OS/2 Professional/OS2PRO194.ISO/os2/com/utils/elm/readme

Text File | 1991-01-18 | 7.8 KB | 195 lines

This is the 2.3 (USENET) version of the Elm Mail System

See the NOTICE and Instruct files for further details.

It is IMPERITIVE that all users rerun newalias after installing
Elm 2.3 when upgrading from a previous version.  Elm's behavoir
with aliases could be unpredictible if this step is not performed.

Where to find more info on Elm:
   Much discussion on Elm including interim bug fixes, work arounds
and future plans occurs in the Usenet news group comp.mail.elm.  Also
a monthly status report on Elm is posted there.  This status report
lists the archive sites that have the patches to Elm as well as the
lastest version.

Patches to Elm are posted to comp.mail.elm and comp.sources.bugs as
soon as they are released.  They are posted to comp.sources.unix shortly
thereafter, to allow time for feedback of problems in the patches.
Patches should be available from the archive sites, or from the
archive server.  Mail [e-mail] for details on how to
use the archive server program.  Ask it for help.

Limitations/Problems you might encounter in compiling and installing Elm:

    On some Unix 5.3.2 systems, if only a runtime version of the
O/S has been installed, not all the include files exist for compiling
curses.c.  The ptem.h include file contains the window sizing structure
on this version.  Either comment out the window sizing code, or install
the remaining include files from the development system.

    If you run a nonstandard configuration of Mail, such as Xenix
running smail, Configure can get confused as to where to place items.
Be sure and check the config.sh file for the correct placement before
continuning.  If changes are necessary, rerun Configure and fix the
file before exiting.

    On SCO Xenix, if you are all mail is from user anonymous,
this is because the mail delivery agent should be
/usr/lib/mail/execmail instead of /usr/bin/rmail or /bin/rmail.

    On Next's it is necessary to answer -bsd for the
Any additional cc flags? question and -lsys_s for the
Any additional libraries? question within Configure.

    On some systems, especially those based on the AT&T Port to
286's the -O flag of the compiler produces improper code causing
segmentation violations.  If this happens, recompile the code without
the -O flag.  This has been seen with Microport SysV/AT type systems.

    The Configuration script has been known to exceed the default
stack size in Unix 286 sh's.  If Configure does not run correctly on
this type of machine increase the stack size and rerun it.  On
Microport SysV/AT machines, Configure might run correctly under ksh.
Obtain ksh from Microport (available to current version owners without
additional charge) and rerun Configure using it.  Xenix 286 users may
have the same problem, but they can work around it by changing the
stack size within the shell as reported a Xenix 286 Elm user:
> I had the same problems as everyone else is reporting on Microports *nix under
> SCO XENIX 2.2.1.
>
> The solution is simple, up the stack size for /bin/sh. I used
>
> # mv /bin/sh /bin/sh.old
> # cp /bin/sh.old /bin/sh
> # fixhdr -F 8000 /bin/sh
>
> This may seem a bit over the top, but I put it back after!
>
> # mv /bin/sh /bin/sh.rm
> # mv /bin/sh.old /bin/sh
>
> Then wait till nobody is using /bin/sh.rm then
>
> # rm /bin/sh.rm
>
> That way you preserve your old shell, ( ie you don't break it ), but you
> get to use Configure without bus errors etc.
>
> I hope that of use
>
> Keith
> --
> UUCP ..!uunet!mcvax!ukc!slxsys!g4lzv!keith  | Keith Brazington
> Smart mail  [e-mail]            | 5b Northgate Rochester Kent UK
> Ampanet  [44.131.8.1] and [44.131.8.3]        | [phone] Voice
> Packet  G4LZV @ GB7UWS -- G4LZV USENET BB --| [phone] Data v22,v22bis
You might have to experiment and try values from 7000 to 8800.

