Wayne Chirnside wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

-=> 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.  

WC> Not the least bit surprised. Steven Darnold compiled himself quite
WC> the compressed image that's highly non-standard to get it small 
WC> enough that you can put it on two disks and boot Linux off an 
WC> A drive on most any computer into ramdrive. A whole lot of 
WC> functions have been incorporated into something he called 
WC> "busybox." 

I've run across that before,  somewhere.  Maybe TomsRtBt?

WC> Yet this release supports the standard Slackware 3.5 packages. If 
WC> ever I find myself again going over to my landladies house I must 
WC> take a pair of disks and check out Linux on DSL!

Heh.

RJT> I used a dos-based program on this machine, but at the present 
RJT> time it doesn't wanna work with the video card that's in there at 
RJT> the moment,  so I don't run it.  On the linux box there's 
RJT> something or other under KDE 

Image viewer.  I couldn't hit the menu before when I wrote that,  for some
reason or other.

RJT> that does a pretty good job of displaying images,  even to 
RJT> resizing things when you change the size of a window,  but I'd be 
RJT> interested in some command-line software for that job.  Did you 
RJT> have to set up a config file to make it deal with your hardware?  
RJT> Where'd you get it?

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

Hm,  another reason for me to get a hold of a copy of that.

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

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

RJT> Heh.

WC> Can also use cursor keys to get there and -> brings up the 
WC> 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.  

WC> This won't be your typical 7.1, it'll be a microrelease 
WC> incorporating it's own custom compiled image, that is if I'm 
WC> reading things right.

Oh,  you can always be choosy.  Me,  when I first installed 4.0 I had no
clue as to what I was looking at for choices,  plenty of HD space,  so I
told it to install *everything*.  And I've been poking through it ever
since.

WC> Pretty soon I'm nuking /hda4 and will put a conventional but 
WC> slimmed down version of Slackware 8.1 back there than I'll add
WC> the SVGA package and others as needed. This is the 26 meg. 
WC> footprint installation that's totally standard but the initially 
WC> supplied image supports 4 meg RAM with a swap partition. Having 20 
WC> I've already the 16 meg image file already on hand as well as 
WC> everything necessary to install. Heck when I first installed it I 
WC> actually had, and still have, 2 DOS directories holding each image 
WC> file and could successfully boot either 4 meg with swap or 16 meg 
WC> RAM version straight out of DOS!

That's something I haven't tried yet.  There's a few hundred meg of
unpartitioned HD space on the w98 box and I was thinking about installing
linux over there,  but the sizes on my initial list of what should go in
there added up to too much.  So I'll probably have to pare it down some.

WC> I even looked at my old Slackware CD and found FTAPE.TGZ for my 
WC> Colorado drive QIC tape backup should I run across a spare tape or 
WC> two.

Yep,  that's one more thing I haven't gotten around to yet -- got mine in
the linux box,  and I haven't tried to do a damn thing with it yet.  Now
I'm into messing around with this cd burner I just snagged,  got that in
there today and after echomail I'll start looking at the software...



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

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

We probably oughta take this stuff up more over in the linux echo...

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

WC>  Well I didn't know it was under warranty, I'd have done similar.

Dealing with that company was an exercise in frustration,  start to finish.
 They have phone lines that just ring and ring,  no recording telling you
that there's nobody there to answer after a certain time.  They had a bbs, 
and when I went there looking for technical help the damn thing looked like
just about any other bbs,  lots of chatter,  lots of generic files to
download.  I did luck out to the point of finding out that there was
another (way thicker) manual other than the one I got with it,  as the
latter said *nothing* about fax operation,  I guess they assumed that you
were gonna just use the software they gave you.  And I found out there was
a rom upgrade because I saw some other user mention it.  But they never
told me about it.  Then they sent these two things out in _separate
packages_ -- with the note telling me which of the two roms I needed (on
was for internal,  one for external) stuck on a post-it note that was on
the manual,  in the other package!  Damn good thing for me that they both
got there at the same time...

RJT> I ended up getting my first USR Courier,  spending way too much on 
RJT> that at the time,  but it was twice the speed and I don't regret 
RJT> it for an instant.  The old Zoom 14400 is sitting in a box 
RJT> somewhere,  hasn't been used since.

WC>  Gave up on 14,400 when the motherboard fried and I replaced it 
WC> with a "dempsey dumpster" motherboard that had real HS UARTs in it 
WC> intead of the crappy 8250's :-)

Since I was into it early on,  I had replaced one of the UARTs in this
8-bit i/o card with a 16550.  Still have that card handy,  too.  If I ever
need to add com3 and com4,  I can do so.  As long as there's a spare ISA
slot,  that is.  :-)

WC> Looked at the old case to see about swapping everything from this 
WC> low profile to the other that has the beefy PS and room for second
WC> drive and happily found the riser card is a plugin unit so I'll be 
WC> able to swap them and everything will line up in the old case but
WC> that won't happen till the other Pentium machine is up. I know 
WC> without looking this machine's riser is plugin as the mother-  
WC> board is PCI - ISA optional depending on which riser you've got.

Oh really?  I didn't know they made them that way,  and wouldn't have
thought that the interface could be switched that easily,  I thought that a
bridge chip was needed between the two things.  Unless the point where the
riser plugs is has a *lot* of pins available.

WC> I've got the ISA only or I'd be setting up the PCI soft modem with 
WC> Linux driver by now!  _If_ I'm *really* careful with money I may in 
WC> three months setup with a hardware 56K USR as they are on sale for 
WC> 80 bucks hereabouts but lack voice capability :-(

I have this one modem here that's supposed to have that capability,  but
I've not done anything with it yet.  I also haven't found any data on that
sort of thing yet,  either.

WC> Actually the 14400 internal is still in the machine and hooked up 
WC> to the line but only for the Win 3.1 SuperVoice answering machine 
WC> support.

For that sort of thing I don't suppose the speed of the modem matters much.

RJT> That user agreement is by far the single biggest factor in why I 
RJT> wouldn't even consider using them for a provider.  

WC> Well I wouldn't use them either except no credit card.

That's always been a real aggravation to me,  too.  I have some now,  but
it bugs the crap out of me that there are so many companies that won't deal
with you except that way.  One time a number of years back I'd made it to
the big regional ham/computer thing they do at Trenton (NJ),  and there
were some representatives from some of these outfits there.  GEnie,  I
think,  was the one I spoke to,  and I asked about that.  He couldn't
understand why I had a problem with it,  and when I suggested alternatives,
 he had absolutely no clue about it -- said something like "Then how
would we be sure we'd get paid?"

At that time we had the business,  and I had no trouble at all in dealing
with companies all over the damn country.  But those online services were
just too picky to want to talk to the likes of us.

And their alternative choice -- give them access to your checking account! 
No way,  especially not with a business account.

WC> A few months down the road I'll be using Internet Junction at half 
WC> the cost and better user agreement but I'll have to pay ahead a 
WC> year. Everyone I've sent to IJ is very happy with their service.

RJT> That and the fact that they're the freakin' PHONE COMPANY!  The 
RJT> fact that I gotta deal with them in the first place is bad 
RJT> enough,  I'm not gonna go and give them more of my money when I 
RJT> have a choice of giving it to somebody else...

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

Yeah,  I remember you getting into that sometime or other.

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...

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

No big surprise there,  eh?

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