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On Fri, 14 Mar 2008, baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> I'm doing some teaching now that could be aided by use of a smallish
> laptop (I have to fly a couple of times a month to where I teach, so
> portability is a concern). I've located a laptop for this. It's a Toshiba
> Portege 3020ct with a Celeron 300 CPU, 96 MB RAM, and a 6 GB HD. Now, 
I....

Overkill.

> First, I will need a decent graphical browser. I know I can install Opera
> and have experimented a bit with installing Opera under BL on other, less
> powerful machines. The last machine I tried this on was a P1 133 laptop
> with only 32 MB of RAM. I did manage to get the browser running but had

Opera works fine for me on this setup.  I don't even bother with a swap 
file (but I don't run anything else at the same time, and I close tabs).
With 16MB I need a swap file or partition.

> some issues, as follows. I ran the install script like Steven's directions
> indicate and, right after the installation, the browser ran simply by
> issuing the command opera froma terminal. After rebooting, however, when I
> tried running the same command from a terminal, the browser would not
> start and I got an error message about a wrapper script. What is the
> source of this wrapper script problem and how can it be fixed?

Presumably you first started X.

There are two ways to run opera.  You can unpackage it in / and then cd 
opera* and run from the wrapper script (named opera) by typing ./opera, or 
you can install it by cd'ing to opera* and typing install.sh, then after 
that just type opera from anywhere.  If you did not run install.sh, you 
may get a message about a wrapper script unless you run it from opera* 
directory.  Which of these methods did you use?

The first method did not work for me as user with one version of opera, 
but it did as root.

> Secondly, some elements in certain web pages did not display properly in
> Opera under BL. I think the problem there is that BL contains only a very
> limited selection of fonts and characters. The browser (and web page
> authors) expect a wider set to be available. If I understand correctly the
> nature of this problem, the browser is displaying the limited set of
> characters it has available under BL when rendering elements on certain
> pages and the final result looks a bit wierd (e.g., question marks being
> rendered where one would expect bullets). Have I understood the nature of
> this rendering issue and, if so, what is the solution? Installing a fuller
> set of fonts from Slack4?


BL3 has only a few Latin-alphabet fonts.  You could probably select a few 
other fonts to add but it is easier to do whole packages.

Links2 graphical displays more fonts (but not all pages).  lynx displays 
any terminal font which you install first.  Set options to display the 
correct charset (CP866, KOI8-R, etc.).

> I will need a wordprocessing program on this machine and, of course, I
> know Abiword is available for BL. It could surely suffice for my needs but
> for one possible hitch: does the version of Abiword that comes with BL
> export to pdf? If not, can some sort of plugin be added that will allow it
> to do so? Another alternative would be as follows: export to ps, then use
> ps2pdf to convert the resulting ps file. If BL's Abiword does not export
> to pdf, can it save as or export to ps?

Yes to ps (see archives).  Why do you want pdf instead of rtf?

> Finally, a major issue, and one that may be the showstopper for putting BL
> on this laptop, is printing: I must be able to print from this laptop. I
> have acquired an older laserjet printer for this purpose--a Canon LBP 430.

A web search says it works with gs as ljet4.  Same as my HP Laserjet 5L 
and 6L.  300 dpi.  I compiled gs 8.54 with this driver and with 
deskjet as the default device (deskjet will also work with my laser 
printers and probably with yours).

My script for printing, called printdj, is
gs -r300 -dNOPAUSE -sOutputFile=/dev/lp0 $1
(The -r300 may be default too, try without it).

printdj file.pdf (or file.ps) will print the file to lp0 at 300 dpi using 
the default device deskjet.  You can specify a different default in 
/etc/profile:
export GS_DEVICE=ljet4

My gs does not support x11 as a device.  This keeps it smaller.  It only 
needs the one binary (2.7MB with a few devices including those needed by 
svp pdf viewer, a few printers, ps2pdf; 2.9 with default devices) and 
minimal fonts (not the 2-3GB package unless you want to print with a 
variety of fonts).  The Windows gs is 17MB download.  I did not compile in 
Chinese support.  GS8.60 is about twice the size.  I have not needed it.
The Slackware 7 gs does not support some newer pdf formats.

NOPAUSE is if you won't want to stop after every page (to add paper, if 
your paper feed is bad and feeds all sheets at once.  Write us for 
details on printer repair using bike inner tubes and rubber rejuvenator).

You would need to get this script working in Abiword and Opera to print 
directly from them.  See the archives.  Much easier than using lpr (which 
only works for user not root).

> I've tested the printer with my newer desktop that runs the latest release
> of Ubuntu, so I know it is compatible with newer versions of Linux. But I
> am unsure how I might go about getting it to work under BL, or even if I
> can expect it to work at all. I would appreciate input on this printer
> issue, specifically whether I can expect to get it printing under BL 3.5
> relatively painlessly and, if so, what steps I would need to take in order
> to do that. I should mention that I may, from time to time, need to print
> documents that have foreign words on them (in Greek, perhaps Hebrew and/or
> Slavonic).

You probably need more ghostscript fonts.  You can use the Abiword fonts 
for English by making a symlink from /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts to
/usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts (which will also work for xpdf and pdftopbm).

> Input will be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> James

Sindi

keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org