Re: boot and shutown both suddenly getting delayed
Anthony Campbell wrote: > > I've suddenly started experiencing long delays in both boot and > shutdown. If accompanied by ide reset messages your hard disk could be dying. Andrew mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: Linux/X and LCD projectors (sort of video beamer)
Joachim Trinkwitz wrote: > Now I'm looking for a possibility to set down the monitor frequency > without losing to much of the picture quality. > > Any ideas? Change your mode lines. If there are not a hundred well commented mode lines alread in you XF86Config then read the video timings faq. If they are there and you want to get to them, rename them to something special and insert those as your modes of your display. If all else fails run xf86config. Andrew -- mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
RE: Compact version for running on 486/33 or /66 with 8->32 Mb ram
> While worming through the pages I found a reference to > a compact verison of Debian installation that was > designed to work on a 486. Slink works on a 486. I'm running it on two 486 DX2 at home. One with 8MB of ram, which is too little, one with 20MB which is plenty. The 20MB ram machine has a 200MB disk of which about 60 is swap. On the rest is one partition. I installed "basic machine ~25MB" then added the stuff I needed. /usr/src is mounted over nfs (I always build the smallest possible working kernel as soon as the machine is up and running). I seem to remember not installing some of the suggested documentation packages. There is still free space on the disk, but /home is more or less empty. The 8MB ram machine has a 2.5GB disk of which 128MB is swap and the rest is one big partition. Again I installed "basic machine ~25MB" then added things a bit at a time. On this machine /home is mounted over nfs. Previusly this machine had 24MB of ram and ran X and numerous applications (e.g. LyX) satisfactorily. Now with less ram I find it swaps too much to run X, even X clients are rather hampered - I reconfigured this machine solely to cut CDroms; which it does successfully from cdwrite but xcdroast produces coasters due to timeouts from swapping. The 2.5GB disk is mostly empty most of the time but I want to use it to store iso9660 file system images between cuts. As long as you don't need to run the gimp, just install the minimum to do what you want and avoid unnecessary daemons (apache, x font server, etc) a 486 can be a reasonable linux box. Andrew
Re: SED question
Ben Lutgens wrote: > > I had to use the back quotes`` Back quotes can't be nested, while $( ) does the same job and can be nested -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: small dselect question
jh wrote: > > Hi. If I just want to install 1 program from dselect, would I want to go > through and put an = sign by the programs that are currently installed so > it doesn't have to go through all the files when installing? I hope this > question makes sense. > > Thanks, > > Jeff > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null Wouldn't that mean that should a newer and better version of any ='ed file be available you would not install it? Sounds like a bad side effect. If you know you just want to install one thing and dont want to wait for dselect to run for an hour, try dpkg. Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
RE: [Linux: SCSI-Controller] LILO with aha152x
... > If I start with my Rescue-Disk and I use the following parameter > > linux aha152x=0x340,11 Are you using a VLbus card with one of these built in? A something-or-other VL300? If so what is the ide controller chipset? (other than hopeless) > But if I boot from harddisk the aha152x is not there. in /etc/lilo.conf add this: append="aha152x=0x340,11" If there is already an append statement, modify it thus: append="whatever_was_there_before aha152x=0x340,11" then run lilo, then reboot. Andrew
Re: seg faults while building kernel
"Jacob Schmude > > Hello > > When I try to build a kernel the debian way, I get a seg fault. On my > previous linux system this never happened. Was the previou s linux system on this or other hardware? If other, then I suspect your current hardware. Read the Sig11 faq. Often a go-faster option that is enabled pushes the machine into instability that is clearly evident when the machine is compiling a kernel and less obvious at other times; another cause can be a bug in the motherboard. A slow process of elimination is required to determine the precise cause of the problem; I had trouble with one motherboard which I traced to the bios option "NA# asserted" _or_ to having more than 64MB of ram fitted. Great, eh? Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: hdparm - hard disk tuning
