Sun-Spots Digest, v6n249
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at Rice.edu
Thu Oct 6 01:47:28 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Tuesday, 4 October 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 249
Today's Topics:
Re: text table full message
Re: lots of users on a Sun
Re: Spurious "You have new mail." msgs
Re: New mail problem
Re: wanted: more interesting screen saver
GNU Emacs 18.52 hangs on ALM-II port under SunOS 4.0
fpa board loops on SIGFPE
Sun Pascal does not include pix
problems with on(1)
xt driver for sun3?
More Proxy ARP?
Bus error panic?
how to invert a panel text item programatically?
Run a program without being logged in?
Voice Recognition Hardware/Software?
Are Fig 1.4.FS and transfig in the archive?
Help. Need facts for purchase justification.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 16:34:11 EDT
From: rang at frith.egr.msu.edu (Anton Rang)
Subject: Re: text table full message
The message 'text: table is full' indicates a serious problem. Basically,
there is a kernel limit for the number of "text" segments (code/data
segments) which can be open at one time. If this table gets filled up
(very possible with many users), the message "text: table is full" is
logged, and the user sees a message like "Killed".
To fix it, either increase MAXUSERS in your kernel configuration (if the
problem comes from lots of users; this also bumps up other table sizes),
or edit the 'param.c' file in your configuration and change the definition
of 'ntext' (initially 24 + MAXUSERS, I think), then rebuild your kernel.
(The command 'pstat -T' shows you the size of various kernel tables and
how much space is currently used, if you want to look.)
Anton Rang, Michigan State University
rang at cpswh.cps.msu.edu
uunet!frith!rang
RANG at MSUEGR.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 16:42:38 EDT
From: rang at frith.egr.msu.edu (Anton Rang)
Subject: Re: lots of users on a Sun
Here at Michigan State University, we're slowly moving the upper level
undergraduate classes onto Suns. They seem to handle 16+ simultaneous
users without any trouble; compiles are a little slower than with 2-3, but
not enough to be a nuisance.
Most of the time, the delay to propagate messages through the campus
ethernet is much higher than the time to actually execute the commands, so
the students complain just as much whether they're the only person on or
there are 25.
BTW, these are Sun-3/280's; one has a single 575MB disk, and one has a
single 892MB disk. They don't support any clients; I suspect the
additional load of handling clients would slow interactive use, possibly
to an unacceptable degree.
Anton Rang
rang at cpswh.cps.msu.edu
uunet!frith!rang
RANG at MSUEGR.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 09:18:34 EDT
From: hiebeler at turing.cs.rpi.edu (Dave Hiebeler)
Subject: Re: Spurious "You have new mail." msgs
>Several newer users to our system (Sun 3/160 + 19 3/50 + 1 3/60) are
>seeing (or have seen) notification of new mail without actually receiving
>any mail.
This has occasionally happened on systems on which I've been working,
although slightly differently, not just to new users, and for a different
reason.
In these cases, users would suddenly start getting the "new mail" message
every time they pressed return. It turned out that the clock was behind
by a couple of days, and the timestamps on most peoples' /usr/spool/mail/*
file was a couple of days in the future, so to speak.
A simple "touch /usr/spool/mail/$USER" command would make the problem go
away, however.
Dave Hiebeler Internet: hiebeler at cs.rpi.edu (preferred address)
R.D. Box 225A userfrzk%mts at itsgw.rpi.edu
Chatham, NY 12037 Bitnet: userfrzk at rpitsmts.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 88 15:05:16 EDT
From: cs.rochester.edu!ritcv!ritcv.jjv3345 at cs.utexas.edu (Drool Rockworm)
Subject: Re: New mail problem
One other situation where a user sees "You have new mail" but is not able
to read any happened to me recently. I had just been added as a new user,
and when someone sent me mail I was notified. However, ownership of my
mailbox was changed to user "nobody", so mailtool found no mail. I'm told
it was a problem with the aliases file.
jeffrey_j_vanepps at cup.portal.com
seismo!rochester!ritcv!jjv3345
sun!sunrock!bisco!jeffv
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 15:32:18 PDT
From: ultra!ted at ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ted Schroeder)
Subject: Re: wanted: more interesting screen saver
We picked up a maze generator/solver somewhere that's kinda nice.
Ted Schroeder ultra!ted at Ames.arc.nasa.GOV
Ultra Network Technologies
101 Daggett Drive with a domain server:
San Jose, CA 95134 ted at Ultra.COM
408-922-0100
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 11:15:14 EDT
From: ehrlich at shire.cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich)
Subject: GNU Emacs 18.52 hangs on ALM-II port under SunOS 4.0
Machine Type: Sun 4/260S O/S Version: SunOS 4.0
Organization: Computer Science Department, The Pennsylvalia State University
333 Whitmore Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802
Phone Number: +1 814 865 9723
Description:
A while back the following appeared in Sun-Spots Digest V6 N226:
> From: jdh at bu-it.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler)
> GNU emacs (18.47, 18.50, 18.52 probably others) hangs when I suspend it
> (^Z) or resume it (ala "fg"). I only have this when I use an ALM2....
