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On Sun, 23 Mar 2008, Sindi wrote:

> Message from Steven
> ===================
> Sindi wrote:
> > I posted a libc5 version compiled by David Moberg,
> > and a glibc 2.2.5 version
>
> I assume the 2.2.5 version is for BL2 and the libc5
> version is for BL3.

Actually I was using the libc5 version in BL2 for a while, with libc5 
added, but David said not all of the programs would compile for libc5. 
Also it needed a libc5 libpng, which meant I had to write a script to tell 
netpbm to use a different libpng of the same name as the glibc2 one.

I installed libc5 in BL2 to use David's netpbm, and Ron's timidity.
For some reason my pnmenlarge needs libc5 and libc6 and does not work (seg 
faults).  pamenlarge does.   Having libc5 in BL2 is handy for testing BL3 
programs there.

tifftopnm needs libtiff and libjpeg and libz.
pamtotiff uses libtiff and libjpeg (why?) and libz
pngtopnm needs libpng and libz
jpegtopnm needs libjpeg and libz
zgv that I compiled uses all of these and libvga.

Links2 uses these all too, so there was no reason for me to compile them 
in statically (and I don't know how and the INSTALL did not say how).

I can package up the following for use with my zgv and links2 if anyone 
wants:

libjpeg.so.62  127K
libpng.so.2.1.03 157K
libtiff.so.3.8.2 657K
I presume people want to have libz and libbz2 anyway.

I don't know how links and zgv handle gifs since there is no libgif - with 
libjpeg?


I don't run into tiff's on the web.  I could recompile links2 
--without-libtiff to eliminate this dependency (but zgv really ought to 
include tiff support).

libvga is in my svgalib package, about 300K (or 160K if you get the 
library for just one chip) and about 50K of libvga.gl and libvga.config. 
About 200K to have svgalib on your computer, another 300K for libjpeg and 
libpng.  500K total to be able to run links2 without X, in less RAM. And 
these same libraries will let you use netpbm to edit and print and even 
view images, a recent zgv to view images with more options, and other 
svgalib programs including mplayer -vo svga to view dvds (not that you 
would run it on a computer under 500MHz), gs with svp or bmv to view pdfs. 
And svgalib runs easily on all the video chips I tried it on, unlike Xvesa 
or even the larger X (for which I still cannot find i810 support, and for 
which I don't think i810 support even exists for libc5).

I can run two instances of links2 on two terminals at once.

In BL2 delilinux links2 at 1024 resolution 32bit with no website displayed 
using svgalib uses 0.1% of memory on my computer (1.2GHz and 512MB), or 
about .5MB.  Displaying a 1280 resolution photo, link2 uses 0.6%.
Total memory used .7% x 512 3.5MB.

Xvesa uses 0.2%, icewm 0.2% and xinit 0.1% of memory. The same links2 in X 
is using 0.4% of memory (while not displaying anything).  .9% total, or 9 
times as much memory (about 4.5MB). Displaying the same photo, links2 
itself uses 1.5% of memory (8MB). Xvesa plus icewm plus links2 together 
use .2+.2+.1+1.5% =2% of 512MB, or a total of 10MB.

In BL3 (chroot and mount /proc) top says Xvesa is using 0.2% jwm 0.1% 
(xinit probably 0.1%), and the X-based links2 compiled by Steven 0.3% of 
RAM (less than the delilinux version - does leaving out svgalib support 
help save memory?.  .7% of 512MB is 3.5 MB

Probably about 9.5M total to view the same photo.  The kernel itself uses 
about 2MB.  We have 486 laptop computers with only 12MB RAM, and a pentium 
with 16M (and no obvious way to put in more RAM).

This means if you try to do much more than view one photo (or one website 
with a lot of graphics)  with links2 under X, on a laptop with 16MB RAM, 
you will be swapping to swap file or partition, slowing things down a lot.
Links2 run under svgalib leaves 6.5MB more free RAM.  I run Opera on a 
laptop with 32MB (at the library via wireless).  No swap file.

I would need a slower computer to check how long it took to load X plus 
links2 plus a photo.  I know svp displays pdfs much faster than xpdf on a 
slower computer even when it has 128MB memory.  When nothing is happening, 
Xvesa is not using any measurable cpu time.  When I load the same photo in 
opera, it shoots up to using 7% of cpu time then back down to 1%.  On a 
120MHz pentium system it would be using at least 70% of cpu time to load 
the photo (at 640 resolution).

Opera 9 in BL2 at 640 resolution is using 4x4.5% of memory (92MB)!  Xvesa 
is using 1.8% and icewm 0.2%.  Presumably opera will use less when less is 
available.


> > Both versions require libraries (jpeg tiff png)
> > that are also required by links2 when compiled
> > with svgalib support.
>
> The BL3 links2 needs the jpeg and png libraries too,
> but I compiled them statically into the program.

They don't seem to have enlarged it noticeably.

> > A lot of websites won't work with lynx or links2
>
> Recently I've been finding more and more websites
> that don't work with Phoenix (Firefox 0.6).  However,
> almost all of those sites do work with links2.  I'm
> using links2 quite a lot these days.

Why do you prefer Phoenix?
Do these sites work with the latest Opera?
There was one that worked with 9.50b but not 9.23, however 9.50 kept 
crashing.  Next time I run into it (some company's driver download) I will 
try with links2.1 pre33.

Links2 has been unable to handle some of the sites where you need to type 
in the characters you see.  Lynx is hopeless at that - it has to be 
inline.

I found one site that works with the Delilinux links2 javascript.  It 
produced 'Hello World', where the newer version gave a blank page.
W3schools.com has a bunch of examples that do work with links2 javascript.
Not all of the advanced onces do work.  Once in a while if I have two 
consoles running svgalib links2, one of them gets messed up and I need to 
manually kill the process.

I may compile version pre28, last version with javascript.  Later versions 
of links2 seem to be mostly just bugfixes.

The doc file of links source code provides a calibration utility - does 
anyone want it posted?

> > Opera is the only program that has ever caused me
> > problems when running without a swap file in 16MB.
>
> Most of the BL3 applications have small footprints
> so they will run OK in 16mb RAM without a swap file.
> However, for multi-tasking in X with 16mb RAM, I
> strongly recommend a 32mb swap file.

Can you run links2 under X in 16MB without a swap file?

> Cheers,
> Steven

Sindi