From yci@netcom.com Mon Feb 22 09:44:23 1993 Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.newprod,alt.cdrom,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,gnu.misc.discuss From: yci@netcom.com (Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated) Subject: Linux/GNU/X UNIX(R) clone for PC's: beta CDROM now available Followup-To: comp.os.linux Summary: turnkey system, complete source, tcp/ip, multimedia + X11 contrib tree Keywords: Yggdrasil Linux GNU X Networking TCP/IP TeX X-windows Organization: Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 07:43:33 GMT THE YGGDRASIL LINUX/GNU/X OPERATING SYSTEM DISTRIBUTION BETA CDROM CONTENTS: Executive summary Contents of the beta release How to get more information Hardware requirements How to get a free copy How to buy a copy Reseller list Service vendors Direct sales order form EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 18 February 1993 Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated is now shipping a beta CDROM release of a bootable Linux/GNU/X-based UNIX(R) clone for PC compatibles, tentatively named LGX. The system uses version 0.99.5 of the Linux kernel, which is being developed from scratch by Linus Torvalds and an international group of skilled contributors working over the internet to complete the GNU project. LGX beta is the first PC UNIX(R) clone to include multimedia facilities as part of its base configuration. The beta release also features X-windows, networking, a complete source tree (including X windows and TeX), a demonstration facility, an easy installation mechanism, and the ability to run directly from the CDROM. Some of the otherwise unused space on the CDROM has been used to distribute other interesting software. On the beta release, this space holds a copy of the X11R5 MIT contrib tree with an updated version of the Andrew multimedia system. Future releases will include different things in the otherwise unused CDROM space. The LGX beta CDROM is in standard ISO-9660 format with Rockridge extensions, so it can easily be browsed from other types of computers or other operating systems. Yggdrasil is greatly indebted to the many free software developers whose efforts have made this release possible. As a token of appreciation, anyone who has made a major contribution to the LGX beta software can get a free copy, which includes the CD, manual, and boot floppies. Otherwise, the price is $60. The beta release plus the first production release can be purchased together for $99. You can order directly from Yggdrasil or through a reseller in the United States or Europe. For more information, call (510) 526-7531 or send mail to yggdrasil@netcom.com. Reseller and service vendor inquiries welcome. UNIX is a registered trademark of Unix System Laboratories, Inc. Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated has no affiliation with Unix System Laboratories, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS OF THE BETA RELEASE Almost every piece of software on the distribution has been updated since the previous December 8th alpha release. The 34,557 files on this plug-and-play CDROM include: SOURCE CODE o Complete source tree, including X (with Xfree86 1.1 code) and TeX sources. You cannot yet do a complete build from the top of this tree, but you should be able to easily find the source code for any binary on the CD. o SPECIAL FOR THE BETA RELEASE: the complete X11R5 MIT contrib tree with the Andrew 5.0 tree replaced by a snapshot of an Andrew 5.1 tree in the process of being ported to Linux (this is not automatically installed as part of any installation, but it makes the CD useful for reference even after the beta release has been superseded), USER INTERFACE FACILITIES: X-WINDOWS AND MULTIMEDIA o X windows (X11R5) for S3, 8514/A and VGA displays using ET4000, ET3000, Paradise, Trident 8900c, Genoa, or ATI VGA Wonder chipsets. (NOTE: due to trade secrecy Diamond Stealth is not supported), o The full motion video (MPEG) viewer from Professor Larry Rowe's research group at UC Berkeley. o Sound players and Hannu Savolainen's drivers for the AdLib, SoundBlaster 1.0-2.0 (and compatibles including ThunderBoard and Ati Stereo F/X), SoundBlaster Pro, and