Howard Eisenberger wrote: > > To followup on this a bit. While further additions to my > Slack 8.1 BasicLinux installation are proceeding nicely > (ssh, exim, still a problem with nfs,
I have to do the following to mount nfs: ------------------------------- insmod lockd insmod sunrpc rpc.portmap mount -t nfs 192.168.1.1:/ /mnt -------------------------------- However, I am using a very slim 2.4 kernel (which I compiled myself). With the bare.i kernel, you probably won't need the insmods. > I installed basic Debian to a spare hardrive on my PI > with plenty of ram and then transferred the drive to my > test box with 8 meg ram. > Both the compact and vanilla installations (kernel 2.2.20) > seem to work as well as Slack 8.1 Debian is a good distro. Last time I looked, it was CLI orientated (rather than going straight to a GUI install). This is essential for installations on old PCs. However, in the end, Linux is Linux, so I wouldn't expect there to be dramatic differences between distros running the same application. The advantage that Slackware has over other mainstream distros is the way it is built up from small packages. A knowledgeable user can select just a few packages and have a working system in very little space. Moreover the format of the startup scripts (/etc/rc.d) makes it relatively easy to slim down (speed up) the installation. Other distros aim for ease-of-use. Most of the decisions are made by an installation wizard and the (braindead) user has only a few point-and-click options. This is great for newbies, but it's deadly for old PCs (which lack the expected RAM and HD space). Some distros, like Debian and (I think) Mandrake), try to accommodate old PCs. However, the way their packages (and dependencies) are structured makes them bigger than Slackware. I spent a long time with Debian, trying to get the smallest possible installation from its packages. The best I could do was still 10mb larger than Slackware. 10mb is trivial when your HD has gigabytes. However, when you are trying to install Linux on a 120mb HD, it matters. A lot. Sitting next to me right now is an old 386DX-40 which I upgraded with a Cyrix DLC CPU. It has 8mb RAM and a 120mb HD. It runs DOS and Linux (with 16mb swap) all on the one HD. Thanks to Slackware. > I compiled links with svgalib on my main box, and was > quite impressed. That might be something that can be > added to BL. I tried it a few months ago and it ran terribly slow, slower than Netscape. That was a surprise. I expected a SVGAlib browser to run faster than an X browser. Perhaps they have speeded it up since I last tried it. Did it seem slow to you? Cheers, Steven ______________________________ http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
