linux-0.95c known bugs

Well, only one known bug so far, but a couple of problems. I thought I'd
mention them before anyone else does, and we'll call them "features" :^)

The BUG:

  when using the readdir() system call, linux incorrectly doesn't let go
  of the last buffer used for reading: this results in the buffer being
  marked as used (and if you use readdir() heavily, the counter will
  eventually wrap around, which might result in incorrect marking as
  "not used"). This bug happily isn't easy to find: no current binary
  uses the readdir() system call unless you have gotten your hands on
  the new VFS gcc-2.1 release. Thanks to Remy Card for finding this
  one.

  Not too bad a bug though: the fix is very easy. Add a 'brelse(bh);'
  in the minix_readdir() function, like this:

	if (i) {
		put_fs_long(de->inode,&dirent->d_ino);
		put_fs_byte(0,i+dirent->d_name);
		put_fs_word(i,&dirent->d_reclen);
		return i;

  should really be :

	if (i) {
		put_fs_long(de->inode,&dirent->d_ino);
		put_fs_byte(0,i+dirent->d_name);
		put_fs_word(i,&dirent->d_reclen);
+ brelse (bh);
		return i;

  That is, just add the brelse before the early return. Sorry for the
  lack of real cdiffs - I'm not at home right now, and the above was
  taken directly from the bug-report mail.

The problems:

  I've had one report that the floppy-driver in versions 0.95x breaks
  when accessing drive nr 2. It doesn't on my machine, but I'd
  appreciate it if people would test it out, and mail me about any
  problems. So far, only one report, but that's one too many.

  0.95c doesn't correctly keep track of the 'rss' field in the
  task-structure. A fix was already posted (and nothing breaks even if
  you don't apply the fix - ps just gives slightly incorrect output)

  And the expected troubles with the change of 'a.out.h' - the old gdb
  doesn't recognize new executables etc.

As soon as I get my own sources cleaned up, I'll send out a new binary
for the 0.95c+ kernel to the ftp-sites. I've gotten a few mails from
people unable to recompile everything - either because of lack of
diskspace or some other problem. Tomorrow I'll put the new kernel image
on nic.funet.fi and tsx-11 - it's basically the 0.95c kernel + the above
bugfix + the lp-patches (somewhat edited by me).

		Linus

<README-0.95c+>

This is release 0.95c+ of the linux kernel - it contains some
enhancements and bugfixes to the 0.95a kernel, as well as some minor
fixes relative to the last alpha-patch (0.95c).  The release is
available as

- binary		(bootimage-0.95c+.Z)
- full source		(linux-0.95c+.tar.Z)
- patches rel. to 0.95c	(diff-0.95c.c+.Z)
- patches rel. to 0.95a	(diff-0.95a.c+.Z)

NOTE TO PATCHERS!! Before patching, do this:
 - make an empty include-file linux/include/checkpoint.h
 - rename linux/kernel/math/math_emulate.c as just emulate.c
That is, from the linux source directory do:

	$ > include/checkpoint.h
	$ mv kernel/math/math_emulate.c kernel/math/emulate.c

Also note that patching from the 0.95a version is probably not worth it
as it's easier to get the complete new sources.

Although I'm making binaries and the full source available, this isn't
really a major release: there is no new rootdisk, and this is more "my
current kernel" and not really tested (I put in the last changes 5
minutes before packing all this up).

The reason I'm making this available is that with the advent of gcc-2.1
and the VFS-library the old kernel doesn't really do everything the new
libraries want: the readdir system call is needed to get things working.
The default compiler after this release is considered to be gcc-2.0 or
higher (although 1.40 still works - you don't /have/ to change).  People
who are unable or unwilling to patch a new kernel shouldn't be unable to
run the new binaries.

This kernel should be totally backwards compatible, so no binaries
should break.  I resisted adding the changed mount() system call into
this release: the next major release will have a third parameter for
mount() - the filesystem type name (ie mount /dev/xxx /mnt minix).

Fixes relative to 0.95c:

- corrected two minor bugs in readdir() (thanks to R Card)

- lp-patches are in.  I've edited them a bit, and will probably do some
  more editing in the future, but they seem to work fine.

- 8-bit ISO latin output to the console (ie part of Johan Myreens
  general latin-1 patches: the keyboard patches aren't there)

- other minor bug-fixes (thanks to HH Bergman for noticing the
  timer-table bug)

Things I haven't had time to look into yet:

- select still has some problems
- reports that VC-output sometimes isdiscarded (never seen it myself)
- probably other things I've simply forgot...

			Linus