Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 02:26:11PM +0000, sindi keesan wrote:
> >
> > I found the Opera site and I'll download it when I get some time.
> >
> > Opera 9 for Linux is only about 5.5Mb. That's tiny compared with most
> > Windoze stuff!!!!
> 
> Please let me know if Opera 9 works with glibc 2.2.5.  The one I 
> downloaded needed 3.2.3.  You need to choose carefully.

I'll do a bit of translation for the inexperienced Linux user here. Linux 
updates its 
libraries regularly. Libraries are files that programs need to run, and which 
can be used by 
several programs at the same time. I think they are sometimes called "shared 
libraries" and 
they are probably similar to what are known as ".dll" files under Win (my 
understanding of 
libraries is pretty rudimentary: anyone is welcome to offer corrections 
and/or 
clarifications). BL3 is based on a really old set of libraries. It's 
libraries are libc5, 
which was current in the late 90's. For this reason, many newer Linux 
programs refuse to run 
and/or compile under BL3. Long and short of this is that we have to be picky 
about what 
programs we install under BL3. The add-ons linked to from Steven's site are 
all safe, as are 
the programs various BL users have compiled and make available at their 
download sites. 
Stuff from Slackware Version 4 and earlier also usually works fine. Anything 
newer is 
suspect, though.

I should mention that there is a way people using BL have managed to run 
newer programs 
though, and that involves upgrading BL's libraries to newer ones. I believe a 
few people 
(Sindi, Steven?) have upgraded their BL 3 libraries by installing libraries 
from Slackware 
8.1 (ca. 2002?). On this scenario, one keeps existing BL libraries, but adds 
newer ones as 
well, thus allowing the running of newer programs that otherwise would not 
work on BL3. I 
think Sindi is saying above that, even with the newer, Slack 8.1 libraries 
installed, she 
was unable to run the latest Opera under BL3 (correct me if I'm wrong, 
Sindi). Be aware that 
adding libraries takes up further disk space, of which you have a limited 
quantity.

The upshot of all this is that you likely would not be able to run the latest 
Opera under 
BL3. Almost certainly you'd have to download an older version of Opera, and 
even then you'd 
likely need to upgrade your libraries before it would run. Sindi and/or 
Steven should be 
able to provide more detail on how to do this and which version of Opera to 
choose.

Btw, you never told us specs for your machine. Newer versions of Opera 
require a bit of 
processing and memory umph. I'd say nothing less than about a P2 with 64 MB 
of RAM would be 
required. Does your system meet those specs?

James