Baslinux mailing list

[<keesan2 AT cyberspace.org>]

> Isn't it nice that pkgtool gives you a choice?
> You can use the pkgtool menu or you can use the
> command line.  However, there are some advantages 
> in using the menu:  
> (1) you don't have to remember the various commands,
> '   parameters and file names.

What is there to remember?  I download a package, put it in /tmp (or /tgz
in my case), go to /tmp, and type installpkg filename.tgz. 
No parameters.  How is it harder to remember installpkg than pkgtool?


> (2) you can install several packages (from the same
> '   directory) in one operation.

I can do that faster with installpkg.  Type the up arrow and change the
file name after installing the first package.  I find this much easier
than arrowing around in menus.  Some people don't like to type. I don't
like to arrow.

> I thought Opera came as a self-installing 
> package (you just uncompress it and run install.sh).

I think it came as a Slackware package and I just typed installpkg Opera.
Maybe you are thinking of Ted?  

Kermit installs itself - you put the downloaded 2M file (which is not
compressed to start with) into /bin (after renaming it kermit) and type
kermit. Then make a .kermrc file if you want to set line and speed
automatically.  I also added 'set login user' so it would not keep trying
to log me in as 'root' (my login at my linux computer).  There was also
some way to set it to identify as vt100 when telnetting.

Somewhat related - we want to put Kermit on the SuSE computer (via floppy
disk) and use it to do a Kermit file transfer of Opera 6.03 over there and
install it.  Can I just copy over installpkg and run it on the SuSE
computer?  It is a separate file, not part of pkgtool.  I do not want to
spend half an hour downloading the rpm Opera package.  Has anyone tried
running installpkg on a Linux that normally uses rpm? 

There is an rpm package for Slackware, about 1M download.