by Ok, I have installed the recent SLS-98 on a PC here,
and am now able to use it as an X-Station on the Internet!
But I have some problems with tcpip (wd8013) and with X; some might
have been patched already, but maybe not -- there aren't many
Linux-boxes hooked up to the Internet so far (Tell me if I'm wrong).
Hardware Setup: 486/33 256K Cache , 8MB Ram, 200 MB IDE-drive,
Sigma Legend II SVGA (ET4000), WD8013 Ethernet,
Microsoft Serial Mouse
Software Setup: SLS-98 (0.98pl1), xfree86-1.1, tcpip-0.8.1, tcp8p1, tcp8p2
First the X problem(s):
I have switched to the German keyboard layout using a german Xmodmap.
It works fine for quite a while, but after 2-5 minutes of work, the
X-Server suddenly misbehaves concerning keyboard and mousebutton input!
On those keys carring special characters which one normally gets in
conjunction with the Alt-key, you wont get the regular characters
anymore. The mousebuttons also behave as if I would be holding down
the Alt-key. But additionally, the Menus of the Window Manager are gone. :-(
This behaviour seems to start even sooner, when I telnet to another
machine, though ftp to another machine doesn't seem to make this behaviour
earlier.
This may be a problem of xfree86-1.1, but I don't have more time to
play on that machine now (it's not mine), and at home I have an
ATI Graphics Ultra, so I can't check out the new X.
(Xfree86-1.1 currently doesn't seem to work on the SVGA chip on
my Graphics Ultra (Chip 28800-4))
Ok, and now the tcp/ip problems:
When I compile the tcp stuff in the distributed form, and open an
ftp session to a Sun workstation and start a transmission, I get
lots of errors scrolling over the console telling me:
"wd8013 - bad packet: len = ..." and "trashing receive buffer".
Though the transfer is completed successfully at a speed of
about 47 KByte/sec.
I tested various values of the MAX_WINDOW and MIN_WINDOW sizes
in tcp.h and made several kernels for testing, this is what I found:
MAX=12000, MIN=2048: many "bad packet" and "trashing" (see above)
Transfer speed about 47 Kbyte/sec.
MAX=4096, MIN=1024 : ONLY during the first file I had lots of
these messages: "dev_rint:Dropping packets due to lack of memory"
After the first file no more error messages.
Transfer speed about 97 KByte/sec.
MAX=8192, MIN=1024 : some "bad packet" and "trashing"
Transfer speed about 47 KByte/sec. (I don't exactly remember the speed)
MAX=6124, MIN=1024 : no error messages
Transfer speed about 67 KByte/sec.
NOTE: Despite of all error messages, all files were transferred successfully
in all tests!! BTW I transferred the xfree86-1.1 distribution if you
want to know the filesizes ... (xbin2.1.TZa ...)
Every once in a while get an error message logged to the console which
says something with "socket" and "NULL", but I don't see it now ...
(I did the tcp/ip in console mode and before I installed xfree86-1.1)
The guy whom I want to replace his commercial X-Window system for MS-DOS
was quite impressed of Linux, but before he will be able to use it for
his work, the X problem (keyboard and mouse) has to be fixed.
Besides this little problem, I AM QUITE IMPRESSED !!
Though I've spent about 10 hours on this installation and tests
today, I really love Linux and I want to express my awe and thanks
to the hard core of Programmers and the many contributors for
their work on Linux.
I would eagerly like to set up a public Linux system on the Internet,
but I am only a student who is doing the system administration on
some machines because of the fun of it. I'll try to beg people here
to open a PC (at least for part time) to the public, but I don't know
if I'll succeed. Too bad that there are few people with ISA PCs here,
we have about 60 IBM Microchannel machines at my place, and 6 of them
are still unused (486/50, 8MB, 150MB SCSI, XGA). :-(((
(Another drawback, our internet link is (momentarily) flakey,
and only 64 KBit/sec., shared with two Universities. :-O
-Martin
PS: I've compiled xgopher under Linux to test if tcp/ip-software
also runs out of the box. IT DOES! Wow, that's great!
--
Martin Rex | "Have the courage to take
Rechenzentrum | your own thoughts seriously,
Fachhochschule fuer Technik Mannheim | for they will shape you."