Hi folks, I finally made my move and entered Linux. The first executable I installed was arachne 1.66b. In fact it is going to be the only one for some time to come until I digest more of Linux OS
Trying to decide which distribution is a pain. I got the CD's for Red Hat 7.3 but after seeing it was going to take 2 Gb of my 4.3 Gb drive I halted the install. I searched for a smaller distro. I came up with Zipslack which takes about 100 Meg of your drive. This distro is text based stuff and doesn't even comes with X-Windows but can be added if one so wishes. As my main interest in Linux is learning and using it as a work-station and not a server, it seemed reasonable for starting. one additional advantage (or disadavantage) of Zipslack is that it installs on a regular DOS partition (UMSDOS). I can download an archive for Linux in DOS or Windows, then move it to /tmp dir in Linux for opening later. I can also edit all Linux scripts (batches) in DOS if I so desire. It took me a six weeks until I could install it. I was getting Kernel Panic all the time . I even reformatted my HD as a possible cause of this Kernel Panic. After a lot of reading , googling and thinking I figured it out My HD has C: for Windows, D: , E: 700 meg (empty for linux), F: for DOS etc. In Linux /hda is your 1st HD, /hdb is your 2nd HD and so on. Also /hda1 is the first partition, /hda2 is the second partition, etc of the first drive. So as I was installing Linux in E: (that is the 3rd partition) then my target should be /dev/hda3 (dev for device). No way ! Kernel Panic all the time. After six weeks of Panic I was not far from giving up, until I read somewhere that Linux assumes up to 4 bootable partitions on same drive and the rest are logical (non bootable) partitions starting on the fifth. So then D: should be /hda5 and E: then should be /hda6 and this solved the Panic issue and soon I was the root operator of a Linux system My first impression after the Linux ~# prompt shows is that it looks like DOS. In fact most DOS command have Linux equivalent with few changes. Then I discovered mc (Norton Commander equivalent) which sort of helped me to navigate the directories. But then I felt the need enter internet. So I went to find out how to dial. To my surprise I found pppd and several scripts which have to be edited with your data . There is also pppsetup script which help you enter the data. After a while I was able to call my ISP and get a local and remote IP That is ppp0 is configured. I then looked at browsing. Zipslack came with Lynx, and although I enjoy using Lynx, I much rather use arachne. So I downloaded Arachne for Linux using Arachne for DOS, moved it to /tmp and in Linux used pkgtool to install arachne. The first thing I notice when installing arachne is that it comes with 2 executables: arachne-ggi and arachne-svgalib Arachne-svgalib seemed to execute right away although with some problems. but Arachne-ggi crashed the system right away. I then discovered that I ought to have ggi and gii libraries installed in order to work. I don't even know if ggi works with X windows or not. As my distribution doesn't come with these libraries , I downloaded them from some www.....ggi.org or similar but again it crashed the system so I decided to stick with arachne- svgalib. Arachne-svgalib starts with some default values for vgaconfig and so far I have been unable to find a .conf file for svgalib 1.4.3 where to adjust some parameters. When I first started arachne-svgalib , the familiar arachne init page showed up which made feel at home as most things were similar to the Arachne 1.66 for DOS I use daily. but one problem showed up: the mouse moved very little which pointed to
