Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, James Miller wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, David Lane wrote:
> 
> >
> >  First,thanks for all the ideas,but I'm kind of doubting BL3 will run on 
> > an
> > 40mghtz 386 w/8MB ram,which is what I'm running the BL1 on.Coming from a 
> > DOS
> 
> Not correct.  BL3 is actually even more system resource-friendly than BL1:
> it's sort of a "step backwards" (in terms of resource useage: at the same
> time it introduces some interesting new concepts and uses some more
> up-to-date Linux features).  I'm sure it will run on your 386, and I'm

> You can use BL3 on pretty much whatever machine you want, but it's geared
> to machines with as little as 4MB RAM and 386sx processors.  For gui mode,

I had it working in 3M RAM without X, slowly.  8M should be fine with X.


> > belong so I can install the correct ones,or will the correct ones 
> > over-write
> > the wrong ones.Just doing baby steps here but really want to learn 
> > this.Any
> > help you guys can provide would be greatly appreciated.

> I think BL1 has some kind of counterpart to BL2's (and Slackware's)
> removepkg, doesn't it (other listers)?  Or maybe he could use something
> like pkgtool for BL1?  Seems like there should be some such way to remove
installed packages.

I have BL1 on hard drive and I found pkgtool but that is a script that 
only installs packages.  I found nothing with which to remove packages, 
nor did I find even a list of installed packages (in BL2 that would be 
/var/log/packages and /var/log/scripts to show what symlinks were made).

I don't have X on BL1.  I have an empty /usr/X11R6/lib directory but 
nothing else under X11R6, so it would be safe, I think, to delete anything 
in X11R6 - rm -r * (?) and then mkdir lib.

BUT Steven has apparently included in BL1-to-hard-drive package
/etc/XF86Config, just under 2K, all set up for 16 color VGA.

If you have overwritten XF86Config (you can tell it is a new one if there 
are a LOT of lines starting in #, rather than VGA 16 on the first page, 
and if it is over 2K) you will need to put it back, and I could email you 
a copy.  I don't know how Steven set this up so as not to overwrite his 
config file.

I agree with James that BL3 would be easier to set up, and not require any 
more powerful hardware, but you would have to understand linux better in 
order to use it in more than 15M of disk space.  People here have 
explained how to make fs.img bigger, and discussed ways to install it to 
its own linux partition instead of running it from a file stored in a DOS 
partition with a 'loop' method (which I don't really understand).

What programs do you want to use in X?  You might be happy learning from 
it without adding additional programs, using the mail and browser 
programs supplied.  Then switch to BL2 on a newer computer with more disk 
space and RAM, where you can add additional programs.  There are more 
precompiled programs available for later linuxes.  

You are by no means the first basiclinux user to try using SW71 (or later) 
packages with BL1.  This can be pretty confusing.

You can use BL1 (SW3.5) packages with BL3 but not necessarily vice 
versa, because BL3 has a newer kernel.  Slackware 3.5 and 4.0 use the same 
libraries, but 4.0 uses a newer kernel (same kernel as Slackware 7.1)

Slackware 8.0 (I think) has the later kernel but older libraries
(or maybe the other way around).
Slackware 8.1 has later kernel and libraries than 7.1.
You can upgrade the kernel and things should still work - this is 
basically what Steven did, using libraries and packages from SW3.5, but 
the kernel from 4.0 (which he needed in order to use the X setup that he 
used with BL3).

Sometimes the kernel does not matter.  I was able to use some packages
compiled for SW81 with BL2.  But there was a change in basic libraries
between 4 and 7, so you cannot move programs across this boundary unless
they are specially compiled to include all required libraries instead of
needing to access them on your computer. e3 editor is one of those.  So is
a version of links-ssl which Steven pointed us to at a site containing
other programs compiled like this (statically linked).

So I think the X packages from either 3.5 or 4.0 should work for BL1.
I found that ftp.planetmirror.com has the best collection of old 
slackwares.  

BL1 - libc5 library and kernel 2.0 (2.0.something - not important)
BL3 - libc5 library and kernel 2.2 (.16?)
BL2 - glibc (libc6) library and kernel 2.2.16

The more recent slackwares are using later libraries and later kernels.
Some programs can't be compiled with the older libraries.  Slackware 7.1 
can be upgraded to newer library and kernel and things should still work.  
I had trouble trying to downgrade libraries.