Baslinux mailing list

[cce.zizkov AT volny.cz]

Hi Steven,

On 11 Mar 04 at 10:25, 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

>cce.zizkov AT volny.cz wrote:
>>
>> They reached some limitations of busybox replacements
>> (eg. missing options while compiling programs)
>
>There are many limitations in BL3.  It is mini-Linux.
>It does not provide the range of options of a maxi-Linux.

I do not complain. Small is beautiful.

>> and were not skilled enough to replace the commands
>> from Slackware.
>
>If they are not skilled enough to replace the commands
>from Slackware, then they aren't skilled enough to run
>a compiler on BasicLinux.

This is correct: Whoever starts to compile programs for his own
system, has already reached a certain degree of addiction, so that
warnigs will not help.

But on the other hand I remember when I started with BL 1 it was
the very first add- on I installed (mc) that behaved unexpectedly
(because in mc there is a huge amount of extensions and associations
involved).

>> It should be made clear in the first instructions what
>> busybox is,
>
>Why stop there?  Shouldn't I be making clear in the first
>instructions that BL3 is missing most of the common fonts,
>that the BL3 version of rxvt lacks many options, that the
>BL3 version of swm lacks many options, that BL3 is missing
>several important X libraries, that BL3 has no curses
>capability, that BL3 has no login and no non-root users,
>and on and on and on.  There are a zillon things missing
>in BL3.  I would need several pages to list them all.

People coming from BL1 or BL2 need to understand what is the
basic philosophy of BL3. BL1 and BL2 were excellent
toys for people who wanted to learn Linux from its smallest
beginnings, with selective, but not necessarily limited
interests. Perhaps that is different with BL3, I just do not know.
Does it still make sense to use BL3 as a basis to build on?

My point with busybox was something else and probably more important
for BL1 and BL2 users: It would be helpful for a beginner to read in
the documentation: if you want some day to use mc, if you want to
compile an application, you may probably want to replace busybox by
the packet xy.tgz (containing all those huge binaries, but also 100%
compatibility in installation, compiling and other scripts).

>
>> and there should be an add-on that entirely replaces
>> busybox
>
>You are very welcome to create such an add-on and I will
>consider adding it to the collection.

OK.

>> I would expect that this feature will not limit users
>> in organizing their hard disk directory tree. Already
>> C:\SLAKWARE to install BL2 was quite annoying in this
>> regard.
>
>Quite annoying?  Why?  It is only a temporary directory,
>used solely for the initial HD installation.  Ten minutes
>later, you can deltree it.  Why would that annoy people?

Once having downloaded 20MB I anxiously guarded those packets.
And when after a while I screwed up my system, I was glad that
I could start from scratch. And as I do not have a CD ROM drive
on these computers, the c:\slakware is still there. But after
the initial installation I was allowed to put it to a different
place in my directory tree. I see, however, the technical
requirements of BL3 are a bit different.

>> Please do not trash BL 1.x!
>
>I don't have the space to keep a full set of BL1 stuff.
>I intend to delete it soon.  So, anybody who thinks it
>is valuable should make their own copy.

Could you please make it accessible with the whole directory so that I
I could download it easily with wget.

>> I have only seen one working Linux system with full Czech
>> localization, and that is BL 1.
>
>That's interesting.  You mean KDE and/or Gnome can't do
>full Czech localization?

These probably exist, but I have never seen them :-), and after all
I have read I would even doubt whether KDE and Gnome are Linux at all.
I looked for Linux books in a library to get help on localization.
All I could find there were instructions on KDE and Gnome of that
kind: "Click with the mouse at main installation menu, the opening
box shows..." This is Windows, not Linux.

>If you are running an Xterminal on that 386 (or would like to),
>you will probably find BL3 worthwhile.  One of the main goals
>of BL3 is to enable old PCs to be used as Xterminals.

I suppose who runs an XTerminal wants to run graphical applications,
and they will need all kinds of fonts. Is there a way to get them
from the hosting machine, too?

Regards,
Christof
_______________________________________________

 Christof Lange <cce.zizkov AT volny.cz>
 Prokopova 4, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic
 phone: (+420) 222 78 06 73 / 222 78 20 02
 http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov