Well, I tried compiling a kernel with the updated version of buffer.c,
and it does seem to fix the problem of "compress | tar" corrupting the
filesystem.  It seems to work just fine!  I was able to uncompress and
untar 10 megs of GCC source without causing the filesystem corruption.

Note that if you don't have the updated version of buffer.c, you can
avoid the filesystem corruption problem by not running two or more
processes at the same time which (1) doing disk I/O and (2) causing the
buffer cache to thrash.  So in other words, I could have avoided the
problem by doing a "uncompress gcc.tar.Z" and then a "tar xvf gcc.tar",
instead of connecting the two with a pipeline.

I will make a patched kernel image available on TSX-11.MIT.EDU tomorrow
morning; I will also try downloading it to nic.funet.fi and
tupac-amaru.informatik.rwth-aachen.de.  I will provide two versions.  One
will be a standard version which has the patched buffer.c, and one that
also has a quick patch to the keyboard driver so that the caps_lock key
acts like a control key.

------------------------------------


Peter Busser writes:

quoted text
>Don't you think it is time to get a real newsgroup for Linux or is that
>too early? The traffic on the mailing list is more than we see in
>comp.os.misc or comp.os.mach or comp.os.xinu...  We could reach more
>people this way, as there are net.people who still don't know what Linux

There are lots of pluses and minuses of going to Usenet.  Some of the
pluses are increased exposure and getting allowing more people to find
out about Linux.  One of the disadvantages is that with more people
comes more noise --- if we turned this mailing list into a newsgroup, I
suspect that the signal to noise ratio would go way down, and the volume
would go way up.  Another disadvantage is that not everyone who has a
mail feed can necessarily get a news feed.

One possible way of solving the last problem is to use a
newsgroup<->mailing list gateway such as the one which the Perl Users
mailing list use to connect themselves to the comp.lang.perl newsgroup.
It allows people who wish to get the mailing list to get digests which
contain several messages bundled as a single mail message, and replies
via either news or mail get getwayed correctly.

I suspect, though, that the volume and the number of people on this list
don't quite (yet) constitute enough justification to move to Usenet.  It
would probably be a good idea for people to mention Linux and the
mailing list on Usenet, though, so that more do find out about it.
Also, once Linus moves out of Beta test, another possibility is to
distribute it via one of the Usenet comp.sources or comp.binaries
newsgroups.

--------------------------------------

Linus writes:

quoted text
>Urgh. I should never have included the mtools package :-). The problem
>is that the root-diskette filled up, and mcopy is just the front-end for
>other programs. mwrite, which actually writes to msdos, didn't fit.

Well, I actually *like* the mtools package; it's awfully convenient for
me to be able to read/write files from MS-DOS filesystems.  Since I
don't have a tar for MS-DOS, the only other way right now for me to
transfer files from Linux to my MS-DOS partition is to tar them onto a
floppy, take the floppy to work, read the floppy on my workstation in my
office, and then go back home and kermit it over dialup.  Not very
satisfactory.  :-)

I suppose the right way to do it would be to introduce a VFS layer into
the Linux kernel, and then have someone implement a DOS filesystem which
you could mount under Linux, but right now I don't have the time to
commit to a project like that.

In the meantime, would it be possible for me to get the sources to the
mtools package?  You could either mail it to me, or drop it off via
anonymous FTP in /pub/incoming on tsx-11.mit.edu.  I'll make it
available so that anyone else who wants to use it will be free to do so.
In the same vein, it would nice if I could get a copy of the GCC machine
discription file and other config files which you used to build GCC
1.40.  That will make it easier for me to try to get GCC 2.0 up and
running. 

						- Ted