On Sat, 31 Aug 2002, Luis A. Loeff wrote: > > 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 ?
If you're going to be expsosing services to the internet, then you definitely want to use the most up to date daemons. Over the years, exploits have been discovered in sendmail, apache, wu-ftpd, lpd, and just about any server application you can think of. If you need to run any of these, then you need the most recent, bug-fixed, security exploit patched version possible. However, if all you're going to be doing is running a web browser and checking mail and the like, it really doesn't matter. Smaller is better. Also, it depends on your hardware. I tried putting Red Hat 7.1 (or maybe it was RH 7.2) on a 486VLB-66. It refused to install... yet RH 6.2 went on without a problem. (So did FreeBSD 4.4, for that matter.) I just upgraded to a 1.5 Ghz screamer (which is bleeding edge for me) <BG> yet, I'm still running RH 6.2 and fvwm2. No matter how fast the hardware, I still like small and fast software. Mozilla now loads in less than 3 seconds... yet I still like dillo, which is on the screen before I can even get my finger off the <enter> key. I mean... it's onscreen in a matter of single-digit milliseconds! </digress> Arachne still takes a full second if it needs to be loaded from disk, but 10's of milliseconds from cache. > I have since your reply installed x-Windows but neither arachne-ggi neither > X-Windows seems to work. X windows is kind of tricky without a program to help write your configuration file. Most distributions don't expect you to write XF86Config from scratch so include at least xf86config which will ask you all the right questions to properly write XF86Config. In RH, xf86config is kept in /usr/X11R6/bin/ and XF86Config is in /etc/X11/. They might be in the same locations in your distribution, or they might be somewhere else. > 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 ! Cool. > 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. There are definitely more problems with arachne-svgalib than with arachne-ggi. > 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. There are some distributions, such as Mandrake and SuSE, which are easier than Windows. You can start out with point'n'click, and as you are still productive, you can begin to learn the power of the CLI. > The fact that several distributions have different libraries and some > software was compiled with such library makes Linux a nightmare for > a user. Same with Windows though. You buy new software... Windows installs new DLL's. Sometimes they're happy with the older DLL's, sometimes they're not. Sometimes the new DLL's break other software. > 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. I wonder why so many games had to come with their own DOS then. What was it? D4GW or something like that? And then there's all the software that says... what is it? "Must run in Windows" or "Cannot run in DOS mode" or whatever it is. > Linux reminds me of Babel Tower, and it will remain impractical for > most people for a long time as a general purpose OS , exc > Linux reminds me of Babel Tower, and it will remain > impractical for most people for a long time as a general > purpose OS , except for specialized applications where it > certainly looks good. Lindows, Mandrake, SuSE, and others are all much easier than Windows. Ok, so if you run Lindows, their software packages are not *.rpm packages, while mandrake uses *rpm, as does SuSE, but they have differences. Is this any different than having software coming in different versions for Win'95/'98/Me and NT/2000/XP ? You still have t get the right software for the right kernel. DOS, Win3.1, Win'95, Win'98, WinMe, NT, Win2000, XP. To me, this is the Babel Tower. -- Steve Ackman http://twoloonscoffee.com (Need green beans?) http://twovoyagers.com (glass, linux & other stuff)
