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To: freebsd-hackers-digest@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: hackers-digest V1 #1666
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hackers-digest Thursday, 21 November 1996 Volume 01 : Number 1666
In this issue:
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Re: Pentium Pro status
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
AIIIEEEEE... 3.0-current no bootee
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Regexp ambiguity (Was: cvs commit: src/gnu/lib/libregex ...)
Re: any suggestions?
Re: Device driver development
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Perl comment
Re: Device driver development
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
VOP_READ (etc) man page (man 9)
Re: vx driver problems
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:47:06 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
> Next point, people are jumping on Perl about how we have so few system
> utils based on it it should go, where are the utils based on TCL?
> (And as for incompatiable versions... Do all the ports work with
> our version of TCL?)
This is an argument *against* TCL, not an argument *for* PERL.
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
- ---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
------------------------------
From: "Jin Guojun[ITG]" <jin@george.lbl.gov>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:39:11 -0800
Subject: Re: Pentium Pro status
} > I wanted some input regarding Pentium Pro machines.
} > Has anyone had any problems with the hardware and/or using it with
} > FreeBSD?
} >
} > Are there any problems with the PP chipset(is the latest Orion II or something
} ?)
} > I remember hearing about PCI problems with the chipset. Someone
} > told me they still have problems in orion II. Is this true?
} >
} > What motherboards for Pentium Pro are good and reliable?
} >
} > What about multiprocessor support? Does anyone have FreeBSD hacks to
} > support multiple processors? How well is it working?
} >
} > Thank you,
} >
} > Steven Wallace
}
} I'm using a PPro-200 with the 440FX chipset, I don't remember its
} nickname. I've had no problems with it at all.
440FX is the most popular PCI chipset for PP motherboard. I do not know its
nickname either. I ordered two MBs with this chipset: one is Tyan S1662 and
another is ASUS P6NP5 (dual CPU is P65UP5). FreeBSD 2.2-Alpha crashes on
Tyan S1662 quite often on NFS Tx. The ASUS has not come in yet.
The trade off is CPU power with I/O power.
Pentinum Pro gives 50% CPU power than Pentinum, but 440FX has 25% less memory
bandwith than Triton-II. Also, I experienced that PP has slow network I/O than
Pentinum.
Some more performance comparsion willbe found on:
ftp://george.lbl.gov/pub/ccs/performance.ps (p6-7 for P<-->PP).
It will be updated whenever the new board/machines come in.
- -Jin
------------------------------
From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 14:41:32 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
> There is too much "damage control" and too little "consideration" taking
> place for an unbiased conclusion that what Richard volunteered to do
> "wasn't what needed to be done".
>
Richard was completely free to do what he wanted to do, but he wasn't
going to get the 'blessing' of anyone until he had a working prototype
that was at least as good as the current system.
It has *nothing* to do with blessing or consideration given to an
individual. John became the VM guru because he re-wrote the VM system,
not because he said 'Hey, can I be the VM guru. Please, pretty please,
I *really* know what I'm doing, so let me be it.'
Poul was once the laptop guru, but because of lack of time and resources
allowed me to become it *AFTER* I did some laptop work and prove that I
was capable of handling it. (And I have since dropped the ball, but
that's another story).
I didn't ask Poul or core to be 'the laptop guy', I simply *became* the
laptop guy because I did work. Richard has yet to show code for any of
his good ideas, and until that happens we all will appreciate his CTM
work, but asking for 'permission' to do something is never the way
things are worked.
To bring in the blast from the past, you becamse the defacto patchkit
maintainer because you did the work, not because you got Bill's (or
anyone else for that matter) permission. I was given the ugly stick
because (hopefully) I had shown to you my willingness to do the work and
by organizing and doing work *before* you handed me the baton.
It wasn't because I asked so much as because I had already shown I was
capable of doing the job.
That's how things work around here. You don't get 'blessings' or
'permission' to do something, you do it and then find an advocate to run
with it. After the advocate is happy with your work (or too overloaded
to do it himself), you become a committer and then are one of the
'blessed/cursed' who are responsible for the whole darn mess.
