|CanceR|-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=|CanceR| _ _ __________ / /´FTERSHOCK INC. \ / | | | | | General Info on Linux | / | | _|__|_ | Issue #8 * 05/08/1993 | /| | || \ \ _ . by Nitro-187 ._ / ||__|__||___ | | | \ / DISCLAIMER : Congress Shall make no law \ / respecting an establishment of religion, or | | prohibiting the free excersize therof; or | | abriging the freedom of speech, or of the | | press; or the right of the people peaceably /´FTERSHOCK to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.. |CanceR|-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=|CanceR| Hello all.... Wow the releases have been much more frequent... I am not feeling myself today so I am deciding to release a FAQ on one of the best fucking O/Ss for the PC. So good and it is FREE. Cool Huh? Anywayz I'll let you check it out fer yourself. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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 November 1992. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: What is the current state of Linux? ANSWER: read the comp.os.linux newsgroup, where the INFO-SHEET is periodically posted. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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) Subject: ANNOUNCE: New XT disk driver Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 15:24:27 GMT This is a short note to annouce the second release of the XT hard disk drivers for Linux. This set of patches is for Linux 0.99 (pl0) and should be available on tsx-11 under /pub/linux/ALPHA/xtdisk/xtdisk2.tar.Z and /pub/linux/ALPHA/xtdisk/README.xtdisk. Just a brief introduction: this driver allows you to use XT-style (8 bit) hard drive controllers. The advantage of these is that you can use them in conjunction with normal AT-style (16 bit) controllers, IDE drives and SCSI drives. The major problem with them is the fact that they are very slow, so swapping to one of these controllers/disks is not recomended . QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: Will Linux run on a 386 Laptop? ANSWER: It works, including X on most of them. QUESTION: (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. QUESTION: 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".) QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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) QUESTION: Does Linux use TSS segments to provide multitasking? ANSWER: Yes! QUESTION: 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 XII. devoted to Ethernet and Linux. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: Can I have tasks spanning the full 4GB of addressable 386 memory? No more 64kB limits like in coherent or standard minix? ANSWER: Since 0.97pl? it uses 4 GB Process Space, 3 for userspace and 1 for the kernel space. QUESTION: Does the bigger program sizes mean I can run X? ANSWER: Yes! See section XI below for details on X11. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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. Personally, my experience with 386BSD has shown that : (a) its TCP/IP is more stable, and seems to work (on my NE2000 card, which Linux doesn't support yet), but (b) the interface and "feel" just wern't the same as Linux (which I liked better :) ). You'll have to try it out for yourself. Here's information from comp.unix.bsd, September 1992: | This is a free BSD for the 386. It does NFS and X. | Grab it from agate.berkeley.edu (128.32.136.1). | Bill Jolitz is writing a book on it. | | It has a neat, small kernel, and is stable enough to run for a week or | more without crashing/hanging. It works fine with 4MB RAM and 80MB | disk. Running X however needs 8MB RAM, and supports only vanilla VGA. | The TCP/IP implementation in this is functional, but not optimised. | This means that FTP throughput is about 5KB/sec on Ethernet, when | almost anything else gives you about 70KB to 100KB per second. | | Read comp.unix.bsd. That is almost entirely Jolitz's 386BSD now. | | 3. How much disk space for: | *kernel | *X | *source to kernel | *source to X | Binary only: 49 M (30 disk, 5 swap, 14 extraction) | Source: 125 M (49 bin, 37 disk, +6 extraction, 25 recompile) | User software: +51 M | | X Binaries require about 61 Meg (?) | I don't know about the sources. To conclude this Q/A wrt Linux vs 386BSD, you should read the Linux News Issue #5 of L. Wirzenius, where a true story of Mark W. Eichin is reported. QUESTION: 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). ================= *** 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, critics \ldots, mail him at komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu *** Last Update 15.11.92 QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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 QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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 QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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). QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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 8), and an abbreviated version of this in the MCC interim package. QUESTION: Whenever I use mtools to read a 720K in an 1.44MB drive, I get a long sequence of reset-floppy-errors, why? ANSWER: This is what happens if you use the /dev/PS0 device (b 2 28), to read a 720k floppy you have to use another device, for example /dev/fd0. Or you may use the setfdprm utility. QUESTION: 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 the rawrite stuff or the mount procedure. QUESTION: Could someone explain how to use rawrite? ANSWER: Well, rawrite is a DOS util, which write sequential sector 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 QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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 Anyway there are a few differences between these and normal DOS assemblers. QUESTION: 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. V. SOME CLASSICAL PROBLEMS ========================== QUESTION: 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), 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). QUESTION: How can I partition my hard-drive to use Linux? ANSWER: There are (at least) two ways to answer this. The easy way is probably to use a program which will