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Hi > > Has anyone had any experience using hdparm to increase the performance of > your ide hard drives? Does it work and are there any drawbacks? Is there > any software which can measure hard drive performance? Me Yes, not that I noticed hdparm itself and (more convincingly) timing a few big transfers between partitions or drives, eg a cdrom image Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: HELP: Free space zero no matter what
"Dwayne C . Litzenberger" wrote: > > Okay, I'm back and running, and I figured out my problem. ext2 filesystems > have reserved blocks, though I don't know what they're for. It seems only > root can access them, although I haven't really checked this. tune2fs can > lower the number of reserved blocks, but here's my question: > > Why, on a 6.4 GB hard drive, were there 300MB or reserved blocks? What > are they for, and do I really need them? Some kilobytes of space is needed on the / and /var so that root can log in. Free space of about this size was traditionally reserved for root so that he/she could still log in to take corrective action even if the disk is full. In the days when 50MB was a big disk, saving a few percent for this requirement made sense. Applying these same old percentages - often 5% for most kinds of unix, 10% on hpux, reserves an excessive amount of space; often for no advantage. On /home and similar partitions it is my belief that zero percent need be reserved. On / and if it is a separate partiton /var, a few (<5) megabaytes reseved is plenty. This is all purely subjective. Andrew
Re: Creating/Moving a partition
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > # mv /var /old_var ; mv /new_var /var > > NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! > > Do NOT use mv! This will change the ownership and protection rights > of the files. That could be very, very bad and will most certainly break > something. Oops. I missed out: First make a perfect copy of /var in another partition mounted on /new_var using tar, cp, cpio or whatever, Then swap them as described using mv. However, your approach seems a little more robust :-) I'll shut up now. Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: Creating/Moving a partition
"David J. Kanter" wrote: > > I'd like to make a new partition for /var because I don't have enough drive > space where /var is currently mounted (/) to run apt-get dist-upgrade. > What's the best way of doing this? I can create a new /var partition because > I've got plenty of available drive space, but what set-up files will I have > to modify to make sure things go smoothly? > > I assume I'll have to change fstab. But then do I have to move all contents > of the current /var to the new /var? Could I create the new partition using > a temporary name, move all the /var stuff to it, then rename it to /var? Thats what I would suggest. Stop everything you can, copy the contents and do the final swapover in one line, just in case # mv /var /old_var ; mv /new_var /var Another alternative is to create a whole new, bigger, root partition, copy everyting to that, boot it from a rescue floppy and once there 1) make it bootable, fix up /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf and run lilo 2) remove the original root partition and replace it with an enlarged verion. It depends what else you've got on the disk, how much time you have, etc. Andrew
2.0.38 make install - unable to find lilo footprint
When I make "install" for the kernel 2.0.38 - which I didn't get from a .deb, I just downloaded from Finland - when it comes to the part where every other kernel says "shall I run lilo?" this one says it can't find a lilo footprint. What is it looking for? Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: Sun classic
Oki DZ wrote: > > Andrew Hately wrote: > ... > > I had intended to use it as an xserver for the rest of the machines on my > > network but the screen is so dim and unsharp I'm going off the idea. > > How do you set up xservers? I think I read a note about this on the sparc linux page; something like 1) make a device for the mouse with mknod 2) install the sun X server binary. 3) startx 4) optionally install olvwm, xdm, etc > ie: when you are logged in, actually you > logged in into the server machine (not the one that's running xserver). sorry? > Have you tried Java? You can write distributed apps with ease. I think > Sun's JDK + ObjectSpace's Voyager will help a lot. I'm more interested in Ada; have you read the distributed systems annex? It eats other attempts at distribution for breakfast. It also produces binaries or (soon) java byte code at the flick of a compile time switch. (See ACT's JGNAT and Intermetric's Applet Magic). Andrew http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
RE: Three questions
