From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: Linux-0.95
Summary: it's out
Date: 8 Mar 92 14:43:12 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
All right: it's three days late, but finally 0.95 has been sent to
nic.funet.fi. As usual, it will probably take a few days to find it's
way into a readable directory, so don't start ftp'ing right now. I'm
sure arl will inform people when it's available.
I'm also pretty sure there will be problems setting things up again:
some things have changed, and the docs are up to their usual wonderful
standard. For people that have used 0.12, there shouldn't be too many
surprises, although the new harddisk names/numbers can be confusing.
Many bugs have been corrected, but there are probably new ones that have
taken their place.
One bad thing with the new setup (which will confuse new users) is that
the rootdisk finally got too small for everything, and compress+tar
aren't on the disk any more. Talk about confusing, but if you have 0.12
installed on your system, everything should be mostly a case of "boot
from floppy, drop in the new things, and reboot with the harddisk".
Re: patches. There were 5 major patches (VC's, VFS, swapon, ptrace and
faster floppies) that were installed, and of these only ptrace and VC's
got installed without any major changes (pmacdona has had three releases
to learn my coding style, and it seems to have paid off :). The other
patches are so heavily edited as to be totally unrecognizeable, and I
expect my changes weren't always for the better: but I'd rather be
over-conservative than use a patch even if it's great. I expect they
will still have to be edited, and hope none of the authors mind me
changing their code heavily (sorry also to all those that have used the
VFS routines: they'll have to wait for the next release before getting
all the functionality in the alpha-VFS patches.)
Re: recompiling the kernel. I've used most of the last week to make the
kernel compileable by gcc-2, as that is what I use now. The bootimage
I've made available is compiled totally with 2.0, and the source-files
are set up for that compiler. For people without gcc-2, the kernel can
still be compiled with 1.40, but you'll have to add the flag
-fcombine-regs to some makefiles (without it gcc-1.40 runs out of
registers, and aborts).
I'm including the file RELNOTES-0.95, which is just the old 0.12
RELNOTES edited for a new release. I'm lazy.
Linus
------------------------------
RELEASE NOTES FOR LINUX v0.95
Linus Torvalds, March 7, 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-0.95 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.
INSTALLATION
This is a SHORT install-note. The installation is very similar to 0.11
and 0.12, so you should read INSTALL-0.11 too. There are a couple of
programs you will need to install linux: something that writes disk
images (rawrite.exe or NU or...) and something that can create harddisk
partitions (fdisk under xenix or older versions of dos, edpart.exe or
something like that).
NOTE! Repartitioning your harddisk will destroy all data on it (well,
not exactly, but if you know enough to get back the data you probably
didn't need this warning). So be careful.
READ THIS THROUGH, THEN READ INSTALL-0.11, AND IF YOU ARE SURE YOU KNOW
WHAT YOU ARE DOING, CONTINUE. OTHERWISE, PANIC. OR WRITE ME FOR
EXPLANATIONS. OR DO ANYTHING BUT INSTALL LINUX - IT'S VERY SIMPLE, BUT
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU'LL PROBABLY BE SORRY. I'D
RATHER ANSWER A FEW UNNECESSARY MAILS THAN GET MAIL SAYING "YOU KILLED
MY HARDDISK, BASTARD. I'M GOING TO FIND YOU, AND YOU'LL BE SORRY WHEN I
DO".
Minumum files needed:
RELNOTES-0.95 (this file)
INSTALL-0.11 (+ any other docs you might find: the FAQ etc)
bootimage-0.96.Z
rootimage-0.95.Z
rootimage-0.12.Z (for tar+compress)
rawrite.exe
some disk partitioner
1) back up everything you have on your harddisk - linux-0.95 is still in
beta and might do weird things. The only thing I guarantee is that
it has worked fine on /my/ machine - for all I know it might eat your
harddisk and spit it out in small pieces on any other hardware.
2) Test out the linux boot-disk with the root file system. If it
doesn't work, check the hardware requirements, and mail me if you
still think it should work. I might not be able to help you, but
your bug-report would still be appreciated.
Linux-0.95 now has an init/login: there should be 4 logins started on
the first 4 virtual consoles. Log in as root (no password), and test
it out. Change to the other logins by pressing left-alt + FN[1-4].
Note that booting up with a floppy as root is S..L..O..W.. - the
floppy driver has been optimized for sequential access (backups etc),
and trashes somewhat with demand-loading.