do it for you, such as the MS-DOS fdisk, Minix fdisk, Xenix/Unix fdisk, or programs such as edpart.exe or part.exe. With the 0.95a distribution, there is pfdisk. To use it have a look in the beginner's guide written by I. Reid, it's clear and it had worked for me like a charm. In the mcc-interim release ther is also fdisk, which runs under Linux and manages partition tables (it also creates extended partitions). On the other hand, you can use a disk editor and modify the contents of the partition table directly. This has been already done, and an extensive explanatory note can be found in the mailing-list archives (25th Jan. 92). You must also edit the bpb on the Dos partition you are shrinking, otherwise Dos will step on Linux. BTW It might be useful to set three (3) separated partitions for Linux, one for the root, another one for the usr and a third one for swap, as an illustration, my root partition is 10Meg, the usr is 22Meg and instead of a swap partition I use a swap file. As an experience I have used MS-DOS fdisk to partition my two hd and got no peculiar difficulties. You can, as long as you stay within the 64MB per filesystem limit (Minix-filesystem limitation), have swap, root, etc, ... all on there. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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). QUESTION: I have some trouble with tar/untar; any clue ? ANSWER: The tar provided on .96 and latter is Pax (don't know for .98) which do not accept the z flag. You can download the GNU tar at tsx-11 in /pub/linux/binaries/usr.bin QUESTION: 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? QUESTION: "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 $* } QUESTION: 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, you should rather write a small utility that will make any user able to mount/unmount a (and ONLY a) *floppy* 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 QUESTION: 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 QUESTION: 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 do a make clean. The pathname to the system binary [/usr/src/linux/tools/system] is stored in the psdatabase, so you only have to specify it if you have moved your source tree or if you are creating the psdatabase for the first time. The psdatabase is always '/etc/psdatabase'. The system file is obtained in compiling the linux kernel (which I assume is rooted in /usr/src/linux). BTW: sometimes a patch makes recompiling ps necessary. Sometimes you even have to patch the ps-suite. BTW: there is also procfs in Linux. And one can find a BETA ps package (wrote by Michael K. Johnson) based on these filesystems. 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) QUESTION: 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 :) (Rick) If you never want to see another core file, put this line into your /etc/rc file: ulimit -c 0 provided you are a bash user :)) QUESTION: I can only log-in as "root", is it normal ? ANSWER: No, add "rm -f /etc/nologin" in your /etc/rc.local file 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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. QUESTION: 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 *** Last Update: 17 Nov 1992 16:00:20 GMT QUESTION: What are the device minor/major numbers? ANSWER: Here's a preliminary listing from Rick Miller : The Linux Device List published by rick@ee.uwm.edu (Rick Miller, Linux Device Registrar) Many thanks to richard@stat.tamu.edu and Jim Winstead Jr. Majors: 0. Unnamed . (unknown) .... for proc-fs, NFS clients, etc. 1. Memory .. (character) .. ram, mem, kmem, null, port, zero 2. Floppy .. (block) ...... fd[01][dhDH]{360,720,1200,1440} or fd[01] 3. Hard Disk (block) ...... hd[ab] or hd[ab][1-?] (Extended>4) 4. Tty ..... (character) .. tty{0,1-8,63,64-127,128-?} or ttys{0-3,1-4} 5. tty ..... (character) .. special tty: owner of its calling process. 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[0-?] or sd[0-?][0-?] 9. Scsi Tape (character) .. st[0-?] 10. Bus Mouse (character) .. bm, psaux (mouse) 11. CD-ROM .. (block) ...... scd =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= And where can you get this wonderful O/S.... Well here we go again folks.... Linux SLS V1 Entire release (28 1.44mb disks, 28,955,336 bytes) Self installing free UNIX for the PC FREE BY MAIL............... Here are the conditions: 1. You MUST be a member of MAC's Place BBS (in good standing) MAC's Place is a free access BBS, so a simple logon and registration will qualify you. 919-891-1111 at 16.8K USR Dual standards (two lines) 2. Only released on QIC-120 media (DC2120 tapes) 3. Send a FORMATTED DC2120 (QIC-120 tape) to: MAC's Place BBS P.O. Box 911 Dunn, NC 28335 4. The tape must be FORMATTED 5. Send return postage (in form of stamps NOT MONEY!) and return labels 6. The tape must be FORMATTED (get the hint!) *************************************************************** 7. If any of the above conditions are not met, it will be sent back, "return to sender" *************************************************************** MAC's Place will also offer the SLS V1 release via the BBS as as FREE/NO TIME download, to those at 9600 bps or better. This means you can download the entire sls release in one shot and it doesn't count against you in time or downloads. At 14.4 or 16.8 it goes quicker than you'd think. The release will be 28 files on tape that you can put to disk yourself. It is compressed using LHARC (mostly for storage because internal files are unix compressed) Make sure you send return postage in the form of stamps, not money. I want nothing in return for this. In this day and age were everyones has an angle, we'd like to prove not everyone is out for themselves. We do this in the TRUE spirit of OPEN systems and maybe we'll give 'ol Bill Gates a small nightmare (doubtful!) Enjoy and if this is anything like the last time I did this PLEASE be patient, I processed 100's of orders last time. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| Call These Systems..... | Wanna Join /´FTERSHOCK or CanceR? | | Call up a board and leave what you | CUM <708>961/0927 | can do what you wanna do and | Room 101 <708>265/1984 | whatever else. Later.. | 13th Avenue <206>PRI/VATE | | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| (C)1993 /´FTERSHOCK/CanceR What Rights? -EoF-