> > The poor quality of documentation, such as these "how tos" > is one of the > > reasons why I recommend when ever I am asked whether a site > should move > > to linux to recommend that they don't. > > Although I didn't agree with the tone of this message, I > definitely think something > needs to be done about Linux documentation, especially if it > is expected that > people switch to it from Windows/Mac (my personal opinion is > that they *should* > do that) where a lot of things are tucked away and done > behind their backs. For me this is a dangerous road to go down. It may be that to "dumb down" Linux enough that it can be used by a larger group of less computer literate people might alienate the current users. I believe one flaw in the Microsoft Windows approach is that the inherent complexity in configuration can be hidden but never eliminated; the poor user is left wondering what the computer might be doing and why. In Linux this complexity is in your face; but in my opinion that's the safest place for it to be. But I agree, Linux needs better documentation and some more tools to manage the configuration in a canonical way; preferable across a network of similar machines. Andrew
Re: Sun classic
Oki DZ wrote: > > Ben Collins wrote: > > IMO, the Debian install is a lot simpler. As I said Debian supports what the > > kernel supports, which is any sun4c, sun4m, and sun4d (we also support > > sun4u, > > ultrasparc, with the proper kernel). SPARC Classic is a sun4c, the same cpu > > Excellent, so basically I can install Debian on my Sun. > BTW, uname -a says that the machine is sun4m; what kind of Sun is that? There is a sun hardware faq maintained by James Birdsall, try searching for it; google pointed me to http://www.aball.de/~wpv/sun/faq/hwref0.html but this might be a mirror. From this faq I found out quite a lot about my sparcstation2 without even opening the box. Andrew
Re: fax page size
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Hi > > i am using mgetty/sendfax to send faxes but unfortunately it sends the > faxes in a stretched format... Where abouts can i change it so that it > faxes as A5? I think there's a howto somewhere that explains the tif format used for faxes has a different scales in x and y. Each pixel is twice as high as it is wide; which could bring about the stretching you mention. This odd pixel shape is a form of data compression that is based on the premise that faxed mesages usually contain printed text. Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
RE: Sun classic
> Mine, as I may have said, is a wee bit slow - the 40MHz > prcoessor gives 40 > bogomips. That that being the slowness, not the 40 bogomips. > is probably down to the 1992 vintage hard disk
Re: Sun classic
Oki DZ wrote: > > Andrew Hately wrote: > > I tried both the 2.2.1 kernel rescue disc and the 2.0.36 on my > > sparcstation2; the newer one didn't seem to be able to eject the floppy when > > the next one was needed. > > Interesting... then how did you proceed? ctrl-alt-del is understood by linux on the sun too, amusingly When I got back to the boot prompt (stop-A might have got me straight there) I ejected the 2.2.1 based floppy using the boot prompt command "eject" and tried again with the 2.0.36 floppy > As far as I know, Suns don't > have eject buttons on their floppy drives. I can confirm that. > > Otherwise, its just like the i386 install, as Ben said. > > It would be different with installing Slackware on x86 I suppose... > > > To find out how to get the sun to boot from floppy, the debain install pages > > guide you to sun's boot prompt web pages. Something like "setenv > > boot_device=floppy" is needed; but check this - I did it once, months > > >ago... > > Is it for Solaris or Debian? (or both?) No, this is for the sun's firmware. Like an i86 box's bios setup but using a command line. You can find an online manual on sun's site. > BTW, why would anyone install the Debian on Suns if the machines come > with > Solaris right out the boxes? Well linux is said to be faster. I did it because I got an old sparcstation2 for nothing with a partial install of sunos 4.1.something (there had once been an external disc pack containing the rest) and absolutely no documentation and more importantly, no licence to run sunos. I also had a couple of i86 debian boxes and though I had a better chance of being able to do something constructive on the sparc machine if I knew what was installed where. > The only reason I'm asking about Debian on > Sun is that I think it's an interesting alternative since the Classic > where I have an access to doesn't have Solaris on it (the CDs I mean). > > Oki Go for it. Mine, as I may have said, is a wee bit slow - the 40MHz prcoessor gives 40 bogomips. That is probably down to the 1992 vintage hard disk and the fact that it loads lots of quite important stuff over 10base2 ethernet from my file server. I had intended to use it as an xserver for the rest of the machines on my network but the screen is so dim and unsharp I'm going off the idea. My next plan is to install glade (as in gnat; i.e. the distributed systems annex implementation by ACT) on it and see if I can write a distributed application on my hetrogeneous network. But thats after I've done a hundred other jobs. Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: Sun classic
