rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott M. Rose) (01/30/91)
Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 8 Tue Jan 29 17:11:07 CST 1991
Today's Topics:
Important Announcement (retry)
Clam-141
RTS/CTS handshaking
Newsgroup Creation
Date/time arithmetics
who & /etc/utmp
uname()
cron and passwords
mo improved, ansipc termcap stinks, rf ported, I/D mystery solved!
cut and paste ported
ansipc stinks, but h19a works very well!
Re: Elle 41C
Administrivia:
The Coherent Digest is a forum for discussion of the MWC Coherent 3.x
operating system. Send submissions to "coherent@cs.wisc.edu" and
administrivia to "coherent-reqeust@cs.wisc.edu". Previous issues are
archived for anonymous FTP access on piggy.ucsb.edu in the directory
"pub/coherent/mail-list".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 11:56:38 CST
From: lark@cat.tivoli.com (Lar Kaufman)
To: coherent
Subject: Important Announcement (retry)
From: lark@tivoli.UUCP (Lar Kaufman)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.os.mach,comp.os.minix, ...
Subject: Call for Discussion - creation of comp.os.coherent
Keywords: coherent,Version 7,ISA
Message-ID: <319@tivoli.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 91 23:18:04 GMT
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Tivoli Systems Inc., Austin, TX
Lines: 38
Xref: tivoli news.groups:26405 comp.os.mach:681 comp.os.minix:13340 comp.os.xinu:324 comp.os.misc:1490 comp.sys.ibm.pc:53377 comp.unix.sysv286:27 comp.unix.misc:802 comp.unix.i386:10024 comp.unix.msdos:277
This is a call for discussion of the proposed formation of a
newsgroup for the Coherent operating system. This newsgroup
logically fits in the newsgroup hierarchy under the name
comp.os.coherent and that is the proposed name for the group
subject to discussion in news.groups. I propose that the
group should be unmoderated, in the fashion of similar groups
such as comp.os.xinu and comp.os.minix.
The reason for this proposal is that Coherent is a significant
development in the UNIX(tm) community, as an inexpensive OS
similar to Version 7 Unix that runs on ISA architecture (AT-bus)
personal computers. While Coherent shares many of the same
features of XINU and Minix, it also has unique characteristics
related particularly to its C compiler, its UUCP implementation,
and its device driver toolkit that indicate a need for net
discussion among users to their benefit. Note: While Coherent
is a commercial product, this proposal was initiated without
consultation with any representative or employee of the company
that developed and is marketing Coherent. It is not intended
that this newsgroup should be an organ of support for the
developer, but that the needs and interests of the user of
the Coherent product shall be furthered by this newsgroup.
Discussion of this proposal shall continue for 30 days on news.groups
and on or about February 24, I will issue a Call for Votes to the
groups that have received this announcement, along with instructions
for casting votes and a schedule for the voting period.
Thank you for your attention and interest.
- -lar
- --
Lar Kaufman I would feel more optimistic about a bright future
(voice) 512-329-2455 for man if he spent less time proving that he can
(fax) 512-329-2755 outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness
lark@tivoli.com and respecting her seniority. - E.B. White
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jan 91 03:43:16
From: shinobi!engr!shadow (Only the Shadow Knows)
To: engr!coherent
Subject: Clam-141
I am trying to compile Clam-141 tonight, but I don't seem to have the
term and ndir librarys needed to ld it. Can someone tell me if they come
with Coherent 3.1 and I've lost them, or are they added on later and how
can I? Thanks in advance!
James E. Ward
Internet: shinobi!shadow@engr.uark.edu
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jan 91 14:37:17
From: Anders Fongen <anders@fongen.uu.no>
To: coherent
Subject: RTS/CTS handshaking
Hello,
I am using peripheral equipment that uses RTS/CTS handshaking instead
of Xon/Xoff. Is this possible under Coherent, or do I have to rewrite
the device driver?
Also, could the maintainer of this list send regular "probe messages" to
the list in order to reduce the number of bouncing messages? I am in the
situation where I pay both for sent and received messages, so receiving
my own contributions in 5-10 copies as bounced messages is not an incitement
for participating in the discussions.
Forgive me for using the conference for personal messages, but:
Peter L. Thomas, I am unable to reach you with your announced mail
address. Could you make suggestions on how I can send messages to you?
Best regards,
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Fongen BIX : afongen
Vallerveien 57E INET: anders@fongen.uu.no
N-1344 HASLUM USENET: ...uunet!fongen.uu.no!anders
NORWAY tlf: +47-2-530505
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 09:52:57 CST
From: Scott Rose <rose>
To: coherent
Subject: Newsgroup Creation
Hello. This posting is from the administrator of the Coherent list that comes
out of Wisconsin.
I'm sure that many of you have noticed the apparently competing efforts to
create newsgroups for Coherent:
1. After months of discussion and consensus forming, curt@cynic.wimsey.bc.ca
(Curt Sampson) has undertaken to create Alt.Coherent.
