Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-30 Thread Jules Bean
--On Sat, Nov 28, 1998 1:25 pm -0500 "Steve Dunham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote: 

> "Jules Bean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
>> --On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 10:08 pm +0100 "Eric Delaunay"
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
>> 
>> > About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it
enough
>> > reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?
> 
> I'd like to see 2.1, but I can always make my own...
> 
>> Since the last breaks dpkg-shlibdeps, I'm using 2.1 ATM.  But it does
have
>> some rather serious X problems on cgsixes (?)
> 
> Do you have a flashing cursor in X with the cgsix?  (I do, with
> 2.1.127, and I'm trying to determine if it's due to the fact that the
> cgsix is the second head on my system.)

Nope.

My cgsix problem is that I get a watchdog reset when I quit X.  Which is
kinda unpleasant :-)

I'll send trace info to [EMAIL PROTECTED] when I get a chance - I'm rushed off
my proverbials at the moment.

Jules


/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  Debian GNU/Linux - "Microsoft *does* have a year 2000 problem - |
|  and we're it!" (paraphrased from IRC)   |
\--/



Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-30 Thread Christian Meder
On Sun, Nov 29, 1998 at 10:04:12AM +1100, Anton Blanchard wrote:
> 
> > which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?
> > 2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
> > virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
> > X logout crash problem.
> 
> A recent 2.1 kernel would be nice since it supports SMP. Any chance of going
> to something newer than 2.1.125?

I'll package a newer one if you tell me which one is best. We should wait for
a fix which cures Jules X problems.

Greetings,



Christian
-- 
Christian Meder, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
What's the railroad to me ?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows, 
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing.
  (Henry David Thoreau)
 


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-28 Thread Anton Blanchard

> which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?
> 2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
> virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
> X logout crash problem.

A recent 2.1 kernel would be nice since it supports SMP. Any chance of going
to something newer than 2.1.125?

Cheers,
Anton


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-28 Thread Steve Dunham
"Jules Bean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> --On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 10:08 pm +0100 "Eric Delaunay"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> > About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it enough
> > reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?

I'd like to see 2.1, but I can always make my own...

> Since the last breaks dpkg-shlibdeps, I'm using 2.1 ATM.  But it does have
> some rather serious X problems on cgsixes (?)

Do you have a flashing cursor in X with the cgsix?  (I do, with
2.1.127, and I'm trying to determine if it's due to the fact that the
cgsix is the second head on my system.)




Steve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-26 Thread joost


On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Eric Delaunay wrote:

> Christian Meder wrote:
> > 
> > 2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
> > virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
> > X logout crash problem.
> 
> About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it enough
> reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?

Hi,

Slightly off-topic, but a colleague of mine has been trying linux on a
sparcserver 5 and it has been giving major problems with the scsi bus.
The machine complains a lot and after a while just crashes on both 2.0.35
and any recent 2.1 kernel.  Anyone familiar with that?

Cheers,


Joost


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Ben Collins
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 10:12:30PM +, Jules Bean wrote:
> 
> Oh.  So *that's* the famous sun4c slowdown.
> 
> I noticed that too, when I installed my machine.  I just assumed that my
> disks were slow :-)
> 
> I've never really noticed the slowdown when the machine's in use, but I use
> it very lightly.

Doing disk intensive things is when i noticed it most (large files, fsck,
mke2fs, etc), but I also noticed it slightly after the memory had been
filled up with cache like after updatedb runs or compiling large programs.
2.1.x has made my system far more useful :)

-- 
--- -  -   ---  -  - - ---   
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- -- - - - ---   --- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Jules Bean
--On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 4:51 pm -0500 "Ben Collins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

> On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 10:08:11PM +0100, Eric Delaunay wrote:
>> 
>> About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it
enough
>> reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?
> 
> The 2.0.x kernels suffer performance wise on the sun4c's i have used them
> on. For example it took about an hour for them to run mke2fs on my 2 gig
> drive, while the 2.1 kernels went at it in about 15 minutes (or less).
> 
> 2.0.35 works well on sun4m's tho.

Oh.  So *that's* the famous sun4c slowdown.

