by two and taking the integer part. Doing that we certainly
get a lot of duplicate addresses which we have to get rid of, so we
simply delete redundant entries.
What we have now is a list of bad blocks for each partition. Mk(e)fs
likes to get this information from a file, one address per line, one
file for each partition.
5 Automating the process
------------------------
Doing all the calculations by hand is tedious and error prone.
So we may decide to automate the whole thing.
We can do everything in dos when we use the proper utilities
(see later)
5.1 The Input File
We need a single file containing the coordinates of all bad tracks of
one entire disk. Each line of the file consists of two fields, the
first of which is the cylinder number and the second is the head
number. These are the first few lines of the file for my second disk:
48 0
105 4
150 2
224 1
380 2
427 6
435 1
5.2 An AWK script for doing all the calculations
In the following we present an awk script that does all the work for
us. We just have to plug in the correct values of the partition and
drive parameters and off we go. I use gawk211.zip and sort03.arc
which I downloaded from a simtel20 mirror. Sort is used to remove the
duplicates.
#---the awk script starts here
# generates linux bad blocks file (starting count with 0)
# for partition ONE
# for micropolis drive 8 heads, 17 sectors
# input file: cyl[0.. ] head[0.. ]\n
# stdout: abs blocks of corresponding partition\n
BEGIN { start = 1;
end = 130967;
sectors = 17;
heads = 8;
}
{ sec=$1*sectors*heads+$2*sectors;
if (sec>=start && sec<=end)
for (i=0; i<sectors; i++) print int((sec-start+i)/2) | "sort -mu"
}
#---the awk script ends here
Suppose that our input file is named 'badtrack.lst' and that the awk
file is 'part1.awk', then we can generate a bad block list for mk(e)fs
by typing the command
gawk -f part1.awk badtrack.lst > badblk1.lst
This is the file we need.
5.3 Making the file system
What we must do now is to have this file accessible for linux during
installation. There are several ways to do this. You can either mount
your DOS partition and copy the file over to Linux, or use mtools (as
in 'mcopy c:badblk1.lst /user/badblocks').
Now we can make the file system. In this case the bad blocks file is
in /user/badblocks, and the partition we're making a filesystem on is
/dev/hdb1. We're making an extended filesystem with a size of 65483
blocks:
mkefs -l /user/badblocks /dev/hdb1 65483
Thats it!
Bugs
----
I only tried mkfs but I'm rather convinced that it works with
mkefs as well.
III.16) How can I boot Linux off of my hard drive?
ANSWER: You need to install the "LILO" program which changes the boot
sector of your hard drive to allow you to choose between a DOS or a
Linux partition to boot from. These programs are provided with most
major releases, or you can get them seperately from one of the FTP
sites.
As of LILO version 8 there is a "quick install" script available which
should make LILO installation quick and easy. See Section VII for LILO
information.
III.17) Cripes! I tried to install LILO, but screwed up somehow, and
now can't boot anything from the hard drive. How can I fix this?
ANSWER: Simple. First you need an MS-DOS 5.0 (or OS/2) bootable floppy
with FDISK.EXE on it. Boot it and run the command
FDISK /MBR
which will (hopefully) restore your hard drive's master boot record to
a standard MS-DOS (resp. OS/2) boot record. Now you can go back and
reinstall LILO. :)
III.18) When installing SLS, I get the error "You may have inserted
the wrong disk" when putting in the next disk in a series. What's
going on?
ANSWER: Each disk has a small file on it which contains the name of
the disk. For example, the SLS a3 disk has a file on it called
"diska3". If it doesn't exist, or is named something else (like
"diska3.z"), then just create it/rename it.
Also, the last disk in a series (i.e. the a4 disk, b5 disk, etc.) has
a file on it called "install.end". You need this file as well. These
files are used by the SLS doinstall program to keep track of where it
is.
III.19) When installing SLS, the installation script creates a "boot
floppy" for me to boot Linux with. How can I make these myself (or fix
problems with them?)
ANSWER: The SLS install scripts just copy the kernel image to a blank
floppy for you to boot Linux with. When SLS is installed, a copy of
the kernel is stored in the file /Image on your hard drive: since you
use the kernel on your boot floppy to boot, this file isn't used
during the bootup process (unless you install LILO).
To make a boot floppy yourself, you must do two things:
1) Run 'rdev' (a.k.a. 'rootdev') on the kernel in the file /Image to set
the root partition it uses. For example, if your root partition is
/dev/hda3, run the command
rdev /Image /dev/hda3
2) Copy the kernel to a new floppy. You may need to DOS format the floppy
first(*). Then run the command
cp /Image /dev/fd0
if the floppy is in /dev/fd0 (the first floppy drive). You can use a
command like
dd if=/Image of=/dev/fd0 bs=16k
as well; they should accomplish the same thing.
(*) (From: "Michael L. Kaufman" kaufman@delta.eecs.nwu.edu)
Formating the floppy lays down the track/sector information. If
you have a completely unformated floppy, dd can fail in interesting
ways.
Many folks have problems with their SLS boot disks made in this manner
because they forgot to run 'rdev' on the kernel image before copying
it to the floppy.
III.20) How can I set the default video mode used by Linux? Do I have
to recompile the kernel to do this?
ANSWER: No, you don't have to recompile the kernel. Just use "rdev" with
the "-v" switch to set the video mode in the kernel (either on your
hard drive (if booting from LILO) or on your boot floppy). For example,
to change the kernel in /Image to prompt for the videomode on bootup, do
rdev -v /Image -3
to change the kernel on your boot floppy do,
rdev -v /dev/fd0 {video-mode}
III.21) How else can I use rdev?
ANSWER: rdev is very handy and also is used to set the root and swap
partitions, ramdisk size, and more, in a compiled kernel. It means you
don't have to recompile the kernel to make these changes. Use "rdev -?"
for a list of options.
III.22) When I login as non-root, I get tons of errors about
"shell-init: permission denied". Also, some things work as root but
not as a normal user. What's the deal?
ANSWER: This is a really common problem which comes from not having
permissions set right and a misunderstanding of some UNIX terms. Some
installations won' t have the file permissions set correctly on the
various directories that normal users (i.e. non-root) will use. For
example, if your user directories are in /home, then /home must be of
mode rwxr-xr-x, or 'chmod 755 /home'. Also, a home directory must be
owned by the user who it belongs to (i.e. /home/mdw must be owned by
'mdw'... just 'chown mdw /home/mdw', for example). Also, the
permissions must be set correctly for / (the root directory). Here's a
list of permissions that should work (although you can use other
permissions, these are just suggestions that shouldn't cause trouble):
permissions (chmod) owner file
----------- ------- ----- ---------------------------------------------
rwxr-xr-x (755) root /
rwxr-xr-x (755) root /home
rwxr-xr-x (755) mdw /home/mdw
rwxr--r-- (744) mdw /home/mdw/.profile (or other startup files)
rwxr--r-- (744) mdw /home/mdw/foo (normal files)
In most cases the group of the file doesn't matter, but in general
most files are set to group 'root' (except for binaries which are
group bin, and so on) and user files are set to group 'user' (or
whatever group users are in).
In general you want directories that everyone can access to be
rwxr-xr-x (chmod 755). Files that everyone can read are rwxr--r--
(chmod 744), and programs that everyone can run are rwxr-xr-x (chmod
755).
Thus /bin, /usr, /usr/bin, /etc, and so on, should all be rwxr-xr-x.
All binaries should be rwxr-xr-x (unless, of course, they're setuid
programs). For UNIX newbies, setuid programs run under the user id of
the owner, thus programs owned by root which have a permission of
rwsr-xr-x (note the 's') run as root, with root's priveleges. So
before changing permissions on a program check to see if it's setuid
first. To make a program setuid prepend a '4' to the permissions you
give to chmod, i.e. rwsr-xr-x is 'chmod 4755'.
Here's a list of common uses for permissions:
permission effect on files effect on directories
---------- ----------------------- ---------------------------------
read lets you look lets you see what's in the directory
at a file, lets you with ls
run a shell script
write lets you edit a file or lets you create or delete a file from
copy over it the directory (*)
execute lets you run a binary or lets you cd into the directory
shell script
(*) Note that you can delete a file from a directory even if you DON'T
have write access to the file itself! Write access to the DIRECTORY
that the file is in will let you delete any file in that directory.
The permissions of the file itself have nothing to do with being able
to delete a file. This is standard across all UNIX systems, nothing
new with Linux.
III.23) I have the previous version of the Linux kernel, how can
I upgrade it?
ANSWER: If you've never done this before, get the kernel sources from
your nearest FTP site (in a file named something like linux-*.tar.Z)
and unpack them into /usr/src/linux. As of Linux-0.99 there is a
script to autoconfigure your kernel, and you need at least GCC version
2.3.3. You unpack these sources in /usr/src/linux. Make sure you have
the logical links for /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm as
described below.
First run 'make config' and answer the various questions. Then
edit /usr/src/linux/Makefile to set the root partition, keyboard, etc.
Finally, do a 'make dep' (to set dependencies: VERY important!) and
finally 'make'. Assuming you have GCC installed correctly, the kernel
should compile and you'll be left with a new "Image" which is your new
kernel: if you boot from harddrive, copy the Image to wherever you
told LILO to look for it, or if you boot from floppy dd the Image to a
new floppy. Make sure that you run "rdev" on the Image to make it look
for the correct partition for your root filesystem (if you specified
this correctly in the Makefile you don't need to do this).
** Make sure you read /usr/src/linux/README, which explains in detail
** what to do when recompiling the kernel.
If you HAVE done this before, you can just apply the source patches to
your old sources and then recompile (i.e. you don't have to get the
entire kernel sources all over again). Use the "patch" program to do
this. Before you recompile the kernel do a 'make dep' to set
dependencies and a 'make clean'.
III.24) Where is /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm, or,
Why won't the kernel compile correctly?
ANSWER: The files /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm are symbolic
links to /usr/src/linux/include/linux and /usr/src/linux/include/asm,
respectively. In other words, all of the Linux include files are
actually under /usr/src/linux/include, but to access them you need two
symbolic links in /usr/include:
/usr/include/linux -> /usr/src/linux/include/linux
/usr/include/asm -> /usr/src/linux/include/asm
To make these, run the commands
ln -sf /usr/src/linux/include/linux /usr/include/linux
ln -sf /usr/src/linux/include/asm /usr/include/asm
NOT the other way around. :) If you dont have these links then many
compilations will surely fail.
III.25) How can I upgrade to the newest version of GCC and/or
libraries?
ANSWER: See section IX on GCC for more information, but essentially
all you need to do is FTP to sunsite.unc.edu (or one of the other
Linux FTP sites) and look in /pub/Linux/GCC. You'll see a number of
.tar.Z files there (often abbreviated .TZ). The names change from time
to time: you need to get the compiler (often in a file such as
'gcc233.TZ'), header files, and library files. At this point, the
compiler lives in /usr/bin, the compiler's setup files are under
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-linux, and the libraries (shared, jump table,
and static) are all in /usr/lib. It's all very straightforward once
you actually unpack the tar files and everything falls into place.
III.26) What's the deal with these things called "jump tables"?
ANSWER: There's more information in section IX and VII, but to be
brief: There are three kinds of libraries for Linux. As of gcc v2.3.3
they all live in /usr/lib. The files are...
/usr/lib/*.a static (non-shared) libraries (use gcc -static ...)
/usr/lib/*.sa jump table shared lib stubs (use gcc -jump ...)
There is an older form of the shared libraries which is no longer widely used.
Nonetheless, you may run across it from time to time.
/usr/lib/*.ca classic shared lib stubs
When you compile a program, depending on the options you give gcc
(-jump is the default) it will link it against one set of these
libraries. The static libs contain all of the code and thus make your
executable very big; no shared code is used. The classic shared libs
were actually 'stubs' which reference the shared code in
/lib/libc.so.VERSION (where VERSION is a number like '4.2').
/lib/libc.so.VERSION is a file which contains the actual code of the
library, which is accessed at runtime by your executable. The
jump-table library stubs are also shared libs, but they are built in
such a way that you can upgrade the /lib/libc.so.VERSION file without
having to recompile the programs that use it.
So when we say "uses Jump Tables version 4.2" we mean it uses the
actual library itself, /lib/libc.so.4.2. To compile programs that use
jump tables version 4.2 you need the right version of /usr/lib/*.sa
installed, but you don't need them to RUN programs that use jump
tables.
However programs that are compiled to use, for example, jump table
version 4.2 (in the file /lib/libc.so.4.2) won't work if you only have
libc.so.4.1 installed. They're only backwards-compatible. If you get
errors about 'can't find /lib/libc.so.4.1' then the executable you're
using is looking at runtime for a jump table version that you don't
have. Basically you're safe if you have the most recent version of the
/lib/libc.so.VERSION file installed (which is found on
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/GCC and comes with the GCC stuff).
You should always have a symbolic link with the major version number
of the library in /lib, because that's what's actually read. For
instance, if you have /lib/libc.so.4.2 installed, then you need the
symbolic link
/lib/libc.so.4 -> /lib/libc.so.4.2
Make this with the command
ln -s /lib/libc.so.4.2 /lib/libc.so.4
III.27) How to upgrade jump tables? (Without hanging my system)
ANSWER: Be careful! If you upgrade your /lib/libc.so.VERSION file and
either remove the symlink or delete the old libc.so.VERSION file
before the new one is in place (and the link points to it), then more
than likely all of your binaries like "cp", "mv", "ls" and "ln" use
the library, so they'll all stop working once you kill the link or the
library file. So to upgrade the file, copy the new version to /lib and
switch the link in one step with a command such as
ln -sf /lib/libc.so.NEW_VERSION /lib/libc.so.4
where NEW_VERSION is the new version of the library you're installing.
This will switch the link in one step and everything should work. You
just can't copy over the old file because the old version is in use by
'cp', 'mv', and so on.
BTW you get new versions of GCC, jump tables, libraries, include files, etc.
from tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/GCC.
III.28) How can I be sure I won't be writing over anything important
when installing Linux? I have to use DOS on my machine, and I don't
want to lose any files.
ANSWER: Back up everything. Just in case. As long as your DOS and
Linux partitions don't overlap you should be okay.
III.29) I just rebooted my machine, and now Linux dies with a
"panic: trying to free unused inode". What's going on?
ANSWER: You probably forgot to "sync" before rebooting, which stores
on the disk physically the contents of the kernel buffers. You can
either run "fsck" on the partition to TRY to correct the problem (it
might fail), or re-mkfs and re-install the software on that partition.
For the extended filesystem use "efsck" instead.
The best way to shutdown your system is the "shutdown" command. To
shutdown and reboot the system, use
shutdown -r now
or substitute a number of minutes in place of "now". Leave off the
"-r" switch if you just want to shutdown and not reboot.
III.30) Can I use both OS/2 and Linux on my machine??
ANSWER: Yes! See the following two Q/A's about getting your OS/2 Boot
Manager to work. But, be warned: IF YOU USE OS/2, DO NOT USE LINUX's
FDISK TO CREATE LINUX PARTITIONS!! The problem is with a bug/feature
in OS/2's fdisk that tries to correct 'errors' in partitions that it
doesn't like... Linux partitions included. The solution: make your
Linux partitions with OS/2's fdisk, then use Linux's fdisk to change
the partition ID's to the right values (this is self-explanatory with
Linux's fdisk).
If you made your Linux partitions with Linux's fdisk, and OS/2 sees
them, it will think they have errors and end up trashing them.
III.31) I use OS/2's Boot Manager on my hard drive. How can I get it
to recognize Linux?
ANSWER: To do this, install LILO on your Linux root partition, NOT on
your hard drive's master boot record. The lilo command for this would
be (if /dev/hda3 is your Linux root partition, and your Linux kernel
is in /Image):
/etc/lilo/lilo -c -b /dev/hda3 -v -v /Image
Then use OS/2's fdisk to add it to the Boot Manager.
III.32) When I run Linux's fdisk it says "OPUS" for OS/2's Boot
Manager partition. Is this right? What's OPUS?
ANSWER: It's correct. OPUS is BBS software that used partition type
0x0A long before OS/2.
IV. SOME CLASSICAL PROBLEMS
===========================
IV.01) While running du I get "Kernel panic: free_inode: bit
already cleared". Also, du produces a ENOENT error for all the files
in certain of my directories. What's going on?
ANSWER: These are both consistent with a bad file-system. That's
relatively easy to produce by not syncing before rebooting, as linux
usually has 1.5MB of buffer space held in memory (unless you have <=4M
RAM, in which case the buffers are only about 0.5MB). Also linux
doesn't do anything special about the bit-map blocks, and as they are
used often, those are the thing most likely to be in memory. If you
reboot, and they haven't been written to disk ...
Just do an fsck on the device, the -a flag might repair it otherwise,
the only thing to do is to reinstall the filesystem from the Images.
A sync is done only every 30 seconds normally (standard unix
practice), so do one by hand (some people think you should do 3 syncs
after each other, but that's superstition, you just have to give time
to the first sync to finish), or by logging out from the
startup-shell, which automatically syncs the system. Unmounting a
filesystem also syncs it (but of course you can never unmount root).
Another (sad) possibility is that you have bad blocks on your disk.
Not very probable, as they would have to be in the inode-tables, just
a couple of blocks in size. Again there aren't programs available to
read a disk for bad sectors and put them in some kind of
"bad-sector-file". On IDE drives this is no problem (bad sectors are
automatically mapped away).
IV.02) How can I partition my hard-drive to use Linux?
ANSWER: See section III of the FAQ on installation.
IV.03) I heard something about repartition a hard disk without
deleting everything on it, any clue?
ANSWER: It's not a program but a partition procedure which requires
a) a partitionning program
b) a sector editor
The procedure itself can be found (at least) in digest#132 Vol2.
IV.04) What must I do to mkfs a floppy?
ANSWER: blocks are of size 1K so 1.44 floppy is 1440 blocks. The
floppy has to be formatted before this will work (e.g., fdformat can
do this from within Linux).
IV.05) I have some trouble with tar/untar; any clue ?
ANSWER: The tar provided on .96 and later is Pax (don't know for
CURRENT_VERSION) which does not accept the z flag. You can download
the GNU tar at tsx-11 in /pub/linux/binaries/usr.bin
IV.06) I can do this as root but not as non-root, is it a bug?
