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poor PCMCIA network performance
by Robert L Krawitz April 2, 2002

April 2, 2002

I use two network cards in my Dell Inspiron 8000 (PIII-700): a 3Com 3CCFE574BT and a Linksys wireless card. With the 3Com card (which is a 10/100) I never get better than 1.4 MB/sec (about 12 Mb/sec), even when the card is in 100 Mb mode (at some point in the past the limit was about 2.5 MB/sec). At that rate, top shows my CPU utilization pegged at about 100%, even doing a simple ftp. I know the card doesn't do DMA, but that's rather slow even for a PIO transfer. These cards have been around for ages; I don't think people would have been too satisfied with 400 KB/sec saturating a 200 MHz system. On the Linksys card, I likewise never get more than about 250 KB/sec, even if the computer is right next to the WAP and the link quality is 92/92, suggesting that I'm also hitting up against a hard limit. The WAP is connected to my main system via the motherboard ethernet, which I know from other means (when I was transferring data from my previous system to the current one) has no trouble maxing out at 10 MB/sec (that ethernet does DMA). eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"..." Nickname:"..." Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: 00:04:5A:CF:F3:B1 Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3 Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality:26/92 Signal level:-76 dBm Noise level:-149 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0 I'm running SuSE 7.3 on both systems, with a recompiled kernel based on kernel-source-2.4.16.SuSE-24. I'm not (or don't think I am) running a firewall or NAT on the laptop, despite what's in the module list. I've had no luck finding anything on the net. Modules that look like they should be relevant are: orinoco_cs 4352 1 orinoco 27312 0 [orinoco_cs] hermes 3200 0 [orinoco_cs orinoco] af_packet 11616 0 (autoclean) appletalk 18832 0 (autoclean) ipx 15008 0 (autoclean) ds 6384 2 [orinoco_cs] yenta_socket 8368 2 pcmcia_core 37568 0 [orinoco_cs ds yenta_socket] ipv6 124480 -1 (autoclean) iptable_nat 12560 0 (autoclean) (unused) ip_conntrack 12656 1 (autoclean) [iptable_nat] iptable_filter 1728 0 (autoclean) (unused) ip_tables 10304 4 [iptable_nat iptable_filter] Suggestions? -- Robert Krawitz <rlk(a)alum.mit.edu> http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/ Tall Clubs International -- http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf(a)uunet.uu.net Project lead for Gimp Print/stp -- http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net "Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." --Eric Crampton

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T&G guotes
by doug waud April 1, 2002

April 1, 2002

Hi I liked the following two quotes in today's (4/1/02) Telegram and Gazette (page A8) "Microsoft bids to acquire Catholic Church" and "Microsoft exploding an underground nuclear device" doug

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RE: [Wlug] T&G guotes
by Keller, Tim April 1, 2002

April 1, 2002

Well, the first one I could actually conceive of... You figure, if they acquire the catholic church they'd just decree that as of baptism you signed the EULA (sorta like opening the package means you agree to the terms (that are on the slip of paper inside the package..)) since the EULA basically means microsoft could set off a nuclear device and get away with it, they'd have no problem proving in court that the church isn't responsible for faulty prietware. As for the nuclear device, If its a microsoft nuclear device I can see the following things happening... 1. Needs repeated reboots before exploding. 2. The trigger will need to have a service pack installed. 3. You'll need to buy MSND 1.5 to get the newest features (like exploding) 4. You'll need to have IE installed along with the latest direct X drivers. 5. before exploding you'll need to get a MSND registration number and enter it in binary using a telegraph pad. 6. "Explode" and "Disarm" will be the same button... Just some thoughts... Tim. -----Original Message----- From: doug waud [mailto:douglas.waud@umassmed.edu] Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 10:36 AM To: wlug Subject: [Wlug] T&G guotes Hi I liked the following two quotes in today's (4/1/02) Telegram and Gazette (page A8) "Microsoft bids to acquire Catholic Church" and "Microsoft exploding an underground nuclear device" doug _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Humorous signature file...
by Stephen C. Daukas March 30, 2002

March 30, 2002

Came across this one in a newsgroup: (The first day Microsoft produces something that doesn't suck will be the day they start making vacuum-cleaners) Steve

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Request from academic researcher -- follow up
by Utpal M. Dholakia March 29, 2002

March 29, 2002

Dear Linux User Group Moderator: I am a faculty member in the Jones school of management at Rice University in Houston, Texas (this may be verified using a Google search with "Paul Dholakia", or "Utpal Dholakia"). We are conducting an academic research project, studying social interactions online, and how communities organized around products or brands are formed, from a sociological perspective. In this regard, LINUX user groups and mailing lists provide a wonderful context to study these sociological issues. We are conducting a survey of members of LINUX user groups/ mailing lists seeking information on different elements of their thoughts, feelings, and motivations of participating in such groups, and the value of the group to them... The survey is available on the web at the following URL: http://www.surveypro.com/cgi-bin/surveypro/run_survey.cgi?id=2444 Of course, this research is strictly academic, and has no commercial links or interests whatsoever. We hope to publish this research in a sociology journal. As a small token of our appreciation for participants' time, and in the spirit of the philosophy underlying the open-source movement, we will donate $500 total to the five favorite organizations/ groups of our participants' choice (we ask the participant's to nominate their favorite groups in the survey). I am writing to seek your help in conducting this research, first through participating, and second, through encouraging your user group members to participate in the research.. This will not take more than ten minutes of your (and their time). Broad participation will increase the validity and generalizability of our findings, making the research more useful. We welcome all help, and look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes, Paul Dholakia Assistant Professor Rice University http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia

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Win4Lin
by Skip Gaede March 28, 2002

March 28, 2002

Folks, This is not a commercial endorsement. I just installed Win4Lin, the product that lets you run Windows under Linux, and, for those occasions when you need Windows, it's very nice. Performance is decent, and there are only a few enhancements needed: 1) Max memory supported for Windows is 64 MB 2) Only supports serial, parallel, and virtual NIC (no scanners, USB) 3) No DirectX yet They're working on adding those goodies. But I can run Photo-Paint, TurboTax, some Windows-based Bible software packages, ... all without multibooting. At $80.00, that's not a bad price to pay. --Skip

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SCSI error message
by Bill Mills-Curran March 25, 2002

March 25, 2002

I added a 2nd disk to my linux box, and I'm getting these messages at boot. (I'm not 100% sure they are new messages, because it's been a long time since I've booted.) Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00 Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:08.0 Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) <Adaptec AIC-7880 Ultra SCSI host adapter> found at PCI 0/8/0 Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) Wide Channel, SCSI ID=7, 16/255 SCBs Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) Warning - detected auto-termination Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) Please verify driver detected settings are correct. Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) If not, then please properly set the device termination Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) in the Adaptec SCSI BIOS by hitting CTRL-A when prompted Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) during machine bootup. Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) Cables present (Int-50 YES, Int-68 YES, Ext-68 YES) Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) Illegal cable configuration!! Only two Mar 25 09:28:33 pent584 kernel: (scsi0) connectors on the SCSI controller may be in use at a time! Other than these messages, the disk seems to be working fine. I've tried different termination settings on the disk, but nothing has helped. There is a terminator on the scsi cable, and I did not change it. Any ideas? Thanks, Bill

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new mandrake
by Brad Noyes March 24, 2002

March 24, 2002

Hi all, i installed the latest mandrake a earlier this week. When i boot the system into linux i get this grphical screen showing the progress of the boot. Does anyone know how to get rid of that? I find it to be kind of annoying, and want my regular console. Thanks, --brad

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/dev permissions & ownership
by Bill Mills-Curran March 24, 2002

March 24, 2002

I just discovered that something has caused many device files (many of them audio) have ended up with the wrong ownership/permission. (My daughter's account had ownership.) I fixed some, but I have no idea what's the right permissions. Is there some way I can check the permissions? Ideally, there would be a script that would report which device files are not set to the default. (I've changed some, like the cdrom and floppy, intentionally.) TIA, Bill

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wanted: inexpensive server
by Michelle Vadeboncoeur March 24, 2002

March 24, 2002

A small cash-strapped startup just had their email/web/etc. server die on them (hardware issue), and is looking for an inexpensive replacement. If you either have an older server kicking around that you'd like to pass along, or if you can point me to somewhere (like an equipment sale) that may have a box that'll fit the bill, I'd love to hear about it. (We're hoping for something less expensive (or better equipped for the same price) than the new $3000 box that we've been quoted.) Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. :) The main requirements that I was given for a replacement is: dual power supplies 6 drive bays PC-based (Intel/AMD and the like) Plusses: larger amount of hard drive space (the biggest plus) rack-mount Compaq better processor or memory SCSI hot-swappable drives The box will eventually be running Windows 2000 Server and Exchange (but the box that died was a Pentium (something) @200MHz and managed ok (SMALL startup company), so processor speed/memory isn't a major issue). The box will preferrably be running RAID5. As it's a W2k networked site, there's probably going to be a bunch of emailed Office files, so a large amount of HD space is what we're going for. If you need any more information about our needs, feel free to email me. If you don't quite know if the system that you have will work out for us, let me know anyways and I can pass the info along to our main IT guy. Again, thanks in advance for any pointers you can send! -- --==*==-- --==*==-- Michelle R. Vadeboncoeur --==*==-- --==*==-- mrv(a)kluge.net: http://www.kluge.net/~mrv/

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