--Jason Heirtzler
Boston University
jdh at bu-it.bu.edu
Subsequently Greg Limes <limes at sun.com> claimed that Sun had a 'fix' for
this. We asked for and installed the "ALM-II Patch Kit" we got from the
Sun Technical Support Center. The problem still exists though.
Repeat-By:
Run GNU Emacs 18.5x from a terminal connected to a port on an ALM-II and
then suspend Emacs with a control-Z and try to resume it. The port to go
totaly catatonic. Sending a HUP signal to the shell running kills the
shell and a new getty starts running. But it would appear that no
characters are being read from the port and only rebooting the machine
will correct this.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 17:10:15 CDT
From: maeder at symcom.math.uiuc.edu
Subject: fpa board loops on SIGFPE
I haven't seen this described anywhere but it is so horrible that it must
have hit somebody else. Perhaps it is well known?
Any attempt to use or even IGNORE the floating point exception on a Sun 3
with the fpa board results in an infinite loop. The following program
illustrates this (compile with cc -ffpa fpa.c):
#include <signal.h>
main()
{
double x = 0;
signal(SIGFPE, SIG_IGN);
x = 1 / x;
}
It seems that after a floating point exception the instruction is
restarted resulting in another exception etc... The only way out of this
is to use a longjmp() to get out of the exception handler (This seems to
happen on a microvax as well)
It works fine on machines with an 68881! This kind of very different
behaviour really makes writing portable programs a nightmare... All this
is under 3.5.
Can this be fixed somehow?
Roman Maeder
Univ. of Illinois,
Department of Mathematics
and
Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 88 20:39:20 GMT
From: ehrlich at blitz.cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich)
Subject: Sun Pascal does not include pix
Now that one pays Sun extra money to get Pascal we discovered that they do
not include the Pascal interpreter pix. Does anyone know why this is? A
number of the faculty here think it is most rude of Sun to have ommitted
such a handy debugging tool. (Sun are you listening? This is a customer
speaking.)
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich at blitz.cs.psu.edu>
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Computer Science
University Park, PA 16802
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 13:37:15 EST
From: munnari!yabbie.rmit.oz.au!rcodi at uunet.uu.net (Ian Donaldson)
Subject: problems with on(1)
A couple of annoyances with SunOS 3.5 on(1)'s user interface:
1) "on -i host cmd"
frequently throws away the last few lines of the output from "cmd". You
don't notice this if "cmd" is a shell (eg: sh or csh) since they don't
generate any output just before they exit (typically).
Repeat-by: on -i somehost ls /
and compare with rlogging into somehost and doing the same thing
2) "on -i" obviously uses TIOCSETP instead of TIOCSETN to change into/outof
RAW (or CBREAK), which has the side effect of throwing away typeahead
after and before running the command. This is very irritating when the \
machine(s) are slow since you have to wait for it to catch up.
Are these fixed in 4.0?
If its relevant: hardware: Sun-3/50, 3/60, 3/260
Ian D
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 88 11:20:38 EDT (Fri)
From: tk at moss.att.com (Tom Kirk)
Subject: xt driver for sun3?
Can anyone verify the existence of an XT driver for a Sun3 that will allow
one to run mux/layers for a DMD5620 or 630 terminal off a serial port on a
Sun? (in particular, a Sun3 running SunOS 4.0). I know that one existed
(at least at some point...I've seen some of the code), but it was probably
for an earlier version of SunOS, and I've lost my lead on it.
Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction.
tom kirk
at&t bell laboratories
tk at moss.att.com
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 88 13:29:00 EDT
From: Glenn (G.C.) Langford <BINKY%BNR.CA at cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: More Proxy ARP?
Thanks in part to previous sun-spots articles, I have a subnet mostly
running. The last piece in the puzzle seems to be getting proxy ARP to
work correctly.
Unfortunately, I am running SunOS 4.0, and the proxyarpd code from
sun-source is intended for earlier versions. I have managed to get it to
recompile under 4.0, but it complains 'protocol not available' when I try
to bring it up.
Any suggestions on how I can fix this, or should I be looking for a newer
4.0-specific daemon?
Thanks,
Glenn Langford
Bell-Northern Research
Ottawa, Ont.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 14:38:19 EST
From: Badri Lokanathan <badri at ee.rochester.edu>
Subject: Bus error panic?
I had the strangest thing happen the other day. Some code that I had
written succeeded in repeatedly crashing a sun 3-110 and a sun 3-60 (but
not a 3-50, where a segmentation violation took place) all running OS 3.4.
Cause: accidental omission of a sprintf argument.
Since the code was in user space, there was no reason why it should have
caused the sun to panic. I tried repeating the syndrome with just the bad
line and its values at that point in a standalone main segment but it did
not crash the machine.
