Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bcstec!voodoo!ssc-vax!bcsaic!paula
From: paula@bcsaic.UUCP (Paul Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Progress report
Message-ID: <29883@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 11 Aug 90 02:08:36 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services ATC, Seattle
Lines: 48

I've been able to spend a little time lately on Minix, and here's
a brief summary of where I'm at.

I've had a 32-bit 1.5.10 kernel running on my 386 for a couple weeks 
now.  I think it would perform better if I could figure out how to 
get more than 30 buffers.  If I build a kernel with more than 30
buffers, it gets a GP fault as it starts loading the ramdisk.  Has
anybody using Bruce's 386 kernel stuff found the key to this little
puzzle?  Other than that little snag, Bruce's new package slid right
in.  Thanks Bruce!

I installed Gordon Irlam's virtual consoles patch a couple weeks
ago and love it.  I've got things set up with two virtual screens
and log in as myself on one and root on the other.  It's real handy.
Thanks Gordon!

I installed Ken Hendrickson's 43-line EGA patches recently.  It took
a bit of care, 'cause some of Ken's changes collided with Gordon's,
especially in console.c.  It turns out that Ken's code puts my 
clone VGA in 50-line mode.  I spent the night before last fixing
things so everybody knows the screen is 50 lines long, and it's
working well.  Ken's patches also set the interrupt character to
^C and the kill character to ^U, just like my Sun at work.  The only
problem I've seen so far is the fact that mined has the size of
the screen hard-coded into it.  But who needs mined, when I've got
vi?  Thanks Ken!

Last night I installed elvis.  I started with the sources that were
posted early this year by Steve Kirkendall and applied Steve's patches
of Jan 23 and Peter Valkenburg's patches of Feb 12.  I compiled it
with Bruce's compiler, and had one little problem.  The vi.h header
file declares redrawpre and redrawpost 'extern', but vars.c includes
vi.h and then declares actual storage for redrawpre and redrawpost.
The linker complained about unresolved externals.  I #defined a
symbol in vars.c and used it to conditionally compile the extern
declarations of those variables in vi.h.  It was a quick hack, so
I don't think I'll post diffs.  I guess this wasn't a problem for
any compilers other than bcc?  It's great to be back down to just
one editor for all the Unix machines I use!  Thanks Steve!

And thank you, Andy, for Minix!  This is fun!

Paul Allen

-- 
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Paul L. Allen                       | pallen@atc.boeing.com
Boeing Advanced Technology Center   | ...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!pallen