Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, sindi keesan wrote:
>
> Re wanting a later library to run later precompiled programs:
> >
> > Which?  If you want to run the very latest version, then
> > yes you may need glibc 2.3 for some.  However, if you go
> > back a year or two, you will usually find an earlier version
> > that works just fine with 2.1.
>
> I think Lynx 2.8.4 is the first version that supports Unicode and it is
> available only for a later library.  New versions of things are not always
> just bigger, sometimes they are even better.
>
The big question is, what do you have to do to get the better?  Unless one
is quite adept at Unix and computing in general, this typically means
getting the latest greatest distro - which just happens to come with all
the bells and whistles.  And even then one should not assume one will not
encounter dependency problems.  One typically needs to stay with packages
and upgrade systems developed for that distro in order to minimize what is
commonly called "dependency hell."  With BL2, this means sticking
pretty closely with stuff developed for BL2 or, in some cases, Slack 7.1.
If one ventures outside that relatively small realm, one encounters not
only the great wide world of Linux riches, but also the problems that go
along with it.

> As I noted before, the 100M of files (the compressed versions of which
> would be downloaded at 5M per hour) needed to compile things would occupy
> a lot more space on my computer than an upgraded library.  Sometimes I
> prefer to do things the easier way.  Upgrading the library sounds faster
> and easier than installing and learning to use a compiler.
>
Well, why don't you install the new library and report back to us?  Steven
recently discovered that a much later library would install just fine on
BL1.x, which would have been a great help to me about a year and a half
ago.  I guess the problem was that there was such a small user base, that
nobody had ventured to see if it would even work previously.  Please
install the new library if you think it will help and report back to us,
It might be a great help to some other BL2 user, and may help Steven in
his development and support of the distro.

> Maybe the rest of you are viewing basiclinux as a challenge - how to get
> the 2.1.3 library to work with all the programs you are interested in no
> matter how much extra time and effort it takes.  The amount of disk space
> taken up does not seem to be the issue here.  I like challenges, too, and
> eventually I want to learn to compile, but for now I just want to be able
> to find precompiled binaries that will work on my computer.
>
As I mentioned above, this is a problem that's endemic to Linux as a
whole.  It's not just BL.  Though with BL, with its additional concern for
running efficiently on older hardware, another layer of complication is added.

> But my chances of finding what I want somewhere, precompiled, go up if I
> upgrade the library. I will figure out how to do this somehow.  (I am
> still hoping someone more knowledgeable will do it first and provide
> complete beginner's instructions).
>
I think you will start encountering other problems.  You might find what
you want precompiled, but you will run into other dependency problems.
The quick and easy solution is just to go out an get or download the
latest greatest, with all the bells and whistles.  That will solve most of
these problems.  But be aware that you'll be putting yourself on the
hardware upgrade treadmill if you decide to go this route (you'll need the
latest greatest hardware to run it: well, not too latest and greatest, or
Linux may not yet have learned how to work with it [e.g., bleeding edge
video cards]).

> I really like basiclinux, and the philosophy of making Linux small, fast,
> and efficient for use on older hardware, but I would like to be able to
> use a greater variety of precompiled programs with it.  One of the nicest
> things about Basiclinux is this mailing list, including all the
> precompiled programs that other users are posting.
>
> I will report back if I succeed in a library upgrade.
>
Sounds good.  If you find a distro that does better what you want, please
let us know.  I'm sure all of us - including Steven - would be interested
to know about and learn from it.

James
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James Miller wrote:
> 
> Steven is not, so far as I know, making concerted efforts
> to develop BL to be complementary with JP's distro,

BL2 is wedded to Slackware 7.1.  That is not going to change.

> unless these 2 developers decide to merge their distros, 

I am very grateful for JP's contributions, but I don't see 
us merging.  

> I'm not sure you should think of 40 emails per day as any 
> kind of standard for this list.

The traffic fluctuates.  Sometimes a thread will generate a
lot of dicussion, some times not.  Most of the messages are
sent during the week, relatively few at the weekend.  Most
of you people must be reading these emails at work.  :-)

Cheers,
Steven