Ben Collins wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 30, 1999 at 12:35:40PM +0700, Oki DZ wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm interested in installing Debian Linux on a Sun Classic. > > Any pointers will be appreciated. > > > > Thanks in advance, > > Oki > > There is an install text in /debian/dists/slink/main/disks-sparc. Most > likely you will want to download the rescue, driver and root images with > the 2.2.1 kernel image. After booting the rescue disk, the install is > pretty much the same as an i386 install. I tried both the 2.2.1 kernel rescue disc and the 2.0.36 on my sparcstation2; the newer one didn't seem to be able to eject the floppy when the next one was needed. Otherwise, its just like the i386 install, as Ben said. To find out how to get the sun to boot from floppy, the debain install pages guide you to sun's boot prompt web pages. Something like "setenv boot_device=floppy" is needed; but check this - I did it once, months ago... Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: DriveReady SeekComplete Error and DriveStatusError
B. Szyszka wrote: > > Like I said, I can't afford to OK, but for me it remains the only convincing test. As it happens I have a couple of old pentium 75 motherboards at home and I just imagined that maybe you or somebody you knew also had stuff like that that you could use for a test, temporarily. Otherwise, I'd start down the "turn off go faster modes until it works reliably" track as already suggested; the same approach can fix Sig-11s. Check out the tool hdparm as well as tweaking the dma in the kernel. Andrew
Re: Serial connection to windoze box
Phil Brutsche wrote: > > The best way of doing things, I think, is ethernet. I don't know how much > things cost in Germany, but here in the US you can get a "home networking > kit" for about US$70. It includes two PCI cards, a hub, and two ethernet > cables. Used ethernet cards cost pennies and Windows 95 usually already has a driver for them. If you can track down some 50 ohm terminators, these rest is usually available for next to nothing. Andrew http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: hd to hd copy?
Seth R Arnold wrote: > > On Mon, Sep 27, 1999 at 10:27:31AM +0200, Andrew Hately wrote: > > # ( cd / ; tar cf - bin boot dev lib sbin usr var ) | tar xf - > xfp - I forgot etc in the list. Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: DriveReady SeekComplete Error and DriveStatusError
"B. Szyszka" wrote: > > Well I can't afford to just go out and get a new harddrive, especially since > the two that I have no have more than enough space. Is there a way to > run a check on the harddrive that could prove whether or not the harddrive > itself is the problem? The surest test would be to use it with another motherboard for a while. -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: hd to hd copy?
tf wrote: > > hey guys, > > I might put in a 6 gig drive in place of the 1.6 gig drive I'm using > now. My current installation works fine (its me thats "broken"!). is > there a way that I can copy this hd to the new one? I only have a swap > and a root partition on this drive, and will probably want to partion > the 6 gig drive further... > > or should I just bite the bullet, and do a fresh install? (I am getting > some good practice) I was surprised by all the responses to this - I've done it a few times without problems. Get your rescue floppy disk out and keep it handy. Connect the new hard disk somewhere on your machine somwhere other than /dev/hda. Run fdisk on it and create the partition structure you want. Make the appropriate partition bootable (first, generally). Reboot - its safer to always reboot after running fdisk. Make the file systems. If any are large, make the swaps first and "swapon" by hand as mke2fs eats memory. Mount your nominated root partiton as /mnt. Go there. Create any directories where you will mount other partitions on the same drive. Mount those other partitions. Create the proc, mnt, tmp and cdrom directories too. Then from /mnt try something like # ( cd / ; tar cf - bin boot dev lib sbin usr var ) | tar xf - This takes a while. (If your linux image is lying around in / instead of being in /boot, you need to copy that too.) Change your future /etc/fstab (currently /mnt/etc/fstab) to mention your new partitions, all relative to /dev/hda. Shut down. Reconnect the new disk as /dev/hda, boot using the rescue floppy; rescue root=/dev/hda, run lilo, shutdown, eject the floppy, boot. However, a reinstall will probably bring less crud with it. Andrew http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: awk or sed?