Nate
------------------------------
From: Jaye Mathisen <mrcpu@cdsnet.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 14:35:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: AIIIEEEEE... 3.0-current no bootee
Hmph. I cvsup'd -current this morning. Built a kernel.
P120, 128MB RAM,
It's panicing with "supervisor write, page not present, right after the
"REAL MEMORY = 13417720".
If somebody needs all the gobbledygook, I can write it down.
I have "MAXMEM=131072" in my kernel config file.
A kernel from a couple days ago (albeit/w/o the maxmem option) boots and
runs fine.
------------------------------
From: Richard Wackerbarth <rkw@dataplex.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 16:36:35 -0600
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
>Richard was completely free to do what he wanted to do, but he wasn't
>going to get the 'blessing' of anyone until he had a working prototype
>that was at least as good as the current system.
As I have pointed out a number of times, as I understand your "rules", it
is not
reasonable to even attempt this. There are EXTENSIVE changes which must be
made. If I am shooting at a moving target, I'll never be able to catch up.
Since I do not feel that "stopping everyone else" is a reasonable request,
I advocate "incremental" steps. Unfortunately, to those who do not see the
complete picture, those steps will be "steps backward" until the final
piece is in place. As I interpret the mood of the "core", that is
unacceptable.
Therefore, I can only conclude that it is impossible for it to happen
within the current framework.
------------------------------
From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 22:27:41 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Regexp ambiguity (Was: cvs commit: src/gnu/lib/libregex ...)
As Thomas Gellekum wrote:
> > Merge from HEAD: don't duplicate the Posix regex stuff in libregex,
> > it's already in libc (and both implementations clash when linking both
> > libs simultaneously).
>
> While you're at it: when testing a new port I found that there are
> multiple definitions of regerror in libcompat:
> Which one of those do we really need there?
If you look into the source, you'll notice that there are two
different regexp packages in libcompat. One is sitting in `4.3',
consisting of re_comp(), re_exec(), and the undocumented regerror().
All functions are in a single file, so once you reference re_comp()
and re_exec(), you'll automatically get the correct regerror().
The other implementation is Henry Spencer's regexp(3), consisting of
functions identically named to the Posix regex stuff (regcomp(),
regexec(), regsub() [which is not in Posix]), and regerror(). All
functions live in different source files. Further, regerror() is
supposed to be overloadable by user programs, hence it's not that easy
to squeeze it along into one of the other files, even though the
default regerror() is a do-nothing. I'm not sure, maybe now that our
assembler and linker understand weak symbols, we could go this route,
so it will be tightly bound to its respective regexp functions, but
can still be overloaded by the user?
Are there opinions to this?
- --
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
------------------------------
From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 21:48:09 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: any suggestions?
As Costa wrote:
> Formatting page, please wait...groff: can't find `DESC' file
> groff:fatal error: invalid device `ascii'
> Done.
Your /usr/share/groff_font/devascii/ seems corrupted (or unreadable by
user `man').
- --
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
------------------------------
From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 21:55:01 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: Device driver development
As alex huppenthal wrote:
> I have several device drivers to create for FreeBSD. If you have
> any pointers for a newbie just getting into writing drivers for FreeBSD
> please respond.
Except of the few stuff that has been written for section 9 of the
manual by now, and of course, the 4.4BSD daemon book (and the refs
under /usr/src/share/doc/), it's probably mostly UTSLware still.
Submissions for new section 9 man pages are greatly welcome! Many of
the pages there have been written by people in the process of
understanding ``what's going on inside''. If you don't speak troff
- -mdoc that's not a problem -- there will be people who can convert a
plain ASCII document into this format once it's written.
- --
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
------------------------------
From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 15:45:52 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Richard Wackerbarth writes:
> >Richard was completely free to do what he wanted to do, but he wasn't
> >going to get the 'blessing' of anyone until he had a working prototype
> >that was at least as good as the current system.