Test that linux can read your harddisk at least partly: run the fdisk
program on the root-disk, and see if it barfs. If it tells you about
any partitions at all, linux can successfully read at least part of
your harddisk.
NOTE! Harddisk device names and numbers have changed between versions
0.12 and 0.95: the new numbering system was needed for the extended
partitions, and a new naming scheme was in order so that people
wouldn't cunfuse the old devices with the new ones.
The new harddisk device names are: /dev/hd followed by an 'a' for the
first drive, or a 'b' for the second one. After that comes the
partition number, 1-4 for the primary partitions, 5- for possible
extended partitions. No number means the complete disk. Like this:
/dev/hda the whole first harddisk (old: /dev/hd0)
/dev/hdb3 partition nr 3 on the second disk (old: /dev/hd8)
3) Make sure that you have a free /primary/ partition. There can be 4
primary partitions per drive: newer DOS fdisks seem to be able to
create only 2 (one primary and one extended). In that case use some
other partitioning software: edpart.exe etc. Linux fdisk currently
only tells you the partition info - it doesn't write to the disk.
Remember to check how big your partition was, as that can be used to
tell which device Linux thinks it is.
NOTE! Linux-0.95 /might/ recognize extended partitions: but the code
for this is utterly untested, as I don't have any of those. Do NOT
use the extended partitions unless you can verify that they are
indeed correctly set up - if my routines are wrong, writing to the
extended partitions might just overwrite some other partition
instead. Not nice.
4) Boot up linux again, fdisk to make sure you now have the new
partition, and use mkfs to make a filesystem on one of the partitions
fdisk reports. Write "mkfs -c /dev/hdX nnn" where X is the device
number reported by linux fdisk, and nnn is the size - also reported
by fdisk. nnn is the size in /blocks/, ie kilobytes. You should be
able to use the size info to determine which partition is represented
by which device name.
5) Mount the new disk partition: "mount /dev/hdX /mnt". Copy over the
root filesystem to the harddisk, eg like this:
# for i in bin dev etc usr tmp
# do
# cp +recursive /$i /mnt
# done
You caanot use just "cp +recursive / /mnt", as that will result in a
loop.
6) Sync the filesystem after you have played around enough, and reboot.
# sync
# lo
(none) login: sync
< wait for it to sync>
ctrl-alt-del
THIS IS IMPORTANT! NEVER EVER FORGET TO SYNC BEFORE KILLING THE MACHINE.
7) Change the bootdisk to understand which partition it should use as a
root filesystem. See INSTALL-0.11: it's still the word at offset
508 into the image. You should be up and running.
8) When you've successfully started up with your harddisk as root, you
can mount the older rootimage (rootimage-0.12) from a floppy, and
copy over any files you find there that weren't on the newer
root-image.
Mounting a floppy is easy: make the directory /floppy, and write:
# mount /dev/PS0 /floppy (if you have a 3.5" drive)
or
# mount /dev/at0 /floppy (for 5.25" floppies)
After that the files can be copied to your harddisk, eg:
# cp /floppy/usr/bin/compress /usr/bin
# ln -s /usr/bin/compress /usr/bin/compress
# cp /floppy/usr/bin/tar.Z /usr/bin
# uncompress /usr/bin/tar.Z
That's it. Now go back and read the INSTALL-0.11, until you are sure you
know what you are doing.
New features of 0.95, in order of appearance
(ie in the order you see them)
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).
Bash is even bigger
It's really a bummer to boot up from floppies: bash takes a long time to
load. Bash is also now so big that I couldn't fit compress and tar onto
the root-floppy: You'll probably want the old rootimage-0.12 just in
order to get tar+compress onto your harddisk. If anybody has pointers
to a simple shell that is freely distributable, it might be a good idea
to use that for the root-diskette.
Especially with a small buffer-cache, things aren't fun. Don't worry:
linux runs much better on a harddisk.
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 better to vt200 control codes. Special graphic characters, and
the PF1-4 keys work somewhat in the application-key mode.
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 (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: 0.95a uploaded - soon available
Keywords: buxfix release
Date: 18 Mar 92 00:32:46 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
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 < enter> 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 (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,alt.os.linux
Subject: Second 0.95a alpha-patch, part 1/2
Summary: patch 0.95a -> 0.95c
Date: 4 Apr 92 14:42:10 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
This is the promised patch to 0.95a, which hopefully corrects some of
the problems encountered. This is /not/ an offical new release: it's
just a set of patches to get the same kernel I am currently running.
