Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!eniac.seas.upenn.edu!dsimon
From: dsi...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Derron Simon)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: Linux 0.13?
Message-ID: <68076@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 92 19:17:54 GMT
Sender: n...@netnews.upenn.edu
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When is version 0.13 scheduled to be released? I don't want to hassle with
all the patches and updates to 0.12 so I'd like to wait until 0.13 if it is
not going to be long from now. Thanks,
Derron
--
/* Derron Simon (SEAS 1994) * Tipsy fuddled boozy groggy elevated / */
/* dsi...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu * Prime did edit her / Hellborn elfchild */
/* * roadhog mountain fortune hunter / Man */
/* University of Pennsylvania * beheader her - Fluff's Travels (Phish) */
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!torvalds
From: torva...@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: Linux 0.13?
Message-ID: <1992Mar2.013147.5599@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 2 Mar 92 01:31:47 GMT
References: <68076@netnews.upenn.edu>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 101
In article <6...@netnews.upenn.edu> dsi...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Derron Simon) writes:
>When is version 0.13 scheduled to be released? I don't want to hassle with
>all the patches and updates to 0.12 so I'd like to wait until 0.13 if it is
>not going to be long from now.
I'm putting in the finishing touches this week: 0.13 should be out next
weekend at the latest (unless some new bug shows up), and I hope to get
it ready by Thursday. I'll definitely call it 0.95, making clear that
version 1.0 isn't that far away.
0.95 will have these features:
- faster floppy (based on cdiffs by entropy (Lawrence Foard), but I
didn't patch in the formatting code). Untaring from a floppy is no
longer a pain.
- VFS-stubs (based on cdiffs by proven (Chris Provenzo), but again my
version does not contain all of his code, and I added some changes of
my own too.)
- Better VC handling (works on other cards that EGA/VGA), thanks to
pmacdona (Peter McDonald). I think 0.13 finally contains most of the
VC code things: screen blanking, corrected vt100-codes etc.
- Swapon system call (swapping from files as well as block devices),
based on patches by Simmule Turner. This one needs some additional
work still.
- poe-IGL-1.2 (or close to it).
- ptrace (by Ross Biro) - not guaranteed, but I think we'll get gdb
working in 0.95.
- bugfixes and minor enhancements: file protections, nonblocking IO,
UK and Danish keyboards, rename etc.
Most of the patches have been heavily edited by me (indeed, very few of
them are patched in automatically with 'patch'), and not all of the
functionality of all the patches will be there. I've mostly written in
the patches by hand, so the author of the code will not necessarily even
recognize his own work. As with the VC patches, some of these patches
will probably evolve for a few releases before they get their final form
(especially VFS which was easily the biggest patch to date).
Changes that haven't been seen as patches that will be in 0.95:
- many minor corrections (rename corrected, ^S/^Q corrected, better (?)
buffer-cache handling, some corrected error-returns).
- lockup bugs (two of them) removed: I hope that was the last of them
(yeah, sure..).
- minor race-conditions with swapping removed (still not 100%, but
better, and I hope the "block already free'd" error should go away)
- TIOCxWINSZ works now.
- Harddisk changes: the second harddisk will be on minor numbers 64-127
instead of 5-9 as now. I also have some code there that hopefully
gets extended partitions right, but as I haven't been able to test it
I somehow doubt it works 100% ... The default harddisk names have
changed: here's a simple listing
new minor old minor
hda 0 hd0 0
hda1 1 hd1 1
hda2 2 hd2 2
hda3 3 hd3 3
hda4 4 hd4 4
hda5 5 (extended) - -
hdaX X -- "" -- - -
hdb 64 hd5 5
hdb1 65 hd6 6
etc
I'm guessing this will get some people confused, but the old naming
and numbering conventions were so bad as to be pretty unusable with
extended partitions. Fdisk currently doesn't understand extended
partitions: I'll try to get that corrected too.
Patches available now, but NOT in 0.95:
- printer port patch. I still haven't gotten around to this one, as I
haven't got a printer. So sue me.
- SCSI driver: didn't make it in time. I don't expect too many problems
applying the 0.12-patch to 0.95.
- mmap patch: not in time, and so specialized I felt there wasn't that
much of a hurry. Again, this patch should probably patch into 0.95
without undue problems.