ProAudioSpectrum 16. (ProAudioSpectrum+ is not supported yet. The original ProAudioSpectrum is not supported nor is it likely to be supported the near future.) o CD audio support, o Tcl, Tk, wish and expect. Tcl is a scripting language ("tool command language") written by Professor John Ousterhout at UC Berkeley. Tk is a toolkit that allows one to quickly write X-windows programs in Tcl. Wish is a Tk/Tcl interpretter. The beta distribution includes versions of wish with support for "drag and drop" applications, and compound documents and hypertext. Expect is a system written in Tcl Don Libes that "performs programmed dialogue with other interactive programs." ETHERNET NETWORKING: TCP/IP and NFS o simple installation script, o clients: finger, ftp, nslookup and its cousins, ping, rcp, rlogin, rsh, talk, telnet, tftp. o daemons: fingerd, ftpd, inetd, ntalkd, rshd, telnetd, tftpd, o name server support, o ethernet card drivers which support the following cards and their clones: - 3Com 3c503, 3c503/16 - NE1000, NE2000, National Semiconductor, Cabletron - Western Digital WD8003, WD8013, SMC elite - Western Digital wd8003/wd8013 o user-level NFS daemon, o support for mounting NFS filesystems, SYSTEM V/SCO-RELATED FEATURES o System V primitives for interprocess communication and shared memory, o the Xenix file system support, o MS-DOS filesystem (usable on both floppy disks and hard disk partitions), o a BIOS emulator that can run DOS, DOCUMENT PREPARATION o ghostscript: a postscript interpreter for X windows, faxes and a variety of printers, o TeX and groff typesetting packages with X previewers, DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT o elvis and GNU emacs text editors, o the standard Xlib/Xt X windows libraries, o the GNU C and C++ compilers o f2c FORTRAN-to-C translator, o GNU debugger o GNU make, o bison and flex FILESYSTEMS o a BSD-like filesystem with long file names, symbolic links, and FIFO's, o iso9660 CDROM filesystem, plus Rockridge support, o MINIX filesystem, o DOS and Xenix fileystems (mentioned above) MISCELLANEOUS o Support for the Sony CDU31A (non-scsi) CDROM drive, o kermit and Z-modem telecommunications programs. HOW TO GET MORE INFORMATION The anonymous FTP area netcom.com:pub/yggdrasil contains more information, including an "ls -RC" listing of the CD's contents, reseller information, and copies of the manual in texinfo, DVI and postscript. If you want to view the DVI version of the manual with xdvi, you can go to the table of contents with the command "84g". If you have questions, you can call (510) 526-7531, fax (510) 528-8508, or send mail to yggdrasil@netcom.com. REQUIRED HARDWARE CPU: Any 386/486-class CPU RAM: 8 megabytes CDROM drive (only required for installation): Sony CDU-31A with its standard controller, or a SCSI CDROM drive attached to one of the following controllers. Adaptec 1542B or 1740 Future Domain TMC-1660 or TMC-1680 Ultrastor 14F or 34F Western Digital 7000faast HARD DISK SPACE LGX can share your hard disk with DOS or another operating system. The beta release can be configured to use approximately 5MB (by running system programs directly from the CDROM), 100MB (source tree remains on the CDROM), 250MB (everything is installed on the hard disk). You can use MFM, RLL, IDE, ESDI or SCSI hard disks. If you use a SCSI hard disk, then you have to use one of the SCSI controllers listed above or a Seagate ST-01, ST-02, Future Domain TMC-88x series or other SCSI controller based on the Future Domain TMC-950 chip for your hard disk only, but you cannot use these additional cards to control a CDROM drive. SUPPORTED HARDWARE ETHERNET CARDS - 3Com 3c503, 3c503/16 - NE1000, NE2000, National Semiconductor, Cabletron - Western Digital WD8003, WD8013, SMC elite - Western Digital wd8003/wd8013 SOUND CARDS - AdLib - SoundBlaster 1.0-2.0 (and compatibles including ThunderBoard and Ati Stereo F/X) - SoundBlaster Pro, - ProAudioSpectrum 16. (ProAudioSpectrum+ is not supported yet. The original ProAudioSpectrum is not supported nor is it likely to be supported the near future.) MULTIPORT SERIAL CARDS - AST Fourport - Accent Async 4 driver is included, but not compiled in. You cannot currently use an Ultrastor SCSI controller with the Accent