Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan2 AT cyberspace.org>]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2003 qwms-avib AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > 
> > New versions of things are not always just bigger, 
> > sometimes they are even better.
> 
> Sure, developers always put "improvements" in the newer 
> versions.  If it is important for you to have the latest 
> (most improved) version of everything, then you should 
> run an up-to-date distribution (preferably on up-to-date
> hardware).

These improvements include a lot of bug fixes.  In the case of browsers,
they include the ability to handle some of the newer HTML that people
insist on crippling their sites with.  And things like unicode.   Netscape
4 does not do unicode, Lynx 2.8.4 does and I don't think 2.8.3 does, and I
work as a translator and need to read unicode.  I don't want the latest
version of 'everything', I don't even want 'everything', I just want to
have increased chances of find precompiled later versions, or even
precompiled versions in general, of a few programs that I am already used
to using.  (I am using Lynx 2.8.5 for DOS for over a year now.  I has the
improved feature of letting you get out of being stuck in a download).

> 
> Until six months ago, my best computer was a 486 (now 
> I have a P166).  People are always telling me that my 
> hardware is too old and slow to run anything useful.  
> The fact is:  just ten years ago a 486 was considered 
> a powerful machine, capable of running a business or 
> playing the most fantastic games.  The hardware hasn't 
> changed -- a 486 is still powerful.  What's changed is 
> the software -- bloated, badly-written code that chokes 
> the hardware with eye-candy and pointless "improvements".  

The programs I am interested in are text-only and I run them in mono -
hardly eye-candy.  They work fine on a 486.


> The target machine for BL2 is a high-end 486 or low-end 
> Pentium.  In order to get reasonable performance on those
> machines, I need to avoid fat, feature-rich software.  
> No glibc 2.3, no XFree version 4 and no 2.4 kernel.

Nobody has yet mentioned how big 2.3 is.  I will go look.  If I need it to
run the latest Opera, and I need the latest Opera in order to be able to
access websites that won't work with Lynx or an older Opera, it is worth
an extra 10M to save having to keep a Win95 computer around.   If there is
some other mouse-free graphical browser that will access all websites and
work with glibc6 2.1.3 I will be happy to use that instead.  What
improvements is the latest Opera claiming?

 
> > 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 
> 
> If you want a real challenge, you should try BL1.  It uses
> the libc5 library (much smaller than glibc 2.1).  Finding 
> pre-compiled binaries for libc5 is like hunting for Sadam.  

I found basiclinux just before Steven got BL2 working so I have tried it. 
There was a major problem in getting later versions of Links for glibc5 -
the ones posted were mostly nonworking.  I learned (with a great deal of
help) how to compile links 0.98 at my bbs (with patches and detailed
instructions). It took me a total of 8 hours (most of that mistakes).  I
would rather be able to use precompiled versions until I know more.  

> > I just want to be able to find precompiled binaries that will
> > work on my computer.
> 
> Then stick with Slackware 7.1 or other sources of binaries 
> that are compatible with Slackware 7.1.  If you want to
> chase the latest binaries, then BL2 is probably not the
> best distribution for you.  You mentioned before that you
> are running SuSE on one of your machines -- perhaps that
> is a better distribution for you to use?

But there were NO precompiled binaries of Kermit that would work with
Slackware 7.1 unless you had upgraded your library.  I tried three and
they all needed the later library.  I do not have any interest in SuSE.
My partner put it on out of curiosity about how commercial linuxes worked.
(Redhat and Caldera were not even usable on our hardware, much too slow).

> 
> > I just want to be able to find precompiled binaries of 
> > programs that I have not been able to find for Slackware 7.1.
> 
> Then do what I do:  go to freshmeat and search through the
> offerings.  Trial and error.  Install and delete.  Or go
> to google and try to find old versions of binaries sitting
> forgotten on some server.

I still think it would be easier to upgrade the library, daunting as that
seems.  I already installed and deleted Kermit 3 times.  All of the people
who let the Kermit people compile on their Slackware 7.1 systems (there
were several) had upgraded to 2.2.  They said there was some security
problem in 2.1 and I should upgrade.  I don't think a later library will
cause any problems in running older programs.

> 
> > I am still hoping someone more knowledgeable will do it 
> > first and provide complete beginner's instructions).
> 
> Don't look at me.  I'm very happy with glibc 2.1.  I'm not 
> going to waste my time installing a fatter library when every 
> binary I need works fine with 2.1.

You obviously did not need Kermit or Lynx 2.8.4.  

>  
> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
> 
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