Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 20 Nov 2000 09:31:15 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 20 Nov 2000 09:31:05 -0500 Received: from smtp02.mrf.mail.rcn.net ([207.172.4.61]:32230 "EHLO smtp02.mrf.mail.rcn.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 20 Nov 2000 09:30:53 -0500 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 09:00:47 -0500 (EST) From: "Mohammad A. Haque" To: "Charles Turner, Ph.D." cc: Subject: Re: Defective Red Hat Distribution poorly represents Linux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org You're complaining on the wrong list. On Mon, 20 Nov 2000, Charles Turner, Ph.D. wrote: > > I tried to help a friend this weekend convert to Linux. > He lives in Upstate New York, so it was a long trip from > Cambridge, Massachusetts. > > He has a Dual Pentium III, 600 MHz TYAN "Thunderbolt". > It has a built-in Adaptec SCSI controller and Intel > 100-base-T Ethernet controller. It also has 1/2 Gbytes > of RAM. It's a superb machine. > > It had been running Windows 2000 "Professional". Several months > ago, he purchased Red Hat "DELUXE" version 6.2. He was unable to > install it. I convinced him that installation was easy. > > I was terribly wrong. This Red Hat version is irrevocably defective. > > (1) It will not create a bootable disk because it forgets > to load scsi_mod.o, and sd_mod.o before it loads > aic7xxx.o > /etc/conf.modules was found to contain only aic7xxx > as an alias for scsi_hostadapter. > > (2) Once I made a bootable diskette from a working machine > at home (200 miles round-trip distance), I was able to > install its supplied kernel version 2.2.14-5.0, and > 2.2.14-5.0smp into the LILO boot sequence. > > (3) It "sort of" worked. However, network daemons kept > dropping core. X would eventually crash, leaving the > terminal in an unusable state, etc. > > (4) It is impossible to build a known working kernel on the > machine because the linker, `ld` crashes: > > Script started on Sun Nov 19 19:11:55 2000 > [root@merrimac linux-2.2.17]# make dep > gcc -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -o scripts/mkdep scripts/mkdep.c > collect2: ld terminated with signal 11 [Segmentation fault], core dumped > make: *** [scripts/mkdep] Error 1 > [root@merrimac linux-2.2.17]# ld --version > GNU ld 2.9.5 > Copyright 1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of > the GNU General Public License. This program has absolutely no warranty. > Supported emulations: > elf_i386 > i386linux > [root@merrimac linux-2.2.17]# cd scripts > [root@merrimac scripts]# gcc -o mkdep.o mkdep.c > collect2: ld terminated with signal 11 [Segmentation fault], core dumped > [root@merrimac scripts]# gcc -c -o mkdep.o mkdep.c > [root@merrimac scripts]# ld -o mkdep mkdep.o > Segmentation fault (core dumped) > > [root@merrimac scripts]# strace ld -o mkdep mkdep.c > execve("/usr/bin/ld", ["ld", "-o", "mkdep", "mkdep.o"], [/* 20 vars */]) = 0 > brk(0) = 0x807bb84 > old_mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x40014000 > open("/etc/ld.so.preload", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) > open("/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=16290, ...}) = 0 > old_mmap(NULL, 16290, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x40015000 > close(3) = 0 > open("/usr/lib/libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=314936, ...}) = 0 > read(3, "\177ELF\1\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0\3\0\1\0\0\0\320\242"..., 4096) = 4096 > old_mmap(NULL, 279260, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x40019000 > mprotect(0x40059000, 17116, PROT_NONE) = 0 > old_mmap(0x40059000, 16384, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED, 3, 0x3f000) = 0x40059000 > old_mmap(0x4005d000, 732, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x4005d000 > close(3) = 0 > open("/lib/libdl.so.2", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=75131, ...}) = 0 > read(3, "\177ELF\1\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0\3\0\1\0\0\0\340\34"..., 4096) = 4096 > old_mmap(NULL, 12428, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x4005e000 > mprotect(0x40060000, 4236, PROT_NONE) = 0 > old_mmap(0x40060000, 8192, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED, 3, 0x1000) = 0x40060000 > close(3) = 0 > open("/lib/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=4101324, ...}) = 0 > read(3, "\177ELF\1\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0\3\0\1\0\0\0\210\212"..., 4096) = 4096 > old_mmap(NULL, 1001564, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x40062000 > mprotect(0x4014f000, 30812, PROT_NONE) = 0 > old_mmap(0x4014f000, 16384, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED, 3, 0xec000) = 0x4014f000 > old_mmap(0x40153000, 14428, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x40153000 > close(3) = 0 > mprotect(0x40062000, 970752, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE) = 0 > mprotect(0x40062000, 970752, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC) = 0 > munmap(0x40015000, 16290) = 0 > personality(PER_LINUX) = 0 > getpid() = 763 > getrusage(RUSAGE_SELF, {ru_utime={0, 0}, ru_stime={0, 0}, ...