Tim Thomson wrote: > > Hi, > ... Was it awk or sed, or am I going along the wrong track? ... Linx Focus this month has an awk tutorial http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/September1999/article103.html Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: page layout app
Seth R Arnold wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 21, 1999 at 10:52:50PM -0700, Mark Wagnon wrote: > > On Wed 09/22/99 01:39AM, Peter Mickle wrote: > > > does anyone have any recommendations for a page layout/type formatting, ... > > How about TeX/LaTeX? ... > *maybe* lyx, ... LyX is kind of wysiwig - and is happy to include encapsulated postscript or strings of LaTeX commands for box-arrow-box figures, etc. The included LaTeX is not rendered; to view it use the "preview" facility. http://la1ad.uio.no/lyx/ Andrew -- http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=45690
Re: Sound Apps only work as root??
John Foster wrote: > > Sorry folks I mean the apps do not work. Sound is fine. The applications > do not work either from xterm or from Ice-wm running Gnome. They are on > the menus but nothing happens when I click on them. Did you make /dev/dsp* /dev/sequencer* /dev/mixer* /dev/midi* etc all usable by the right groups and users are you last rebuilt the kernel? Andrew
metafont
Is there a debian metafont distribution? Andrew
Re: dselect error
Andrew Hately wrote: > > Kenneth Litko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Ok, I keep getting this error from dselect > > and it is driving me nuts. Here's > > the error: > > > > > internal error - no filename at -e line 12, chunk 13 > > > > > > installation script returned error status 1. > > > Press RETURN to continue. > > Me too, except I get it at chunk 28. More: Its the file /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/disk/install that is breaking about line 12 of some inlined perl. The problem seems to be with a file /var/lib/dpkg/predep-package (something like that, I left my notes at home). If you simply find the .deb mentioned in predep-package, install it manually with # dpkg -i blah_blah_blah.1_2.3.deb then delete /var/lib/dpkg/predep-package. Dselect's Install method should work after that. I had this stall for a few different packages; exact names on a piece of paper at home, I'm afraid. Full report tomorrow. Andrew
dselect error
Kenneth Litko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Ok, I keep getting this error from dselect > and it is driving me nuts. Here's > the error: > > > internal error - no filename at -e line 12, chunk 13 > > > > installation script returned error status 1. > > Press RETURN to continue. Me too, except I get it at chunk 28. I've got a heterogenious network at home with a sparc station 2 and some x86 machines. (40 bogomips on the sparc, but it feels like a lot fewer.) I bought a couple of slink distributions from tree.uk.com and merged them on my file server and am attempting to install from there. The 200MB disk X-server-only sparc installed OK, and my 200MB disk 486 router-only installed OK. When I try to install on my 'main' machine I get the above failure message. Installing from the CDs seems to work better though the failure occurs in an as yet unpredictable way. On my fourth attempt to get it going I reinstalled everything, selected a minimal initial configuration, and then began selecting packages one by one and installing them. All went well till I selected apache which depends on a slew of other stuff - I suspect one of the .deb's is corrupt - but as soon as the install method tries to install the twenty or so files, it falls over with the above. I've looked at the dselect and dpkg documentation and am curious to look inside /var/lib/dpkg/methods to see if I can turn on some kind of debugging flag to get some slightly more useful output from the "mounted install" method. However I don't know any perl (yet) so I might not be able to achieve much. Anyone else seen this? Anoyone got a clue whats going wrong? Anyone recommend a "learning perl" book for a busy software engineer with a strong regard for Ada and a very low opinion of c, c++, java, apl and other languages which accept bursts of line noise as syntactically valid. thanks in advance Andrew