    Also on Microport SysV/AT Machines, the C compiler produces
improper code for one of the arithmetic calls.  To fix this problem it
is necessary to reduce the complexity of the statement, as reported by
one of our testers here is the symptom and his patch.  Being this is a
compiler bug on only one system, we make the information available, but
not incorporate it in the main release.  Note, this may effect other
areas of Elm, and in the future, Microport may even fix this problem.
> I finally tracked down the bug that was causing the lengthy delays when
> the first message was displayed.  The Microport 80286 C compiler was
> generating bad code for the computation of padding in showmsg.c.  The
> compiler generated scratch variables in the expression were being
> located at weird offsets in the stack segment.  This caused the program
> to stall while the kernel attempted to grow the stack segment to a size
> that was large enough to contain the scratch variables.  This explains
> why it only happened the first time a message was displayed.  Here is a
> patch that fixes the problem:
>
> *** showmsg.c.dist    Fri Mar 17 21:08:37 1989
> --- showmsg.c    Sat Mar 18 06:14:04 1989
> ***************
> *** 280,289
>                  atoi(current_header->year), current_header->time);
>
>         /* truncate or pad title2 portion on the right
> !        * so that line fits exactly */
> !       padding =
> !         COLUMNS -
> !         (strlen(title1) + (buf_len=strlen(title2)) + strlen(title3));
>
>         sprintf(titlebuf, "%s%-*.*s%s\n", title1, buf_len+padding,
>             buf_len+padding, title2, title3);
>
> --- 280,292 -----
>                  atoi(current_header->year), current_header->time);
>
>         /* truncate or pad title2 portion on the right
> !        * so that line fits exactly, expression has been
> !        * simplified to avoid bug in Microport 80286
> !        * C compiler */
> !       padding = COLUMNS;
> !       padding -= strlen(title1);
> !       padding -= (buf_len = strlen(title2));
> !       padding -= strlen(title3);
>
>         sprintf(titlebuf, "%s%-*.*s%s\n", title1, buf_len+padding,
>             buf_len+padding, title2, title3);
>
> --
> John A. Limpert
> UUCP:    [e-mail], [e-mail], uunet!n3dmc!johnl


    Some versions of GNUmake are slightly incompatible with
standard make.  If you plan on using GNUmake instead of standard make,
you might need to change instances of:
    -$(MAKEFLAGS)
to:
    $(MAKEFLAGS)
in all Makefiles that contain that construct.

>From pyrdc!uunet!mcvax!sauna.hut.fi!jkp Thu Jul 20 23:06:10 1989
>From: Jyrki Kuoppala <pyrdc!uunet!mcvax!cs.hut.fi!jkp>
>Subject: ELM diff for Altos Worknet
>Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.
>There's a bug in the Altos Worknet that makes it impossible to change
>a file's access time if the file is on another system (via Worknet).
>To make elm work if you use /usr/mail over Worknet, you need to apply
>the following patch and define WORKNET when compiling leavembox.c.
>
>Note: WORKNET needs to be defined somewhere, the easiest thing is
>to add it manually to src/Makefile.  That's how I did it.
>
>*** elm2.2/src/leavembox.c    Tue Jul 18 20:50:32 1989
>--- elm2.2.altos/src/leavembox.c    Tue Jul 18 23:36:11 1989
>***************
>*** 557,562 ****
>--- 557,565 ----
>      utime_buffer.modtime= buf.st_mtime;
>  #endif
>
>+ #ifndef WORKNET
>+     /* Braindamaged WorkNet from Altos doesn't know how to change
>+        a file's access time if it is on another system */
>  #ifdef BSD
>      if (utime(cur_folder, utime_buffer) != 0) {
>  #else
>***************
>*** 569,574 ****
>--- 572,578 ----
>        error2("Error %s trying to change file %s access time.",
>             error_name(errno), cur_folder);
>      }
>+ #endif  /* WORKNET */
>
>
>      mailfile_size = bytes(cur_folder);
>
>
>Jyrki Kuoppala    Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.
>Internet :        [e-mail]           [128.214.3.119]
>BITNET :          [e-mail]      Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks!

                    Syd Weinstein
                    Elm Coordinator
                    [e-mail]
                    (dsinc!elm)