So: I hope 0.13 should prove to be more stable, and more easily
extensible, but it will look mostly like 0.12 with a init/login. No
/major/ new features like in eariler releases: I hope that means linux
is getting more mature rather than stagnating :)
Linus
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!torvalds
From: torva...@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: 0.95a uploaded - soon available
Keywords: buxfix release
Message-ID: <1992Mar18.003246.10503@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 18 Mar 92 00:32:46 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 193
I just uploaded the new kernel source and image to nic.funet.fi into the
incoming-directory under linux. As usual, they won't show up for a day
or two: wait for arl to announce that it's available.
The new version called 0.95a has no major new features, and is just a
bug-fix release for 0.95 - it hopefully fixes all known bugs, but that's
what I thought about plain 0.95 :(. There are even less installation
documents than before: (a) they haven't changed since 0.95 and (b) the
rootdisk is no longer made by me (which means that 0.95a will probably
be the first release that actually has all the needed device special
files there.)
Everyone's favourite bug is also fixed: 0.95a actually returns the
correct version number from uname(). (Boy did I get bug reports on this
one :^)
I'm including the release-note at the end of the post.
Linus
PS: Whoever made the GNU-emacs binary available for linux - the
inability to use the "meta-X shell" command is a bit disturbing. I
looked into it a bit, and my guess is that the linux config file doesn't
define HAVE_SETSID. Could somebody with more diskspace than I have try
to recompile gemacs with HAVE_SETSID defined, and tell me if this fixes
the problem?
----------
RELEASE NOTES FOR LINUX v0.95a
Linus Torvalds, March 17, 1992
This is file mostly contains info on changed features of Linux, and
using old versions as a help-reference might be a good idea.
COPYRIGHT
Linux-0.95a is NOT public domain software, but is copyrighted by me. The
copyright conditions are the same as those imposed by the GNU copyleft:
get a copy of the GNU copyleft at any major ftp-site (if it carries
linux, it probably carries a lot of GNU software anyway, and they all
contain the copyright).
The copyleft is pretty detailed, but it mostly just means that you may
freely copy linux for your own use, and redistribute all/parts of it, as
long as you make source available (not necessarily in the same
distribution, but you make it clear how people can get it for nothing
more than copying costs). Any changes you make that you distribute will
also automatically fall under the GNU copyleft.
NOTE! The linux unistd library-functions (the low-level interface to
linux: system calls etc) are excempt from the copyright - you may use
them as you wish, and using those in your binary files won't mean that
your files are automatically under the GNU copyleft. This concerns
/only/ the unistd-library and those (few) other library functions I have
written: most of the rest of the library has it's own copyrights (or is
public domain). See the library sources for details of those.
NEW FEATURES OF 0.95a
0.95a is mainly a bug-fix release: it didn't even get it's own version
number. Plain 0.95 fixed a lot of bugs in 0.12, but also introduced
totally new bugs: 0.95a tries to correct these. The bugs corrected
(knock wood) are:
- floppy and harddisk drivers should now once more work with most
hardware: I'd be interested in reports of "unexpected HD interrupt"
and "reset-floppy called" with the new kernel.
- A rather serious tty-bug corrected: this one messed up the screen
under 0.95, and switched characters over the serial lines. Under
extreme circumstances it could even crash the machine.
- ptrace had a bug: hopefully it works now.
- The extended partitions didn't work under 0.95, although most of the
code was there. Please somebody tell me it works under 0.95a.
- the 0.95 fdisk was broken: a new one with the new root-floppy should
clear up the confusion.
- select() and the sleep-wakeup code had fundamental (but relatively
benign) problems under 0.95 (and all earlier versions). The sleeping
code is totally redesigned, and select should work better even under
load.
One actual new feature, not just a bug-fix:
- ser3-4 support is there, although I've been unable to test it (as I
haven't got more than ser2). NOTE! Due to AT hardware limitations,
ser1 cannot be active at the same time as ser3, and likewise ser2 and
ser4 are mutually exclusive. The interrupt-handlers should have no
problems with shared interrupts, but the actual hardware probably has,
so the kernel disables interrupts from one serial line when the other
one is opened.
- faster default keyrepeat rate: this is going to need some getting used
to, but is extremely practical especially with bigger screen sizes.
- VGA cards that aren't recognized at bootup are put into the 80x50
character mode if was pressed when asking about SVGA modes.
NEW FEATURES OF 0.95
Init/login
Yeah, thanks to poe (Peter Orbaeck (sp?)), linux now boots up like a
real unix with a login-prompt. Login as root (no passwd), and change
your /etc/passwd to your hearts delight (and add other logins in
/etc/inittab etc).
