I wonder if dosemu is in debian 8 or 9 and if that would work?

I'm no linux expert. On ubuntu 19.10 I just did "apt-get install
dosemu" and followed the instructions on the magickaBBS wiki for dos
doors.

Yeah, I better go try again in case I did a typo in there.. :)

If it's not in debian 10 where I am, I'll try the debian 8 or 9 repos and
see what I can do.

They also did away with /bin and /sbin in debian 10. /bin is a symlink to /usr/bin and sbin is a symlink to /usr/sbin. At least /usr/sbin still
exists in debian 10.

Ttyl :-)
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Hello Apam,

I have eliminated all the chatter when running doors with dosemu by
ending the dosemu execution line with 2>&1>/dev/null but I still see..

ERROR: unknown window sizes li=0 co=0, setting to 80x25

Do you know if there is a way to tell dosemu to use 80x25, or another
window size if needed?

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

I have eliminated all the chatter when running doors with dosemu by
ending the dosemu execution line with 2>&1>/dev/null but I still see..

ERROR: unknown window sizes li=0 co=0, setting to 80x25

I use to solve this by calling "stty cols 80 rows 25" just before calling dosemu.

That may work for you, I don't really have all the details of your implementation.

Cheers!

|15 ß Þ |15StackFault |08<|03.|11.|15P|11h|03EN|11o|15M|11.|03.|08>
|11 Ý ß |11The Bottomless Abyss BBS
|03 ß Ýß |03ssh|08.|072222 |08/ |03telnet|08.|072023 |08/ |03https
|08 ÜþÞ |08bbs|07.|08bottomlessabyss|07.|08net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Bottomless Abyss BBS * bbs.bottomlessabyss.net (21:1/172)

Hello Apam,

I have eliminated all the chatter when running doors with dosemu by
ending the dosemu execution line with 2>&1>/dev/null but I still
see..

ERROR: unknown window sizes li=0 co=0, setting to 80x25

Do you know if there is a way to tell dosemu to use 80x25, or
another window size if needed?

Magicka should be telling it itself.. there should be no need to run
stty.

You shouldn't be redirecting stdout to /dev/null because that's where
the serial data prints.

Do you have $_com1 = "virtual" in your dosemu config?

Andrew

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand - telnet://magickabbs.com:2023/ (21:1/126)

On 04 Feb 2020 at 11:22a, Al pondered and said...

I have eliminated all the chatter when running doors with dosemu by
ending the dosemu execution line with 2>&1>/dev/null but I still see..

Just a drive-by comment, but that redirection probably isn't
quite what you want.

In particular, when using Bourne-like shells (ksh, bash, dash, zsh,
etc), order of redirection matters. Redirections are evaluated
left-to-right, so `2>&1>/dev/null` with redirect file descriptor
number 2 (conventionally, "standard error") to whatever file
descriptor 1 (also by convention "standard output") refers to
_at the time of redirection_, and _then_ redirect file descriptor
1 to /dev/null. Notably after both redirections are processed,
file descriptor 2 will still point to whatever 1 referred to
before 1 was redirected to /dev/null.

In other words, this doesn't redirect both stderr and stdout to
/dev/null. To do that, you want to do: `>/dev/null2>&1`.

But...what apam said.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A44 2020/02/02 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

ERROR: unknown window sizes li=0 co=0, setting to 80x25

I use to solve this by calling "stty cols 80 rows 25" just before
calling dosemu.

That may work for you, I don't really have all the details of your implementation.

Thanks. I may have caused it with a bad >/dev/null redirect. I'll keep at
it.

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Do you know if there is a way to tell dosemu to use 80x25, or
another window size if needed?

Magicka should be telling it itself.. there should be no need to
run stty.

I had 2>/dev/null at the end of the /usr/bin/dosemu ... line but I was
seeing the contents of the .bat file before the door fired up so I was
trying to eliminate that.

I didn't see the error about li=0 and co=0 before, either it flew off my
screen before I saw it, or my redirect is bad and possibly caused it.

I'll keep at it and see what I can do.

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

I have eliminated all the chatter when running doors with
dosemu by ending the dosemu execution line with 2>&1>/dev/null
but I still see..

Just a drive-by comment, but that redirection probably isn't
quite what you want.