>
> As I have pointed out a number of times, as I understand your "rules",
> it is not reasonable to even attempt this.
And that's where we disagree.
> There are EXTENSIVE changes which must be made. If I am shooting at a
> moving target, I'll never be able to catch up.
The 'target' doeesn't keep moving. We have provided almost *NO* 'new'
features over the 4.4 stuff other than making it work like someone
expected it to, plus add the ports stuff.
New stuff:
1) Working shlib support
2) Working R/O source tree (obj links and such)
3) Ports
4) Better .depend handling
Since your new solution is better it shouldn't rely on the hacks and
fixes we've needed to do to get things working 'the way we want'
(although I disagree with some of the changes, majority rules).
You need to provide (or at least show) that you can provide the same
functionality with a 'better' system, or we aren't going anywhere.
Heck, show me a working prototype that has 4 levels.
Top level
/ \
Subdir1 Subdir2
/ / \
P1 P2 ssubdir3
/ \
P3 P4
Proof that you're way is 'better' is all that we're asking for.
Can you fix the build environment so that it's easier than the current
system, and that doesn't require any of the kludges the existing system
needs (pre-built binaries), etc..
Make some dependencies in your tree, heck build something that requires
flex, and have flex be one of the tools in the tree.
Nate
------------------------------
From: "Brian J. McGovern" <mcgovern@spoon.beta.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 17:54:30 -0500
Subject: Perl comment
Well, might as well throw in my two cents... Why not make a install
menu tree similar to the source menu tree (ie - base, gnu, sys, et al),
and include all of the add-ons (apache, perl, anonymous ftp config,
pcnfsd, etc) that provide typical "extended network/development services"
(which could therefore be a limiter to keep things like elm, pine,
<your favorite program here> off the list)? This way, it would take these
things off the post-install menu, and give a configuration that will allow
a certain amount of flexibility.
-Brian
------------------------------
From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:48:46 +1030 (CST)
Subject: Re: Device driver development
alex huppenthal stands accused of saying:
> I have several device drivers to create for FreeBSD. If you have
> any pointers for a newbie just getting into writing drivers for FreeBSD
> please respond.
Your best bet is really to look at the existing drivers; if you're
doing serial comms stuff the 'sio' driver is _the_ place to start.
Then start asking questions here; there are plenty of people that can
help you out. A while back Eric H. was working on a driver writer's
guide, but it's very hard to know where to draw the line between
"this is a BSD-specific issue" and "this is something about device
drivers in general".
The 4.4 Daemon book is also a useful reference, although a bit distant
from the current FreeBSD implementation.
> We've developed a number of high performance communications boards
> for FreeBSD.
I am now/will soon be available for device driver development at
reasonable rates, should you wish to outsource.
- --
]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[
]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[
]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[
]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[
]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
------------------------------
From: Richard Wackerbarth <rkw@dataplex.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 17:19:02 -0600
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
>Heck, show me a working prototype that has 4 levels.
>
> Top level
> / \
> Subdir1 Subdir2
> / / \
> P1 P2 ssubdir3
> / \
> P3 P4
>
>Proof that you're way is 'better' is all that we're asking for.
I have offered "samples" before, but that offer was rejected. The demand
was that I demonstrate by showing it work on EVERYTHING. (ie fete complete)
If you are willing to accept a sanitized "demo" which shows how I would
handle the "recursive" nature of the present system, I can do that without
"fixing" any of the current code. A "sample" library and a tool or two are
all that should be required.
This is a far different request from the one that I prove that I can do
EVERYTHING.
------------------------------
From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 16:21:38 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Richard Wackerbarth writes:
> >Heck, show me a working prototype that has 4 levels.
> >
> > Top level
> > / \
> > Subdir1 Subdir2
> > / / \
> > P1 P2 ssubdir3
> > / \
> > P3 P4
> >
> >Proof that you're way is 'better' is all that we're asking for.
>
> I have offered "samples" before, but that offer was rejected.
I've never seen an offer before, so I can't comment.
