Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

> 
> > But will they keep providing the full Debian distro 
> > built with uClibc there?  
I can no longer access the older Debian distribution corresponding to SW71 
- the link to the archives has not worked for a long time.  What happens 
if they upgrade the uClibc to something later than Debian?  Will the BL3 
kernel and modules still work?

> 
> Good question.  I assume it is there long-term (same
> as I assume the Slackware stuff will contine to be
> available).  However, it might be a good idea to keep
> our own copy somewhere (assuming the uClibc version
> of BL3 ever eventuates).

It is getting harder to find even SW71.  ftp.planetmirror.com was not 
accessible today.  I finally found ftp.slackware.com for slackwares back 
to 3.3.  The other mirrors that I checked started at 8.1 and included 9 
and current (10).  Will all the programs from SW81 work on BL2 with glibc 
upgraded to 2.2.5?  (Assuming they are not kernel dependent - how do we 
determine that?).  


> 
> BTW, even though all my main computers are sitting in
> boxes, I have done some preliminary investigation on
> converting BL3 (using my remaining computer -- a 486 
> laptop).  First I deleted all the libraries in the BL3
> /lib directory.  As expected, BL3 still boots (because
> the BL3 base is statically compiled).  I then copied
> over the uClibc libraries from the uClibc root_fs and
> replaced some of the non-static BL3 binaries from the
> Debian archive.  Many of them worked right away, but
> some were dependent on additional libraries.  I was
> particularly annoyed with the Debian less, which is
The Debian ghostscript is also annoying - requires defoma.
> dependent on a very large library (nearly a megabyte) 
> that I think is related to internationalization.  So 
> I'm going to have to compile my own version of less 
> (and some others).  However, all in all, it went pretty
> smoothly.
That is impressive.  I bet some people think you cannot hybridize things 
like that.

> 
> > I'm pretty sure a swap file can be put on a FAT partition, 
> > yes. That's what Knoppix does/did if it needs to be run in
> > marginal RAM conditions 
> 
> BL3 comes with a preconfigured swap file that sits in 
> the C:\baslin directory.  It is essential for systems 
> with 4mb RAM.  You activate swap.zip by unzipping it.

So what is the advantage of putting the swap file in ext2 rather than the 
DOS partition?  Also I did not follow from your explanation how to specify 
which partition and directory the swap file is on.  Is it made in whatever 
directory you are in when you make it?

Is it always a good idea to make it twice the size of the RAM, no matter 
how much RAM you have?

> > I think I would have to do just as much research as 
> > you to figure out the finer points.
> 
> For a pretty good explanation:  man mkswap
> 
> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
> _______________________________________________
> BasLinux mailing list
> BasLinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/baslinux
>