Virtual consoles on any (?) hardware.
You can select one of several consoles by pressing the left alt-key and
a function key at the same time. Linux should report the number of
virtual consoles available upon bootup. /dev/tty0 is now "the current"
screen, /dev/tty1 is the main console, and /dev/tty2-8 can exist
depending on your text-mode or card.
The virtual consoles also have some new screen-handling commands: they
confirm even better to vt200 control codes than 0.11. Special graphic
characters etc: you can well use them as terminals to VMS (although
that's a shameful waste of resources), and the PF1-4 keys work somewhat
in the application-key mode.
Extended vt200 emulation
0.95 contains code to handle a vt200 application keymap mode: the cursor
keys send slightly different codes when in application mode, and the
numeric keyboard tries to emulate the vt200 application keys. This
probably isn't complete yet.
Symbolic links.
0.95 now allows symlinks to point to other symlinks etc (the maximum
depth is a rather arbitrary 5 links). 0.12 didn't like more than one
level of indirection.
Virtual memory.
VM under 0.95 should be better than under 0.12: no more lockups (as far
as I have seen), and you can now swap to the filesystem as well as to a
special partition. There are two programs to handle this: mkswap to set
up a swap-file/partition and swapon to start up swapping.
mkswap needs either a partition or a file that already exists to make a
swap-area. To make a swap-file, do this:
# dd bs=1024 count=NN if=/dev/hda of=swapfile
# mkswap swapfile NN
The first command just makes a file that is NN blocks long (initializing
it from /dev/hda, but that could be anything). The second command then
writes the necessary setup-info into the file. To start swapping, write
# swapon swapfile
NOTE! 'dd' isn't on the rootdisk: you have to install some things onto
the harddisk before you can get up and running.
NOTE2! When linux runs totally out of virtual memory, things slow down
dramatically. It tries to keep on running as long as it can, but at
least it shouldn't lock up any more. ^C should work, although you might
have to wait a while for it..
Faster floppies
Ok, you don't notice this much when booting up from a floppy: bash has
grown, so it takes longer to load, and the optimizations work mostly
with sequential accesses. When you start un-taring floppies to get the
programs onto your harddisk, you'll notice that it's much faster now.
That should be about the only use for floppies under a unix: nobody in
their right mind uses floppies as filesystems.
Better FS-independence
Hopefully you'll never even notice this, but the filesystem has been
partly rewritten to make it less minix-fs-specific. I haven't
implemented all the VFS-patches I got, so it's still not ready, but it's
getting there, slowly.
And that's it, I think.
Happy hacking.
Linus (torva...@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!amdahl!rtech!ingres!sergio
From: ser...@Ingres.COM (Sergio L Aponte)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Since I haven't seen an FAQ...
Message-ID: <1992Apr3.190450.28708@pony.Ingres.COM>
Date: 3 Apr 92 19:04:50 GMT
Reply-To: ser...@Ingres.COM (Sergio L Aponte)
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501
Lines: 14
Can somebody give me a two-three liner description of what is LINUX
and what hardware it runs on?
I have been trying to figure it out by reading the group, so far
I got "FREE BSD for 80386 PCs". Is this the right track?
Inquiring minds want to know...
--
=============================================================== _|||_
Sergio L. Aponte, SMTS @ Ingres, an ASK Company <*,*>
Internet : ser...@coqui.ingres.com [`-'] Keko
UUCP : {sun,mtxinu,pyramid,pacbell}!ingres!coqui!sergio _"_"_ Jones
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!torvalds
From: torva...@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Since I haven't seen an FAQ...
Message-ID: <1992Apr4.102225.13174@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 4 Apr 92 10:22:25 GMT
References: <1992Apr3.190450.28708@pony.Ingres.COM>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 138
In article <1992Apr3.190450.28...@pony.Ingres.COM> ser...@Ingres.COM (Sergio L Aponte) writes:
>
> Can somebody give me a two-three liner description of what is LINUX
> and what hardware it runs on?
Ok, this has come up so many times I'd better send out the info-sheet.
The FAQ is maintained by corsini@?? and he'll send out the newest
version just as soon as this newsgroup gets that far.
This info-sheet is basically the old 0.12 info-sheet with very minor
modifications: I've changed it slightly, but it's not completely up to
date.