2. lark@tivoli.com (Lar Kaufman) recently posted a request for discussion to
News.Groups about the creation of Comp.Os.Coherent.
Mr. Kaufman was unaware of the mailing list or the Alt.Coherent effort at the
time that he started his effort, and is now the owner of a somewhat red face.
Be that as it may, given that we now have a volunteer to collect votes on the
creation of Comp.Os.Coherent, and given that this group would have somewhat
wider reach than would Alt.Coherent, and given that this effort has taken some
of the wind out of Mr. Sampson's sails, I have steered the consensus toward an
agreement to pursue the Comp.Os.Coherent effort.
Let me digress to reiterate and expand on a few things I said at the beginning
of this discussion about a month ago. To avoid loss of service to those folks
that are unable to get Usenet groups, it is my intention to gateway the traffic
between the lists. Specifically, I intend to post the existing digest to
Comp.Os.Coherent (or Alt.Coherent if that's the upshot), and I intend to
digestify the traffic on the newsgroup and post it to both the Coherent list
and to the Coherent-Digest list. Subscribers who see a problem with this
scheme should contact me. The fly in this ointment will be the traffic that
gets both posted and mailed to the list- I'll have to filter that out by hand.
Another potential problem is the possibility that the amount of traffic on the
list will be greater or of lower quality than subscribers will care to receive-
if that happens, I'll consider a separate redistribution for that digest.
I do beleive that Comp.Os.Coherent deserves all of our support, although that
is obviously a matter for individual judgement. For one thing, the reach will
be somewhat greater than that of the list. For another, it will make the list
smaller, which means less bounced traffic for subscribers- this has been a
continuing and vexing problem for which I have not found a satisfactory
solution.
Finally, I have to confess my ignorance of the mechanics of the creation of a
new group- an ignorance I have cherished these long years. Presumably it
means following the traffic in news.groups until such a time as an explicit
request for votes is posted there, then sending mail to the poster of that
message? I'm hoping that much of the subscribership of this list that is
in a position to do so will send a positive vote.
Sorry to waste so much bandwidth on this non-technical topic. I will crawl
back into my shell now.
-Scott Rose
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jan 91 23:41:02
From: Anders Fongen <anders@fongen.uu.no>
To: coherent
Subject: Date/time arithmetics
I would like to know if someone has routines for date and time calculations
handy. My present problem is to start "at"-jobs 30 minutes into the future.
I think SysV has an "at"-command that allowes this, but apparently not
Coherent. The code for doing this on the "tm"-structure should be rather
straightforward, but wasted time if someone already has made the code.
best regards,
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Fongen BIX : afongen
Vallerveien 57E INET: anders@fongen.uu.no
N-1344 HASLUM USENET: ...uunet!fongen.uu.no!anders
NORWAY tlf: +47-2-530505
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jan 91 01:56:46
From: mhm!root@uop.uop.edu (Mohd H. Misnan)
To: coherent@uop.edu
Subject: who & /etc/utmp
Hi,
I just discovered that something weird happened when I login as
a root and then login as ordinary user then back to root, I found that
in /etc/utmp, it still stick with ordinary user. When I tried to use
who, it still show that the ordinary user still active and I'm not a
superuser. Then, all environmental variables still stick with the one
set for ordinary user. When I tried uid command (from deliver package)
and logname (from rick), it show that I'm superuser. BTW, when I invoke
this X-Mailer, it take ordinary user mailbox and not root mailbox.
Thanks in advance for any info.
Hamid
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jan 91 03:07:36
From: trystro!root@Think.COM (Richard Nickle)
To: think!fcsys!coherent
Subject: uname()
/* i really don't think i already posted this, just in case */
/* this is a sleazy little char *uname() function for coherent */
/* it simply returns your sitename. if you feel like it, */
/* add char *gethostname() and have it return uname() if you */
/* try to port BSD stuff a lot. either way, it might be a good */
/* idea to add 'char *uname()' to your <stdio.h> file. */
/* i'm sure this can be done easier, and if you got a better way */
/* send it to me! :) fcsys!trystro!rick@think.com 01/27/90 */
#include <stdio.h>
char *uname()
{
FILE *uuname;
char buf[80];
int i;
if (!(uuname = fopen("/etc/uucpname","r")))
{
fprintf(stderr,"uname: could not open /etc/uucpname\n");
return NULL;
}
else if (fgets(buf,80,uuname) == NULL)
{
fclose(uuname);
return NULL;
}
for (i=0;buf[i] != '\0';i++)
if (buf[i] == '\n') buf[i] = '\0';
return buf;
fclose(uuname);
}
__|__ __ __ __|__ __ __ __
| | | ||__ | |__| | | | uunet!alphalpha!trystro!rick
|__ | |__| __| |__ |__ | |__| trystro!rick@alphalpha.com
__| 2400bps (617) 625-7155 fcsys!trystro!rick@think.com
------------------------------
Date: 28 Jan 91 18:42:19
From: shinobi!engr!shadow (Only the Shadow Knows)
To: engr!coherent
Subject: cron and passwords
Hello! This is my first post (I hope it makes it!) I wanted to tell
everybody my wrestling match with cron and system security. I wondered
why nobody was complaining about cron. I couldn't get it to do anything
to speak of. After talking with someone at MWC tech support, I realized
that the reason none of the "su uucp ..." lines were working because cron
is running as daemon by default. daemon has no special rights worth
mentioning and therefore failed on every su attempted from cron. Now
where I come from (HP/UX most recently) cron is root and can su to any
id it sees fit! So, I set about the task of getting cron to run as root.