Bugfixes:
- extended partitions should finally work correctly (this release also
contains code for the hd-ioctl call, needed for fdisk). Code mostly
by hedrick.
- I corrected my original ptrace-fix (writing a long word to another
process' data space could fail with my original patches)
- 387-emulation bug with the instructions "fcom[p] %st(x)" which
resulted in bad results on non-387 machines with newer versions of
gcc. The emulation is still ugly, but it seems to work.
- the cooked mode deletion/linekill bugs should be fixed.
- various error-returns were wrong: I correted some of them (thanks to
bruce evans who pointed them out). The bad error-values resulted in
incorrect or spurious error-messages from 'rm' etc.
- various minor fixes (including some in the hd-driver: this might help
persons with unexpected-interrupt and/or timeout errors)
Additionally this version contains VFS-code from entropy, and a
readdir() system call needed for the VFS. The latter was inspired by
patches sent by Remy Card, who did it with a getdirents sys-call. My
version is slightly simpler, but is probably slower. Things might yet
change.
The installation has also changed slightly: the keyboard type and
math-emulation are specified in the main Makefile. That one also
contains the -fcombine-regs flag needed for 1.40. The other makefiles
should no longer need editing.
I've also incorporated the ps095 kernel patches: to get the actual
user-level stuff you still have to get the ps-distribution. Printer
ports /still/ aren't in there, but this time I positively /promise/ to
put it in next week. Really.
People who have been patching their kernel might have problems getting
this patch to work: it was made against a clean 0.95a kernel. I'll
consider a patched-up kernel version 0.95c - and I'd appreciate if
future patches to me would be sent against this version. I'll still
accept older patches, or course.
Linus
--------------------
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,alt.os.linux
Subject: Second 0.95a alpha-patch, part 2/2
Summary: patch 0.95a -> 0.95c
Date: 4 Apr 92 14:54:09 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
The second part of the patches: concatenate, uudecode, uncompress and
patch.
Linus
--------------------
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: Second 0.95a alpha-patch
Summary: include-file changes
Date: 5 Apr 92 17:44:30 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
I forgot to mention some of the changes this alpha-patch brings to the
user: the kernel include-files have been slightly changed in a couple of
cases, which can result in unexpected behaviour...
a.out.h is now the latest GNU a.out.h, and it seems to have slightly
different magic-number handling than the original 386-minix version I
used for older versions. Without recompiling the kernel with the new
a.out.h, programs linked with the new binutils will not run (unable to
execute binary file errors). This just means that even if you don't use
the patch in any other capacity, you had better upgrade to the new
a.out.h, or newer programs won't necessarily run. Right now there are
no such binaries available, but when gcc2 gets more used, they will show
up.
The other change is that limits.h and sys/dirent.h are now part of the
kernel include-files: they were needed for the readdir() system call.
Normally this wouldn't change anything, but there is also a slight
change in limits.h - NAME_MAX is now defined to be 255 so that linux
will eventually handle filesystems with longer names than 14 chars.
This means that the old direntry-routines in the library won't compile
correctly, as they depended on NAME_MAX being the size of a directory
name. I hope the gcc-2 library won't have this problem, and that we can
move over to the more general readdir-function without undue growing
pains.
The a.out.h change was made just to minimize the differences between the
linux headers and the library headers - but the second change is pretty
fundamental. If you are porting software with the old libraries, I'd
suggest keeping to the old limits.h in /usr/include - that way nothing
should break until we get non-minix filesystems. Adventurous people
might want to test out the new kernel functions that will be supported
even with new filesystems.
In case anyone is wondering why the NAME_MAX change is needed, it's due
to the fact that the old /library/ readdir only handled a 14-char
library entry. When the VFS code is enhanced to allow different
filesystems, you no longer can depend on this, and the library routine
wouldn't know what type of directory it's supposed to read - so the code
has to be moved into the kernel which knows about these things. The new
readdir() will work correctly independently of the underlying filesystem
(so that you can freely mix different filesystems without needing to
bother about it).
I'm sorry all this is certain to cause it's share of confusion (using
the old library with the new NAME_MAX and vice versa), but there wasn't
any graceful way to handle it all - unless I would have anticipated
these problems from the start, which I didn't... You can console
yourselves with the thought that linux should be able to handle longer
filenames and >64MB partitions within a couple of releases.
Linus
Linux Kernel, Linux Distributions, Linux Desktops, Linux Scalability
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