ANSWER: Except for an early make utility, the problem is caused by an
incorrect permission flag. The most common problems are about /tmp
which should be 1777 and /dev/ttys? which might be 766. So as root do
chmod 1777 /tmp ; chmod 766 /dev/ttys?
IV.07) "du" reports twice the size showed with "ls -l", is it a
bug?
ANSWER: No it is not, the report is 512 bytes multiple (due to POSIX
requirement), for KB you just add the -k flag. You can add a du
function in your .profile which does this automatically, something
like du(){ /usr/bin/du -k $* }
IV.08) Sometimes, I get "mount can't open lock file"; what does this
means?
ANSWER: This can happened for two reasons:
A) You try to mount something as non-root. In that case you can either
retry as root, or set the setuid bit to mount as follows:
- be sure that mount belongs to root, if not do 'chown root /bin/mount'
- set the setuid bit with 'chmod u+s /bin/mount'
BTW you have to do the same with umount (in order to be able to unmount)
Remark that it is NOT safe to allow anyone to perform mount/umount.
B) You are root. mount wants to open /etc/mtab and /etc/mtab~ - the
first one for reading, the second as lock file. If there is already a
mtab~ remove it. This can happen if you used once gnuemacs on mtab.
To forbid that case, just add the following entry in your /etc/rc file:
rm -f /etc/mtab~
IV.09) When I try "mount /dev/hd?? /user", I get error 2.
ANSWER: Be sure, that your mount point /user does exist; if not perform
a "mkdir /user".
BTW the error numbering is explained in /usr/include/errno.h
IV.10) Since I have upgrade my Linux kernel, ps won't work anymore,
why?
ANSWER: Each time you upgrade (or re-compile the kernel), you should
perform a 'ps -U' (-U is for update the /etc/psdatabase).
Every time you boot a new kernel you have to do a 'ps -U' to update
the psdatabase, after doing this you can remove the system file or
even have to patch the ps-suite.
BTW: sometimes a patch makes recompiling ps necessary. Sometimes you
do a make clean.
NOTE: As of 0.99 there is now a ps package which uses the "/proc
filesystem". This is a meta-filesystem which has an entry for each
process that's running... create the directory /proc and do a
'mount -t proc /proc /proc' to see it, or else add the following
entry in your /etc/fstab:
none /proc proc
You can get the "procps" package from tsx-11.mit.edu in
/pub/linux/BETA/procps. The nice thing about this is: you don't have
to upgrade it for every kernel version (and thus ps -U is meaningless
if you use procps).
MKJ wrote in c.o.l.a:
tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/BETA/procps/procps.tar.Z is the latest
version of procps. Most of the reported bugs (i.e. all I can remember
at the moment ;-) have been fixed, a man page for ps has been added,
and several new programs have been added and/or fixed. A list of the
stuff provided:
ps
free (a real one, from Linus)
uptime (this needs work to be good, mine is a hack)
tload (a hack, but who cares?)
xload (from drew)
fuser (perl script prototype, hopefully the real thing in a
later release)
IV.11) Since Linux 0.96b I have a lot of core file all over
my disk. How can I sweep them away ?
ANSWER: Use the following command
find / -name core -exec rm {} \;
BTW: think twice before using this command, there might be a John Core
user on your system; this command will erase his mail :)
If you never want to see another core file, put this line into
your /etc/rc file:
for a bash user
ulimit -c 0
for a csh or tcsh user
limit coredumpsize 0
IV.12) I can only log-in as "root", is it normal ?
ANSWER: No, add "rm -f /etc/nologin" in your /etc/rc.local file
IV.13) Sometimes my Linux virtual console get messed up when I cat
a binary file. The characters shown are above ascii 127, any clue ?
ANSWER: (J. Stuckey stuckey@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu)
It's a vt-100 thing I think.
echo "^V^O"
should fix it. Control-V is the literal-next character that stty
reports for me, and Control-O is the "magic" character that returns
you to livability.
V. LINUX and DOS
=================
*** This section is co-written by Mark Komarinski, A. V. Le Blanc and
*** MM. Corsini. The official maintainer is Mark, if you have *any*
*** questions, mail him at komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu
*** Last Update 03.08.93
V.01) Is is possible to access DOS from Linux?
ANSWER: Yes.
(1) The mtools package allows you to access DOS files;
it emulates the DOS commands CD, COPY, DEL, DIR, TYPE, and others.
(2) Since approximately version 0.97 of the kernel, you can mount
DOS file systems as part of your Linux directory tree, providing you
have an appropriate mount command.
(3) A DOS emulator is in alpha test, which will allow some DOS programs
and utilities to run under Linux.
V.02) Why use mtools if you can just mount a drive?
ANSWER: Mtools is good if you want to do something quickly. For
example, if you want to get directories on a bunch of floppies. The
mount procedure requires you to mount the drive, get a directory, then
umount it. Mtools lets you get the directory with one command.
(Dirk Hohndel:) Mtools is really fast when copying disks. I mount the
SLS directory of my SUN to my linux box and use mcopy to get the files
on the disks. 3 times faster than using xcopy under DOS
V.03) How do I get the mtools package set up correctly?
ANSWER: The mtools package is available in source form on most Linux
ftp sites. The most recent version (As of Sept 1992) is mtools.n2,
and there are linked binaries and library (.a) files available as
well (for example, as part of MCC interim releases of Linux).
In the n2 release of mtools, there is only one executable binary
which works differently depending on its name: you can create hard
or symbolic links to it named mcopy, mdel, mdir, mtype, etc; this
is how the Makefile in version n2 of mtools does it, and it saves
several hundred kilobytes of disk space. Finally, you need the
correct information in the file /etc/mtools, which is described below.
Mtools also comes with the SLS release of linux.
V.04) What is the format of the file /etc/mtools?
ANSWER: A complete entry in the file /etc/mtools contains the following
fields: drive, device, fat, cylinders, heads, sectors, offset. Two
examples of entries from /etc/mtools are
A /dev/fd0 12 80 2 15
C /dev/hda1 16 0 0 0
which defines the DOS disk A: as accessible through the device /dev/fd0,
having a 12-bit FAT, 80 cylinders, 2 heads, and 15 sectors per track;
DOS disk C: is accessible through the device /dev/hda1, has a 16-bit
FAT, and its geometry is simply that of the hard disk where it lives.
The last three numbers can be 0 if you wish; this allows mtools to
try to figure out the disk's geometry itself, and perhaps to fail.
A 12-bit FAT is common for floppies, but may occur in small hard
disk partitions. A 16-bit FAT is common for hard disks.
This is an extract of my /etc/mtools file:
A /dev/fd0 12 0 0 0 # 3.5 1.4 Meg (autodetect)
B /dev/fd1 12 0 0 0 # 5.25 1.2 Meg (autodetect)
C /dev/hda1 16 0 0 0 # 1st partition of my Disk
V.05) Where can I find out more about mtools?
ANSWER: There are two detailed README files in the mtools.n2 distribu-
tion. These files treat compiling and using mtools. There is a file
README.mtools which treats only using mtools, which is a part of the
MCC interim version of Linux.
V.06) How do I use the DOS file system?
ANSWER: The DOS file system is part of the kernel. If you have a
kernel of level .97.1 or above, and an appropriate mount command, type
mount -t msdos [-o conv=text] /dev/hda1 /dos
to mount the partition /dev/hda1 as an MS/DOS file system on the
directory /dos. You'll need a recent mount command, from at least
release 97 or later of the root disk. Recent mount commands also
accept the options conv=binary|text|auto (default is binary) to
specify that text end-of-lines in DOS files are to be converted to
UNIX end-of-lines (by omitting carriage return characters) in no cases
(binary) or in all cases (text) or in cases that don't have 'well-
known binary extensions' (e.g., .EXE or .COM) (auto).
V.07) When I mount an MS-DOS disk, I get two lines of what seem to
be error messages and the message: No bmap support. Is my disk bad?
ANSWER: No. Since the dosfs is still in ALPHA mode, the two lines are
used for displaying information about the disk that was mounted, just in
case you have problems. The 'No bmap support' message means that you
cannot run linux programs from that partition. This has been fixed in the
latest release (alpha.9)
V.08) I want to use the DOS file system with either conv=binary or
conv=auto, but I want to convert text files from DOS to UNIX format,
or from UNIX to DOS format.
ANSWER: Use the utility todos/fromdos which comes as part of the
dosfs package, currently (Sept 92) in released in version 8, or
use the flip utility by Rahul Dhesi.
V.09) Where can I find out more about the DOS file system?
ANSWER: There is a README file included in dosfs.XX.tar.Z (the current
value of XX is 10)
V.10) This sounds me like a chicken and eggs problem, how can I
install the mtools package at the very beginning.
ANSWER: You have to use rawrite or the mount procedure.
V.11) Could someone explain how to use rawrite?
ANSWER: Rawrite is a DOS util which write sequential sectors of
a formatted disk/floppy. When a floppy has been rawritten, you can
(under Linux) untar it (use x, v, z and f flags). As an example:
a) under Dos use rawrite
rawrite
source: kermit.z
destination: a
b) boot under Linux, and perform a tar
tar zxvf /dev/fd0
tar zxvp < /dev/fd0
You DO NOT NEED TO MOUNT a rawritten disk
V.12) What is as86.tar.Z ?
ANSWER: It's the port of Bruce Evans' minix assembler, you need it to
be able to recompile Linux at your convenience. In fact this is ONLY
used for boot/setup.S and boot/bootsect.S they create 80x86 REAL mode
code.
V.13) Turbo (Microsoft) Assembler won't compile the Linux boot
code. In fact, some of the opcodes in these files look completely
unfamiliar. Why?
ANSWER: The Linux boot codes are written in Bruce Evans' minix
assembler, which has the same opcodes as the original minix assembler
ported to linux get as86.tar.Z There are a few differences
between these and normal DOS assemblers.
V.14) What about the dos emulator (dosemu)?
ANSWER: Dosemu is in alpha testing now, so it is very unstable and crashes
easily. Some programs (such as earlier versions of Turbo Pascal; TP
5.5 too) seem to work fine, but other programs such as dir /p will
crash the emulator.
Look in your favorite FTP site for the dosemu kit. For a semi-complete
list of programs that do and do not work under the emulator, get the file
/pub/Linux/docs/emusucc.txt at sunsite.unc.edu or tsx-11.mit.edu.
V.15) I have a Stacker volume on my hard drive. Can I access that?
ANSWER: Yes, but you will have to do that through the dosemu program.
For more information on it, check out the file /pub/Linux/docs/stacker.doc
at sunsite.unc.edu
V.16) How about OS/2 HPFS partitions, or MacIntosh/Amiga floppies?
Can I mount any of them?
ANSWER: There is no support for any of those filesystems yet.
===================8<==========>8================
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.announce,news.answers,comp.answers
Distribution: world
Followup-To: poster
From: corsini@labri.greco-prog.fr
Reply-To: linux@numero6.greco-prog.fr
Organization: Greco Prog. CNRS & LaBRI, Bordeaux France
Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions 3/4 [monthly posted]
Summary: Linux, a small and free unix-like for 386-AT computers.
Archive-name: linux-faq/part3
Last-Modified: 93/03/28
Version: 1.17
*********************************************************
* *
* Answers to Frequently asked questions about Linux *
* *
*********************************************************
This post contains Part 3 of the Linux FAQ (4 parts).
It must be read *after* the 2 first parts.
===================================8<====>8============================
CONTENTS (of this part)
VI. MISCELLANEOUS HINTS (part3)
VII. MORE HINTS (part3)
VIII. FEATURES (part3)
===================================8<====>8============================
VI. MISCELLANEOUS HINTS
=======================
*** This section is maintained by Matt Welsh (mdw@tc.cornell.edu). Please
*** mail me if you have any changes/updates/questions. Thanks -mdw
Special gcc information are located in section IX. A special section is
devoted to it since it's *the* compiler of Linux. I have subsectionned
this part in 3 subsections: Misc/Device Major-Minor/Serial Information.
VI.A. Misc information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
VI.01) It seems that $#@! ported on linux don't run correctly, what
do I do about reporting bugs?
ANSWER: (Matt Welsh) It's possible that either the program itself has a bug
or that Linux has a problem that this program brings out. :) But first check
that the size of the file(s) corresponds that of the files(s) on the FTP
sites where it's available. If they're different, either you downloaded them
incorrectly (i.e. you forgot to turn on "bin") or whoever put them on the
FTP site uploaded them incorrectly.
If that's not the problem, then post to comp.os.linux asking about the
program, to verify that it is a bug. PLEASE: when posting possible "bug
reports" include all error and output information from running/compiling
the program. Just saying "it doesn't work" isn't very helpful. Also mention
your specific setup, Linux version, GCC version, etc. Some of these things
depend on running under certain versions and you may have missed that
information.
Note that my "ml-linux-bugs@dg-rtp.dg.com" bug reporting list has been
phased out. It turns out that Linux has so few bugs, most of which are
resolved on the newsgroup or through Linus before I can accumulate them
and post. :) In short: if there's a bug in Linux or in Linux-ported
software, it will usually be fixed in the next patchlevel or version.
VI.02) Has $#@! been ported to Linux?
ANSWER: First check out the FTP sites and read the monthly INFO-SHEET,
as well as the new "Linux News" and the META-FAQ's (all of which are
either available on the FTP sites and/or posted to the newsgroup as they're
written). Also check out the "Linux Project Registry" (posted to the
newsgroup and on the FTP sites) which lists ongoing/current Linux projects.
Also look in the "old" Linux digests and mailing-list archives, kept on
tsx-11.mit.edu and nic.funet.fi. Also, see if there's a GNU(*) version
of the program you're looking for (which are available everywhere).
Since Linux uses GCC as its native compiler, most GNU software ports
directly to Linux without problems. If all else fails, ask on the
mailing list or newsgroup if the program is ported and where it's
available.
(*) GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix, which (besides being a recursive
acronym) is a project started by the Free Software Foundation (the FSF)
to write a freely distributable version of Unix. The GNU kernel is
named HURD, and is based on Mach. It is currently being written, and is
not yet done. Many of the GNU utilities, however, are completed and are
much more functional than the original Unix utilities. Since they are
freely available, Linux is using them as well.
VI.03) I've ported $#@! to Linux, what should i do to add it in the
standard distribution?
ANSWER: (Matt Welsh) First read the previous Q/A, then talk to the
maintainers of the various releases (MCC interim, SLS, and so on)
about including your program with those releases. The best way to make
programs available to the rest of the world is to upload it to one of
the Linux FTP sites (such as tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/incoming or
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/Incoming).
BTW Whenever you submit binaries, please think that if you link them
with shared libraries, this might cause problems for those who (gasp!)
don't have the shared libraries installed. You can either link them
using -static, and if someone wants to build a shared version on their
own machine they can get the sources (which you should also make
available) and build it themself. Or else provide the shared lib.
VI.04) I want to port $#@! to Linux, what are the flags?
ANSWER: Recall that Linux implements subset of SYSV and POSIX, so
-DUSG and -DPOSIX work in general.
NOTE1: SIGBUS is not there, and can be safely commented out in general.
NOTE2: see section related to GCC, in the third part of this FAQ, for
more details.
VI.B. Major/Minor device number
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** This section is maintained by Rick Miller, any comments,
*** suggestions, remarks should be mailed to him at <rick@ee.uwm.edu>
*** Last Update: 17 Feb 1993 21:12:24 +0200
VI.05) What are the device minor/major numbers?
The Linux Device List
maintained by rick@ee.uwm.edu (Rick Miller, Linux Device Registrar)
February 17, 1993
Many thanks to richard@stat.tamu.edu, Jim Winstead Jr., and many others.
Majors:
0. Unnamed . (unknown) .... for proc-fs, NFS clients, etc.
1. Memory .. (character) .. ram, mem, kmem, null, port, zero, cmem
2. Floppy .. (block) ...... fd[0-1]<[dhDH]{360,720,1200,1440} or fd[01]
3. Hard Disk (block) ...... hd[a-b]<[0-8]>
4. Tty ..... (character) .. {p,t}ty<{S,[p-s][0-f]}><#>
5. tty ..... (character) .. tty, cua[0-63]
6. Lp ...... (character) .. lp[0-2] or par[0-2]
7. Tape .... (block) ...... t[0-?] (reserved for Non-SCSI tape drives)
8. Scsi Disk (block) ...... sd[a-h]<[0-8]>
9. Scsi Tape (block) ...... <n>rmt[0-1]
10. Mouse ... (character) .. bm, psaux (mouse)
11. CD-ROM .. (block) ...... scd[0-1]
12. QIC-tape? (character) .. rmt{8,16}, tape<{-d,-reset}>
13. XT-disk . (block) ...... xd[a-b]<[0-8]>
14. Audio ... (character) .. audio, dsp, midi, mixer, sequencer
Breakdown of minors by Majors:
------------------------------
0. Unnamed . (unknown) .... for proc-fs, NFS clients, etc.
Minors?
1. Memory .. (character) .. ram, mem, kmem, null, port, zero, cmem
0. /dev/ram
1. (block): RAM-Disk (character): /dev/mem
2. /dev/kmem
3. /dev/null
4. /dev/port
5. /dev/zero
6. /dev/cmem
2. Floppy .. (block) ...... fd[0-1]<[dhDH]{360,720,1200,1440}>
Minors are [drive + [4 * type]] where drive 0-3 == A:-D: (floppy)
and type is: 0: Autodetect 4: 720k in 3.5"
1: 360k in 5.25" 1.2M 5: 360k in 5.25" 1.2M
2: 1.2M in 5.25" 1.2M 6. 720k in 5.25" 1.2M
3: 360k in 3.5" 7. 1.44M in 3.5" 1.44
0. /dev/fd0: Autodetected first floppy.
1. /dev/fd1: Autodetected second floppy.
2. /dev/fd2: Autodetected third floppy.
3. /dev/fd3: Autodetected fourth floppy.
4. /dev/fd0d360: 360k in 5.25" 1.2M first drive
5. /dev/fd1d360: 360k in 5.25" 1.2M second drive
(You can work out the rest of the intermediates...)