As it turns out, changing the owner of cron to root and setting the s-bit
doesn't work! Evidently, there's some code in it that tries it's damndest
to setuid to daemon. I eventually ended up deleteing the daemon id all
together. So, now I have passworded accounts AND a fully functional cron!
Is anyone else having problems with Elle? It works fine most of the time,
but occasionally, when I'm really gettin' it (EMACS is my life ;-), it
gets a segmentation violation and crashes.
I've been trying to port a few things and keep running into the same error:
ld: can't relocate something-or-another with seperate I/D
Does this ean anything to anyone? What do I do in the code to fix it?
- --
James E. Ward ...uunet!uark!shinobi!shadow shinobi!shadow@engr.uark.edu
You will receive a legacy which will place you above want.
------------------------------
Date: 29 Jan 91 00:32:52
From: shinobi!engr!shadow (Only the Shadow Knows)
To: engr!coherent
Subject: mo improved, ansipc termcap stinks, rf ported, I/D mystery solved!
I have made changes to mo (by Anders Fongen) so that it handles mail
feeders properly.
Does anyone have a better termcap entry for ansipc? Geez, I'm porting
rf and I think it's buggy until I run it on the Toshiba emulating a vt100
on com2l and it works perfectly! Clam-141 command-line editing works
perfectly on it too!
Oh, by the way, I have ported rf from comp.sources.unix. My girlfriend
wanted an electronic address book...
Another by the way... I discovered by trial and error that the
Ld: can't relocate somethingoranother with seperate I/D
really means that you've got undefined symbols!
P.S. I've never had code that anyone else might want before. If you folks
want me to put this stuff on piggy, what's the appropriate course to follow?
- --
James E. Ward ...uunet!uark!shinobi!shadow shinobi!shadow@engr.uark.edu
Spock: We suffered 23 casualties in that attack, Captain.
------------------------------
Date: 29 Jan 91 01:11:20
From: shinobi!engr!shadow (Only the Shadow Knows)
To: engr!coherent
Subject: cut and paste ported
Dudes (any coherent Dudettes out there?),
I have just downloaded and compiled cut and paste from comp.sources.unix.
- --
James E. Ward ...uunet!uark!shinobi!shadow shinobi!shadow@engr.uark.edu
Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either.
------------------------------
Date: 29 Jan 91 12:39:23
From: shinobi!engr!shadow (Only the Shadow Knows)
To: engr!coherent
Subject: ansipc stinks, but h19a works very well!
I had been having trouble using ansipc and Clam for command-line editing
without much luck. Last night I was browsing through the /etc/termcap
file on another machine looking for a better ansi description when I
noticed h19a, a definition for a Heath 19 terminal in ansi mode. I was
very surprised to find it defined in my termcap on my machine! I am using
it now and it handles all the things that ansipc didn't! Happy hacking!
- --
James E. Ward ...uunet!uark!shinobi!shadow shinobi!shadow@engr.uark.edu
Don't eat the yellow snow.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 16:51:16 CST
From: David Fenyes <dfenyes@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu>
To: uunet!uark!shinobi!shadow@uunet.uu.net
Cc: coherent
Subject: Re: Elle 41C
Hello,
I see you have trouble with Elle, too:
>
> Is anyone else having problems with Elle? It works fine most of the time,
> but occasionally, when I'm really gettin' it (EMACS is my life ;-), it
> gets a segmentation violation and crashes.
I find this to happen sometimes, particularly when I'm running from a secondary
shell. This happens especially when I'm working on the code, and usually I
can fixstack to a size that minimizes these crashes. Elle uses a string
buffer packages that expects a certain contiguous block of memory to be
free, and if some of that memory has been allocated, it barfs. Fixing this
in a robust way is on my project list. I have added etags and some more
enhancements to the Elle on the net, and am now adding regexps.
BTW, check out the GNOME editor (a Microemacs-dirivative) at piggy.ucsb.edu.
I haven't looked at it yet, but it may be a good alternative.
Good luck!
- --
David Fenyes dfenyes@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu
University of Texas Medical School Houston, Texas
------------------------------
End of Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 8
***************************************
--
Scott Rose
rose@cs.wisc.edu
(608) 238-3801