Async 4 drive compiled in. SERVICE VENDORS The LGX beta manual lists a small number of vendors offering support services related to the Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X distribution. If you or your business would like to offer a service related to LGX, send a description of your business and contact information to yggdrasil@netcom.com. There may also be an advertising section in the production release manuals if there is interest. It would be nice to have a longer list of support vendors to disseminate in the publicity for the production release. If you have ideas for cooperation that you'd like explore, please get in touch. HOW TO GET A FREE COPY If you are a principal maintainer or author of any software or documentation in the distribution, or if you are making some other major contribution that supports the development of the software on this CD (e.g., you organize an FTP site, run a BBS, etc.), then you can get a free copy of the beta release by sending mail to yggdarsil@netcom.com with your name, your postal mailing address and a pointer to your contribution. HOW TO BUY A COPY The beta release is $60, or you can save money and buy the beta release plus the production release when it ships for $99. You can buy a copy from Yggdrasil or from one of the resellers listed below. Yggdrasil's shipping charges and money-back guarantee are described on the direct sales order form below. Resellers have their own shipping charges and return procedures. Yggdrasil does not take credit cards, but most of the resellers do. RESELLER LIST MAIL ORDER, EUROPE: Wasaware Oy CD-ROM Mail Order Palosaarentie 31 Karl-Marx-Ring 148 SF-65200 VAASA 8000 Munich 83 FINLAND GERMANY phone/fax: +358 61 173365 phone: ++49 89 6378421 MAIL ORDER, UNITED STATES: Austin Code Works InfoMagic, Inc. Walnut Creek CDROM 11100 Leafwood Lane Post Office Box 338 1547 Palos Vendes Mall, Suite 260 Austin, Texas 78750 Pennington NJ 08534 Walnut Creek, California 94596 (512) 258-0785 (609) 683-5501 (510) 674-0783 fax (512) 258-1342 fax (609) 683-1342 fax (510) 674-0821 COMPUTER STORES (SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA): Quality Computers Positive Solutions 2435 Channing Way 10032 San Pablo Avenue Berkeley, CA 94704 El Cerrito, CA 94530 (510) 548-2245 (510) 527-6908 fax (510) 548-0442 fax (510) 527-3823 DIRECT SALES ORDER FORM: -------------------------------CUT HERE------------------------------------- ORDER FORM Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X Operating System, Beta Release CDROM SHIP TO: ______________________________ DAYTIME PHONE: ________________ ______________________________ EMAIL: ________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ Item Quantity (US dollars) Linux/GNU/X beta release (includes _____ X $60 = $________ CDROM, 3.5" and 5.25" boot floppies and manual) Linux/GNU/X beta release + 1st production _____ X $99 = $________ release (includes CDROM, 3.5" and 5.25" boot floppies for both releases) California residents add 8.25% sales tax $________ Shipping & handling (US & Canada: $5 flat fee; other $________ countries: $15 per shipment--i.e., $30 for the $99 beta + 1st production release offer). Optional tax deductible contribution $________ to the Free Software Foundation Total $________ Enclose money order, international money order (available at the post office in your country) or check drawn on a US or Canadian bank, payable in US dollars, to "Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated" and mail to: Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated CDROM sales PO Box 8418 Berkeley, CA 94707-8418 If this order is received after the production release has been made, you will receive only the most current production release. This order form expires on March 22, 1993. Call (510)526-7531 or fax (510) 528-8508 for a new order form after that date. All offers and prices are subject to change at any time without notice. If you have a problem with this software, you can return it within 30 days for a full refund. Beyond that, THERE IS NO OTHER WARRANTY FOR ANY OF THIS SOFTWARE (not the beta distribution, and not even the production distributions). THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.