"Steven C. Darnold" wrote: > For several years I have been using Slackware 3.5 on > all my PCs. It performs well on old hardware and I have > been very happy with it (especially after I compiled a > customized kernel). > > However, it's getting harder and harder to find libc5 > binaries (even compiling from source is often tripped > up by something lacking in libc5).
Been there done that. > A similar problem is happening with the 2.0 kernel. Several > interesting/ > useful utilities are designed for 2.2+ kernels. Moreover > the old 2.0 kernels can't access the new filesystems -- > not even ext2 (most current distributions format ext2 > with sparse-super by default). I've been going down the same road for other reasons, and agree that it may be time to start BasicLinux 2.0 ( based on a 2.2 kernel. The Basic Linux 1.x I hope would continue to be available for very minimal machines. > > My experience with Slack81 has led me to reassess my decision to > go from 3.5 to 8.1. Is there perhaps a Slackware between 3.5 > and 8.1 that provides glibc2 and a more up-to-date kernel without > all the weight of Slack81? I considered them one-by-one: > > Slackware 4.0 > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > The first Slackware with a 2.2 kernel. Still libc5. No go. > > Slackware 7.0 > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > The next Slackware after 4.0 (the big jump in version was to > give it a bigger number than RedHat :-). First Slackware > with glibc2. A more mature 2.2 kernel. Not a bad distribution; > however, it represents a big library change for Slackware and > I'd be more comfortable letting it mature a bit. > > Slackware 7.1 > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > More mature glibc2. More mature 2.2 kernel. Still has the > individual X packages. Still uses DOS-friendly (8.3) filenames > for the packages. This is as good as it gets. > I have been involved in much the same analysis and agree completely with you. It also probably not such a big jump in versions so that most of the techniques used in BasicLinux can be applied to the 2.2 kernel pretty well. I was hesitant to start off on my own. If I can help in any way, please let me know. I would also suggest that BasicLinux 2.0 might benefit from a specialized kernel, optimized for older hardware, with some of the support for rarely used features left out, rather than one of the stock Slackware kernels. Do you think you can make it still fit on a couple of floppies? I guess that someday Basic Linux 3.0 might eventually be based upon Slackware 8.1, as the definition of old hardware continues to be expanded ( like when you get a 500+ MHz machine ;-) -- Robert Steinmetz AIA Principal Steinmetz & Associates 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