I noticed that too, when I installed my machine.  I just assumed that my
disks were slow :-)

I've never really noticed the slowdown when the machine's in use, but I use
it very lightly.

Jules

P.S. I keep trimming this thread to -sparc - it's not really relevant to
-devel.

/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  Debian GNU/Linux - "Microsoft *does* have a year 2000 problem - |
|  and we're it!" (paraphrased from IRC)   |
\--/



Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Ben Collins
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 10:08:11PM +0100, Eric Delaunay wrote:
> 
> About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it enough
> reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?

The 2.0.x kernels suffer performance wise on the sun4c's i have used them
on. For example it took about an hour for them to run mke2fs on my 2 gig
drive, while the 2.1 kernels went at it in about 15 minutes (or less).

2.0.35 works well on sun4m's tho.

-- 
--- -  -   ---  -  - - ---   
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- -- - - - ---   --- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Marcelo E. Magallon
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 03:58:36PM -0500, Steve Dunham wrote:

> Has anyone tried this stuff on an Ultra?  Does it need any dynamic
> loader patches or will an Ultra work out of the box with a special
> kernel.  If the latter is true, then we should provide either a
> seperate tftpboot image and floppy set for the Ultra, or a combined
> "TILO" image and seperate floppy set.

 I'm going to... today hopefully. I was going to ask if that was possible
 but I said "the heck with it, let's give it a try". I fact, I was wondering
 why the ultralinux port is based on ultrapenguin and not the Debian Sparc
 port.


Marcelo 


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Jules Bean
--On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 10:08 pm +0100 "Eric Delaunay"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

> About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it enough
> reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?

The only serious problems I had when I used 2.0.35 were:

Buggered signal handling (fixed in glibc?)

Miscellaneous X/VC messes (possibly partly the signal-handling problem?)

ldd segfaults (only on sun4c machines, fixed in 2.1)

Since the last breaks dpkg-shlibdeps, I'm using 2.1 ATM.  But it does have
some rather serious X problems on cgsixes (?)

Jules

/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  Debian GNU/Linux - "Microsoft *does* have a year 2000 problem - |
|  and we're it!" (paraphrased from IRC)   |
\--/



Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Steve Dunham
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:08:20PM +0100, Christian Meder wrote:
> > 
> > which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?

> Although I haven't tried X with it, the 2.1.129 kernel on this debian
> sparc system of mine has been up for a almost a week now with no porblems.
> There are some problems that I have seen on linux-kernel@ with 129, but
> all seem to have been fixed in the latest 2.1.130pre3. Maybe we need to
> look beyond 125 for the sparc release?

> Also, if no one else is working on it, I would really like to see the
> tftpboot image capable of using nfs to install the kernel image and
> modules instead of asking for a disk (or does it work and just wasn't
> obvious in the install?).

It's just not obvious.  You have to choose "configure network" before
you choose "install kernel and modules"


Steve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Eric Delaunay
Christian Meder wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> just to bring you the latest news from the Sparc32 port ;-)
> 
> Brian agreed that we will get a freeze on Sparc and therefore we will release 
> sid as Debian 2.1 on sparc. Up to now I took care only to upload packages 
> with sources taken from the frozen dist. So we are pretty much in line 
> with i386.

Very good news :-))

> There are three issues left which are critical for our (sparc) release:
> 
> which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?
> 
> 2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
> virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
> X logout crash problem.
>
> we need fresh bootfloppies. Eric will you work on the bootfloppies ?

Yes, yes, I'm working on :-)) I recompiled everything and I'm starting to test
a fresh install to see how it works (or not)...

About kernel, I will release the next bootdisks with 2.0.35.  Is it enough
reliable for *all* sparc workstations, or should I switch to 2.1 ?

Regards.

PS: I hope I will be ready to upload bootdisks next monday evening.

-- 
 Eric Delaunay | "La guerre justifie l'existence des militaires.
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | En les supprimant." Henri Jeanson (1900-1970)


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Steve Dunham
Christian Meder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> just to bring you the latest news from the Sparc32 port ;-)

> Brian agreed that we will get a freeze on Sparc and therefore we will release 
> sid as Debian 2.1 on sparc. Up to now I took care only to upload packages 
> with sources taken from the frozen dist. So we are pretty much in line 
> with i386.

