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On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 Sindi wrote:

> Message from Steven
> ===================
> Sindi wrote:
> > The people I am putting this together for
> > will come back to me if they need any other
> > applications.  They don't always have a spare
> > partition or want to risk shrinking their FAT32
> > partition so I want something that fits in a
> > 50MB loop file, or at least in 100MB.
>
> The BL3 foundation plus Opera 9.21 is 28mb.
> Opera 8 is smaller.

Opera 7.23 - about 12000K
Opera 8.52 - 14278K
Opera 9.21 - 16476K

The Opera 9.21 for Slackware 8.0/8.1 loads with the SW8.1 glibc 2.2.25.

Archived versions only have a choice of rpm, deb, tar.gz and tar.bz2.  I 
don't know what glibc the archived versions need.  The earlier version 9
(9.02?) I downloaded did not work with 2.2.25.  The two generic 'static' 
versions on the menu appear to be rpm and deb.

SW9.0 glibc 2.3.1 is a slightly smaller package (they split it up) but the 
glibc library is 25K larger.  I have not needed 2.3.1 except for QEMU.

> > Lots of people just want a browser and email
> > and a wordprocessor that prints.
>
> Opera + AbiWord will fit into 50mb, but they
> both can generate a lot of files.  100mb is
> probably about right.

I reset the default Opera parameters to a smaller disk cache, which 
empties on exit.

> If I were doing a fool-proof system for a naive
> user, I would use a ramdisk for the root filesystem.
> It would be a minimal root filesystem.  X and all
> the applications would be on a different filesystem
> (loop or partition) that is checked (e2fsck) and
> then mounted at /usr.  X is auto-executed and all
> the available applications are in the jwm menu.
> Exiting jwm reboots the system.

How would you start X during boot?
How would you use the ramdisk?  As in BL3 FD or loop?

> When the user gets into trouble (which will no doubt
> happen), he simply resets the machine and gets a nice
> clean ramdisk and an automatic fsck for his files.
>
> The ramdisk filesystem is limited and volatile so
> something will need to be done about /tmp and /home
> (and any other directories that accumulate files).
> Separate filesystems could be used for /tmp and /home
> or you could simply symlink them into the /usr filesystem
> ( /usr/tmp  /usr/home ).

I don't think I am capable of this yet.

> > A friend's student thinks he needs a faster computer
> > for the internet so I offered to make his faster.
>
> Is he on dial-up?  If so, his slowness is not caused
> by the computer.  If he's on broadband, you may be able
> to speed things up for him, but you'd better leave plenty
> of room for the stuff he downloads.  At broadband speed
> he's going to accumulate many many megabytes.

I asked about ISP and hardware - no answer yet.

I have no idea how to set up for cable modem.  DSL modems are often USB 
only.  We have two of those that work with linux (in theory).  So far we 
are only asked for help with dialup internet.  People who have the money 
for broadband tend to buy new computers with Windows on them.

Abiword that you compiled is 'static' and appears not to require any X 
libraries.  Do any BL3 X-based add-ons besides icewm (libXpm) need 
additional X libraries that Opera does not use?  freecell?

> Cheers,
> Steven

Sindi