Hi Steve,

I enjoyed your comments as they throw new light into the linux jungle.




>   Red Hat 6.2 can be put onto ~130MB... that includes X.
>   

Here is an important point.

Should I stick to a new distro or should  I use a smaller but old one ?

> > 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. 
> 
>   GGI *only* works with X-windows.  This is the only way 
> I'll run Arachne on Linux. 

I have since your reply installed x-Windows but neither arachne-ggi neither
X-Windows seems to work.


> > 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.
> 
>   Did you look at /etc/vga/libvga.config ?
  
> > but one problem showed up: the mouse moved very little
> > which pointed to 

After I read your message I saw no /etc/vga directory, so I look for
the source and re-installed svgalib. Now there is /etc/vga/ dir

and I had place mouse scale back to original value in arachne.conf
No problems with mouse scale now.

>   Hmmm... the rest of your message evaporated.  But, the
> mouse will act strange if you don't have svgalib configured 
> properly.
> 


I am reposting the last part of the evaporated message !




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 a scale problem. The only place I could adjust this
was in Arachne.conf file (same as arachne.cfg in DOS). I tested some values
until I got a usable mouse. This number was 2 which seemed way of low.

ABOVE IS SOLVED NOW !

After this I tested arachne for a few hours on the net .  It run OK ? but
had 2 big problems. Every time I clicked on a link ,  a screen appeared
"Can't open connection" , then I escaped (closed) arachne. In the
linux text background screen there was "Can't create mouse thread" written
many times. I then entered arachne again , then back page and there was the
link Arachne couldn't open before.

Also I experienced segmentation ? problems at the arachne-svgalib binary.


After a while I got used to exit and enter Arachne that made navigation
possible but inconvenient .   The fact is I don't have the slightest idea
what to do, But before,  I have to learn a lot about Linux.
On the plus side Arachne for Linux seems faster than Arachne for Dos.

I will keep playing with Linux to learn, but I think Linux is not ready
for me, or better I am not ready for linux
The fact that several distributions have different libraries and some
software was compiled with such library makes Linux a nightmare for
a user. Imagine if there were 6 different io.sys DOS kernels each for
a different software, then I would be forced to learn a lot more about
how each io.sys was compiled. This is impractical. I will stick to
MSDOS in which Bill Gates decreed how it was going to be, everybody
else follows suit , and all software certainly work on Microsoft DOS.

Linux reminds me of Babel Tower,  and it will remain impractical for
most people for a long time as a general purpose OS , exc

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