> There are three issues left which are critical for our (sparc) release:

> which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?

> 2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
> virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
> X logout crash problem.

2.0.35 doesn't boot on my Sparc 20.  (It does boot on another sparc 20
in the office.)  It dies before the screen turns black, just after
detecting the CPUs, so I suspect the problem is related to the
multiple video cards in my machine.

> we need fresh bootfloppies. Eric will you work on the bootfloppies ?

Can we get APT in the new base?  (I usually customize the base 

> Lots of testing. Everybody who wants to see a Debian 2.1 sparc release
> should join in now. Not everything's in place yet but I hope that most of
> the (doable) packages are done by the weekend.

Has anyone tried this stuff on an Ultra?  Does it need any dynamic
loader patches or will an Ultra work out of the box with a special
kernel.  If the latter is true, then we should provide either a
seperate tftpboot image and floppy set for the Ultra, or a combined
"TILO" image and seperate floppy set.


Steve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Alexander Schulz
According to Ben Collins:
> 
> On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:08:12PM +, Jules Bean wrote:
> > 
> > You just mount the NFS drive, and when it asks you where base_*tgz is, you
> > tell it...
> 

The bigger Problem is IMHO that you can't give dinstall an nfs-mounted
directory as a target. All those diskless SCLs and ELCs cause a lot of
tweaking this way.

I think that is what the original poster meant

Alexander


-- 
   ,,,
  (o o)
+-oOO--(_)--OOo--/""T"""T
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] | ... because you are always as |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]| dead as you think you are!|
| www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~Alexander.Schulz| (D. Adams : mostly harmless)  |
+---+---+


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Ben Collins
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:55:04PM +, Jules Bean wrote:
> 
> As long as you've got them visible on a mounted file system, it can find
> them and use them.

Ok, makes it easier in the sense that it is actually there :) I'm
wondering if it's possible however to include these things into the
tftpboot image itself, and have it know about it without asking? Obviously
the image already has the kernel somewhere around in it, and modules would
not take a huge amount of space considering there aren't alot of them for
sparc compared to i386.

-- 
--- -  -   ---  -  - - ---   
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- -- - - - ---   --- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Jules Bean
--On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 1:32 pm -0500 "Ben Collins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

> On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:08:12PM +, Jules Bean wrote:
>> 
>> You just mount the NFS drive, and when it asks you where base_*tgz is,
you
>> tell it...
> 
> Yeah, I was able to do that, but what about when it asks for resc1440.bin
> and drv1440.bin?

As long as you've got them visible on a mounted file system, it can find
them and use them.

[I quite agree, BTW, that this is insufficiently documented]

Jules

/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  Debian GNU/Linux - "Microsoft *does* have a year 2000 problem - |
|  and we're it!" (paraphrased from IRC)   |
\--/



Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Ben Collins
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:08:12PM +, Jules Bean wrote:
> 
> You just mount the NFS drive, and when it asks you where base_*tgz is, you
> tell it...

Yeah, I was able to do that, but what about when it asks for resc1440.bin
and drv1440.bin?

-- 
--- -  -   ---  -  - - ---   
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- -- - - - ---   --- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Dave Broudy
On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Jules Bean wrote:

> > tftpboot image capable of using nfs to install the kernel image and
> > modules instead of asking for a disk (or does it work and just wasn't
> > obvious in the install?).
> 
> It does work, and it isn't obvious, no.
> 
> You just mount the NFS drive, and when it asks you where base_*tgz is, you
> tell it...

It's not quite that obvious. You have to do the steps out of order and
setup the network before you mount anything.

Dave Broudy [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Jules Bean
--On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 12:41 pm -0500 "Ben Collins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

> On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:08:20PM +0100, Christian Meder wrote:
>> 
>> which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?
> 
> Although I haven't tried X with it, the 2.1.129 kernel on this debian
> sparc system of mine has been up for a almost a week now with no porblems.
> There are some problems that I have seen on linux-kernel@ with 129, but
> all seem to have been fixed in the latest 2.1.130pre3. Maybe we need to
> look beyond 125 for the sparc release?
> 
> Also, if no one else is working on it, I would really like to see the
> tftpboot image capable of using nfs to install the kernel image and
> modules instead of asking for a disk (or does it work and just wasn't
> obvious in the install?).

