Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> Sindi wrote:
> 
> > I am able to use Kermit with ramdisk BL2 and I am dialed into my bbs with 
> > it right now (and telnetted to another computer from there since I cannot 
> > get the mail list mail at my usual bbs email address due to timeouts).
> > 
> > I copied kermit to /tmp after loading bl2.  If your computer has at least 
> > 8M RAM there is an additional 4M of ramdisk created and kermit is only 2M 
> > so it fit easily.  If you have only 4M RAM you are out of luck but 
> > minicom 
> > is about 250K .tgz and you might be able to copy just the binary.
> 
> My computer, a P166, has 84 megabytes of RAM
> 
> I can't copy a two megabyte file from a floppy drive to my ramdrive 
> because my floppy drive holds only up to 1.44 megabytes of data.


I copied Kermit to my DOS partition (hard drive) to the same directory as 
BL2.  You then load BL2 and mount the hard drive (mount /dev/hda1 /mnt) 
and copy Kermit to /tmp and run it from there after doing chmod +x.
If BL2 is not in c:\ you mount something other than hda1, such as hda2 for 
D: (or sometimes the numbering gets messed up and you need to type fdisk 
to see what is where).
 
You don't need to know how to create a RAMDISK because Steven has set up 
BL2 to make the extra 4M of RAMDISK automatically.

I had not tried running extra programs with the RAMDISK version of BL2 
until I tried Kermit yesterday so it was good practice for me.  

If you have 20M or so free space on the hard drive you could install BL2 
to hard drive following the instructions that you see when you boot the 
RAMDISK version and either downloading the files from the web or buying 
the Slackware 7.1 CD ($1 plus $5 postage).

If you are running BL2 from floppy disk you won't be able to use Kermit 
this way unless you first get it onto the P166 into a DOS partition, which 
you can do by downloading it directly or via a transfer cable.  
 
> I have heard that there is a way to format a floppy drive for linux 
> so that it can hold a lot more data than just 1.44 M.
> 
> I haven't yet learned how to copy stuff from my hard drive to my 
> ramdrive.  I haven't yet even tried to learn how do that.  I'm 
> afraid to try it without knowing what I'm doing.  I sure don't want
> to mess up my hard drive.

I don't think you can mess up your hard drive by copying from it to 
RAMDISK.  First load BL2.  Figure out which partition (hda1, hda2, etc.) 
contains the kermit file.  Mount that    mount /dev/hda1 /mnt  .
You have a /mnt partition already made, or you could even temporarily make 
a partition in BL2 with some other name such as /hda1 (mkdir /hda1).

Then   cp /mnt/kermit  /mnt   and you will have kermit in /mnt.

chmod +x kermit   - this lets you run the program (gives permission to 
execute it).

Then go to mount   cd /mnt  and type kermit to run the program.

The only way you could mess up your hard drive is by accidentally deleting 
it or making it into a linux partition like I did once when trying to 
install BL2 to the wrong partition.  If you have only ONE DOS partition it 
will most likely be hda1 and you should be okay. 

As soon as you have copied kermit to /mnt you could unmount the DOS 
partition:   umount /mnt  
then you cannot easily mess it up.  Stay away from fdisk if you want to be 
safer.  You can keep making guesses at which partition is the DOS 
partition if hda1 does not work.  

If you know how to get your computer open and add another hard drive, you 
could put linux on a separate hard drive such as hdb (second drive on the 
first controller, slave).

 
> 
> Thanks for the info.  I have heard that Kermit is a fine program.  I have 
> never yet tried to run any version of it.

I was unhappy with minicom.  I forget exactly why (other than that it 
requires something like Ctrl-A before all commands and therefore I could 
not use Ctl-A with pico to go to line beginning).  I think it also does 
not have such good VT100 emulation so that one of the programs I use at my 
bbs was not working right - lynx or pico.

Let us know if you want help getting BL2 installed to the hard drive.

> 
> Sam Heywood 
> -- Message handled by BasicLinux, v. 2.1 
> -- See "http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/";
> 
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