}) = 0 > brk(0) = 0x807bb84 > brk(0x807bbbc) = 0x807bbbc > brk(0x807c000) = 0x807c000 > open("/usr/share/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat64(0x3, 0xbfffb84c) = -1 ENOSYS (Function not implemented) > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2265, ...}) = 0 > old_mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x40015000 > read(3, "# Locale name alias data base.\n#"..., 4096) = 2265 > brk(0x807d000) = 0x807d000 > read(3, "", 4096) = 0 > close(3) = 0 > munmap(0x40015000, 4096) = 0 > open("/usr/share/i18n/locale.alias", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) > open("/usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0 > close(3) = 0 > open("/usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/SYS_LC_MESSAGES", O_RDONLY) = 3 > fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=44, ...}) = 0 > old_mmap(NULL, 44, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x40015000 > close(3) = 0 > stat("/usrusr/lib/ldscripts", 0xbffffa7c) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) > brk(0x807f000) = 0x807f000 > brk(0x8080000) = 0x8080000 > brk(0x8081000) = 0x8081000 > brk(0x8082000) = 0x8082000 > brk(0x8083000) = 0x8083000 > unlink("mkdep") = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) > open("mkdep", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = 3 > brk(0x8084000) = 0x8084000 > brk(0x8088000) = 0x8088000 > brk(0x8089000) = 0x8089000 > brk(0x808a000) = 0x808a000 > open("mkdep.o", O_RDONLY) = 4 > fstat(4, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=9716, ...}) = 0 > old_mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x40016000 > _llseek(4, 0, [0], SEEK_SET) = 0 > read(4, "\177ELF\1\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\1\0\3\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 4096) = 4096 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > _llseek(4, 4096, [4096], SEEK_SET) = 0 > read(4, "E\364\215\24E\0\0\0\0\241\0\0\0\0f\213\24\20\203\342\10"..., 4096) = 4096 > _llseek(4, 8192, [8192], SEEK_SET) = 0 > --- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) --- > +++ killed by SIGSEGV +++ > [root@merrimac scripts]# exit > exit > > Script done on Sun Nov 19 19:14:35 2000 > > I can even see obvious bugs in the trace, i.e., : > > stat("/usrusr/lib/ldscripts", 0xbffffa7c) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) > ----------^^^ > > Although this was not the reason for the seg-fault. > > > (5) I returned home (200 mile round trip), removed my > SCSI disks from my home machine, and then returned > and installed them in my friend's machine. The > machine worked perfectly with Linux version 2.2.17, > and gcc-2.7.2.3, Binutils-2.8.1.0, etc., the standard > stuff. > > This shows that the problems are not because of a > defective machine. > > I cloned my disks to his disks and, he's running. > however, I don't have all the GUI stuff installed that > he likes (needs). My disks had been built up over > over several years by Richard Johnson, a frequent > contributor to Linux. > > (6) I have been told that I could get a statically-linked > version of `ld`, plus another 'C' compiler statically- > linked so that these don't use the possibly defective > dynamic libraries. I could then build a decent working > system using sources available on the Internet. > > From a customer's perspective, this is absurd. When > a customer purchases a "shrink-wrapped" operating > system he expects it to work. > > (7) This fiasco is an example of why Linux is in big trouble. > Once Linux obtained visibility, it became necessary for > the most visible distributors and VARs to provide a high > quality product. > > Red Hat, provably does not. Red Hat employees dominate > Linux kernel development, even moderating (read controlling) > what will be and what will not be done within this operating > system. > > As repeatably demonstrated on this list, Red Hat employees > spend much time denigrating others at the expense of providing > a useful product. > > (8) Now I'm pretty sure that this email will generate a lot of > flames. So be it. Linux, as an operating system to replace > windows, has gone to hell because of at least one distributor's > selling of garbage. There may be more such defective distributions > out there. I certainly don't know what to purchase for my > next attempt at a "shrink-wrap" installation. > > > Very Truly Yours, > > Charles Turner > > Member(s) IEEE, IEEE Computer Society, AIAA > > I speak only for myself, which is enough of a problem. > > > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ > -- ===================================================================== Mohammad A. Haque http://www.haque.net/ mhaque@haque.net "Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Project Lead Don't drink and derive." --Unknown http://wm.themes.org/ batmanppc@themes.org ===================================================================== - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/