It does work, and it isn't obvious, no.

You just mount the NFS drive, and when it asks you where base_*tgz is, you
tell it...

Jules


/+---+-\
|  Jelibean aka  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  6 Evelyn Rd|
|  Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]|  TW9 2TF *UK*   |
++---+-+
|  Debian GNU/Linux - "Microsoft *does* have a year 2000 problem - |
|  and we're it!" (paraphrased from IRC)   |
\--/



Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Ben Collins
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 06:08:20PM +0100, Christian Meder wrote:
> 
> which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?

Although I haven't tried X with it, the 2.1.129 kernel on this debian
sparc system of mine has been up for a almost a week now with no porblems.
There are some problems that I have seen on linux-kernel@ with 129, but
all seem to have been fixed in the latest 2.1.130pre3. Maybe we need to
look beyond 125 for the sparc release?

Also, if no one else is working on it, I would really like to see the
tftpboot image capable of using nfs to install the kernel image and
modules instead of asking for a disk (or does it work and just wasn't
obvious in the install?).

-- 
--- -  -   ---  -  - - ---   
Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- -- - - - ---   --- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Christian Meder
On Wed, Nov 25, 1998 at 12:15:05PM -0500, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote:
> Christian,
> 
> Is there a list somewhere of packages that couldn't be autobuilt?  I'd
> like to try fixing a few of them if I can.
> 

I'll post one tomorrow.

Greetings,


Christian
-- 
Christian Meder, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
What's the railroad to me ?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows, 
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing.
  (Henry David Thoreau)
 


Re: The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Jaldhar H. Vyas
Christian,

Is there a list somewhere of packages that couldn't be autobuilt?  I'd
like to try fixing a few of them if I can.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Christian Meder wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> just to bring you the latest news from the Sparc32 port ;-)
> 
> Brian agreed that we will get a freeze on Sparc and therefore we will release 
> sid as Debian 2.1 on sparc. Up to now I took care only to upload packages 
> with sources taken from the frozen dist. So we are pretty much in line 
> with i386.
> 
> There are three issues left which are critical for our (sparc) release:
> 
> which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?
> 
> 2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
> virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
> X logout crash problem.
> 
> we need fresh bootfloppies. Eric will you work on the bootfloppies ?
> 
> Lots of testing. Everybody who wants to see a Debian 2.1 sparc release
> should join in now. Not everything's in place yet but I hope that most of
> the (doable) packages are done by the weekend.
> 
> Happy testing,
> 
> 
>   Christian
> 
> PS. Remember to check that the packages you upload are compiled with 
> the sources from the frozen dist.
> 
> -- 
> Christian Meder, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>  
> What's the railroad to me ?
> I never go to see
> Where it ends.
> It fills a few hollows,
> And makes banks for the swallows, 
> It sets the sand a-blowing,
> And the blackberries a-growing.
>   (Henry David Thoreau)
>  
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 


The time has come (part II) ...

1998-11-25 Thread Christian Meder
Hi,

just to bring you the latest news from the Sparc32 port ;-)

Brian agreed that we will get a freeze on Sparc and therefore we will release 
sid as Debian 2.1 on sparc. Up to now I took care only to upload packages 
with sources taken from the frozen dist. So we are pretty much in line 
with i386.

There are three issues left which are critical for our (sparc) release:

which kernel will we use as standard kernel ?

2.0.35 is pretty stable for me but it's not completely stable because the 
virtual consoles die sometimes. 2.1.125 is much better but it has got the
X logout crash problem.

we need fresh bootfloppies. Eric will you work on the bootfloppies ?

Lots of testing. Everybody who wants to see a Debian 2.1 sparc release
should join in now. Not everything's in place yet but I hope that most of
the (doable) packages are done by the weekend.

Happy testing,


Christian

PS. Remember to check that the packages you upload are compiled with 
the sources from the frozen dist.

-- 
Christian Meder, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
What's the railroad to me ?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows, 
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing.
  (Henry David Thoreau)