8. /dev/fd0h1200: 1.2M in 5.25" 1.2M first drive
12. /dev/fd0D360 (/dev/fd0H360): 360k in 3.5" first drive
16. /dev/fd0D720 (/dev/fd0H720): 720k in 3.5" first drive
20. /dev/fd0h360: 360k in 5.25" 1.2M first drive
24. /dev/fd0h720: 720k in 5.25" 1.2M first drive
28. /dev/fd0H1440: 1.44M in 3.5" 1.44M first drive
Naming goes like this:
fd[drive][type][size] where:
[drive]=0-3: Just like DOS's "A:"-"D:".
[type]={d,h,D,H}: Enlighten me. All I can tell you
for certain is that the capital
letters represent 3.5" drives.
[size]={360,720,1200,1440} kilobytes.
3. Hard Disk (block) ...... hd[a-b]<[0-8]>
0. /dev/hda (/dev/hda0): The whole first HD, including its MBR.
1-4. /dev/sda{1-4}: Primary partitions on the first SCSI drive.
5-8. /dev/sda{5-8}: Extended partitions on the first SCSI drive.
64. /dev/hdb (/dev/hdb0): The whole second HD, including its MBR.
65-68. /dev/sdb{1-4}: Primary partitions on the second drive.
69-72. /dev/sdb{5-8}: Extended partitions on the second drive.
Notes: BE *VERY* CAREFUL WITH /dev/hda AND /dev/hdb!! These two
devices signify the *entire* *drive*, not just one partition.
The only things that use /dev/hda or /dev/hdb are things that
need to read/change the partition table (like fdisk).
Linux doesn't order anything. It perceives partitions in the
order in which they appear in the partition table. Thus,
/dev/hd?1 may follow /dev/hd?2 in the cylinder numbering.
The names of the hard drives are not the same as under Minix.
4. Tty ..... (character) .. {p,t}ty<{S,[p-s][0-f]}><#>
0. /dev/tty0: This is the currently active Virtual Console.
1-63. /dev/tty[1-63]: Specific virtual consoles.
64-127. /dev/ttyS[0-63]: Serial ports (dial-in mode).
128-191. /dev/pty[p-s][0-f]: PTY Masters.
192-255. /dev/tty[p-s][0-f]: PTY Slaves. ([0-f]=0123456789abcdef)
Notes: There are several constants set in the kernel sources which
can be changed to compile a more customized kernel. They're
found in [/usr/src]/linux/include/linux/tty.h:
NR_CONSOLES The number of virtual consoles.
NR_SERIALS The number of serial lines.
NR_PTYS The number of pty's.
5. tty ..... (character) .. tty, cua[0-63]
0. /dev/tty: the tty that owns the process calling it.
64-127. /dev/cua[0-63]: Serial ports (dial-out mode).
6. Lp ...... (character) .. lp{0-2} or par{0-2}
Parallel (printer) ports. (Increasable in include/linux/lp.h)
0. /dev/lp0
1. /dev/lp1: Same as MS-DOS's "LPT1:" on my machine...
2. /dev/lp2
Notes: The number of line printers is defined by LP_NO which is
found in [/usr/src]/linux/include/lp.h.
Even if you only have one printer port, Linux may still call
it /dev/lp1 (rather than /dev/lp0). Watch during boot-up to
see how it recognizes your printer port.
7. Tape .... (block) ...... t[0-?] (reserved for Non-SCSI tape drives)
This one's getting old. No minor numbers are yet assigned.
It's not even in the source code. Maybe it never will be...
8. Scsi Disk (block) ...... sd[0-?] or sd[0-?][0-?]
Minors numbers are [[16 * DiskNR] + partition]
The system autoconfigures at boot time, and the kernel simply
assigns numbers (DiskNR) to each disk as it finds them, starting with 0.
0. First HD (/dev/sda), whole drive including Master Boot Record.
1-4. Partitions on the first HD.
5-15. Logical partitions within an extended partition on first HD.
16. Second HD (/dev/sdb), whole drive including Master Boot Record.
17-20. Partitions on the second HD.
21-31. Logical partitions within an extended partition on second HD.
etc.
9. Scsi Tape (character) .. st[0-?]
For a SCSI tape, each physical device has two minor numbers
that are associated with it. If you have two tape drives, then
minors 0 and 1 will refer to the first and second drives and the
tape will be rewound when the device is closed. Minor numbers 128
and 129 (i.e. 128+n) also refer to the first and second physical
drives, but the tape will not be rewound after closing the device.
If you have one tape, you could create the devices with the
following commands:
mknod /dev/rmt0 c 9 0
mknod /dev/nrmt0 c 9 128
10. Mouse (character) .. bm, psaux (mouse)
(MGR may require that /dev/mouse be linked to one of these...)
NOTE THE CHANGES TO DIFFERENTIATE MOUSE TYPES!
(Please implement these in the distributions.)
0. /dev/logibm: (Logitec?) bus mouse
1. /dev/psaux: PS/2 mouse port
2. /dev/inportbm: MicroSoft "InPort" bus mouse
3. /dev/atibm: ATI XL bus mouse
If you don't feel like re-configuring your applications, you can
just leave the old "/dev/bm" lying around.
11. CD-ROM .. (block) ...... scd[0-1]
0. /dev/scd0: The first (detected) SCSI CD-ROM.
1. /dev/scd1: The second (detected) SCSI CD-ROM.
("There's not much more to it than that" says Eric Youngdale.)
12. QIC-tape? (character) .. rmt{8,16}, tape<{-d,-reset}>
(I really don't have much info on this one... )
6. /dev/rmt8: QIC-120
8. /dev/rmt16 (/dev/tape): QIC-150
136. /dev/tape-d: (It has something to do with being 128+8... ?)
255. /dev/tape-reset: For resetting only.
13. XT-disk . (block) ...... xd[a-b]<[0-8]>
XT (8-bit) hard disk controller devices.
Minor numbers are assigned in the same manner as for the
normal Hard Drive devices ("/dev/hd*").
14. Audio ... (character) .. audio, dsp, midi, mixer, sequencer
0. /dev/mixer: Mixer and Control Device
1. /dev/sequencer: FM-synthesizer and Midi
2. /dev/midi: (for future use)
3. /dev/dsp: Digitized voice (DAC/ADC)
4. /dev/audio: (Reserved for compatibility with Sun)
NOTE: all the numbers given are in decimal form (the one you can see if
you perform ls -l on /dev).
VI.06) Could some one give me indication about the meaning of the
IRQ's ?
ANSWER: (alawrenc@sobeco.com:)
Standard IRQ's :
IRQ 0 - Timer
IRQ 1 - Keyboard
IRQ 2 - Slave 8259 (AT)
IRQ 3 - COM 2 / COM 4
IRQ 4 - COM 1 / COM 3
IRQ 5 - (XT) Hard Disk, (AT) LPT2
IRQ 6 - Floppy Disk
IRQ 7 - LPT1
AT only IRQ 8 - Real Time Clock
IRQ 9 - Re-direct to IRQ 2
IRQ 10 - Not Defined
IRQ 11 - Not Defined
IRQ 12 - Not Defined
IRQ 13 - 80287
IRQ 14 - Hard Disk (AT)
IRQ 15 - Not Defined
VI.07) (Chuck Boyer) Could some one clear up the devices meaning?
ANSWER: (Jim Winstead Jr)
>port
This allows programs to access the hardware ports directly. Not
something you generally mess around with much.
>ptyp0-3
>ptypa...tty
These are the pseudo-tty 'master' devices. Each pty connection uses
a slave-master set of tty devices.
>tty0...
tty[1-8] are the virtual consoles associated with Alt-F[1-8]. tty0 is
the current virtual console (so writing something to tty0 goes to the
current vc).
>tty64 I've figured out is the modem connection
Yes, that would correspond to COM1 under DOS. However, the tty64 name
is obsolete - ttys[1-4] should be used instead.
>ttyp0...
>ttypa...
These are the pseudo-tty 'slave' devices.
>ttys1...
These are the serial devices. ttys1 corresponds to COM1 under DOS,
ttys2 corresponds to COM2, etc.
VI.C Special Serial
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** This section is maintained by Jim Gifford
*** (jgifford@attmail,world.std}.com
*** Last update October 1992.
Douglas E. Quale:
This has come up a couple of times already (including the case of
serial mice as well), but for the record stty acts on stdin not
stdout. Old stty's (from V7 through BSD4.3) used stdout, but this is
suboptimal and doesn't conform to POSIX. The GNU stty you are likely
using on Linux uses stdin, as does the stty distributed with BSD
Networking Release 2. (Also, ``stty -a'' is more informative about
possible parameters, although it's pretty hard for me to remember what
90% of that stuff does without refering to the man page.)
Jim Gifford:
However, there are a few older (of mysterious origin) stty's that work
on stdout(I have one myself!)
VI.08) Is there a list somewhere where I can get help with serial
communications under Linux?
ANSWER: (Jim Gifford -- jgifford@world.std.com)
There is a list for the discussion of serial communications under
Linux. It is for problems, drivers, new developments, etc... with
the Linux serial devices. The list is: linux-serial@stolaf.edu
To join, send mail to linux-serial-request@stolaf.edu
I hope that this list will prove beneficial to the improvement of
Linux. This list is maintained by Michael K. Johnson as
linux-serial-request@stolaf.edu
VI.09) When I run kermit under Linux, I get "Warning, Read access
to lock directory denied". What am I doing wrong?
ANSWER: Nothing, you just need to create /usr/spool/uucp (kermit 4.6?)
or /usr/spool/locks (this is for the kermit5A), which is where kermit
like to lock files.
VI.10) What are the major, minor numbers for the serial ports under linux?
ANSWER: Major 4, Minor :
64 /dev/ttys0 - com1
65 /dev/ttys1 - com2
66 /dev/ttys2 - com3
67 /dev/ttys3 - com4
VI.11) can anyone give me a sample /etc/inittab entry for login
from a pc attached to serial line /dev/ttys2?
ANSWER: "Humberto speaking :), updated by Rick Miller"
First set up the modem to turn off echo and enable auto answer, I do
this in kermit by connecting to the modem and typing "ate0s0=1"
followed by enter (w/o quotes). Then setup inittab to spawn getty on
the modem
ttys2:vt100:/etc/getty -m 1200 ttys2
(Replace "vt100" with the name of the /etc/termcap entry for the
terminal type you will use, or use "dumb" if you don't have one.)
Then it should work. Some modems can be permanently set to disable
echo and set auto answer, see your manual.
Jim Weigand says:
disable all messages. This will prevent getty from hanging up
your modem.
Set For:
ATE0 No echo
ATQ1 No messages
ATS0=2 Answer 2nd ring
ATS7=60 1 minute to answer (shorter if 2400 baud)
You can use kermit to set these. Do an AT&W to save for power-up.
Michael K. Johnson says:
If you would rather not save these commands as defaults to come up
on power-up, perhaps because you want to use your current modem
settings under a DOS communications package, you can also shove
these command out ttys? from /etc/rc (or /etc/rc.local) using
the command:
echo "<modem_settings>" > /dev/ttys?
VI.12) How do I set parameters like parity for serial login?
ANSWER: Use stty and redirect input from the serial line.
ex: stty parodd < /dev/ttys2 which gives ttys2 odd parity.
type stty -a to get an idea of possible parameters.
Or 'man stty' as well :)
VII. MORE HINTS
===============
This part try to keep track of the different information
that appeared in comp.os.linux and on the list since beginning of
March. I tried to update it for KERNEL_VERSION, so there might be some
mistakes. Moreover take care to use the correct library and include
stuff, and the ad-hoc gcc you use !!!
VII.01) How can I backup my Hd under Linux ?
ANSWER: I know at least two ways. One possibility is tar and mtools,
another possibility is the diskbackup/diskrestore of Diamano Bolla
(digest37 vol. #2) which saves big hd to floppies using the
stdin/stdout. These utilities have been uploaded to the major sites in
file disksplit.tar.Z.
An example usage (Roger Binns) is:
tar cvf - bin dev usr etc .. | compress | diskbackup
and to restore:
diskrestore | uncompress | tar xvf -
BTW: if you are on Ethernet you could send your files via tar..|rsh (tar...)
or even via NFS to a host which is regularly backed up !
VII.02) Where is 'which' ?
ANSWER: It depends on the sh you are running:
in bash 'type -path'
in tcsh it's a builtin
for rc you can try the following (untested by me) script from
Kevin Brown:
#!/bin/sh
for i in `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g'` ; do
for j in ""$@" ; do
if test -x "$i/$j" ; then
echo "$i/$j"
fi
done
done
VII.03) How to use setterm: for the novice?
ANSWER:The setterm utility provides access to most of Virtual Consoles
(VCs) functionality. You can set your screen up to blank at 10
minutes using:
setterm -blank 10
You can set colors, and clear the screen. For a full list of commands,
just type "setterm" with no arguments.
There are a few tricks with the screen dumper can really make VCs go a
long way. Here are a few of the common ones that I use:
setterm dump
Dumps the contents of the current VC to screen.dump (in the current dir).
setterm dump 4
Dumps the contents of VC 4 to screen.dump
setterm -file mydumpfile -dump 4
Dump the contents of VC 4 to the file mydumpfile
setterm -file /dev/tty0 -dump 4
Dumps the contents of VC 4 to the current VC.
setterm -file /dev/tty4 -dump
Dumps the contents of the current VC to VC 4.
setterm -file /dev/ttys1 -dump
Dumps the contents of the current VC to the serial port.
Handy if you are logged on and want to paste a screen full without
having to resort to doing a file transfer.
setterm -file mydumpfile -append 4
Appends to instead of overwriting the dump file. Useful if you
have several screens you wish to concatenate.
VII.04) I've tried clear/reset which exist on most of unix but it
doesn't work, have I missed something?
ANSWER: setterm -clear or setterm -reset will solve your missing. For
clear, you can also write a small script (which use the cl: part of
/etc/termcap wrt your TERM), or use bash where ctrl-l will do it for
you.
VII.05) I know there are VC, but where is the setterm stuff?
ANSWER: It's in the current distribution (i.e. on the images), the
source can be found in virtcons.tar.Z at nic.
VII.06) I know there are shared libraries; does there exist an easy
way to check an executable for sharing ?
ANSWER: (Claude Morin:) There exists at tsx-11 ldd.tar.Z If you follow
the instructions, you will be able to type "ldd <executable>" to List
the Dynamic Dependencies of the executables. In other words 'ldd'
prints the name of the shared libraries needed by the executable,
nothing appears for static one.
ANSWER: (Josh Yelon & HJ Lu) - very old binaries.
(J.Y.) An executable which shares a library is linked with an
(ordinary, non-shared) "stub" version of the library. One of the first
thing this stub does (when the executable is run) is to ask the kernel
to load the (big) "shared version" of the library (which is usually
named /lib/lib.XX.XX) The upshot of this is that in the code for the
stub (part of the executable), is the string "/lib/lib.XX.XX"; which
can be searched by using 'strings' or 'grep'.
(HJ. L.) if you have gcc2.11a or later the shared image is changed to
/lib/libxxxx_vyy_zzz. And you should better use nm to find
"__shared_lib" (nm failed on stripped executable). You can also write
a function for "file", which can even check the version number ....
VII.07) What is the rdev program provided in the images?
ANSWER: It's a program from Werner Almesberger of ETH. With no
argument it prints the first line of /etc/mtab. With one argument, a
boot-image, it prints the device configured as the root device, and
with two arguments, a boot image and a device, it sets the device as
default root in the specified image.
VII.08) How to start Linux from drive B?
ANSWER: There is a DOS utility called boot_b.exe (look at DOS ftp).
Another simple way is to open the box and invert the cables.
VII.09) The program boot_b works fine /but/ once the first disk is
read the system go back to the first drive, any hints?
ANSWER: Yes, change the bootimage in just the same way that you change
it to boot on the hard drive, execept that the major/minor pair is
different. All these information are in the file INSTALL-0.10.
Remember that if you use a sun or other endian machine, you will need
to reverse the byte order when you run the filter program (also in the
same file).
VII.10) How can I get Linux to boot directly from the harddisk?
ANSWER: (Rick) The best option right now is LILO version ALPHA.8. It
has been generally agreed that the days of using "shoelace" are at an
end. See Section III of this FAQ for LILO information.
VII.11) I use shoelace, but I want to change my root partition, what
is the process to get rid of it?
ANSWER: With Norton utility you can put back a standard boot sector.
Another possibility is to restore the old boot sector (the one you
should have backup *before* installing shoelace).
VII.12) Sometimes, when I want to remove a directory, I get an error
message, is it a (known) bug?
ANSWER: No, There is no bug at all, you probaly have another shell
on another VC whose working directory is either the one you try to
remove, either a subdirectory of it.
VII.13) I'm looking for init, getty, login, passwd stuff, where
can I find them?
ANSWER: You should find it in shadow.tar.Z (only sources), at least
at tsx in the usr.bin directory. Many people have reported some troubles
with the *OLD* shadow-passwd (shadow-bin.tar.Z and shadow-src.tar.Z, so
do not use them anymore); an alternative might be the mcc-interim
which contains standard passwd binary. There is also the Peter Orbaek's
admutil-1.?.tar.Z and poeigl-1.?.tar.Z which contains source for
shutdown, su, chsh, passwd and a system V init compatible.
VII.14) How can I setup a user account other than root ?
ANSWER: You can either use the adduser program, either do it manually.
In the later case, you have to:
a) edit /etc/passwd as root and add a line of the following format:
user:passwd:uid:gid:user name:home directory:login shell
user is the login name; uid is the numeric user id, it should be
unique; gid is the numeric group id, this number should correspond to
an entry in /etc/group. The passwd field should be left blank 'cause
it is stored in an encrypted form [to set this field just use the
passwd program].
example
faq::200:5:Marc-Michel:/home/faq:/bin/sh
b) Still as root, you shoud now create the home directory and set the
correct ownership.
mkdir /home/faq
chown faq /home/faq
chgrp 5 /home/faq
VII.15) I've been trying to get Linux to run on my [3/4]86 box. It
can't even boot. Any suggestions?
ANSWER: The most common error/problem is writing the bootimage to a
low density disk. It fits, but the bootstrap code will only recognize
high density disk. So try to format explicitely disk as high density:
- for 3.5", 'format a: /n:18 /t:80 '
- for 5.25", 'format a: /n:15 /t:80 '
VII.16) Does there exist games, languages (other than C), and
anything which make the system more friendly?
ANSWER: Yes, among other things there are rogue and yahtzee; TeX;
Prolog, Perl.. but in general, if you want some extra tool port it to
Linux this is also a good beta-testing exercice.
