Steve wrote: > > This isn't about Linux. It's about Michael (and Steven). > He decided when porting Arachne to Linux, that he'd go > with the latest libraries.
More important than that: Michael did not release the source. If we had the source, libraries would not be an issue. > I think keeping BasicLinux small is a good goal, but > when it's done by keeping it in a 5 year old time warp, > (that's 35 computer years, remember) then obviously, > there will be certain pieces of newer software that > just won't work. Not true. BasicLinux uses recent versions of busybox, links, nano, thttpd, icewm, xfreecell, etc. It was not difficult to compile them for libc5. And they work just fine. libc5 may be older than glibc2, but it's also smaller and faster. Is that a bad thing? > If you want to run Linux kernel 1.0.1, you're perfectly free > to do so. There's a big difference between 1.0.1 and 2.0.34 (the BasicLinux default kernel). The 2.0.3x kernels have been remarkably stable and reliable. The 2.2.x kernels have been more problematical and there are many reports of 2.4.x kernels having embarrassing crashes. I'm not talking about newbie-crashes, but crashes on 24/7 servers with experienced sysadmins. Many experienced Linux users are sticking with the 2.0 kernel and development of that line continues. The latest is 2.0.39 and I think 2.0.40 is on the way. > Just don't expect every programmer in the world to make his > programs backward compatible No. All I ask for is the source code. > Steven seems to have his computer frozen ca. 1997. June 1998 actually. But that's just the foundation (Slackware 3.5). And it's not frozen -- I've added plenty of more recent stuff. It's my hardware that's frozen. My 486 runs my Linux just fine. That would not be the case if I "upgraded" to a new "feature-rich" library and a new "feature-rich" kernel and a new "feature-rich" desktop and a new "feature-rich" browser. Unnecessary feature-creep (bloat) is killing old PCs. Whether the feature-creep comes from Redmond or RedHat is irrelevant. Cheers, Steven ____________________________________________________ Linux for old PCs: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi
