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Greg Mayman wrote:
>
> I have downloaded BL3.40, hard disk version and installed it.

Did you install it to a Linux partition on your hard drive?
Or did you unzip it to C:\BASLIN on your DOS partition?

> Eventually, I did a pppsetup, then ppp-on and it connected to my
> ISP!

Well done.

> I then used pkg to install mc and yabasic. And they worked
> first time!

That's good.

> But abiword gave a "zcat: unexpected end of file" error.

The AbiWord package is big.  If you are running BL3 from
C:\BASLIN, you only have 20mb of space.  That's barely
enough room for AbiWord.  There's not enough room for
AbiWord if you have other add-on packages too.

> And sc and xfreecell gave "tar: invalid tar magic" error.
>
> Links2 and sylpheed appeared to install properly but give
> "floating point error" when I try to run them.

Once your filesystem is full, you get all sorts of strange 
error messages.

> "gunzip greenfield96Linux.ps.gz" tells me there is no 
> space left on drive.

That looks like your problem.  To see how much space is
remaining, do the following:
--
df
--

> That's crap! There is over 300 Mb of free space on the HDD.

There may be 300mb on your drive, but the filesystem
in C:\BASLIN is only 20mb.  Normally, BL3 is installed
to its own partition on the hard drive.  You can make 
that partition as large as you want (using fdisk).
Then you format it (using mke2fs), mount it, and execute 
install-to-hd.
 
Let us know if you need any help with that.

> Now, after booting, ppp-on will not work.

ppp needs two modules to work.  When you run pppsetup
those modules are automatically installed for you.
However, when you turn off the power, those modules
disappear.  

To activate those modules automatically at system
start-up, edit /etc/rc.  There you will find the
two modules listed under ##_ACTIVATE_PPP_#
-------------
# insmod slhc
# insmod ppp 
-------------
Remove the # at the beginning of each line and save.
Next time you boot BL3, those two lines will be 
executed automatically.

> The system dials in, but now links won't work.

Probably, the same problem as above (no space on filesystem).

> This is all EXTREMELY disappointing!

Don't give up.  We can help you sort it out.

> Is it true that BasicLinux does work

Yes, many people here have been running it for years.
But we've all had our moments of frustration trying to
figure out we've done wrong.  

> Greg Mayman, in Adelaide, South Australia

Welcome Aussie.  There are several antipodean users of 
BasicLinux (including myself).

>  "Queen City of The South"  

What?  Everybody knows the Queen City is Auckland.  :-)

Cheers,
Steven