Thanks for reading and replying to my post. Your probably right. I just recently got a couple doors setup and they seem to work just as I need
them to but I see the contents of the .bat file when I run those doors
before the door runs, so I was trying to stop that. I have been googling
trying to find a way to stop it.

In particular, when using Bourne-like shells (ksh, bash, dash, zsh,
etc), order of redirection matters. Redirections are evaluated left-to-right, so `2>&1>/dev/null` with redirect file descriptor
number 2 (conventionally, "standard error") to whatever file
descriptor 1 (also by convention "standard output") refers to
_at the time of redirection_, and _then_ redirect file descriptor
1 to /dev/null. Notably after both redirections are processed,
file descriptor 2 will still point to whatever 1 referred to
before 1 was redirected to /dev/null.

OK, I read that a couple times and will try to get that in my head.. :)

In other words, this doesn't redirect both stderr and stdout to
/dev/null. To do that, you want to do: `>/dev/null2>&1`.

I'm still not certain what I should do to eliminate the .bat file
displaying it's contents before the door runs, is 1>&2>/dev/null what I
want?

Thanks for your comments.. :)

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Do you know if there is a way to tell dosemu to use 80x25, or
another window size if needed?

Magicka should be telling it itself.. there should be no need
to run stty.

I had 2>/dev/null at the end of the /usr/bin/dosemu ... line but I
I had 2> was
seeing the contents of the .bat file before the door fired up so I
was trying to eliminate that.

It sounds like you've not got the serial port set up, when it is, only
the serial port output should be going to stdout.

Andrew

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand - telnet://magickabbs.com:2023/ (21:1/126)

seeing the contents of the .bat file before the door fired up
so I was trying to eliminate that.

It sounds like you've not got the serial port set up, when it is,
only the serial port output should be going to stdout.

It's a brand new setup so it's possible.. ;)

I just changed the redirect to 1>/dev/null and that seems to have worked.
I just see the door fire up.. none of the .bat file contents and nothing
about the cols or rows..

I am using your dosemu.conf with $_com1 = "virtual".

If you'd like to try and let me know the next time you have some free
time that would be great.. :)

Option A is the magic oracle and B is OO][ although once I have it
working I need to redo that config.

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

On 04 Feb 2020 at 04:14p, Al pondered and said...

I'm still not certain what I should do to eliminate the .bat file displaying it's contents before the door runs, is 1>&2>/dev/null what I want?

Short answer, I'm afraid I don't know why your batch file is displaying,
but that redirection is almost certainly NOT what you want.

My suspicion is that, if you opened up the .bat file itself, you'd see
it either directing itself to echo everything (I think that was a thing
in DOS batch files? I honestly don't remember, and haven't touched MSFT anything in many years. I have some vague memory of `@echo on` or
something like that at the top of the file. A quick search tells me that prepending each command with '@' will disable echoing the command as the
batch file executes and that if you add `@echo off` as the first line of
the file it won't echo the commands it executes as it runs), or it's
explicitly cat'ing itself out (e.g. it has a line like `type me.bat`).

As for the redirection, let's consider what `1>&2>/dev/null` does.

First, let's break this into discrete tokens separated by whitespace
in order to consider them in more detail. The shell will parse this
as:

1>&2 > /dev/null

The first token means, "redirect file descriptor 1 to what file
descriptor 2 points to." The _next_ two tokens (`>` and `/dev/null`)
mean, "redirect the standard output to the named file `/dev/null`.
But recall that the "standard output" is, by convention, file
descriptor 1. Thus, what this means is, "redirect file descriptor
1 to /dev/null". But recall that redirections happen _in order_,
from left to right. So the sequence of events is, "redirect fd 1
to fd 2, and then redirect fd 1 to /dev/null." The result, then,
is to simply redirect stdout to /dev/null; the first token is
essentially irrelevant as, even though it gets executed by the shell,
its effect is immediate undone by the next redirection.

Note that the syntax `1>&2` is a more explicit presentation of the
shorthand form, `>&2`.

It may be that you just want to redirect stderr, to prevent e.g.
error messages or the like from showing up. In that case, ignore
stdout entirely, and just type something like: `foo 2>/dev/null`,
which just redirects fd 2 (which again, is conventionally the standard
error) to /dev/null.

