Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT gmail.com>]

itfactor36 AT gmail.com wrote:
>
> 1. Anyone have any good suggestions to unzip the BL3 .ZIP install files from
> C:\BASLIN ?
> Do not have a PKUNZIPper available for DOS and tomsrtbt's gunzip apparently
> does not work on this.

Can't you copy a DOS unzipper over? IIRC pkunzip does fit on a floppy,
and you must have a floppy drive if you are using tomsrtbt. Even if you
are avoiding the shareware pkzip, I think there are some good free
DOS unzip utilities. Try a search.

If it needs to be a Linux unzipper, try the Slackware 4.0 or Slackware 7.1
versions. The SW40 version ought to work with tomsrtbt, because
tomsrtbt is libc5 as far as I can tell. If you can't find either of these and
you want to use them, let me know and I will post a link.

If you have access to another Linux computer, you can unzip it there
and then pack it again with tar and gzip, which tomsrtbt should support.

> 2. What else should be set up once laptop has BasicLinux iinstalled, for
> optimal performance?
> Swap partition set to be 20MB

Looks good.

> Would yes indeed like to use a minimal X and run one available XAP at a time
> -- Abiword, SC, sqlite, ltmodem dialup,

Does your laptop have an ltmodem? I think that it would be pretty unusual
on a 486. If you really have one, though, setup is simple: just install the
ltmodem package, insert the modules and tell the dialer to use that modem.

> links2, ...etc. -- even if super-slow.

Your laptop might not support enough colors with X to run links2 or
abiword. However, you can still use links2 with svgalib, (small non-X
graphical environment) which might work faster and better on your laptop.
Are there any word processors for svgalib, or for low-color X?

> How does one use this 486-specific kernel assuming that this is the best one
> for a laptop w/ 8MB RAM?

Assuming that you have successfully unpacked the BL3 package, you
can just move the old kernel (zimage) somewhere else and replace it
with the new 486 one.

> 3. Should any of the add-on pkgs at
> http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/add-ons/
> (e.g., no-xvesa icewm, abiword, ...etc) be specifically AVOIDED on this
> system ??

If the default Xvesa tiny X setup works for you, then no-xvesa is
unnecessary. You should only use no-xvesa if Xvesa displays
odd colors or does not support your graphics card.

Other than that, I think that the add-ons merely consume
disk space if you do not use them.

If you are using the BL3 loop version, you will want to resize the
loop as it only provides 15-20MB for add-ons.

> wp8 takes up too much room even with an hda1 over 400MB.

Abiword is just a word processor and is much smaller than wp8.

> TYIA for any help.
> Will visit message board later.

What message board?

> A BasicLinux User Newboe

Welcome aboard.

David