Linus
----------
LINUX INFORMATION SHEET
(last updated 13 Jan 1992 (with changes by Linus 4.4.92))
1. WHAT IS LINUX 0.95a
LINUX 0.95a is a freely distributable UNIX clone. It implements a
subset of System V and POSIX functionality. 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 complete source code by
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.
Version 0.95a is still a beta release, but it already provides much
of the functionality of a System V.3 kernel. For example, various
users have been able to port programs such as bison/flex without having
to modify code at all. Another indication of its maturity is that
it is now possible to do LINUX kernel development using LINUX itself
and freely-available programming tools.
2. LINUX features
- System call compatible with a subset of System V and POSIX
- Full multiprogramming (multiple programs can run at once)
- Memory paging with copy-on-write
- Demand loading of executables
- Page sharing of executables
- Virtual memory: swapping to disk when out of RAM
- POSIX job control
- virtual consoles
- pty's
- some 387-emulation
- ANSI compliant C compiler (gcc)
- A complete set of compiler writing tools
(bison as yacc-replacement, flex as lex replacement)
- The GNU 'Bourne again' shell (bash) (as well as 'ash', 'rc' etc)
- Micro emacs
- most utilities you need for development
(cat, cp, kermit, ls, make, etc.)
- Over 200 library procedures (atoi, fork, malloc, read, stdio, etc.)
- Currently 6 national keyboards: Finnish/US/German/French/British/Danish
- Full source code (in C) for the OS is freely distributable
- Full source code of the tools can be gotten from many anonymous ftp sites
(Almost the entire suite of GNU programs has been ported to Linux.)
- Runs in protected mode on 386 and above
- Support for extended memory up to 16M on 386 and above
- RS-232 serial line support with terminal emulation, kermit, zmodem, etc.
- Supports the real time clock
3. HARDWARE REQUIRED
- A 386 or 486 machine with an AT-bus. (EISA will probably work, also,
but you will need an AT-bus hard disk controller.) Both DX and SX
processors will work.
- A hard disk implementing the standard AT hard disk interface -- for
example, an IDE drive. In addition, some SCSI drives are supported
with additional kernel patches.
- A high-density disk drive--either 5.25" (1.2MB) or 3.5" (1.44MB).
- At least 2 megabytes of RAM. (LINUX will boot in 2 Mb. To use gcc
4 MB is a good idea.)
- Any video card of the following: Hercules,CGA,EGA,VGA
In addition, LINUX supports
- Up to four serial lines (2 active at a time)
- A real time clock
4. PARTIAL LIST OF UTILITIES INCLUDED IN OR AVAILABLE FOR LINUX 0.95a
- The MTOOLS package (reading/writing to DOS filesystems)
- The complete GNU filetools (ls, cat, cp, mv, ...)
- The GNU C and C++ compiler with GNU assembler, linker, ar, ...
- bison
- flex
- rcs
- pmake (BSD 4.3 Reno/BSD 4.4 make)
- kermit
- Micro emacs
- less
- mkfs
- fsck
- mount/umount
- TeX, dvips
- and lots more...
5. LINUX BINARIES
The LINUX binaries and sources are available at several different
anonymous FTP sites. The biggest are:
nic.funet.fi:/pub/OS/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux
6. LEGAL STATUS OF LINUX
Although LINUX is supplied with the complete source code, it is
copyrighted software. Unlike MINIX, however, it is available for free,
provided you obey to the rules specified in the LINUX copyright.
Linux is (C) Linus Torvalds, but the copyright is the GNU copyleft:
get a copy of the copyleft at your nearest ftp-archive..
7. NEWS ABOUT LINUX
There are now two newsgroups devoted to linux articles: an older
alt.os.linux and the new comp.os.linux group. The alt-group will be
phased out as the comp-group gets a wider propagation. Additionally,
there are a couple of mailing-lists: linux-activi...@niksula.hut.fi is
the original mailing-list, and it now supports sub-threads (notably the
gcc-2 beta-testing list). There is also a linux-standards mailing list
as well as a newsgroup-service for those that can get mail but are
unable to read the newsgroups. For the current status of LINUX, do a
"finger torva...@kruuna.helsinki.fi".
8. FUTURE PLANS
Work is underway on LINUX version 1.0, which will close some of the
gaps in the present implementation. Various people are currently working
on:
- A more complete virtual filesystem layer
- STREAMS
- Interprocess communication
- IEEE POSIX P1003.1 / P1003.2 compatibility
- more complete SCSI support
If you want to help, mail the various activists or post to the newsgroups.