Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > Rather than copying Bl1 somewhere else (via plip or
> > serial cable with pppd), repartitioning into 50 and
> > 150MB partitions, and copying it back again, can we
> > mount bl3 / on /dev/hda1/bl3
>
> No.
Okay.  Want to explain why?  Can't you put file systems (mke2fs) on 
anything smaller than a partition?


> > If not, would you be willing to compile a 2.4 kernel
> > with USB support
>
> No.  After conducting my experiment I deleted the 2.4
> source code.  I suggest you use a usb kernel from
> Slackware.

We are doing that.  On the newer computers RAM is not in short supply but 
the large Slackware kernels take longer to boot as they are also looking 
for RAID etc.  Still pretty good compared to Redhat or Caldera.  I like 
your kernels better.  We will try your 2.4 kernel with SW81 and a PS/2 
adaptor on the USB mouse.

> > that we could use on newer computers with Bl3 and Bl2?
>
> I'm not interested in modifying BasicLinux for newer
> computers (which have lots of distributions to choose
> from).  The purpose of BL3 is provide a useful Linux
> for 486s and early Pentiums.

BL3 is certainly ideal for 486 laptops and even works on 386s.
Maybe in a couple of years you will find it interesting to make a minimal 
SW81 for 'old' pentium laptops with USB.

I will let you know how netcat works for file transfer/unpackaging after 
we fix a loose power connector on the 486 laptop with slow floppy drive 
(NEC proprietary plugin type so we can't replace it with our 11 spares). 
Both 486s install and run BL3 loop perfectly and have VESA color video but 
one is only 8-bit.  I will make a minimal SVGA package to use with seejpeg 
or zgv so links2 and lynx can display images in CLI mode.   They can both 
be used in greyscale with a switch, which I think produces 256-shade grey 
instead of 16-'color' grey on 4-bit videos.

Sindi


keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org