Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

> 
> The reason I asked if the BBS provided a full blown TCP stack was to see 

The BBS connection is not TCP.  It was supposed to work with microcom but 
for some reason does not. Minicom and Kermit work (as does procomm, 
puttytel, and even hyperterminal).  I have one phone line so cannot 
additionally telnet somewhere else after dialing the bbs.

> if you could connect to the BBS, then switch to a different console, and 
> say, telnet to another site or something. As for the telnet problems with 
> the DSL modem, that may have something to do with the connection to 
> whatever ISP you dial into then. I'd contact them and see if there may be 
> an imcompatiblity issue. Especially since the modem work fine if you 
> direct dial into the BBS, but if you dial the ISP then telnet it has 
> issues.

Our volunteer staff have been working on this longterm problem.  It also
occurs if you dial in there and telnet somewhere else.  Someone sent the
BBS a replacement DSL modem but nobody has yet figured out how to use it
as it is different from the old one.  So we are getting used to
disconnecting and reconnecting every few minutes.  The ISP checked things
out and claims it is not their fault.  Someone suggested bad wiring.  
Someone else suggested using a different ISP.  We are also in the middle 
(it is 13 months since hardware purchase) of switching from SunOS to 
OpenBSD on a computer that was brand new 13 months ago and it all takes 
forever with volunteers.  We are down from 90 to 70 members now.  There 
are three phone lines which are getting more use than they used to.

Today things are okay, so far.  I am telnetted here from there.

> 
> > You need to go back and forth between screens instead with Ctrl-C and the
> > number of the screen.   The screens can be on the same or different
> > consoles.  If different consoles, you can see them on two monitors (TTL
> > and VGA).  I was hoping to translate that way eventually.
> 
> Ifigured the screen switching was fairly easy. When you say same or 
> different consoles, do you mean that I could for example be logged in via 
> telnet to my BL box, and have screen running. Then move over to actual BL 
> box and login directly and still use the same screen program that way? Or 
> is it that, if you're working from console mode, you can access various 
> screens from within the various virtual consoles only? (does that sound as 
> confusing at it looks when written down?)

I have not tried screen with a network, if that is what you are asking.
You can get a default of 10 screens per console.  You can switch between 
consoles and also between screens in each console and in theory you can 
have 30 screens in BL2, for instance (or more with a larger number set 
somewhere).  You can also copy text between screens on different consoles.

> 
> >>> There is also a smaller, simpler, program called something like splitvt,
> >>> which comes with one of the SW7.1 packages and dates back to around 
> >>> 1995.
> >
> > It might be in binutils.tgz.  I am using DOS to dial in so cannot check
> > right now.
> 
> I'll look through my directories tonight and see if it's there or not. I'm 
> fairly certain that I've got binutils.tgz installed, so I'll look for 
> splitvt (or something that looks even remotely similar to that).
> 
> > Have you tried the vi version of e3?  Is it included in BL3?
> 
> I saw steven's message about vi being a feature of e3 in BL3, but I 
> haven't got BL3 right now (still using BL2 myself), so I can't test it out 
> any. Although I'm sure I could d/l BL3 and then take that one program out 
> of it and install it, but that feels like to much work for something I 
> don't really need (as mentioned, I have the full version of pine.tgz 
> installed partially for pico itself, and partially for the email 
> capability).

I compiled e3 for BL2 and I think I have posted it at my site (if I were 
using screen right now I could check):  www.iamjlamb.com/~keesan - look at 
the link to basiclinux programs.  My package includes tail, which you need 
only for the pico version of e3 (e3pi).  My version also worked with BL1 
(but you needed the tail program from BL1 instead, for e3pi).  I think 
Steven's version will work with anything and does not need tail.  He had 
posted a version of it without e3vi for use with other BLs.

> 
> >> I'll be having to install ncurses eventually anyway (its needed for
> >> bittorrent to work, along with having to install pyhon *shudder*). As for
> >> the dependecies for the SW80 screen, it wouldn't be too hard to discover
> >> what those dependencies are (installpkg screen.tgz then ldd screen).
> >> Although, I may, if I decide to install screen (which is still up in the
> >> air), use the version from SW91 as that's the version that I appear to be
> >> migrating towards just because of the extras it has in it (along with
> >> more recent version of certain packages).
> >
> > I found a fairly recent version for SW80 (later than what is included in
> > SW80 at the Slackware mirror sites) - 13.  What version is in SW91?  I
> > doubt that I am using any of the newer features as this is a rather large
> > program with many features.  I don't understand the meaning of most of
> > them.
> 
> The filename for the package in SW91 is screen-3.9.15-i486-2.tgz and I'm 
> sure the version number is buried in that somewhere (I'd assume the 3.9.15 
> is the version). This was found by doing a package search at slackware.com 
> in the 9.1 version of slackware. Incidentally, if you do a search in the 
> current-release you get 4.0.2 instead (even though SW91 is the most 
> current release of SW).

3.9.15 is indeed the version.  What I found at a site that I think was 
specifically for 'screen' but cannot find again was 3.9.13 for SW8.0.  The 
newer they get, the bigger they are.  I would have used an older version 
but at the time could not get the one that came with SW8.0 at the 
Slackware site to work, for some reason.  They are compiled differently 
and maybe that one needed something that we don't have (newer library).


> > Python is needed for the only small free linux drawing program I found
> > (sketch) which I have not yet tried.  What is the problem with python?
> 
> No problem that I'm aware of. Python just seems to be more of a 
> development studio, and I don't want to have to install a full fledged 
> development package, if I can just get the libraries I need out of it. 
> Sort of like how you can install glibc if you want the full development 
> abilities, but only need libc.so if you just need the dependent libraries. 
> Something akin to libpy.so for just the python library dependencies, and 
> the full fledged python package for developers.

Maybe you can just do an ldd, explodepkg or un-tar python, and move over 
just the files you need and make any needed symlinks for them.  

> 
> 
Sindi