Fun historical fact: the existence of `stderr` owes itself to the
invention of pipes in 3rd Edition Research Unix. Before that, there
was no need for a separate error stream!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A44 2020/02/02 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

I just changed the redirect to 1>/dev/null and that seems to have
worked. I just see the door fire up.. none of the .bat file
contents and nothing about the cols or rows..

Yeah, you definitley don't want to do that. The $_com1 = "virtual" is
supposed to make stdout (file descriptor 1) show the serial port stream,
so you need that for Magicka's stdio redirection to capture anything.

I am using your dosemu.conf with $_com1 = "virtual".

Hmm, either it's not reading that config file, or there's something
wrong with dosemu. What version of dosemu are using?

If you'd like to try and let me know the next time you have some
free time that would be great.. :)

I just logged in and it seems to be working?

Andrew

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand - telnet://magickabbs.com:2023/ (21:1/126)

Short answer, I'm afraid I don't know why your batch file is
displaying, but that redirection is almost certainly NOT what you
want.

I'm not sure why either. If that didn't happen I wouldn't need to
redirect anything. I suppose it's not really a big deal I just prefer it
didn't do that.

My suspicion is that, if you opened up the .bat file itself, you'd
see it either directing itself to echo everything (I think that was
a thing in DOS batch files? I honestly don't remember, and haven't touched MSFT anything in many years. I have some vague memory of
`@echo on` or something like that at the top of the file. A quick
search tells me that prepending each command with '@' will disable
echoing the command as the batch file executes and that if you add
`@echo off` as the first line of the file it won't echo the
commands it executes as it runs), or it's explicitly cat'ing itself
out (e.g. it has a line like `type me.bat`).

Here's a look at the .bat file dosemu runs fire up The Magic Oracle..

@echo off
bnu /L0:38400
D:
CD \TMO
ORACLE.EXE /n%1 /dd:\tmo\node%1\dorinfo1.def
exitemu

I'm using dosemu with FreeDOS, so it might be different with another
version of DOS, I'm not sure.

Fun historical fact: the existence of `stderr` owes itself to the invention of pipes in 3rd Edition Research Unix. Before that,
there was no need for a separate error stream!

In my day to day computing I rarely need to redirect anything so when I
do I always have to look it up. When I have a problem with ./configure or
make I need to redirect the output to a file so I can post it. Most times
I also need to grab both stdout and stderr so I'll have to do some
redirection and it always takes me a few tries to get the details out.


Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

I just changed the redirect to 1>/dev/null and that seems to
have worked. I just see the door fire up.. none of the .bat
file contents and nothing about the cols or rows..

Yeah, you definitley don't want to do that. The $_com1 = "virtual"
is supposed to make stdout (file descriptor 1) show the serial port stream, so you need that for Magicka's stdio redirection to capture anything.

Yep, I don't think I'm finished with all this yet.

I find that using 1>/dev/null does what I want (stopping the contents of
the .bat from displaying remotely). I suppose what you are running is a
factor, if you wanted a remote DOS session redirecting to /dev/null would
not do what you want, you wouldn't be able to see anything.

I wonder why the .bat file is displayed remotely? Does that happen on
other systems or OSs? Maybe I have a different problem?

I am using your dosemu.conf with $_com1 = "virtual".

Hmm, either it's not reading that config file, or there's something
wrong with dosemu. What version of dosemu are using?

I think it does read your dosemu.conf. Before I used the redirect I could
look in the backscroll and see bnu start, 1 port available 0 ports active
and then when the door initialized bnu it would say 1 port available 1
port active.

I'll adjust that if need be..




Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Hmm, either it's not reading that config file, or there's something
wrong with dosemu. What version of dosemu are using?

The deb I installed is dosemu_1.4.0.7+20130105+b028d3f-2+1amd64.deb.

It's the latest version I believe. It's not available on debian 10 that I
am running here. I added stretch (debian 9) to my sources list to install
it.

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Hmm, either it's not reading that config file, or there's
something wrong with dosemu. What version of dosemu are using?

The deb I installed is
dosemu_1.4.0.7+20130105+b028d3f-2+1amd64.deb.

It's the latest version I believe. It's not available on debian 10
that I am running here. I added stretch (debian 9) to my sources
list to install it.

Yep that's the one I use. Not sure what's going on with your setup.

Andrew


--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand - telnet://magickabbs.com:2023/ (21:1/126)