VII.17) Whenever I use uemacs 3.1X on a symlink, the symlink does
not exist anymore, why?
ANSWER: (Tristram Mabbs) Since ue3.10, uemacs uses 'safe save' mode,
writing the file to a temporary and moving it OVER the original. In
the process, this deletes the original. To prevent this just add the
following in your emacs '.rc' file: set $ssave FALSE
VII.18) I have an SVGA, but Linux detect an EGAc/EGAm; is it normal?
ANSWER: (Jim Winstead) This is correct actually. You have an EGA+ card
(SVGA) with a Color/Mono monitor. The only four possibilties are EGAc,
EGAm, *MDA and *CGA (according to the code in
kernel/chr_drv/console.c).
The true test, if Linux detects your video card, is if you press
<RETURN> at the "Press <RETURN> to see SVGA- ..." boot-time message.
If you have a SVGA recognized card, it will ask you to choose a
screen size. If not detected, the default is 80x50 mode.
BTW if you have no SVGA, press the <space> and you are in 80x25 mode.
If you have dowloaded the kernel, you can automatically skip this
query at boot-time if you set the SVGA_MODE variable in the main
Makefile before compiling a new bootimage.
VII.19) How can I change the keyboard repeat rate?
ANSWER: (Michael K Johnson) In boot/setup.S there are the lines:
! set the keyboard repeat rate to max
mov ax,#0x0305
mov bx,0x0000
int 0x16
If you don't want to change the repeat rate at all, just comment out
these lines. If you want something in the middle, change the
mov bx,0x000
by mov bx,0x??yy
where ??yy is determined by (Ralf Brown's interrupt list)
bh= delay value (0x00 = 250ms to 0x03= 1000ms (one sec))
this is the delay before the repeat is performed
bl= repeat rate (0x00 =30/sec to 0x1f=2/sec; 0x0c=10/sec [default])
VII.20) I compiled fdformat.c and ran it on 1.44Mb and 1.2Mb, the
results are unreadable, any clue?
ANSWER: (M. Pereckas) fdformat only low-level formats the disk. to use
the fdformatted disk with DOS filesystem, run mformat on the disk.
Mformat writes DOS filesystem information but is unable to low-format
:). In order to put a Linux filesystem on a (low)formatted disk you
have to mkfs it.
VII.21) Is it possible to disable the 3-fingers salute
(ctrl-alt-del) ?
ANSWER: Yes, in kernel/sys.c you can read the following:
/*
* this indicates wether you can reboot with ctrl-alt-del: the deault is yes
*/
static int C_A_D = 1;
there is also a small utility written by Linus in digest242 vol#2
VII.22) Could some one explain the information provided at boot-time?
ANSWER: (Jim Winstead Jr)
> serial port at 0x03f8 is a 16450
> serial port at 0x02f8 is a 16450 (what's that the uart chip?)
Right, the last number should either be 8250, 16450, 16550, or 16550a,
and on the two 16550 models, it will report that FIFO's have been
disable (16550) or enabled (16550a).
> 8 virtual consoles (that's how many alt-F's I can get going?
> but only F1-4 actually work)
You can get sessions running on Alt-F[1-8], but the 'standard'
/etc/inittab only runs getty/login on Alt-F[1-4]. You can start
sessions on the other consoles by using 'doshell' or adding lines to
/etc/inittab.
> 4 pty's (are these the consoles F1-4?)
No, those are 'pseudo' ttys, which programs like MGR use to simulate
tty connections. That's probably a gross over-simplification, but it
gives you the general idea, I think. :)
> p_init: lp1 exists (0) (is that the (l)ine (p)rinter?)
Right.
VII.23) What is the meaning of files ended by .T.Z (or .taz) ?
ANSWER: The suffix Z is for compressed files (to uncompress them use
the command `uncompress file.Z`).
The suffix T indicates a "tar file" the usual suffix is tar but, the
14 chars filename limit of the Minix filesystem makes it cumbersome to
use .tar.Z (to untar a file ended by .T, use the command
`tar options file.T` (see the man page for more details).
For the .taz file, change them as .T.Z and go-ahead.
VII.24) What is the meaning of files ended by .T.z (or .tpz) ?
ANSWER: The suffix z is for files compressed with the
gzip utility, which is being used more frequently because it provides
better compression. These can be uncompressed with the `gzip -d
file.z` command.
VII.25) I have upgraded the kernel from XX to YY (XX > YY), however the
login screen still says YY.
ANSWER: Just change the message in one of these files: /etc/issue and
/etc/motd. The former contains the message before the login, the later
is the one after you are logged in.
VII.26) What is doshell good for ?
ANSWER: It's an old program provided in the early Linux version (0.12)
when the getty was not already there, it spawns a shell on any tty's.
(Mattew Gream): I do this quite often ( getty on tty1, 2, 3 and my
rc.local spawns a shell on tty4 as follows
'/usr/bin/doshell /dev/tty4 /bin/tcsh &'
VII.27) I don't have the kernel sources, how can I change the keyboard
language?
ANSWER: You can use the fixkbd program written by Laurent JULLIARD
(Laurent_JULLIARD@grenoble.hp.com). Its purpose is to fix the keyboard
map used in your kernel image. It works more or less a la "rootdev"
(or rdev). It can be found on tsx-11.mit.edu in
/pub/linux/binaries/sbin/fixkbd.tar.Z.
VII.28) Does there exist a possibility to track down the source of
kernel pannic messages ?
ANSWER: Here's info from Linus on how to track down the source
of kernel panic messages. The values for EIP, address, and so on are
JUST EXAMPLES: the EIP, EFLAGS, etc. can be anything.
The lines after ">" were written by me; the responses by Linus.
> Unable to handle kernel paging request at address C000000A
This means something in the kernel tried to access kernel memory at
address 0x00A (the C0000000 offset is due to the kernel starting at
virtual address 0xC0000000). The first page of kernel address space is
unmapped to find these kinds of incorrect references (it's probably a
NULL dereference to a structure member at offset 0xA).
> Oops: 0002
Error code. This tells you if it's a read or write (forget which ritgh
now, and don't have any books handy)
> EIP: 0008:000290D2
This is where it happened: segment 0008 (kernel code segment) and offset
0x290D2 into the kernel. So to find this, you generally do something
like
nm /usr/src/linux/tools/system | sort | less
and search for the function that contains the address 0x290D2.
> EFLAGS: 00010087
> fs: 0017
Eflags and fs when the exception happened. You usually don't need this.
> base: C0000000, limit: 000A0000
> Pid: 0, process nr: 0
In what process the exception happened. This is the swapper, which also
means the thing is fatal (other processes you can just kill). That it's
in the swapper process probably means that it's an interrupt that did
it, as the swapper doesn't really do anything.
> 89 50 04 c7 03 00 00 00 00 c7
This is the instruction that resulted in the error. I usually
disassemble them by hand and see what it is, then I try to find out
exactly where in the function this assembly sequence comes up (probably
by compiling the .c file to a .s file and looking around).
Alternatively you can just run 'gdb' on /usr/src/linux/tools/system, but
gdb has some problems.
> task[0] (swapper) killed: unable to recover
> kernel panic: Trying to free up swapper memory space
> In swapper task - not syncing
This is just to tell you not to expect anything from the kernel any
more: linux cannot go on without the swapper task.
> How can I decode the numbers in the message?
> Also, note that sometimes the "Unable to handle..."
> message is followed by the "Oops: 0002" block, but
> the last message is sometimes something else (i.e. not
> always a "task[0] (swapper)...." message, but something
> from the TCP driver in this case.
It depends on where it happened. If it's an interrupt, it can
essentially happen in any task (all interrupts are handled in the task
that happens to be currently active), while "normal" code happens in the
task that calls it.
VIII. FEATURES
==============
VIII.01) I've read that linux has virtual consoles, what must I do to
get them?
ANSWER: Yes there are, you can access them with the left <alt>-key
together with <Fn>-key. With the Linux Images distribution, 4 consoles
are available, getty runs on them.
Notice that they are NOT accessible when running X (contrary to some
commercial unices).
VIII.02) When Linux boots, I get the following message "8 virtual
consoles"; how can I acess to the 5-8 vc's ?
ANSWER: If you want the getty to run on the 5-8, you should add the
corresponding entries in /etc/inittab. You can also just run sh on
them by using the doshell soft.
And then in either case, the ALT-F[5-8] will access the corresponding
vc.
VIII.03) What kind of shell is /bin/sh ?
ANSWER: It's the Bourne Again Shell, bash-1.12.3 and
compilation was straightforward, just "make"
that's all or nearly.
BTW There does exist different shells for Linux, these are:
bash, rc, zsh, tcsh and pdksh (a korn shell).
VIII.04) Does there exist a man page for **** ?
ANSWER: Download man.tar.Z from your favorite linux ftp site, there is
most of the fileutils man page -- either **** or g****, example there
is nothing on ld, but there is for gld :) --, check the whatis
database provided. The files in the cat1 dir are pre-formatted man
pages that the man program can use. Quite recently the man pages for
section 2 have been written (thanks Drew) and can be found, at least
at tsx-11 in /pub/linux/docs/man/man2.tar.Z
Also manpages are in the SLS on the b? disks.
BTW there is nroff and groff for Linux. Cawf 2.0 works just
fine for simple man pages, and a partial ms support too.
Moreover Michael Johnson is the coordinator for man pages under Linux,
he is looking for volunteers, so contact the DOC Channel.
VIII.05) Is there a simple man package (groff is too big):
ANSWER: "Cawf -man" also "fm -m" (Al Clark) tsx-11 in
/pub/linux/binaries/usr.bin/fm.tar.Z
VIII.06) What are the editors available in linux?
ANSWER: Right now there are uemacs-3.11, elvis-1.4 (1.5).
Gnu Emacs is there, read the section devoted to it in the 4th part of
this FAQ. Also the port of mg (micro gnu) has been done and can be
found at least at athos.rutgers.edu (128.6.4.4)
in pub/linux, mg is the binary and mg.tar.Z is the sources file. You
can also find a PD ed, and elvis has an ex mode. Finnally there are
joe, vile-3.11, elle (Elle Looks Like Emacs), Xedit and aXe.
VIII.07) Does there exist a printer package for Linux?
ANSWER: (R. Miller) Yes. The "plp" package is currently available
under the directory [/pub/linux]/BETA/plp on tsx-11 and its mirrors.
You may also print things manually like so: cat filename > /dev/lp1
(Note that though "/dev/lp0" exists, most people find that their
printer is on /dev/lp1. Use whatever the kernel says that it detects
in the boot-up messages.)
VIII.08) Are uucp, mail, and/or USENET news available for Linux?
ANSWER: (Vince Skakan)
Yes !!! At this time, the following (at least) have been
ported to Linux:
Package name version
------------ --------
taylor uucp 1.03
elm 2.3-pl11
smail 3.1.28
C-news 12/22/91
tin 1.1pl4
trn 2.2
nn 6.4.18
[...coming soon - Expect an announcement in the near future concerning
the packages above being made available in binary form in the SLS
distribution and in source form from sunsite.unc.edu and other Linux
archive sites...]
If you are interested in the last uucp features, join the UUCP channel
(see part1 of this FAQ for more details about the multi channels list).
VIII.09) How do I make swapping work?
ANSWER: Quite simply, you need the swapon and the mkswap binaries.
Then you can choose between a swap partition or a swap file.
The mkswap is used to write the "swap signature", whilst the swapon
binary is to activate the swapping.
First of all you need a partition :), I assume it's the second of your
first disk namely /dev/hda2, and it's 10MB big
A) swap partition:
you have to indicate it's a swap area, this is done via mkswap
(instead of mkfs) which needs the name of the partition and the size
in blocks (a block is 1Ko big); the optional -c flag is for bad block
checking. So for our example you should perform:
mkswap [-c] /dev/hda2 10000
Then you need to indicate that you want linux to use the swap area,
this is done via swapon. In general it is set in the /etc/rc file,
just put the following entry:
/bin/swapon /dev/hda2
It can also be achieved via the /etc/fstab file
B) swap file:
The process is quite close; you need a partition, and a swap file.
Assume that I prefer a swap area of 4MB (I want to keep some place in
/dev/hda2). I need first to "dd" the file.
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/swap_file bs=1024 count=4096
bs stands for block size, and count is the number of blocks
then I have to put the "swap signature" on that file:
mkswap /swap_file 4096
At this point, you should 'sync', just to be sure the signature is
effective. And finally add an entry in the rc file:
/bin/swapon /swap_file
VIII.10) When I boot I get one of the following messages:
"Unable to find swap signature" or "Bad swap-space bitmap"
ANSWER: You probably forgot to make your swap-device, use the mkswap
command.
VIII.11) How do I know if it is swapping?
ANSWER: You will notice it :)) First of all, Linux tells you at boot
time, "Adding swap: XXX pages of swap space", and if you start running
out of memory, you will notice that the disk will work overtime, and
things slow down. Generally a 2Meg RAM will make the system swap
constantly while running gcc, 4 Meg will swap occasionnaly when
optimizing big files (and having other things active, such as make).
Also, the command 'free' (from the ps package) reports total enabled
swap space and current swap use.
VIII.12) How is it possible to remove a swap file?
ANSWER: Simply perform a rm on that file, and remove the swapon of
your /etc/rc file.
VIII.13) How is it possible to remove a swap device?
ANSWER: mkfs the device, and remove the swapon of your /etc/rc file.
VIII.14) How much swap space do I need ?
ANSWER: Linux does not perform real swapping, it's rather paging (see
below for a more complete explanation). The swap area is *added* to
the memory and can be viewed as virtual memory, so choose the size you
need, example:
8MB RAM + 6MB swap => 14MB virtual memory
VIII.15) Could someone explain the swap process on Linux?, is it
swapping or paging ?
ANSWER: (Linus) Linux uses swap as /additional/ memory, one page of
the swap-space is used for the good-page bitmap and the swapspace
signature.
In fact Linux does only paging, no swaping in the meaning "write out
one whole process to disk".
The reason it's called swapping is that Linux used paging for memory
management on a low level since the very beginning, but didn't page to
disk at all until 0.12.
VIII.16) Is demand paging different from paging and How ?
ANSWER: (Linus) Demand-paging is really "demand loading of
executables" and is totally independent of the page-swapping
algorithms, although they have similarities. When Linux strts up a
process, no actual code space is loaded: I let the page exceptions
load in the executable as needed. Thus Linux demand-loads the code and
initialized data it needs.
Demand-loading has very good points: (a) it simplifies the exec system
call; (b) it means page sharing between that have excuted the same
file is easy to implement; (c) it cuts down on the amount of memory
required. When Linux runs out of real memory, it starts to lock for
pages it can swap out, but if it notices that the page is clean, it
just forgets about it, and demand-loads it when it's needed again.
Thta means that swap-file isn't needed as much, especially when
running big binaries such as gcc, where the code-pages can be
demand-loaded as you wish.
Point (c) means that even without any swap space, you can usually run
slightly larger programs that your memory setup would actually permit.
I've noticed this while running X and doing a kernel compilation +
something else wshen I've forgotten to turn on swapping: free reports
0 page available but things still work, although performance is
slightly down...
VIII.17) Is there any way to tell how much swap space you are using
or have left?
ANSWER: The free program provided with the ps package handles this.
VIII.18) I have a 2Megs box, but "free" reports only 1Meg why?
ANSWER: (Linus:) "free" doesn't concern with the memory the kernel has
allocated for itself. In other words what you see is the *user* memory
available. The kernel has taken the low 1Meg for it's use (~250Ko for
it and the rest for buffer cache and kernel data structures); for big
memory machine it could be even 2Megs.
VIII.19) What tape drives work with Linux ?
ANSWER: (24 sept. P. Riipinen)
- There is a working QIC-02 device driver for Linux, supporting (at
least) Everex/Wangtek cards.
- There are additional patches for the QIC-02 to support Archive
SC402/499R. You can find them in /pub/linux/alpha/qic-02 at tsx-11
There are some bugs in the driver but you can backup.
- Newer drivers are all SCSI, so check the SCSI section in this FAQ.
VIII.20) Is there only the %$#@ keyboard ?
ANSWER: There are Dannish, Finnish, French, German, Uk, US and DVORAK
keyboards. Set it in the main Makefile of the kernel sources, then
(re)compile the kernel again. Make sure the files in kernel/chr_drv
directory are recompiled.
VIII.21) (special FINNISH/US) I booteed up with the new image and
everything work except that some keyboard keys produce wrong
characters. Does anyone know what is happening?
ANSWER: Since 0.95a images are US product (and so are US-keyboard
oriented), BUT linux sources are FINNISH product, and so the default
keyboard is set to be FINNISH. The solution is in the previous Q/A.
VIII.22) Does there exist shared libs ?
ANSWER: (H.J. Lu, hlu@eecs.wsu.edu, 09/01/92)
The shared library under Linux started at 0.12. Peter MacDonald
collaborating with Linus made the first generation of shared library,
which is the base of the classic shared library which is no longer widely
used.
The kernel support of shared library under Linux is system call
extern int uselib (const char *__filename);
which loads an executable image with fixed entry point into memory,
just like the ordinary executables.
In crt0.s, a function which can find out if and which shared images
are needed and loads them is invoked before `main ()' is called if
necessary. David Engel and I developed a way to tell the loader which
shared images have to be loaded, utilizing the similar technique used
in global constructor in g++ 2.x with the help from GNU binary
utilities.
In the classic Linux shared library, we build a big executable image
for several libraries and make sure no external variables outside of
the participating libraries are referenced. Then we can get the
absolute addresses of all the global variables defined in the
libraries used to build that executable image. After that, we make a
stub library for each participating library which just has the
absolute addresses of all the global variable in it.
For each shared image, there must be one and only one .o file, which
defines a global variable containing version, name and entry point of
the shared image, and a dummy global data. Among those libraries used
to build the shared image, there must be one library which will always
be referenced whenever any other library is referenced. We put this .o
file into the stub library for that library and add a special symbol
to each of the components of the stub library in order to make sure
that this .o file is always linked in if any of the participating
libraries are linked.
