Baslinux mailing list

[Lee Forrest <lforrestster AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 06:27:13PM -0800, Lee Forrest wrote:
> 
> Thanks to John Beck's screen package, I've got screen on
> BL3 now and can forget about X for a while.
> 
> Sindi, where can I get that "SW8.1 compiler and libraries" you
> mentioned in another post, that will compile 2.4 kernels on BL3.
> 
> It's not in 4.0 or 7.1.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Lee

Sindi,

I finally figured it out. By "SW", you mean "Slackware". Thanks
for letting me in on the secret. 

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym=SW&Find=find&string=exact

 SW       Software
                                
 SW       Southwest
                                
 SW       Star Wars
                                
 SW       Switch
                                
 SW       Sweden
                                
 SW       Swimming
                                
 Sw       Swedish (linguistics)
                                
 SW       Shareware
                                
 SW       Subway
                                
 SW       Station Wagon
                                
 SW       Social Worker
                                
 SW       Short Wave (see HF)
                                
 SW       Salt Water
                                
 SW       Sidewinder
                                
 SW       Shock Waves (movie)

 SW       Sand Wedge (golf)
                                                
 SW       Surface Warfare
                                                
 SW       Stormwind (gaming, World of Warcraft)
                                                
 SW       Shotgun Wedding
                                                
 SW       Seatwork (education)
                                                
 SW       So What?
                                                
 SW       Spyware
                                                
 SW       Surface Water
                                                
 SW       Storm Water
                                                
 SW       Semantic Web
                                                
 SW       SolidWorks (3D solid modeling CAD software)                         
    
 SW       Small World
                                                
 SW       Sea World
                                                
 SW       Socialist Worker
                                                
 SW       Slow Wave

That's the first two pages of returns. Do _you_ see "Slackware"
there?

"Slackware" _was_, originally, a contraction and abbreviation of
"slacker's software", so "SW" could be a legitimate abbreviation
for the distro. But I just searched the last 10,000 posts on the
usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.slackware, and it doesn't appear
_once_ there.

Not everyone here has a background in slackware. If I didn't have
an old book on slackware I picked up at a garage sale, I'd have
never have known the above.

And "slackware" has been a single word for about 15 years.

"Debian" is a contraction of "Debbie and Ian". But you wouldn't
understand what I was saying if I said I was using the "DI3.0
compiler", would you? No. You'd think I was using a compiler
you'd never heard of. And you might, like I did with the mythical
"SW8.1 compiler", spend a good deal of time on google trying to
find it.

So I'd tell you I was using gcc-2.95. I _know_ that you don't
have a background in debian and no one uses that acronym
anyway. If it was relevant, I'd tell you that it was found in
debian 3.0.

This is a technical computer forum, and it is difficult enough to
keep track of all the _thousands_ of acronyms that already exisst
without people making them up on a whim. Particularly when the
"made up" acronym has already been used for so many other things
and leads one to believe that two words are involved rather than
one. In-other-words, a bad acronym.

It's one thing to assume that everyone is going to understand
some bad acronym you've made up, and furthermore, that
you are referring to a compiler found in a specific version of
a linux distribution rather than directly to a compiler (even
though you used it in a context that did not even hint at this
fact).

And quite another to leave someone twisting in the wind who
_obviously_ needs to be clued in. Who posted _specifically_ to
you requesting further information on the subject.

I really do _not_ appreciate it. 

Lee