re: Setdest, Calcdest

[Juana Elias Nakfour <nakfourj@cse.msu.edu>]

Hi everyone,
	What I did to make both Setdest and Calcdest run is just comment
out the lines that look for the file /dev/random. Solaris does support the
function initstate. Value of seed is from timeofday and bytes from size of
random_state. And random_state from file .random_state. Both programs are
running but I am not really sure how random the movement is.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Juana Nakfour                          | URL: www.cse.msu.edu/~nakfourj             
Graduate Assistant                     | Address: 201 N. Pennsylvania 
Computer Science and Engineering Dept. |          Lansing, MI 48912. 
Michigan State University	       | Phone: (517) 487 9031	
                         "F1 all the way.............."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Wed, 5 May 1999 dmaltz@dupont.monarch.cs.cmu.edu wrote:

> 
> >        After successfully compiling both setdest.cc and calcdest.cc I had
> >trouble running them on solaris. Both files are looking for a /dev/random
> >file which does not exist. And this is needed to initialize the random
> >generator.... I really appreciate some help !! Thanks !!
> 
> As you've diagnosed, the trouble is that Solaris doesn't provide
> /dev/random as pool of randomness for use as a seed.  You'll need to
> figure out how to get a good random seed on Solaris, and then add code
> to setdest.cc to use your method.  You could just use the timeofday if
> all else fails.  If you're successful, please send me back the diffs
> and we'll incorporate it into future releases.
> 
> It turns out that calcdest doesn't need random numbers at all, and the
> fact the code is there simply reflects bad programming and lack of
> time on my part when I converted setdest into calcdest.  The random
> number generator code could be removed from calcdest.
> 
> Thanks for your continuing interest,
>  -dam
>