In gcc 2.2.2d, jump table, developed by David Engel, was introduced in
the shared library. At the beginning of each shared image, there is
a table in which every library function has a fixed entry address and
the instruction at that address is a jump which will lead to the
real library function. So we can change the library function without
changing the corresponding entry address of the jump table. For the
global data we put them at the beginning of data section of the shared
image. We have to separate them from text code and link them in fixed
order. It is very hard to maintain the same addresses for the global
data when library is changed. After the global data are set up properly
and some spaces are left for possible future changes (that is a very
tough procedure.), it isn't too difficult to maintain.
Starting with libc.4.3, a form of dynamic linking developed by Eric
Youngdale was introduced into the shared libraries. As part of this,
the tools that were used to generate the sharable libraries were
completely redone which made the job of building the libraries much
easier, and thus the libX*.so.3.0 libraries were made as DLL jumptable
libraries.
VIII.23) Why do I need dynamic linking.
ANSWER: The best way to illustrate this is with a simple example of
what happens without dynamic linking.
#include <stdio.h>
int errno;
FILE * foo;
main(){
foo = fopen("/usr/bin/foo","w");
printf("foo: %x errno: %d\\n",foo, errno);
}
Assume this program is run by a non-root user. Normally you would
expect that the open will fail because the user does not have
permission to write to /usr/bin - this means that fopen() would return
NULL, and errno would contain 13, which means EACCES - Permission
denied. If you link this to a normal jump table library, it prints
foo: 0 errno: 0
Now consider the following nearly identical program:
#include <stdio.h>
extern int errno;
FILE * foo;
main(){
foo = fopen("/usr/bin/foo","w");
printf("foo: %x errno: %d\\n",foo, errno);
}
The results for this program are:
foo: 0 errno: 13
Why does this happen???. First of all you must realize that in the
first program errno is not declared external, and thus storage will be
allocated in the data segment for the variable. Unfortunately there
is no way to tell libc this, and libc has it's own storage for errno.
Thus libc writes the result in one location and you are looking in the
other. In the second program errno is declared extern, and thus no
storage will be allocated. The linker will see the need for a
definition of errno, and it will find one in libc. Thus in the second
example the user program is reading the same memory location that the
library stored the answer in.
This is of course a simple example. There are more complicated
examples involving programs that want to redefine a library function
and these can lead to quite bizarre behavior which is difficult to debug.
With dynamic linking, both of the above programs yield the same
(correct) result.
VIII.24) How does dynamic linking work under linux?
ANSWER: Basically, to implement dynamic linking we need to route all
function calls to global functions through the jump table. We also
need to make sure that all global data is accessed indirectly through
a pointer. The actual libraries do not really look very much
different from the actual jump table libraries that we are currently
using, but there are additional pointers to the global data in the
sharable image that are used internally by the library to access all
global data. There are also additional symbols in the stub library
that are defined as the address of the various pointers, and are used
by the linker to help determine whether there is a pointer or a jmp
instruction that needs to be fixed up.
The linker has one new important task with dynamic linking.
It watches for duplicate definitions of symbols, and if the
second definition is in a sharable library, it makes a note of it as a
conflict that needs to be resolved at run time. The linker puts a list
of all of these conflicts into a table and makes it available to crt0
through the variable __SHARABLE_CONFLICTS_.
At run time, crt0 (through the function __dynamic_resolve)
will go through and fix up all of the pointers that need to be fixed.
Let us say for example that you define your own malloc function in a
program - in this case at run time the startup code will actually
modify the jmp instruction in the jump table so that it points to the
malloc function in your program, not the one in the library. The
library will never refer to the malloc function directly, but it will
always be referenced through the jump table - in this way we ensure
that there will only be one function named malloc that is used by a
given program.
If you were to run the first example program in the "Why do I
need dynamic linking" answer, then the pointer in the library that
corresponds to the variable errno will be modified so that it points
to the errno variable that is in your program. The library itself
will never use errno directly - it will always use it via the special
pointer variable. In this way we ensure that all references to the
variable errno both in your program and in the sharable library will
reference the same memory address.
VIII.25) Does Linux work for SCSI drives?
ANSWER: Yes since v0.96. At tsx-11.mit.edu in /pub/linux/ALPHA/scsi, you
will find the last SCSI alpha/beta version and also a special SCSI
FAQ, read it, it contains the latter information than the one provided
in the SCSI section. You should, also, contact the linux-scsi list or
directly drew@cs.colorado.edu
VIII.26) Linux is supposed to work with ESDI drive. However I have
trouble with my Magtron MT-4115E (Joincom controler), any clue?
ANSWER: (Linus) Some harddisk don't like linux (even though they
should). Maybe not a bug but a deficiency.
(Mika) I had to remove the printk "unexpected hd interrupt" statement
in hd.c because I was getting so many of those messages. Be warned
that if there is any read error the system just hangs, even the
ctrl-alt-del won't work. You should be able to use your ESDI drives if
you could live with those nuisances.
VIII.27) How does one go about applying a patch to Linux ?
ANSWER: (Drew Eckhardt) In the unix world most of distribution are in
source form. This includes the operating system. To apply a patch, you
apply it with the 'patch' program to the affected sources. The patch
program takes as input the differences between the old and the new
version. After patching you need to recompile the sources.
Assume I want to apply a patch enclosed in the file XXX. First of all
I will look at the top of XXX, where the file affected is identified.
This may have aleading path attached to it. Either cd out to the
"root" of the patch, ie if I see
linux/kernel/blk_drv/blk.h
I would cd into /usr/src
(assuming it's the place where I can find linux/kernel...)
and then patch as follows
patch -p0 < whatever_place/XXX
or, you can specify a number of path components to strip from the
path. If I am in the blk_drv directory patching would be
patch -p3 < whatever_place/XXX
VIII.28) There are a lot of patches available (ps patch, NFS patches,
CD-ROM patches ...) can I be fairly confident the subsequent patches will
work?
ANSWER: This is not true yet for the current version; but it will be
so I kept it :)
No you can't, patching is a real beta tester art :)). People are not
working on the same patched release, so you have to check if the
patches you already applied works on the same kernel part, if not,
/great/, just apply them. If yes, check if there is an order, patch
creator knows that, and (should) try to warn patch user (in other
words: beta tester) otherwise you should edit the patch files (and
possibly make a brief note to others on this list/newsgroup or even a
cdiff) before applying them, another solution is to keep cool and wait
for the next version of Linux where, in general, the modifications
have been done but this behavior is /not/ Linux helpful.
VIII.29) I got the patches on some ftp sites, and applied them to the
kernel and tried to compile. It didn't !!. Are the patches buggy?
ANSWER: Before remake, just do a make clean in the directories
involved by the patches. This will force a rebuild of the .o and .a
files.
If you have a RCS running on your source tree, did you checked a
patched version of the files changed before /any/ CO either by you or
make
Finally, make sure the patches succeded. Normally, failed patches on a
file FILE will leave a FILE# file. Moreover you will get a "chunk
failed" message. It is possible to capture the output while patching,
with the following:
patch -p0 < patchfile | 2>&1 patch.result | more
VIII.30) What is VFS?
ANSWER: (Ted) Linux 0.96 already has Virtual FileSystem, which means
that it acts as a filesystem switch. It makes it easy for someone to
design another filesystem format and include it in the Linux kernel
along with the standard minix filesystem format. So it /enables/
someone to design a robust filesystem which would have some nice
properties (no 14 chars file name limitation, nor 64Meg limit), and
could be included in the kernel in such a way that both the Minix and
the new one could be mounted at the same time. This solves the
uncompability problem; since the root disk could still use the Minix
filesystem, while the hardisk could be using the new one.
VIII.31) What's about Bus Mice ?
ANSWER: (Nathan I. Laredo) Since the Linux v0.96c-pl2 the kernel does
support LOGITECH and BUS MICE
If you are unsure that you have a bus mouse or not, check to see if
your mouse card has a selection for a sample rate switchable between
30Hz and 60Hz (or possibly 25/50Hz), if it does not, then it is NOT a
true bus mouse (InPort mice for example will not work with this
driver).
To create a bus mouse device:
mknod /dev/mouse c 10 0
VIII.32) What's about TeX ?
ANSWER: The primary site for Linux TeX is 129.78.66.1, this is
P. Williams' site in Australia. The stuff at tsx-11 was posted by
T. Dunbar who does support/maintain the dvilj stuff.
VIII.33) What's about LILO ?
ANSWER: (Werner Almesberger)
LILO - Generic Boot Loader for Linux ("LInux LOader")
This is an ALPHA test release of a new boot loader. Be sure to have
some means to boot your system from a different media if you install
LILO on your hard disk.
Features
--------
- does not depend on the file system. (Tested with Minix, EXT FS and MS-DOS
FS.)
- can be used to boot from floppies and from hard disks.
- can replace the master boot record.
- can boot non-Linux systems (MS-DOS, DR DOS, OS/2, ...) and unstripped
kernels.
- supports up to 16 different boot images that can be selected at boot
time. Root and swap disk/partition can be set independently for each
image.
- boot sector, file map and boot images can be all on different disks or
partitions.
Restrictions and known problems
-------------------------------
- SCSI disks are not fully supported yet. (Still waiting for some kernel
changes.) (Should work in current release - EY).
- booting other operating systems doesn't seem to work everywhere. If
everything but booting a non-Linux OS from LILO works on your system,
you should boot LILO by BOOTACTV and select the alternate OS with the
latter as a temporary work-around.
- booting non-Linux systems from the second hard disk ("D:") is not yet
supported.
Please send all bug reports to almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch
VIII.34) What's about MGR ?
ANSWER: (General Information grabbed from various sources)
There is a MGR channel available , contact the request adress with
help in the body: linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi
The stuff can be found at tsx-11 in pub/linux/packages/MGR
In brief:
MGR provides:
- multiple overlapping windows
- multiple fonts
- text and graphics in each windows
- a simple popup menu package
- a client/server model 'a la' X
- independance from any peculiar networking technology
MGR consist of a server process and some clients. Each client has his
own window, and can create subwindows. Clients communicate with the
server via a bidirectionnal channel. A C library is provided.
When a new window starts, it is as a terminal emulator running the
shell; for more information you can grab the mgr-man.out from
bellcore.com
The information hereafter appeared on the MGR channel on 19th Jan.
> From: u31b3hs@POOL.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
> Subject: MGR 0.53
>
>
> MGR, version 0.53 for Linux and SunOS (Coherent unfinished yet).
>
> Unpack the src* stuff under in /src/lbin/mgr and the usr* stuff in
> /usr/mgr. I splitted things that way for making it easier to ftp
> them and carry them home. If you don't like these paths, then use
> others, but remember to edit the Configfile after generating it.
> YOU NEED TO INSTALL ALL FILES FOR COMPILING.
>
> This is a beta release for programmers, there are no binaries. It
> makes my work available for people who either also work on MGR and
> like to get new sources and for adventerous beta testers. WARNING:
> I assume using Linux 0.99.2 and GCC 2.3.3.
>
> There is some new m4 code to generate menus. It is more powerful
> than menu(1), but a little harder to use.
>
> MGR is currently being ported to Coherent 4.0, but this version
> doesn't include everything yet. There is already a beta version
> running on Coherent, although not too stable yet.
>
> For questions, write to the mailing list, channel MGR. Please be
> sure to talk about the latest version of MGR plus having read the
> README files in the directories containing the problem.
>
> You got this stuff from ftp.thp.uni-koeln.de:pub/linux/mgr or from
> tsx-11.mit.edu:~ftp/pub/linux/packages/MGR, which is a mirror of the
> Cologne directory.
VIII.35) I have successfully compiled MGR, but when I try to run the
program I get "can't find mouse" or "already in use", any clue?
ANSWER: try the following "mgr -m /dev/ttys1" if the mouse is on
the serial 1. Another possibility is to link /dev/mouse with
/dev/ttys1 (assuming your mouse is on serial 1). Or if it's a bus
mouse, "mknod /dev/mouse c 10 0" once.
VIII.36) Any tips for MGR?
ANSWER: Well, I have tried it on my 386Sx Ega/Vga; the screen is Ok
but the Logitech mouse I have is not well recognized.
BTW check the major/minor number for pty's; they should be character
device with 4 as major and 128 and bigger as minor:
ptyp0 c 4 128
ptyp1 c 4 129
...
ttyp0 c 4 192
ttyp1 c 4 193
VIII.37) What's about X11 ?
ANSWER: See the section XII. devoted to X11 in this FAQ.
===================8<==========>8================
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.announce,news.answers,comp.answers
Distribution: world
Followup-To: poster
From: corsini@labri.greco-prog.fr
Reply-To: linux@numero6.greco-prog.fr
Organization: Greco Prog. CNRS & LaBRI, Bordeaux France
Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions 4/4 [monthly posted]
Summary: Linux, a small and free unix-like for 386-AT computers.
Archive-name: linux-faq/part4
Last-Modified: 93/03/28
Version: 1.17
*********************************************************
* *
* Answers to Frequently asked questions about Linux *
* *
*********************************************************
This post contains Part 4 of the Linux FAQ (4 parts).
It must be read *after* the 3 first parts.
===================================8<====>8============================
CONTENTS (of this part)
IX. GCC MISC INFORMATION (part4)
X. SCSI SPECIAL (part4)
XI. NETWORKING and LINUX (part4)
XII. X11, THE MAXIMUM and MORE (part4)
XIII. EMACS for LINUX (part4)
===================================8<====>8============================
IX. GCC MISC INFORMATION
========================
**** Last update 93/03/26
IX.A. HLU Information
IX.B. OTHERS
IX.A. HLU Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The official release of GCC for Linux is 2.3.3.
This section includes:
README.gccdisk
FAQ of gcc written by HLU
IX.01) I don't know how to install gcc stuff, is there special
places?
ANSWER: This is the README.gccdisk
Linux GNU C/C++ [HJ release]
Introduction
------------
This is GNU C/C++ 2.3.3. It is linked with jump table 4.2. You should use
it with the Linux C library disks since the C/C++ compiler has no shared
images, which are required by all the binaries in it. It consists of
2 minix disks, which will fit on either 5.25" or 3.5" floppies.
It is on tsx-11.mit.edu under pub/linux/GCC/gccdisk
Distribution File Format
------------------------
There are two files, each of which goes on one disk
A. Disk 1 (gcc233a.Z)
This contains gcc, cpp, cc1 and crt0.o/gcrt0.o. There are also some header
files in /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-linux/2.3.3/include.
B. Disk 2 (gcc233b.Z)
This disk contains cc1plus.
Installing on the Hard Drive
----------------------------------------
1. uncompress base[1|2].Z.
2. rawrite or dd each file to a formatted floppy disk.
Now you have made a copy of gcc 2.3.3 on two floppies. To copy each
floppy to your hd, you should mount the floppy and copy its contents to
your hard drive. You can do this by:
mount /dev/fd[0|1] /mnt
cd /mnt
for d in bin dev etc usr
do
if [ -d $d ]; then
cp -av $d /
fi
done
Note: This may overwrite some files on your hard disk.
Thanks.
H.J.
hlu@eecs.wsu.edu
12/31/92
IX.02) What compiler should I use for Linux?
ANSWER: You should only use the same version on tsx-11.mit.edu under
/pub/linux/GCC. If you want to use the testing release, first join
the GCC channel on the Linux mailing list, and then send a note to
hlu@eecs.wsu.edu. Don't use gcc older than the one on tsx-11.mit.edu.
IX.03) Where is the latest official gcc 2.xx for Linux?
ANSWER: It's on tsx-11.mit.edu under /pub/Linux/GCC and under
pub/linux/GCC. You may find it on the other sites. Since gcc 2.3.3,
you can compile it yourself out of box from any gnu ftp sites. Just
unpack the source code and do
configure [i386-linux|i486-linux]
You should follow the instructions in INSTALL.
IX.04) Where is the latest official Linux C library?
ANSWER: It's on tsx-11.mit.edu under /pub/Linux/GCC and under
pub/linux/GCC. You may find it on the other sites.
IX.05) What are the contents of them?
ANSWER: Please read the current release note and ChangeLog for
details.
IX.06) How do I install them?
ANSWER: Read README and release notes.
IX.07) What are the main differences with the old release?
ANSWER: Read README and release notes.
IX.08) Can I use the old version of gcc?
ANSWER: Please get rid of gcc older than gcc 2.2.2. Starting from
gcc 2.2.2, you can do
gcc -V xxxx
where xxxx is the version number. Please read `release.xxxx' for
detail. There is one catch in gcc 2.2.2d, setjmp/longjmp is changed,
so the old header files is not compatible with gcc 2.2.2. Before you
install gcc 2.2.2d, please do
cp /usr/include/setjmp.h /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-linux/2.2.2/include
where /usr/include/setjmp.h is come with gcc 2.2.2.
IX.09) Can I delete the old shared image in /lib?
ANSWER: Since the Linux C library version 4.3, we have introduced the
dynamically linked library. There is no need to keep old shared images
in /lib if none of your binaries are linked with the classic shared
library which has been obsolete. You can just keep one version of
the shared image in /lib which has the highest major and minor
release numbers for each shared library. The name of the shared image
is "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.so.major.minor".
IX.10) Is stdio ANSI compatible?
ANSWER: Yes, please test it.
IX.11) Is g++ in 2.xx?
ANSWER: Yes.
IX.12) Where can I get the gcc manual?
ANSWER: You can get man pages and manual come with the gcc source code
on any gnu ftp sites. You should find gcc-man.tar.z on tsx-11 which
has man pages for gcc.
IX.13) What options can I use for gcc?
ANSWER: Read the manual. There is one special flag for Linux, -static
tells gcc to use the static libraries. The default is the jump table
version of shared libraries.
IX.14) How can I debug the C code?
ANSWER: Read the gcc/gdb manuals. The simple way to do is
gcc -g foo foo.c
gdb foo
IX.15) Where is the source code of the new libc.a?
ANSWER: The same place you find this file. It is called
libc-xx.yy.tar.z.
IX.16) Why does g++ complain, even die?
ANSWER: You need "expr", which is in GNU shell utilities 1.6, echo (?)
and sed.
IX.17) How do I generate code for 486?
ANSWER: Add -m486 to CFLAGS.
IX.18) I heard malloc (0) wouldn't work with Linux, what should I
do?
ANSWER: It *does* work in a manner which POSIX allows; unfortunately,
pre-POSIX code frequently assumes that malloc(0) will not return
0 -- the standard version of malloc under Linux *does* return 0.
