stty: Not a character device

[Nirad Sharma]

I've been getting this message in several situations, such as :

	1. rsh'ing from a remote machine
	   eg rsh ceu ls -l
	    gives
			stty:  Not a character device
			stty:  Not a character device
			(and then normal ls -l output)

	2. in vi, typing "!!cat fubar" inserts the above stty message before
	    the actual file.

	3. when 'make'ing it often terminates despite unit compilations being
	     successful. A look at the running processes showed stty being run.
	     (I use make -i to avoid this problem).

What have I done wrong ? Is there something wrong with my /dev files ? I should
point out that this error seems to occur even after a full system reinstallation
(all 30-odd disks !)

Another question - During bootup asktime (as called by rc) shows the correct
time but by the time rc gets to running cron the time is something like a day
ahead.  I suspect that this has something to do with TZ (timezone) calculations.
How do I fix this ?

If I haven't read the manuals properly, please don't flame me too harshly.


Thanks for any help.


Nirad Sharma  (exnirad at brolga.cc.uq.oz.au)
Continuing Education Unit
The University of Queensland
AUSTRALIA