Baslinux mailing list

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

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005, David Moberg wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
>
> > 3.  David Moberg compiled netpbm for BL3 so you need libc and libm
> > and ld-linux from BL3 which I copied to BL2.  Place libnetpbm
> > (160K) into
> > /usr/lib and pbmtolj (10K) or pbmtoescp2 into /usr/bin.
> >
> > Total about 340K of files.  If pbmtolj could be compiled statically
> > could one skip libnetpbm?
>
> The point of a library like libnetpbm is that you can share common parts
> between all of the pbm tools. The savings from compiling that library into
> just pbmtolj are not worth it, IMO.
>
> David
> --

Okay.  I don't know how to compile statically anyway.

I tried printing with pbmtoppa and unlike the other pbm programs, which 
will print a 300 dpi file at 360 dpi, or at 75 dpi, it won't print 
anything that is not EXACTLY 600 dpi and 8.5x11" (or their version of A4).
You can choose to print US letter (the default, 600 dpi x 8.5x11"0 or A4, 
which is a bit longer.

My HP scanner scans at 8.5" x 11.69" and you can adjust the width and 
height by fractions of a milliter but the closest I could get to the 
required size for pbmtoppa was too pixels too short (or else too large - 
when I am oversize I don't get told what size file I tried to send it).  I 
narrowed it in between two pixel sizes.

So the HP Windows Professional printers are worthless for use with an HP 
scanjet 5 but might be of some use if you happne to have a 600x600 dpi 
8.5x11" file.  I tried to convert a 200x200 dpi file with pnmscale and 
then pgmtopbm but it ended up being the same size it started at.

The man page explained how to use gs and -sDEVICE=pbmraw together with 
pbmtoppa to print ps files.

David, thanks for an invaluable tool for use with my deskjet printers.


And my partner is now constantly using the framebuffer kernel and xfbdev 
while working on his homework at 132x50 text size, which looks far nicer 
than what you get with resizecons.  (Now he is figuring out the printer 
commands for the Panasonic dot-matrix to let him print at that 
resolution).

I am going to use our other good framebuffer card (the 2MB matrox) to 
replace the S3 in this computer, which has nothing but problems with S3 
cards and resizecons (with the Trio64 you lose the VGA consoles if you try 
to resizecons, and also the MDA cursor until you go back to 80x25 which 
does not restore VGA).

There were problems with the SW81 bare.i kernel (I forget what it messed 
up - svgalib?) apart from needing to replace all the modules, and its 
size, so your framebuffer kernel is perfect even not for S3.  I insmodded 
the three CD-ROM modules in rc.S and made an alias for mounting DOS fd.

The framebuffer text modes look better and hopefully will work where 
resizecons would not.  And since these VESA 2.0 cards don't work with 
Xvesa (except the Matrox) they needed xfbdev which you compiled.

Many thanks for all the compiling.  Basiclinux would be the best linux 
around if only for the help from the list members.

I am so delighted to have this little superfast 340K copy machine!
Next toy - linux on a 50MB zip partition.