Baslinux mailing list

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David Moberg wrote:
>
> Are BL2 and BL1 considered obsolete, now that BL3 is 
> the latest version? 

BL2 is not obsolete.  I still use it as my main platform.
It is a better platform than BL3 for a multi-purpose desktop.  

BL3 was designed for old laptops with limited resources
(although it can be expanded to do most things).  That's
why BL3 has PCMCIA capability and a small-footprint
presentation program.

> Is this list still the correct place to discuss the old
> versions of BL?)

Yes.

> I "discovered" that Nomdo Jansonius has a small section 
> on BL on his website. (At the bottom of the following page:)
>      http://www.nomdo.dds.nl/dos.htm
> He posted directions and files for combining the binary 
> package of OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 with BL2. 

That could be useful for some users.  I run OpenOffice 1.1.5 
on BL2, but it's a lot slower than AbiWord, so I usually run
AbiWord.  However, sometimes I get documents that AbiWord can't 
handle (so far OpenOffice has been able to handle everything).

BTW, there were instructions for installing OpenOffice 1.0.3.1 
in the BL2 FAQ.  It's still available at the BasicLinux site.

> The only confusing part of the installation procedure 
> was when the setup program asked if I wanted to use 
> Java (the correct answer is "No"

Answering "yes" to Java makes OpenOffice much slower.

> And OO.o has a full-blown spreadsheet, scripting system, 
> MS-compatible PowerPoint clone, etc.

Yes, it is very capable.

> Nomdo said in a previous post that his Pentium was about 
> the minimum for usable performance. 

I recommend 200MHz CPU with 128mb RAM.

> BTW, what is the upper limit of target hardware for BL2
> and 3?  

There's no upper limit as such, but hardware support is 
targeted at old PCs.

> I notice that Steven has provided BL3.40 kernels for P1 
> and P2, so should I take that to imply that Pentium-class 
> machines are suitable for BL2?

Yes, BL3 is targetted at 486's and low-end Pentiums.

> Now, if an 80MB office suite can run on BL2 with library 
> upgrade, is it possible to use Firefox on some version of 
> BasicLinux? 

I run Firefox 0.5 on BL2.  Opera is better (that's why I
did the instructions for installing Opera on BL3).

Cheers,
Steven