I wonder if there are more instances of user code crashing suns
occasionally. If someone is interested I will send the binary and the
example that crashed the machine.
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 88 23:11:04 GMT
From: mkhaw at teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (Mike Khaw)
Subject: how to invert a panel text item programatically?
Normally, when you click on a text panel item, SunView highlights it in
inverse video. How can I make a SunView program do highlighting like this
under program control?
Thanks,
Mike Khaw
internet: mkhaw at teknowledge.arpa
uucp: {uunet|sun|ucbvax|decwrl|uw-beaver}!mkhaw%teknowledge.arpa
hardcopy: Teknowledge Inc, 1850 Embarcadero Rd, POB 10119, Palo Alto, CA 94303
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 20:39:29 EDT
From: ghoti at cauchy.mit.edu
Subject: Run a program without being logged in?
Is there some way that I can have a program run on a SUN 3 while I am not
logged in ? Please respond to me directly since I don't subscribe to this
list. Thanks.
ghoti at cauchy.mit.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 10:28:06 MDT
From: salt!pepper!gerber at uunet.uu.net (Andrew Gerber)
Subject: Voice Recognition Hardware/Software?
Can anyone give me a pointer to companies that manufacture/distribute
voice recognition software and hardware for the Sun? There doens't seem
to be anything relevent in the Catalyst book.
Andrew S. Gerber | McDonnell Douglas Communication Industry Systems
uunet!salt!gerber | 5299 DTC Blvd, Englewood, CO 80111
salt!gerber at uunet.uu.net | (303) 220 6231
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 18:07:30 BST
From: mcvax!gec-epl.co.uk!Don_Ward at uunet.uu.net
Subject: Are Fig 1.4.FS and transfig in the archive?
On the 18th August Micah Beck announced the availability of Fig 1.4.FS
which had some tasty looking extensions like setable text font and size.
Unfortunately (for me) he only said how to get it using anonymous FTP
which I'm not sure if I can use to get stuff from the US to the UK.
> It is available for anonymous FTP from svax.cs.cornell.edu as
> ~ftp/pub/fig/fig-fs.tar.Z. TransFig Release 3 is available as
> ~ftp/pub/fig/transfig.tar.Z. [[ Be sure to use "image" transfer
> type for compressed files (use the FTP command "binary" before
> transferring). --wnl ]]
I certainly don't know how to use anonymous FTP, how to go about getting
my system to grok svax.cs.cornell.edu, or even if ftp is possible when
using specific-to-the-uk colour book s/w. All advice cheerfully accepted,
even if it is "Why'incha look inna manual?"
So is there another, easier, way of getting copies? For instance are Fig
1.4.FS and transfig also available through the rice archive server?
[[ No, not yet. Since you are in the UK, I don't think that you can use
FTP to access the Internet in the US. --wnl ]]
Don Ward
Systems Design Division
GEC Electrical Projects Ltd Email: Don_Ward at gec-epl.co.uk
Boughton Road, Rugby, CV21 1BU UK. Tel: (+44 788 or 0788) 542144
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 06:37:34 MDT
From: Robert Lopez TIJERAS <rlopez at ariel.unm.edu>
Subject: Help. Need facts for purchase justification.
I work for a semiconductor manufacture in an organization which tests the
product and engineering devices while they are still on a wafer. (Not
finished and packaged). My job is to manage the PDP-11 computers which
host all the testers, collect the data, produce some local reports, and
process the data into data bases on a VAX cluster. Most of my time is
spent developing new software systems. I do most of my development on the
VAXs and DEC-NET it to the PDP's. My terminal is a VT-300. I work with C,
Fortran, and (on the VAX only)Common Lisp. I have to tolerate constant
"waiting on the system" on the VAXs, and it is MUCH worse on the PDPs.
Due to different software products on different VAX, I spend a lot of time
switching VAX sessions in addition to switching PDP sessions.
I am putting together a purchase justification for the purchase of a Sun4.
I need help with "PROOF" for these claims:
1) A Sun can provide an environment which would enable an increase in
productivity.
2) There is advantage to having a 7MIP workstation and this advantage is
economical.
3) The Sun4 will provide a better Lisp environment than the VAX/VT-300.
I also have some opposition and would appreciate ideas/ testimonials/etc.
around these arguments:
1) This plant uses DEC systems. Placing a Sun on the Net will cause problems
to the Net.
2) Everyone here knows VMS. If something were to happen to you the company
would be stuck with a machine and systems (on it) no one else could use.
3) You can do anything you could do on a Sun running SunOS just as well on
a VAX running VMS. Any speed difference is economically insignificant.
Thanks for any information and support you can provide.
-R.L.
Robert Lopez Phone: (505)822-7112
Test Engineering Computer Specialist FAX: (505)822-7494
Signetics Corporation, E-Sort TWX: 910/989-1615
P.O. Box 10272, ms 20 SERI: LOPEZ:ABQ87D
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87184 INTERNET: rlopez at ariel.unm.edu
(Signetics is a division of North American Philips Corporation)
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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