Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> James Miller wrote:
> >
> > I have a longstanding interest in getting a more
> > advanced wordprocessing program working on BL:
>
> Me too.  That's why I was so please to get AbiWord
> working on BasicLinux.

I've had some problems with Abiword.  Not the BL version though.  On my
newer machine (1Ghz Celeron, 512MB RAM) I created and was trying to work
with a 30-40 page document in Abiword that contained a long table of 2
columns and one row.  Whenever I would try to manipulate the document my
computer would go retarded on me: scrolling was incredibly slow, and
letters lengthened the height of the page like rubber text.  Typing caused
text to disappear and reappear.  I had to kill the process when I ended up
sort of losing control.  It basically snowed my system.  This was under
Debian unstable with a fairly bleeding edge version of Abiword.  Though
the possibility exists that there was some bug in the version, I've
decided that for more advanced word processing tasks like the one I've
mentioned, Abiword is not going to cut it.  It seems to work fine for
shorter, fairly simple documents.  But for more heavy duty word processing
it seems unusable.  Word Perfect 8, from what I've heard and read, may be
up to such tasks though.

> IIRC the problem was the WP8 installation routine.
> The busybox binaries (in BL1) were missing some
> parameters that the installation routine relied upon.
> The solution is to install the full binaries from
> Slackware 4.0.

That was only part of the problem.  I ended up replacing important busybox
binaries and at least finally got to the gui installation screens.  But as
I'm recalling, no text was appearing in those windows--just some graphics.
I was unable to complete the install for this reason.

> Personally I think AbiWord is better than WP8.  However,
> AbiWord requires more than 16 colors (for some unfathomable
> reason) and this cuts out a lot of old PCs.  If WP8 works
> with 16 colors or less, it will be useful for some BL3
> users.

To see if it resolves the color issue and because I wonder if it's a more
capable wordprocessor, it would be interesting to try.  The laptop I would
try this on only does 4 bit color, so it will make a good testbed.

> The installation procedure is well documented.  There's
> even a WP8 FAQ (to which I gave a link a couple of days
> ago).  What we need is a list of the Slackware packages
> required to make it work.
>
> > 2) do you think it's feasible, Steven, for someone of my
> > somewhat limited expertise?
>
> Sure.  It's mostly trial and error.  Run the installation
> routine until it barfs and then try to figure out why.
> You'll probably see something from busybox like "invalid
> option".  At the beginning of that line (hopefully) will
> be the command generating the error.  Find which Slackware
> package has that command and install it.  Re-run the WP8
> installation routine and repeat the process for any other
> deficient commands.
>
> > If Steven thinks it's at least feasible and is interested,
> > and especially if he's willing to provide some tech support,
>
> No problem.  I had WP8 running on Slackware 3.5 several years
> ago, so I know it's possible.  We just need to add enough
> Slackware to BL3 to give WP8 the foundation it expects.

I'll see if I can get to this sometime in the not-too-distant future.  I
seem to be making good progress on my main real-world task, so I should be
able to fit it in.  I'm not sure I have the latest BL3 (3.21, I think), so
I'll look into installing that first.  Any other suggestions for getting
started?  Will a 300 MB partition suffice for such a test install?  Maybe
I should first try installing it on the full Slack 4.0 test system I set
up?  Would that gain me anything in trying to install it under BL3?

Thanks, James