By including <stdlib.h>, you get a definition of malloc which behaves
more traditionally. If you define NO_FIX_MALLOC, then you will get
the default (non-traditional) form. If you are trying to develop POSIX
compliant code under Linux, you should probably define NO_FIX_MALLOC to
ensure that your code doesn't make assumptions about malloc() which
will not work on other systems. (Note: NO_FIX_MALLOC is specific to
Linux.)
(Provided by Phil.Richards@prg.oxford.ac.uk. Thanks.)
IX.19) Why does gcc say "xxxxx..h not found"?
ANSWER: see QUESTION: What are the contents of them?
IX.20) I really followed every step in the documentation, but when
I do "make", why does it say "don't how to make xxxxxx"?
ANSWER: The dependency in Makefile is dated, you need to make a new
one. Please get some guide on make and read Makefile. For the kernel
sources, please do
cd src/linux
make dep
IX.21) How do I compile programs under Linux?
ANSWER: The Linux C library is trying to be ANSI/POSIX compliant. It
is also very compatible with SYSV and BSD. The C library is loaded
with SYSV and BSD functions. There are three exceptions:
1. signal in Linux is POSIX.
2. tty in Linux is POSIX.
3. time functions are POSIX, plus a few BSD and SYSV extensions.
4. setjmp/longjmp functions are POSIX. But you can use -D__FAVOR_BSD
to make it BSD or use sigsigjmp/siglongjmp.
When you compile a program under Linux, your best bet is include all
the appropriate header files and use -Wall. All the usable functions
and global variables are declared in the corresponding header files.
YOU SHOULD NOT DEFINE ANY functions or global variables OF THE LINUX C
LIBRARY IN YOUR CODE IF YOU WANT TO USE THE SHARED LIBRARIES.
After saying all those, you now should know you can compile a program
with -D_POSIX_SOURCE or -D_GNU_SOURCE (read <features.h> for details).
With a few modifications you can even use -DSYSV, -DUSG or -DBSD. Some
codes need to define -DSTDC_HEADERS for ANSI C compiler like gcc here.
To use malloc () and calloc () safely under Linux, please include
<stdlib.h> and don't define NO_FIX_MALLOC.
BTW, gcc -traditional should work with gcc 2.2.2d or above.
Please also read ChangeLog for the latest enhancement.
Please read the header files for details. Maybe you should get a book
on POSIX. Any suggestion of the book list?
>From Steve Robbins -- steve@nyongwa.cam.org
--------
I like "POSIX Programmer's Guide", by Donald Lewine. Its essentially
a list of POSIX functions' man pages, with a very brief guide in the
beginning of a few things. It's published by O'Reilly & Associates,
Inc.
--------
IX.22) How can I get bsd style signal?
ANSWER: Use -D__USE_BSD_SIGNAL.
IX.23) Why does a program that should only poll for input become
a CPU hog?
ANSWER: The select() system call. The timeout parameter was classically
used read-only by the system. Some manual pages already notes three
years ago:
select() should probably return the time remaining from
the original timeout, if any, by modifying the time value
in place. This may be implemented in future versions of
the system. Thus, it is unwise to assume that the timeout
pointer will be unmodified by the select() call.
If you do not take this advice seriously you get a zero timeout written
back to your timeout structure, which means that future calls to
select() using the same timeout structure will immediately return.
Fix:
Put the timeout value into that structure every time you call select().
Change code like
struct timeval timeout;
timeout.tv_sec = 1; timeout.tv_usec = 0;
while (some_condition)
{ select(n,readfds,writefds,exceptfds,&timeout); }
to
struct timeval timeout;
while (some_condition)
{ timeout.tv_sec = 1; timeout.tv_usec = 0;
select(n,readfds,writefds,exceptfds,&timeout);
}
IX.24) When a program is stopped using Ctrl-Z and then restarted,
or in other situations that generate signals: Ctrl-C interruption,
termination of a child process etc. why does it complain about
"interrupted system call" or "write: unknown error" or things like that.
ANSWER: The system call the program was executing has been interrupted
to process the signal, and then it returned -1 and set errno = EINTR.
The program then was likely to draw bad conclusions from that.
Explanation: Your program has signal handlers installed, using
signal() or sigaction(). When the signal occurred, your signal handler
was invoked. In other Unix systems, this usually happens asynchronously
or in a few slow system calls:
When a signal is caught during the execution of system calls such as
read(2), write(2), open(2) or ioctl(2) on a slow device (such as a
terminal, but not a file), during a pause(2) system call or a wait(2)
system call that does not return immediately because a previously
stopped or zombie process already exists, the signal-catching
function is executed and the interrupted system call then returns a
-1 to the calling process with errno set to EINTR.
Linux (following POSIX) checks for signals and may execute signal
handlers
* asynchronously (at a timer tick),
* on return from *any* system call,
* during the execution of the following system calls:
select(),
pause(),
connect(), accept(),
read() on terminals or sockets or pipes or /proc files,
write() on terminals or sockets or pipes or line printer,
open() on FIFOs or PTYs or serial lines,
ioctl() on terminals,
fcntl() with command F_SETLKW,
wait4(),
syslog(),
any TCP or NFS operations.
[For other operating systems you may have to include the system calls
creat(), close(), getmsg(), putmsg(), msgrcv(), msgsnd(), recv(),
send(), wait(), waitpid(), wait3(), tcdrain(), sigpause(), semop()
to this list.]
In the last two cases and assuming the program's signal handler returns,
the system call returns -1 and sets errno to EINTR.
If the SA_INTERRUPT flag is not set for the corresponding signal,
however, in most cases the system call is automatically restarted
(continued) after execution of the signal handler, and your program
won't see any EINTR.
You may ask why this is not the default behavior when the default
Linux signal () is used to install the signal handler. This is because
POSIX adopted this. As for which one is better, it is a matter of
opinion.
Note that in some versions of BSD Unix the default behavior is to
restart system calls. To get system calls interrupted you have to use
the SA_INTERRUPT flag.
Fix:
Either add -D__USE_BSD_SIGNAL to your CFLAGS. Or for every signal
handler that you install with signal(), use sigaction() instead,
without setting SA_INTERRUPT.
Note that while this applies to most system calls, you must still check
for EINTR on read(), write(), ioctl(), select(), pause(), connect().
You may do it like this:
int result;
while (len > 0)
{ result = read(fd,buffer,len);
if (result < 0) break;
buffer += result; len -= result;
}
-->
int result;
while (len > 0)
{ result = read(fd,buffer,len);
if (result < 0) { if (errno != EINTR) break; }
else { buffer += result; len -= result; }
}
and
int result;
result = ioctl(fd,cmd,addr);
-->
int result;
do { result = ioctl(fd,cmd,addr); }
while ((result == -1) && (errno == EINTR));
IX.B. OTHERS
~~~~~~~~~~~~
IX.25) I seem to be unable to compile anything with gcc. Why?
ANSWER: If you have only 2 MB RAM, gcc will die silently without
compiling anything. You must have at least 4 MB to do compilations
BTW Since swapping is possible, I have heard that compilation works
with only 2Meg and a lot disk traffic :) Isn't it great?
IX.26) gcc complains about not finding crt0.o and the system
include files What am I doing wrong ?
ANSWER: The include files normal place is in /usr/include. lib*.a and
*.o should be in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib
IX.27) I tried to port a /new/ version of gnu stuff. But in the
linking phase, gcc complains about the missing libg.a.
ANSWER: Yes this is well known for compiler version earlier than
2.2.2, throw away the flag -g that's all, anyway libg.a is /only/ for
debugging purpose.
IX.28) How to compile programs which may be debugged with gdb?
ANSWER: There are different ways to handle this problem. If
you have the gcc2.2.2 or later it's simple, use the -g flag. Otherwise
there are different possibilities:
1) As there is no libg.a, you should throw away the -g flag in link
phase, this means that the compilation must be done in two steps
example: instead of "gcc -g monprog.c -o monprog", use the following
"gcc -g -c monprog.c" and then "gcc -o monprog monprog.o"
Alas this method is not that good if you are using Makefile.
2) The other way is to create an empty libg.a as follows (Peter
MacDonald trick):
- create libfake.c containing libgfake() {}
- compile it with: gcc -c libfake.c
- create the libg.a with: ar r libg.a libfake.o
2bis) The more tricky Humberto method:
cd /usr/lib
ranlib libg.a
then gcc -g monprog.c -o monprog will produce a debuggable monprog
IX.29) When compiling some code, cc1 complains about some insn
code, what's that?
ANSWER: An insn is an internal representation that gcc uses when
compiling. The main part of gcc is to take ordinary c (or c++) code,
and compile it, while ding optimizations in insn part, which is
soft/hard independant. Then another part which is hard/Os dependant
takes the insns and translate it in assembly language. The fix is only
to turn off the optimization flag (-O).
IX.30) When compiling #$@!, I've got some problems with "SIGBUS"
signal that doesn't exist. Any clue ?
ANSWER: (Louis J. LaBash, Jr.) SIGBUS is a common problem, its not
needed, just comment it all out, something like:
#ifdef SIGBUS
.. normal sigbus code ..
#endif
IX.31) How can I write codes suitable for building shared library ?
ANSWER: (Eric Youngdale, eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil, 3/1/93)
In general there are very few restrictions as long as you are using the
new tools for building sharable libraries. Before the DLL libraries were
available there were all kinds of things you had to watch out for, but
currently you can more or less build a sharable library out of the box
without making any source code modifications. See the README in the
tools-m-n.tar.z distribution for more information on how to build a
sharable library.
X. SCSI SPECIAL
===============
*** This section is written by Drew Eckhardt, mail him for
*** information, questions related to this section.
*** Last update March 1993.
X.01) What hardware is supported?
ANSWER: The Adaptec 154x, Adaptec 174x, Future Domain 8xx (TMC
950 based boards?), 16x0, Seagate ST0x, Ultrastor 14F (Some of the
new ALPHA code makes attempts to deal with the 34F), and Western Digital
7000 are supported. Various Adaptec clones from Bustek and Future Domain are
known to work, in both ISA and EISA flavors.
Some of the SCSI drivers will not autodetect your SCSI host if the
BIOS is disabled, and there may be IRQ, DRQ, address restrictions
compiled into the distribution kernel.
Virtually all SCSI disks, CD ROMS, and tapes should work.
X.02) What hardware is not supported?
ANSWER: The Adaptec 152x, Always IN-2000, DTC, Mylex, and Ultrastor 24F,
PS/2 SCSI boards, and all SCSI ports on sound boards.
If you want to run Linux on this hardware, you'll have to get technical
docs on it, and write a driver yourself or bribe someone to do it.
X.03) How do I get SCSI information?
ANSWER: Subscribe to the SCSI channel of the linux-activists mailing list.
mail linux-activists@joker.cs.hut.fi
And put in the header.
X-MN-Admin: join SCSI
X.04) Where is the latest version maintained?
ANSWER: tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/ALPHA/scsi
Please join the SCSI channel of linux-activists@joker.cs.hut.fi before you
grab anything.
eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) added scatter/gather support
to the SCSI drivers, and changed around the internal structures to get
something that works as "version 2"
X.05) I've found one of the following bugs :
- I can't swap to a SCSI disk, or mount one as /
- I get a READ CAPACITY FAILED message on bootup.
- I have a removeable disk (ie Sysquest) and have problems when I change
media.
- I have a Seagate / Future Domain TMC-88x and the kernel panics with a
kernel paging message.
- I have an Adaptec 1742 and am experiencing data corruption
- I have an Insite floptical drive and it won't work.
- I have a TANDBERG TDC 3600 revision U07, SONYCD-ROM CDU-541 revision
4.3d, DENON DRD-25X revision V, or a SEAGATE ST296 revision
921 and the system hangs or reports multiple devices.
ANSWER: All of these bugs have been fixed, so UPGRADE. The first one
was due to a race condition. The fourth was caused by a kernel stack overflow.
The Adaptec problem was caused by a firmware bug in 1540 mode. The last two
were caused by SCSI devices that weren't compliant.
X.06) What do I do if I find a bug that still looks like a
bug after I've read the FAQ?
ANSWER: Your best bet is to send it to the SCSI channel of the mailing list,
where it will be seen by all of the people who've contributed to the
SCSI drivers.
In your bug report, please provide as much information as possible
regarding your hardware configuration, and all of the messages that
Linux prints when it boots. Your chances of getting the bug fixed increase
exponentially with the amount of information provided.
The bottom line is that if we can't reproduce your bug, and you can't
point at us what's broken, it won't get fixed.
X.07) What SCSI disks are supported?
ANSWER: Disks up to two terabytes in size will work, since the sd driver
switches to 10 byte reads when necessary.
Flopticals, Bernoulis, Sysquests, and other removeable media devices
are supported by the normal SCSI disk driver.
X.08) What about CD ROMS?
ANSWER: CD ROMS are supported. The ISO-9660 file system with Rockridge
extensions is supported. You will have to make sure that you have
configured the kernel to include the isofs filesystem or otherwise you
will not be able to use the cdrom.
X.09) What about SCSI tapes ?
ANSWER: Tapes are supported. You may wish to obtain the utility program mt,
which is usually available from tsx-11.mit.edu in pub/linux/ALPHA/scsi.
X.10) How do I partition the disk?
ANSWER: Use fdisk, efdisk, pfdisk or the DOS parititioning program of
your choice.
X.11) The linux partitioning programs don't work.
ANSWER: Some of these default to /dev/hd*, which are disks on
WD-1003 compatable controllers (IDE, MFM, RLL, ESDI, etc), rather
than /dev/sd* (SCSI disks). Your solutions are to
1. Call the partitioning program with a device name, ie
pfdisk /dev/sda
2. Make links from /dev/hd* to /dev/sd*.
X.12) My partitioning program can't figure out the disk geoemetry
The problem with partitioning SCSI disks and Linux is that Linux talks
directly to the SCSI interface. Each disk is viewed as the SCSI host
sees it : N blocks, numbered from 0 to N-1, all error free. There is
no portable way to get disk geometry.
However, DOS doesn't like things like this, it demmands that BIOS
present it with a normal Cylinder / Head / Sector coordinates. So,
BIOS does, and it comes up with some fabrication that fits what DOS
wants to see. You don't want to disagree with what BIOS thinks when
you write the partition table.
The newest SCSI code will return the mapped geometry for some host
adapter / disk combinations. Kernel release 0.99 and later should have
this capability.
QUESTION : I can't make a filesystem on /dev/hd*
ANSWER : /dev/hd* aren't your SCSI disks. /dev/sd* are.
See below for approproate major / minor numbers if they
do not exist on your root diskette.
X.13) What are the major / minor numbers for SCSI drives?
ANSWER: Because of the large number of devices that can be hung off of
a SCSI bus (as many as 56 if you use SCSI fanouts or bridge boards),
and the possibility of 16 partitions on a SCSI disk, we'd run out of
minor numbers if they were statically allocated - so a dynamic
numbering scheme is used.
Block device major 8 is used for SCSI drives, 11 for CD-ROMs.
Character device major 9 is used for SCSI tapes.
Minors are assigned in increments of 16 to SCSI disks as they are
found, scaning from host 0, ID 0 to host n, ID 7, excluding the host
ID. Most hosts use ID 7 for themselves.
A minor where minor mod 16 = 0 is the whole drive, where minor mod 16
is between 1 and 4, that partition, extended partitions dynamically
assigned from 5 to 15 inclusive. Note that the gendisk.c module
prints partition tables on initialization - you should be able to see
them there.
Example : I have three SCSI disks, set up as follows
Seagate ST02, ID=0
Seagate ST02, ID = 5
Adaptec 1542, ID = 0
The first disk on the seagate at ID 0 will become minors 0-15
inclusive, the second at ID5 16-31 inclusive, the disk on the
Adaptec 48-63.
X.14) My tape drive or other removeable media device isn't recognized
at boot time.
ANSWER: Try booting with a tape in the drive.
X.15) How do I reduce kernel bloat and eliminate the drivers I
don't want?
ANSWER: For kernel release 0.99 and later, just go to the to directory
in the kernel source tree, and type ``make config'', and answer the
questions. For older kernel distributions, simply #undef
CONFIG_DISTRIBUTION in include/linux/config.h, and define the macros
for the SCSI hosts you want enabled.
X.16) I get SCSI timeouts.
ANSWER: Make sure your board has interrupts enabled correctly.
X.17) The * driver doesn't work.
ANSWER: A source of difficulty is that you may be trying to run
the bus too fast. Try turning off the turbo switch for your machine,
or check the bus speed setting in your CMOS.
X.18) The Seagate / Future Domain TMC-88x driver doesn't work.
ANSWER: There are several possibilities
1) Is the board jumpered for IRQ5 ?
The factory settings are for MSDOS, and have interrupts disabled.
On the Seagate, Interrupts are controlled by the W3 (ST01) or JP3 (ST02)
jumper. Shorting pins F-G selects IRQ5.
2) Cached machines will not have problems if the Seagate's address
space (typically C8000 - CAFFFF) is not marked "non cacheable."
This applies to the i486 internal cache as well as i386/i486
external caches.
This can be set in the XCMOS of most machines. If you can't disable
cache for the Seagate's area (16K in size, starting at the base
address), then you must disable the cache entirely, otherwise
it won't work.
X.19) The Adaptec driver doesn't work.
ANSWER: A common source of difficulty is a conflict between two different
boards for an IRQ level, a DMA channel, or an I/O address. Check the
settings for the boards you have in your system (music boards are
known to use similar IRQ or I/O addresses as the Adaptec. In the new
scsi code the Adaptec can use any of the IRQ levels that it can be
strapped for, it can use I/O address 0x330 or 0x334, and it can use
DMA channels 5, 6 or 7.
X.20) When using a Seagate / Future Domain TMC-88x, why does my system
hang when syncing to disk?
ANSWER: The Seagate boards are an incredibly brain dead piece of hardware.
They can only generate an interrupt when a target raises the SEL signal.
So, as long as a target is connected, the Seagate driver must spin its
wheels waiting for the actual data transfer. Some devices agravate the
situation by connecting for long periods of time while not doing anything.
X.21) My system is dog slow (ie, 60k/sec)
ANSWER: SCSI commands have an incredible amount of overhead. For
every command, you need to arbitrate for the bus, select the target,
establish an I_T_L nexus, and send the command. Processing of that
command may take as much as 1ms on older devices. Add this overhead
to what you already have coming through the file system, buffer
cache, etc, and you have a real problem.