> The demand
> was that I demonstrate by showing it work on EVERYTHING. (ie fete complete)
> If you are willing to accept a sanitized "demo" which shows how I would
> handle the "recursive" nature of the present system, I can do that without
> "fixing" any of the current code. A "sample" library and a tool or two are
> all that should be required.
Show me the above, and we'll go from there.
Nate
------------------------------
From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:04:53 +1030 (CST)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Gary Clark II stands accused of saying:
>
> I am the Perl person unless someone stands forth. I brought 4.036 in
> back in 2.0 and have been waiting for the wrangling to be done with before
> I bring in 5.003/4. I have no problem doing this. I also need to
> "REMOVE" the current info in the tree and update to the latest. No
> big deal, except for the flamage I would catch.
I think that opinion on this is settling. Thanks for standing up, too.
> Next point, people are jumping on Perl about how we have so few system
> utils based on it it should go, where are the utils based on TCL?
Wrong mentality. I have about 20,000 lines of Tcl here in out product
which load a couple of custom libraries and talk to our hardware. This
is what having Tcl in the tree is about, and is why I see Perl in the
tree as a Very Good Thing.
> (And as for incompatiable versions... Do all the ports work with
> our version of TCL?)
All except a very few have been cleanly converted.
> Gary Clark II (N5VMF) | I speak only for myself and "maybe" my company
- --
]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[
]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[
]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[
]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[
]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
------------------------------
From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 15:34:47 -0800
Subject: VOP_READ (etc) man page (man 9)
SOMEONE had these ready to go, but I forget who...
If I can find them I'd like to go over them and check them
in...
julian
------------------------------
From: Naoki Hamada <nao@sbl.cl.nec.co.jp>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 08:54:22 +0900 (JST)
Subject: Re: vx driver problems
Jon Morgan wrote:
>I found problems in if_vx.c where the driver handles ifconfig link[012] flags.
>The driver is ANDing the index into the connector_table rather than the
>actual bit value out of the table.
>Here's the code for 2.1.6-RELEASE that fixes the problem:
Thanks! I will rewrite the code around there and make it print more
friendly messages.
- - nao
------------------------------
From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:24:55 +1030 (CST)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
Terry Lambert stands accused of saying:
> > It's not a question of whether _everyone_ needs it, but whether a
> > sufficient number of people need it. I think that so far the evidence
> > indicates that this is the case.
>
> Not _everyone_ needs an appendectomy.
>
> But perhaps a _suficient_ number of people need them, so we should
> remove everyone's appendix at age 6.
Oh please; I think you can do better than that. p -> q <=/=> !p -> !q
Perhaps "Not everyone needs tetanus immunisation, but it helps a lot of
people, so we immunise at age 6". If further research shows that
immunisation sucks, then we can stop.
> > I'm entirely in agreement with the basic principle, but I strongly
> > believe that we need to incorporate mature and ubiquitous tools in
> > as seamless and standard a fashion as possible.
>
> This is a different argument entirely... it is a complaint that the
> installation dependency process is insufficiently seamless.
No it is _not_. Any statically-configured system is vulnerable to
variation in usage pattern; the simple intent here is to cover more of
the possible requirements in the out-of-the-box configuration in a
reasonable fashion.
> Terry Lambert
- --
]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[
]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[
]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[
]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[
]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
------------------------------
From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 00:18:52 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: Who needs Perl? We do!
As Richard Wackerbarth wrote:
> Oh! I think that there was some concensus that it NEEDS to be
> done. It is just that the "core" is unwilling to delegate the
> responsibility to me.
There's nothing like "core" that can be attributed this way, as if it
were a single person, in FreeBSD. There are only members of the core
team who try to discuss several `government' issues on their mailing
list, who often have (incidentally) agreeing opinions but also often
disagreeing opinions about some technical matter, and who last but not
least often spend quite a large amount of time on the project, not
only for coding but for much more boring tasks like release
engineering, user support etc.
So pleas don't claim that "core" does/doesn't do this or that.
- --
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
------------------------------
End of hackers-digest V1 #1666
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