-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-
 
 RJT> Only using 31% of a 20M partition?  Cool...   What are you using to
 RJT> open jpegs?

 WC>  Vimage

 RJT> I'm not familiar with that one.  
 
Not the least bit surprised. Steven Darnold compiled himself
quite the compressed image that's highly non-standard to
get it small enough that you can put it on two disks
and boot Linux off an A drive on most any computer into ramdrive.
A whole lot of functions have been incorporated into something 
he called "busybox." Yet this release supports the standard
Slackware 3.5 packages. If ever I find myself again going over
to my landladies house I must take a pair of disks and check out
Linux on DSL!

 RJT> I used a dos-based program on this
 RJT> machine, but at the present time it doesn't wanna work with the video
 RJT> card that's in there at the moment,  so I don't run it.  On the linux
 RJT> box there's something or other under KDE that does a pretty good job of
 RJT> displaying images,  even to resizing things when you change the size of
 RJT> a window,  but I'd be interested in some command-line software for that
 RJT> job.  Did you have to set up a config file to make it deal with your
 RJT> hardware?  Where'd you get it?

 It was incorporated into the supplied image file IIRC and is likely
 unique to Basic Linux 1.7 now 1.8

 RJT>  Some command-line utility,  I'm sure.

 WC>  Point and click up comes the graphic, yet to add additional

 RJT> Heh.

Can also use cursor keys to get there and -> brings up the
highlighted image file, <- takes you to the previous screen.

 RJT> I have a 7.1 cdrom here but skipped right over it to run 8.0.  
 
This won't be your typical 7.1, it'll be a microrelease
incorporating it's own custom compiled image, that is if
I'm reading things right.
Pretty soon I'm nuking /hda4 and will put a conventional
but slimmed down version of Slackware 8.1 back there than I'll
add the SVGA package and others as needed.
This is the 26 meg. footprint installation that's totally 
standard but the initially supplied image supports 4 meg RAM 
with a swap partition. Having 20 I've already the 16 meg
image file already on hand as well as everything necessary to install.
Heck when I first installed it I actually had, and still have,
2 DOS directories holding each image file and could successfully 
boot either 4 meg with swap or 16 meg RAM version straight 
out of DOS!
I even looked at my old Slackware CD and found FTAPE.TGZ
for my Colorado drive QIC tape backup should I run across
a spare tape or two. 

 RJT> Not much
 RJT> difference was apparent to me on looking them over,  so I figured I'd
 RJT> go with the later one.

 Soon as I load X-Windows in my old release and save the Xconfig
 file it's back to my slimmed down standard 8.1.
 I've already acquainted myself with the packages 
 required to add the same or better CLI packages
 I'm currently using to attain the operability I've got in this
 microinstall. I'll start with  adding the Slackware/n
 Lynx, Xmail, ppp, packages which are quite compact
 as well as adding the SVGA drivers to be found in another 
 subdirectory on the various mirrors.
 Later on I'll look into GUI browsers, X-Win and word
 processor.

 WC>  I'm going to see if I can prune some more DOS - Win space and add
 WC> a Linux partition to include the C compiler or perhaps just wait a
 WC> week or so and nuke that old Slackware 2.0 release in /hda4
 WC> replacing it with something else to play with

 RJT> Sounds to me like you've got things going there pretty much,  don't
 RJT> necessarily need that old install any more.

 Nope, just need to get X-Win flying and I've not spent *any*
 time on that lately I'm so confident my config file is
 properly setup now. I just need to set the environment
 variable *first* than run the automated setup again
 plugging in the values I've already deduced will work with my
 video driver and monitor. I've been too busy with CLI stuff
 lately. Also I _hit the wall_ again and need to take a few 
 days break as I feel hard rode and put away wet.

 RJT> I killed a relay in a (Zoom) modem,  one time.  Not pulse-dialing,

 WC> I'd be tempted to fix something like that.

 RJT> Hell with that,  it was under warranty,  so I sent it back and let
 RJT> _them_ fix it.  Which took *way* too long at the time,  so that's when
 
 Well I didn't know it was under warranty, I'd have done similar.
 
 RJT> I ended up getting my first USR Courier,  spending way too much on that
 RJT> at the time,  but it was twice the speed and I don't regret it for an
 RJT> instant.  The old Zoom 14400 is sitting in a box somewhere,  hasn't
 RJT> been used since.

 Gave up on 14,400 when the motherboard fried and I replaced it
 with a "dempsey dumpster" motherboard that had real HS UARTs in it 
 intead of the crappy 8250's :-)
 Looked at the old case to see about swapping everything from
 this low profile to the other that has the beefy PS and room
 for second drive and happily found the riser card is a plugin
 unit so I'll be able to swap them and everything will line 
 up in the old case but that won't happen till the other 
 Pentium machine is up. 
 I know without looking this machine's riser is plugin as the mother-
 board is PCI - ISA optional depending on which riser you've got.
 I've got the ISA only or I'd be setting up the PCI soft modem
 with Linux driver by now!
 _If_ I'm *really* careful with money
 I may in three months setup with a hardware 56K USR as they
 are on sale for 80 bucks hereabouts but lack voice capability :-(
 Actually the 14400 internal is still in the machine and hooked
 up to the line but only for the Win 3.1 SuperVoice answering machine
 support.

 RJT> That user agreement is by far the single biggest factor in why I
 RJT> wouldn't even consider using them for a provider.  
 
 Well I wouldn't use them either except no credit card.
 A few months down the road I'll be using Internet Junction
 at half the cost and better user agreement but I'll have to 
 pay ahead a year. Everyone I've sent to IJ is very happy with 
 their service.
 
 RJT> That and the fact
 RJT> that they're the freakin' PHONE COMPANY!  The fact that I gotta deal
 RJT> with them in the first place is bad enough,  I'm not gonna go and give
 RJT> them more of my money when I have a choice of giving it to somebody
 RJT> else...

 I know, I know. You wouldn't believe the crap I had to go through
 to get them to swap the line pair I was on so it would support 
 the *14400* modem!!! There were times I've certain the voice
 quality on the line was well below the first working telephone.

 RJT> Seems to me that it was right around the holidays when they laid off a
 RJT> whole mess of people,  too.  They said that it was because they
 RJT> couldn't figure out how to deal with competition.  Heh...

Well since they've automated a lot of stuff that real people used
to do and and since your average burger flipper is smarter
than the vast majority of their tech support...
 
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