To work around this, we needed to maximize the amount of data that
could be transfered in a single command. So, we implemented
scatter-gather, which allows reads/writes from/to contiguous
disk sectors to non-contiguous buffers.
This typically gets you a 3-5 fold improvement in performance.
The current kernel only has scatter-gather support for
the Adaptec, Western Digital, and Future Domain 16xx boards.
However, Alpha code that provides scatter / gather for the Seagate
is available from headrest.woz.colorado.edu:/pub/linux/patches.seagate.Z,
for the Ultrastor from tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/ALPHA/scsi/ultrastor.fast.
XI. NETWORKING and LINUX
============================
*** This section should be maintained by Philip Copeland
*** (p_copela@csd.uwe.ac.uk).
XI.01) Where can I find useful information about networking for
Linux ?
ANSWER: Join the NET channel of the mailing list. Also, you need to
read the NET-FAQ by Phil Copeland, it's on sunsite and tsx-11 and
posted to c.o.l and the NET channel every couple of weeks.
Basically, all of the information on networking and TCP/IP for Linux
is in the NET-FAQ, because it's maintained seperately than this
document (and we don't want to waste the space reprinting it all
here--- it's big!).
The NET-FAQ has been completely rewritten as of Feb 1993. Get the new
version.
XII. X11 THE MAXIMUM and MORE
=============================
*** This section is maintained by Krishna Balasubramanian
*** <balasub@cis.ohio-state.edu>. Mail him if you have corrections,
*** additions, etc.
*** Last update: Sun, 21 Mar 93 17:14:00 -0500
XII.A. X386 GENERAL INFORMATION
XII.B. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: Supported Video cards, mice.
XII.C. LINUX DISTRIBUTION: Files required, Current version.
XII.D. LEARNING/USING X: Pointers to X documentation.
XII.E. DEBUGGING STARTUP PROBLEMS: Checklist, Screen restoration, Hanging.
XII.F. XCONFIG: Video mode settings and common errors in Xconfig.
XII.G. X-APPLICATIONS: Compiling X programs.
XII.H. BUGS
The X11 directories on linux systems are:
XLIB = /usr/X386/lib/X11/ (or /usr/lib/X11/)
XBIN = /usr/X386/bin/ (or /usr/bin/X11/)
XDOC = XLIB/etc/
cwxi = the comp.windows.x.i386unix newsgroup
Subscribe to this group if you are an xfree86 user.
XII.A. X386 GENERAL INFORMATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XII.01) What is the X11 release supported by Linux?
ANSWER: It's the X11R5 (xfree86-1.2).
There are (currently separate) servers for 8514 and S3 chips.
XII.02) What is X386/xfree86?
ANSWER: X386 is the port of the X11 server to System V/386 that was
done by Thomas Roell (roell@informatik.tu-muenchen.de). It supports a
wide variety of VGA boards. X386 1.2 is included in MIT's X11R5
distribution.
The Linux X386 port was based on the stock distribution from X11R5,
from MIT and was done by Orest Zborowski (obz@sisd.kodak.com).
It has since moved to becoming part of the standard xfree86 distribution.
See the FAQ on cwxi for more information on xfree86.
XII.03) Where can I get X386 1.2 (X11R5)?
ANSWER: The X386 1.2 and xfree86 sources are available at any site that
distributes the X11R5 source (too numerous to list here, but includes
export.lcs.mit.edu)
XII.04) Any tips on compiling X11R5?
ANSWER:
- Dont do it.
- XFree86 is distributed with a link kit so you can optionally
include what you like in the server.
- Join the xfree86 beta team (how to? see cwxi FAQ)
- Instructions are in the README file in XDOC/ and the cwxi FAQ.
XII.B HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Approx: at least 4 megs of ram + swap ...slooooww. 10 Meg disk for X.
Another 6-10 meg of disk for GCC if you want to compile X11 programs.
XII.05) What VGA boards are supported?
ANSWER:
et3000, et4000, gvga, pvga1a, wd890c00, tvga8900, ati ver. 5 or 6,
8514/A. (X386mono supports generic vga's and hercules).
Diamond cards are not supported and will not be supported. If
you are the unfortunate owner of such a card, you can probably
get the server up by booting in specific modes or using dos to
set your modes before warm booting into linux or using an
external clock setting program. You will have to bear with these
irks until you can convince diamond to alter their policy.
Standard x11v1.1 or xfree86 server:
ET3000 (for ex. GENOA 5300/5400)
ET4000 (Tricom, STB PWR Graph, Sigma Legend, etc.)
GVGA (Genoa 6400)
PVGA1A (Paradise VGA Professional)
WD90C00 (Paradise VGA 1024)
supported by xfree86:
TVGA TRIDENT 8900c, 9000, support is in xfree86
ATI ATI VGA WONDER XL and most ATI VGA WONDER PLUS
cards (chip version 5 or 6).
Courtesy Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
Those with 8514 compatible cards may want to get
the X8514 server for speed (~2x xstones?).
MONO Any vga card should be able to use X386mono server. (At least
640x480 with 800x600 virtual). Use the vga2 section of Xconfig.
Support for hercules monochrome card (usable as 2nd display).
The following servers will usually not handle all the options supported by
xfree86. Read the documentation that comes with them carefully. They
will be merged with the xfree86 distribution in some time.
8514 ATI graphics ULTRA, ATI graphics Vantage
Should work with any VESA standard 8514/A register compatible
card? Courtesy Kevin Martin (martin@cs.unc.edu).
Scott Laird (lair@midway.uchicago.edu) writes:
I uploaded a new version of the X8514 X Server to sunsite and
tsx-11. It is in /pub/Linux/X11/X-servers/X8514/X8514scale.tar.Z
on sunsite. It's linked with version 4.2 of the jumptable libraries,
includes TCP/IP support, support for compressed bitmap fonts, Type 1
and Speedo scalable fonts. There's a README file in the same
directory that will answer more questions.
XS3 S3 chipset server (Jon Tombs jon@robots.ox.ac.uk)
Get the FAQ on ftp.robots.ox.ac.uk (pub/linux/S3 check sunsite).
Xega Generic 640x480x16 compatible server (originally for laptops).
This requires a microsoft mouse at /dev/mouse for now
and it does not use Xconfig so use environment variables
to define the font path etc. in .xinitrc:
export FONT_PATH=/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc:/usr/lib/X11/fonts75dpi
Works better with courier fonts so add to .Xresources:
*Font: -*-courier-medium-r-*--10* ..or whatever..
A link kit is available at tsx-11 (you need gcc2.2.2).
in pub/linux/ALPHA/Xega/X386.ega.T.Z
(Obselete? Unusable? Anyone?)
WARNING: Do not try to bring up an Xserver that does not support your
hardware. There have been cases where damage has resulted from pushing
the monitor (specially fixed frequency monitors) beyond its specs.
XII.06) What Mouses are supported?
ANSWER: Serial : Logitech, Microsoft, MouseSystems .... compatibles ...
Busmouses : Logitech, microsoft, ATI_XL, PS/2 (aux).
XII.07) Does anyone have a working PS/2 mouse? Has anyone gotten the
"Mini-DIN" mouse on an HP Vectra 486/33T to work? The slight info I've
been able to find says it's PS/2 compatible.
ANSWER: First you need to create an entry in /dev for it:
mknod /dev/psaux c 10 1
There is no direct PS/2 mouse support in XFree86-1.1, so to use the
mouse with X you'll have to use the mconv mouse protocol conversion
utility, which can be found on nic.funet.fi, in
/pub/OS/Linux/utils/tools/mconv.c. This program converts the packets
sent by the PS/2 mouse into the corresponding ones from a Microsoft
mouse, so you can fool X telling it you have a Microsoft serial
mouse instead. Instructions for use are included in the source file.
(Johan Myreen jem@cs.hut.fi)
XII.08) I have trouble with my logitech Pilot mouse and X under
Linux, any clue ?
ANSWER: (Thomas Roell?) There are TWO lines of Logitech mice out there.
One is the programmable and uses MouseSystems protocol at startup.
X386 reprogramms them to use another protocol. If you specify
'Logitech' in the Xconfig, X386 assumes a mouse like C7 or S9 (notC7-M).
The second line is the MicroSoft compatible. Currently all newer
Logitech mice follows this practice, like the MouseMan. In that case
you have to say 'MicroSoft' or 'MouseMan'.
From: jliddle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Jean Liddle)
I just purchased a new logitech mouseman, and yes, the new X-Windows
(XFree86 as opposed to X386) requires that you use the "microsoft" mousetype.
However, if you turn Third Button Emulation off, the middle button WILL work.
XII.C. LINUX DISTRIBUTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XII.09) What is the current version?
ANSWER: The newest public Linux release is xfree86-1.2.
It was compiled with gcc-2.3 (jump tables 4.3) and is available
for example at tsx-11 in pub/linux/packages/X11/XFree86-1.2/.
XII.10) What Files do I need to download?
ANSWER: For xfree86: There is a README file in the distribution directory.
Bring this down first and read it. Then get xbin, xman and xfonts.
You need xprog and xlibman only if you plan to compile X applications.
You need xkit if you want to relink the server.
**** You need The shared images libc.so.4 (4.3 or later) and libm.so.4 (4.0)
in /lib/. All the X11 binaries use these. These are available with the GCC
distribution or any new rootdisk. To compile programs you should
get gcc-2.3 or later and the 4.3 libraries.
To get a different server, see the notes in the previous section.
X11 directories in the archive sites are:
tsx-11 : pub/linux/packages/X11, pub/linux/usr.bin.X11
sunsite : pub/Linux/X11/ pub/Linux/Incoming/DLL?
XII.11) Where do the X11 files go? What are they?
ANSWER: The linux X binary distribution looks something like:
/usr/X386/
lib/
libX11.a ... (X libraries needed for compiling stuff).
X11/
config/ (template files for compiling ... xmkmf)
fonts/
misc/ , 75dpi/ ....
etc/ (documentation).
bin/ (X386, X386mono, xterm, X linked to X386).
include/X11/ (include files needed for compiling).
bitmaps/ (icons, bitmaps used by some applications).
man/
man1/, man3/, cat1/, cat3/
/lib
libX??.so.?? (Shared images needed by all X11 binaries).
Its best you do a tar -tvzf on the distribution you get or find
some means of extracting the distribution file list.
The support files include default/example Xconfig, xinitrc, twmrc
which you could copy to your HOME directory (as Xconfig, .xinitrc
and .twmrc) and edit them to define your hardware and X11 setup.
The directory XLIB/etc/ contains much documentation on how to
configure video modes.
Read the files XDOC/README and XDOC/README.Linux.
XII.D. LEARNING/USING X
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XII.12) Where can I find the basic help for learning/using X ?
ANSWER: Try man X386; man Xserver; man xterm; man twm; man xinit
on any machine with X11. The man pages on xterm and twm will reflect
behaviour on Linux systems quite accurately. The others will give you
some bearing though not every option will work. These man pages are
part of the xfree86 distribution.
XII.13) What docs are available besides man pages?
ANSWER: The FAQ in comp.windows.x is extensive and has a bibliography.
There is also the Xt-FAQ. Both are available from export.lcs.mit.edu in
pub/contrib/. There is a collection of (mit) X11 documents on tsx-11
(pub/linux/doc/xdoc.tar.Z ?) or export (pub/R5-Untarred) if you are
interested in internals.
XII.14) How do I start up X?
ANSWER: Type 'startx' at the shell prompt. Before doing this you should:
0) Untar the xfree86 distribution from / (read XDOC/README, XDOC/README.Linux).
1) copy the file Xconfig.sample from the XLIB/ directory to your
HOME directory (/usr/root/Xconfig?) or to XLIB/Xconfig.
2) Edit Xconfig and set the video data for your card and monitor.
Use the clocks appropriate for your card and the modes appropriate
for your monitor for those clock values. To determine what values are
appropriate the Xconfig section below and the files in XDOC/.
3) Set the mouse device in Xconfig correctly....Use the busmouse entry
for Logitech only. For other busmouses use microsoft (try all :-).
4) Ensure that there is a termcap entry for xterm in /etc/termcap
(One is available in the subdir /doc/).
5) Ensure that the X11 binaries are in the path example:
add the line PATH=${PATH}:/usr/X386/bin to ~/.profile or
look at bash.ad in /doc/.
WARNING: NONE of the modes (in the Modes line in Xconfig) should use a
clock your monitor cannot handle.
Now type startx.
XII.15) How do I configure X .. colors, menu, keyboard?
ANSWER: makes me ... dizzy ...
server : video, keyboard
Xconfig : man X386, man Xserver, XDOC/VideoModes.doc
man X386keybd, man xset, man xmodmap.
resources: global and application preferences.
XLIB/xinit/.Xresources or ~/.Xresources : man xrdb?
twm : menus, title bars, colors .. look and feel.
~/.twmrc or XLIB/twm/system.twmrc : man twm
xinit : startup.
~/.xinitrc or XLIB/xinit/xinitrc -- man xinit
applications : XLIB/app-defaults/Xxx (also ~/.Xresources)
man xxx
You can start with files from any X11 setup. Backup the files
you change. See the FAQ on comp.windows.x.
XII.16) [suggested by Thomas Koenig]
How do I support national keyboards in X11 ?
ANSWER: Put a .Xmodmap file into the user's home directory specifying
which keys to use for what; or else replace the
/usr/lib/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap with the national keyboard keys
customized. Do man xmodmap for more details.
enclosed an excerpt of mine (french keyboard):
keycode 8 =
keycode 9 = Escape
keycode 10 = ampersand 1
keycode 11 = eacute 2 asciitilde
keycode 12 = quotedbl 3 numbersign
keycode 13 = apostrophe 4 braceleft
keycode 14 = parenleft 5 bracketleft
keycode 15 = minus 6 bar
keycode 16 = egrave 7 grave
keycode 17 = underscore 8 backslash
keycode 18 = ccedilla 9 asciicircum
keycode 19 = agrave 0 at
keycode 20 = parenright degree bracketright
keycode 21 = equal plus braceright
keycode 22 = BackSpace
keycode 23 = Tab
keycode 24 = A
........
XII.E. DEBUGGING STARTUP PROBLEMS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XII.17) I cannot type in my xterm
ANSWER: /dev/console must have major=4, minor=0
rm -f /dev/console; ln /dev/console /dev/tty0
XII.18) What are some of the common omissions and errors?
ANSWER: (Peter)
1) Add /usr/X386/bin/ (or /usr/bin/X11) to your path.
2) Add the xterm termcap entry to /etc/termcap.
3) ln -s X386 X in the XBIN directory.
ln -s X386mono X (if you want to use the mono server).
4) Run X as root first. This avoids some trivial problems.
5) If you change the font path entry .... X386 is finicky about
the syntax.
6) Make sure your mouse entry in Xconfig points to a legitimate serial
device (or busmouse)... usually something like: microsoft "/dev/ttyS1"
serial devices have major # 4 minor 64,65 ... busmouses are major 10.
ls -l in /dev will show you the major and minor entries.
7) Need read/write/exec access to /tmp directory
8) Use startx 2> x.err to log your error messages. If the server sticks
and you have to reboot you'll probably loose this stuff... see notes
on `hanging' below.
9) You must have a free vt (eg. /dev/tty5 with no getty (see /etc/rc)).
10) Delete /tmp/.Xn-lock if recovering from a crash.
11) Note the new probeonly option for the server (man X386):
startx -- -pn -probeonly
12) See Xconfig problems and the device list below.
XII.19) Why is the server unable to find some of the fonts?
ANSWER: First check that the directories listed in the font path exist
and have font files in them. Some of the servers are not set up to use
compressed fonts. In such cases you have to uncompress the fonts in the
directory and run `mkfontdir .`. Read the man page on mkfontdir.
XII.20) My server "hangs" Why?
ANSWER: (Peter) Quite often it isn't a hang. If the server grabs the
screen(and enters graphics mode) and then dies, it may return you to
bash *without* restoring the screen. In other words, just because you
see no output, don't assume it's running/hanging. The way to test
this is to see if you can use a bash command to spin your disk. eg.:
sync; ls -l /bin.
Also - I *suspect* that (at least for me), you can kill the
server if you include the servernum option in the Xconfig (Obselete?)
You can kill the server when you want to by typing ctrl-alt-backspace.
Then a couple of ctrl-C 's in case your stuck in xinit.
The two line message
X386 version .....
(protocol Version ....
is returned from the X386 programme itself, so if you get
this (or if the screen blanks) X must be starting.
XII.21) When I started X11 I got "Cannot connect to
server" or "process does not exist", any clue ?
ANSWER: The cause might be wrong fontpath variable setup in your
Xconfig; uncomment and set the correct fontpath variable.
XII.22) Why cant I run more than 4 xterms?
How can I have more than 4 pty's ?
ANSWER: set the number in the header include/linux/tty.h and
recompile the kernel. Also make nodes :
mknod /dev/ptypxx 4 minor (where minor = 128 + xx)
mknod /dev/ttypxx 4 minor (minor = 192 + xx)
This is for before linux-0.97pl6.... for later versions
you only need to make the nodes.
XII.23) How does X11 start up?
ANSWER: The startup involves the server (XBIN/X), and some
programs like startx and xinit.
Typing startx runs the script XBIN/startx. Look through startx.
For explanation of the server arguments try man Xserver.
startx does little other than gather arguments and then call xinit.
xinit runs the server X (X is linked to X386) and the client programs
specified in ~/.xinitrc. xinit continues to run, and is often the
source of the error messages you see when you exit. If you get the
message "giving up", it means X has died (quite probably it died
immediately) and xinit has been unable to start clients from the
xinitrc script. (The scripts must be executable).
XII.24) How can I see what startx passes to xinit, and xinit to X?
ANSWER: Add the line: set -x near the top of startx.
To see what xinit passes to X, try: (Peter)
rm XBIN/X
- yes, if you have set it up correctly, X should only be a link
so it's safe to remove it.
then create a shell script XBIN/X containing:
#/bin/sh
echo $*
and run startx. You should see something like:
X :0
which is all xinit passes to X. If you don't see the :0, you may not
have your DISPLAY=":0" set correctly. THEN RESTORE X!! :
cd XBIN; rm X; ln -s X386 X
XII.25) What devices does X depend on:
ANSWER: check your device numbers with ls -l /dev. You should have:
5 0 tty
4 0 tty0
4 0 console
4 1 tty1 (etc) virtual consoles (vt's) : eg. startx -- vt8
1 1 mem
4 128 ptyp0 pseudo ttys used by xterm/emacs etc
4 129 ptyp1 (etc) to talk to unix programs.
