Baslinux mailing list

["Greg Mayman" <gmone AT tpg.com.au>]

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 17:00:37 +0000 (UTC), sindi keesan wrote:

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

> I am very impressed that you got this working on the first try.

I would have been surprised, and most upset, if I had not.

The setup was so simple. All I had to do was enter data that I
already knew from using Arachne.

Of course the darn thing dialed by pulse rather than tone, and
there didn't seem to be any option to change that.

But I followed the instructions I was given --- NOT with the BL3
download, I might remind everyone --- and it worked.

Two simple steps: how could it fail to work if the instructions
were correct?

>> Links2 and sylpheed appeared to install properly but give
>> "floating point error" when I try to run them.

> Did you first type Xsetup and choose resolution and color depth and then
> run X (startx)?

Nobody said I had to. So why would I do it?

Someone did tell me that all you do is type "pkg <add-on>.tgz" to
install the add-on, then you type its name to run it. That worked
with mc and yabasic jes' fine!

>  The programs both need X.

Now they tell me. What else is there that I don't know?

> What did you type just before the error message?

"Links2" in one case, "sylpheed" in the other case. Why would I type
anything different?

> ppp-on runs a pppd program used by an eznet program which dials, but the
> kernel was kept small so you need to insert two modules for pppd to work,
> slhc.o and ppp.o, and pppsetup does that for you.  You can insmod slhc
> then insmod ppp then type ppp-on (or eznet up 0).

> Can we insmod slhc ppp on one line?

I have absolutely no idea. What does that mean?

> On the other hand, it is extremely surprising that so much worked, when
> you probably did not even read all the instructions.

Well, "probably" you really have no idea of what I did or didn't
read!

I don't know what you mean by "all the instructions" but just now
I checked through the README file again and I can't see where I
did anything wrong, or didn't do anything I should have.

Is it that the README file is totally inadequate for instructing
a new, first-time user in the things they need to know?

Elsewhere --- but _NOT_ in any instructions that came with with
BasicLinux --- I found a note that said I can enter "man bash" or
"info bash" to get a list of all the available commands and how
to use them.

Naturally "man" and "info" don't exist in BL3.

There doesn't seem to be any "help" files or similar for BL, or
any mention of where they can be found.

The new user is strictly on his own.

.   ,-./\
.  /     \     from Greg Mayman, in Adelaide, South Australia
.  \_,-*_/     "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E
.       v