4 192 ttyp0
4 193 ttyp1 (etc)
4 64 ttyS1 one of these is the mouse
4 65 ttyS2 or you have a busmouse.
10 x mouse busmouse x = 0 => logitech 1 => ps/2 (aux)
2 => microsoft 3 => ATI_XL.
/tmp/.X11-unix/Xn n = display number. Socket used by X11 programs to
talk to the server. This is created by X386.
/tmp/.Xn-lock n = display number. Lock file.
Note that unix programs dont expect standard names for serial devices
and mice. So you can give these devices any name as long as you tell
the server what its called (in Xconfig).
XII.F. Xconfig: Xconfig and Video mode settings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XII.26) What do the mode names in Xconfig mean?
ANSWER: Mode names like "640x480" are used to match entries in
the modes line with the modeDB entry which actually defines the mode.
You can toggle between modes in the modes line with ctrl-alt-numericplus.
If you're experimenting with 640x480 you can define
modes "640x480a" "641x480b" "642x480c"
with different entries for each under ModeDB so you can toggle between
these three modes.
XII.27) How do I compute the numbers for the video modes?
ANSWER: See if there is an entry that matches your chip/monitor in
XDOC/modeDB.txt. Use the clock entries for your chip
and the mode entry for that clock appropriate for your monitor.
If you cant find a mode entry for a particular clock 'needed_clock'
but can find a mode entry (for your monitor) for a nearby clock value
'found_clock', scale all numbers in the modeDB entry by
(needed_clock/found_clock). Read XDOC/VideoModes.doc
XII.28) How can I determine the clocks on the video chip?
Where can I find clock.exe or clock.pas ?
ANSWER: The XFREE Team discourages the use of clocks.exe and wants it
to be removed from all docs, since the new Server is better at
guessing the clocks than clocks.exe.
You can get X to tell you what it finds by commenting the clocks entry
in Xconfig. Use 'startx -- -probeonly 2> x.err' to log the output.
If X starts up this file gets the clocks only after you exit.
I strongly advise using the 'modegen' spreadsheets to generate the
appropriate settings. If I remember correctly you can find them in
'pub/linux/packages/SLS/x4' called modegen.taz or something equally
as obvious ... Good luck. (Andy asb@cs.nott.ac.uk)
The clocks entry in Xconfig serves as an index. example:
clocks 1 2
ModeDB
1 640x480 .....
2 800x600 .....
means the first clock on the chip will be used for the 640x480 mode
and so on. Usually one uses the MHz value for the clock for convenience
instead of 1 2 you probably have 25 28 ... etc.
XII.29) What are the settings used with a trident-8900C?
ANSWER: To get X/SLS/Linux working with a trident-8900C :
1) From Frank Houston fh8n@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU
vga256
Virtual 1024 768
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
Use the VESA monitor timings from the modeDB in the example Xconfig.
You do not need to specify the chipset or clocks.
2) From: Henk Vandecasteele henkv@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
TRIDENT TVGA 8900C card with BIOS C2.11, A cheap color monitor AOC (CM-335)
with a maximum horizontal frequence of 39.5
vga256
Virtual 1024 1024
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "912x684" "800x600" "640x480"
# This mode drives my monitor to the limit (VESA timings for the rest).
"912x684" 45 912 944 1104 1136 684 684 690 712
XII.30) Oh what, Oh what, Oh what can I do with a trident 8900b?
ANSWER: (drew@cs.colorado.edu)
1. While the 8900b works with the Xfree 8900c driver, you must
specify a chipset line for the 8900c in your Xconfig.
2. The tridents are miserably slow in a Color mode. If you don't
mind black and white, you should use X386mono. Not only is it
faster, but it requires less video memory, and you'll be able
to run a 1k X 1k virtual desktop. Again, you must specify the
Chipset line to use the banked mono server for virtual
resolutions > ~800x600.
XII.31) What are common problems with Xconfig?
ANSWER: If X isn't firing at all, or even if it clears the screen and
crashes (see below) you almost certainly have a fault in Xconfig.
1. Note that the server X interprets Xconfig. (not xinit)
2. If you have a fault in Xconfig it is possible to crash or hang the
server without getting an error message. (older versions?)
3. leave the two paths at the top of Xconfig commented out when testing.
4. test with only one graphics mode included - one you are most sure of.
5. If you make a mistake in the mouse section, you will (I understand)
get an error message, so if you don't get some mouse error, try
elsewhere first. (eg "No such file or directory" indicates you have a
fault in the "/dev/ttyxx" line, or /dev/ttyxx doesn't exist.
6. *NB* X looks in your home directory first to find an Xconfig. make
certain it's using the one you've been working on!
7. you need double quotes (") around your chipset and modes: eg
chipset "et4000"
Modes "640x480" "640x480a" "800x600"
and around the /dev/ttyxx eg.:
microsoft "/dev/ttys1"
8. Check your VGA section and modeDB first.
9. ensure ModeDB clock speeds match the VGA section. Comment out any
unused lines in MODEDB.
eg clocks 25 36 00 00 00 00 00 00
then you *must* have (and only have) lines under modeDB corresponding
to speeds 25 and 36. If you have one with (say) 62 uncommented out in
the modeDB section in place of the 36 line, you will cause the server to
die immediately with no error message.
10. a syntax error (such as an unrecognised word) in Xconfig will cause
a death with no warning. (Obselete?)
11. videoram must equal the amount of display ram on your chip.
12. The virtual resolution screen must fit in the videoram.
eg: 512kB => 800x600 (for the 1 byte per pixel color server)
XII.32) What do I use in my Xconfig file to use the bus mouse?
Logitech doesn't work with my Logitech busmouse.
ANSWER: (Nathan I. Laredo)
Here are the mouse lines from my Xconfig:
BusMouse "/dev/mouse"
You may add a sample rate if you want, but chances are, unless the model
number on your mouse matches mine: PC-93-9MD it probably will cause your
machine to lock up, as I've gotten several reports saying that.
According to the X386 documentation, non-logitech mice do not support
a sample rate.
XII.33) Where can I get Xconfig-files for various hardware?
ANSWER: If you have access to e-mail, e-mail bcr@physics.purdue.edu
a message with the subject: help
If you do create a new Xconfig file or improve on an old one please mail
it to bcr@physics.purdue.edu to save others from having to duplicate
your work.
XII.G X-APPLICATIONS: Compiling X Programs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XII.34) Does anyone know where I can find the libobz.a library ?
ANSWER: This library contained the socket stuff, when X386 V0.1 was
released. Meanwhile it has found it's way into the kernel, so
remove -lobz from the link step in the Makefile. Any program
asking for libobz needs to be recompiled anyway.
XII.35) I get _setjmp undefined when linking xv from .a files.
ANSWER: You are trying to link a program compiled with gcc-2.2.2
and setjmp has changed sice then. Recompile xv from the source
using the latest gcc.
XII.36) How do I compile an X application that has an Imakefile?
ANSWER:
Type xmkmf to generate the Makefile.
Type make.
XII.37) How do I compile a program that has no Imakefile?
ANSWER: Use compiler options generated with programs that do have
Imakefiles. Look in XLIB/config/ for the linux definitions.
In particular you need -fwritable-strings.
XII.38) gcc complains the X libraries are not found or links static.
ANSWER: Check out the -nojump -static options of GCC ... read the GCC FAQ.
You can tell gcc what directories to search with -L.
XII.39) When using Makefiles generated by xmkmf why do I get many error
messages?
ANSWER: The old xmkmf under Linux doesn't like # comments in Imakefiles.
Therefore you must change the #'s to XCOMM. But be careful. Don't change
any pre-compiler directives. (mal11@po.CWRU.Edu Matthew A. Lewis)
XII.H BUGS:
~~~~~~~~~~~
Restoration of the text screen fails on some hardware. You can
get the program runx from the vgalib distribution (tsx-11
pub/linux/sources/libs/). Report the problem to the xfree86 team.
Cant compile Xaw programs without -static in versions x11v1.1 or older.
Color problems with Xega .... fixed in latest version on tsx-11 (Old).
from chuck@coplex.com (Chuck Sites) (Old?)
It is possible to run X386 on a Paradise VGA Plus. The X386.0 doc file
has a small misprint. The Chipset is not pvga. It's pvga1. Anyway,
under the line in /usr/X386/lib/X11/Xconfig VGA256, add, `chipset "pvga1"`.
You will need a 512k board. There seems to be a problem with 800x600 mode
that causes pixels to be misplaced in the center 1/3 of the screen. 640x480
works fine. Anybody out there might have a fix for that? You may want to use
X386mono with 800x600 instead
Fix for missing numlock control in xfree86-1.1.
use xmodmap to change the mapping:
clear mod1
add mod1 = Alt_L
keysym Alt_R = Mode_switch
add mod5 = Mode_switch
David (Dawes)
Sources for X11_FAQ:
Steve Kotsopoulos, Peter Hawkins, John Morris, MM. Corsini,
K. Balasubramanian.
Direct comments, questions, complaints to krishna at:
balasub@cis.ohio-state.edu
XIII. EMACS for LINUX
=====================
*** This section is maintained by Rick Sladkey (jrs@world.std.com)
*** Last Update March 1993.
XIII.A. GENERAL INFORMATION
XIII.B. GNU EMACS for LINUX
XIII.A. GENERAL INFORMATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a short list of Frequently Asked Questions about GNU Emacs
under Linux. It does not address general questions about Emacs which
are not Linux specific. For general help about Emacs, 1) learn to use
and read the online documentation, 2) read the real Emacs FAQ found in
emacs/etc/FAQ, and 3) read the newsgroup gnu.emacs.help.
Rick Sladkey <jrs@world.std.com>
XIII.B. GNU EMACS for LINUX
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XIII.01) What version of the compiler was used? Which shared libaries?
ANSWER: This describes version of GNU Emacs 18.59 for Linux 0.99.5 and above
compiled with GCC 2.2.3 using the libc.so.4.3 and libX11.so.3.0 shared
libraries.
XIII.02) Which files do I need?
ANSWER:
emacs-18.59b.tar.Z this file, sample default.el and diffs
for this version, the eight-bit patch,
iso-latin-1.el and eight-bit.el
emacs-etc-18.59b.tar.Z emacs support programs and misc info
emacs-bin-18.59b.tar.Z shared emacs binary and its doc file
x11emacs-bin-18.59b.tar.Z shared x11emacs binary and its doc file
XIII.03) How do I install them?
ANSWER: For the latter three files, just cd to /usr and untar them.
XIII.04) What if I want to compile Emacs myself?
ANSWER: It is fairly easy (and highly recommended) to compile Emacs
yourself if you have the the disk space. In this case you only need
the standard Emacs distribution (emacs-18.59.tar.Z from any GNU archive)
and the Linux diffs and support files (emacs-18.59b.tar.Z from a Linux
archive). The diffs are quite small and mostly amount to a
configuration file.
XIII.05) What about Epoch or Lucid Emacs? Are these available for Linux?
ANSWER: Yes. Thomas Dunbar has been maintaining Epoch for Linux and
Chipsy Sperber has compiled Lucid Emacs. Both of these work well
under Linux. Look in a Linux archive index for where to find them.
XIII.06) Does Linux Emacs support eight-bit input/output?
ANSWER: Yes. It is new with this version. It uses the so-called
"ctl-arrow" patch. See the file README.8bit for more information.
XIII.07) How much disk space is required?
ANSWER: Anywhere from 1 to 15 Meg. Emacs works reasonably well with no
support files at all. With a judicious selection from lisp/*.elc and
etc/*, quite a lot can be done using only 2 Meg. If you want all of
lisp/*.elc, info/*, and etc/* this will require 4 to 6 Meg. If you
unpack the whole source you need 8 Meg. If you collect info files
like rare coins and install a lot of big lisp packages then Emacs may
need its own partition. :-)
XIII.08) Why can't Emacs find its support files anymore?
ANSWER: This is because older versions of Emacs were compiled with
"/usr/local/emacs" based paths. The current version is compiled with
"/usr/emacs" paths. If you have a previous installation, just "mv
/usr/local/emacs /usr" and you're done. If you can't bear to part
with the "/usr/local" pathnames because of inertia then do "ln -s
/usr/local/emacs /usr" and you can have them both.
XIII.09) How do I get Emacs to recognize my cursor keys?
ANSWER: Simple. Don't use them. :-) Seriously, there are as many
ways to do this are there are elisp hackers but the preferred way is
to follow the pattern set by the other terminal definition files in
emacs/lisp/term/*.el. For just arrow keys you can just copy vt220.el
to console.el and that's it. For function keys and the others see
the sample default.el included with emacs-18.59b.tar.Z.
XIII.10) What packages are particularly useful under Linux?
ANSWER: Because info format is the documentation standard of the GNU
project and just about everything except the kernel comes from FSF,
you will find that Dave Gillespie's enhanced info package is very
useful. It allows multiple info directories, space bar paging, and
supports compressed info files. Please learn to use info. Imagine
Unix life without man.
Others that I highly recommend are Sebastian Kremer's enhanced
dired directory editor, Dave Gillespie's calc calculator, Masanobu
UMEDA's gnus for usenet news, and Kyle Jone's vm for mail.
All can be found in the OSU Emacs archive, ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu,
/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive. See the real FAQ for more details.
XIII.11) Does Linux Emacs use the shared libraries?
ANSWER: Yes. It works fine with the DLL libraries and should not
require a new binary when the C or X libraries are updated.
XIII.12) Does Linux Emacs support the X Window System?
ANSWER: Yes. However, there are two binaries. One without X support
(about 485k) and one with X support (about 515k).
XIII.13) Do I need both Emacs if I don't always use X?
ANSWER: No. The X11 version works equally well inside or outside of X.
If you get the message "Check your DISPLAY variable" it means that
you have defined DISPLAY in your ~/.profile (or whatever). You can
fix this by starting Emacs with 'emacs -nw' or by removing the DISPLAY
variable from your ~/.profile and putting it in you ~/.xinitrc.
XIII.14) Why doesn't Emacs use the settings in my
.Xdefaults/.Xresources file?
ANSWER: You are probably using the word "emacs" and your X version of
emacs is called x11emacs. Either use the word "Emacs" in your resource
file or rename x11emacs to emacs. See above question on why this
is reasonable.
XIII.15) I read about some menu that is supposed to pop up when I
press some mouse button. Does this work with Linux Emacs?
ANSWER: Yes. This requires XMenu support to be compiled in. Former
versions did not support it because it did not work correctly.
XIII.16) Sometimes Emacs crashes with a SIGALRM message. What's
wrong?
ANSWER: The old answer about upgrading to a newer version of bash
was incorrect. The problem was in the implementation of sleep(3)
in the old C library. It is fixed as of libc-4.3.
===================8<==========>8================
SLS FAQ
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Why doesn't ???? work.
A: First read the man pages on ???? and look in this FAQ and the readme.
Relevant manpages can be located using "man -k ????".
Q: Why do I get "shell-init failed"?
A: chmod a+rx /
Q: Why do I get "can not find fixed font"
A: Look in /usr/lib/X11/fonts. Do the fonts.dir and fonts.alias = the fonts
there? If not, try mkfontdir.
Q: Why doesn't makewhatis work?
A: Because the man pages are compressed.
Q: Why do is see "magic match failed" on disk a3?
A: Ignore it it is normal. Sysinstall has to switch from Minix to Dos disks
at a3.
Q: Why do I see "no bmap support" when installing disks?
A: Ignore it it is normal. Dos disks generate this message when mounted.
Q: Why won't the install recognize my disks.
A: Perhaps you have a bad disk, a hardware problem, the download failed or
something else. Some versions of DOS don't seem to like linux. Try
formatting disks on someone elses DOS. Really, you are on your own here.
What I want done, is have the "file loop" patches added to a Linux system,
and then store the Images to SLS, with mountings to also access their
contents (someday). Meanwhile. bon chance.
Q: How do I upgrade SLS
A: If from .96, you don't. You must re-install from scratch. Otherwise,
read the ChangeLog file and download just the needed files manually.
Q: Can I install a new version of SLS over an old one?
A: Best not to. Save what you want somewhere and use mk[*]fs. SLS may
be best for base installs. Updates you can often get anywere on the net.
That is, unless you follow the upgrades to SLS religously.
Q: What version of X11 does SLS use?
A: XFree 1.2. Yes, it does use shared DLL jump libs.
Q: Can I install from the Hard drive?
A: Yes. Even from a Dos HD, but you can't use "doinstall". It goes like:
"sysinstall -instsrc /user -instroot /root -all"
Q: How can I set the video-mode automatically when booting?
A: Use "rdev -v /dev/fd0 1" to simulate typing '1', etc. (-1 sets default vga,
-3 set ask). Try "rdev -help" for more info.
Q: I have only 2Meg of ram...
A: Use hlu's root disk, in GCC
Q: How do I get TCP/IP or NFS working?
A: Get SLS .98p5 92/12/03 or later. Look at hostcvt.build in /etc/inet
Q: How come "mdir a:" don't recognize my 3.5 A: drive?
A: Edit /etc/mtools.
Q: Why does "sysinstall -special t" not work or, why the "*.tar" not found
messages, or why do I get "can't write to disk" on installations?
A: Get the new a4/menus.taz. It has a new sysinstall, that uses "-series".
Q: Why do I see "link failed" messages when I install?
A: Ignore them, they are harmless.
Q: How do I install disks afterwards?
A: sysinstall -disk. Try reading sysinstall for more info.
Q: How do I uninstall a package?
A: sysinstall -remove pkg. To see all pkgs, do "ls /install/installed"
Q: How do I find out what disk a package is on, if I uninstall it?
A: grep pkg /install/disks/*
Q: I just upgraded to [X11, gs, ..] and I get "can't load library /lib/lib*"
A: A new library must have come out. Get the new lib(s) to.
Q: How do I find which version of SLS I am using
A: uname -a
Q: How do I find out what is in a package?
A: Install it, look at it, uninstall it if not desired.
Q: What is the meaning life
A: it's coming in the next release.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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