-=> CHARLES ANGELICH wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 WC>>> The idea of being able to browse and download mail off
 WC>>> the net in Linux on such a small install is most
 WC>>> attractive.

 WC> Now I have to slap it permanently on the hard drive.
 WC> Downloaded days or a week ago but just messed with it
 WC> today. I got the damned thing unzippped, loaded, setup and
 WC> looked up my local weather page URL in about the time it
 WC> would have taken Win 3.1 and Communicator to load and
 WC> dial!!! Talk about painless Linux!

 CA> I do think Basic Linux is a good intro for newbies, yes.

 It's still on the drive but a stripped down Slackware 8.1
 now resides on the two partitions I've prepared.
 Unfortunately the link on your web site to Steven's site in 
 New Zealand leads to a setup that excludes my old
 proprietary Creative Matsushita CD-ROM commonly tagged
 as a CR-563 in favor of ATAPI CD-ROM's.
 I _could_ obtain an ATAPI drive if I make the EideMax I/O
 card the default card but I'd prefer to work through
 my difficulties and learn along the way.
 Now I mucked about with my old 1.1.59 release and located
 the drivers for this CD-ROM and attempted to use pkgtool
 to install it from the DOS drive after
 mounting /dev/hda1 and it decompressed
 and thrashed around like it was going to install SBPCD but 
 than gave me some single line "cut" error message.
 After much looking around I found an alternate but I'd
 like to get the one I know that works installed if possible.
 Mucked around with etc/fstab and etc/mtab as well and got it
 to give me a different error message of "file system not
 supported" on attempting to mount it, which seemed to be 
 progress of a sort, at least it seemed to be finding and trying to 
 use the driver when I attempted to mount it.
 
 CA> It is quite fast using LINKS.

 Yup, gotta look around for the modem init configeration file though 
 and remove that annoying pulse dialing ATX03 in favor of atdt
 in BL-1.7, well that and figure out what Verizon wants in
 the SMTP mail file to authorize me to send under my own
 e-mail address, pop3 works just fine.
 Yeah that Basic Linux really jump started my enthusiasm for
 Linux as Steven configured it to be so out of the box but I no
 sooner got telnet, LINKs and pop3 going but I'm off
 working on 8.1 Slackware.

 WC> Linux security issues. Right now 85 percent of my e-mail is
 WC> spam, 8 percent malicious code and 7 percent something I'm
 WC> looking for :-(

 CA> You must have entered a real email address when installing your
 CA> browser(s)? Change those to fake email addresses and the spam
 CA> will lessen a bit.

 Verizon requires you use your real address.
 I snagged a copy of the Klez.H worm which executes 
 VBRUN right out of an HTML enabled mail app. :-(
 The mutated worm spread having added my e-mail and those
 on my address book and randomly generated ones and came back at me
 well after I cleaned up. Better now just one copy in three 
 days and I logged onto the server to delete it there.

 CA>>> I even added a second ramdrive and was downloading QWK
 CA>>> packets, using ATP to reply, and uploading them back
 CA>>> again with ztelnet. It works quite well actually.

 Not having the instructions I tried that to load the bas-hd
 transfer module but failed on not enough room.
 Must have missed a trick there.
 I did mount it, untar it and it tried though.
 I just got through downloading XFree86 and have yet
 to pick my fonts before installing that in 8.1

 WC> I've other stuff I've got to do but imagine I'll have a
 WC> version of Linux on this machine in less than a month that
 WC> suits all my current needs.

 CA> The same person who hacked out Basic Linux also has an install
 CA> for SlackWare's v8.1 distribution that begins as a 26mb hard
 CA> drive installation. 
 
Had it fully installed later in the same day as my original post ;-)
Well 2 A.M. actually.
I was a bit worried about that 2.2 kernal but what the hey
if something complains I'll install the other kernal as I've
20 meg. RAM here. The howto I've already looked at and it doesn't
look very hard and until I wipe the packages I've downloaded
setting it all up again is dead simple.
I've even considered hacking the first and second.bat file after 
looking it over and seeing what they're doing, looked rather simple
at a glance and I can simply pkunzip slack81 *.bat for a look see.
Du shows just that, 26 meg., well it did
after I remembered to umount /dev/hda1, prior to that it
reported some 230 meg in use while my Linux native and
swap partition togeather currently stand at only 100 Meg.
My swap is sized the same as my RAM

 CA> The newer distribution and kernel would
 CA> allow you to use a great deal of what is available for Linux
 CA> users if you have the processor speed to match it.

Such as? Sounds like the next howto to save to file.
Those howto files seem to have some odd characters in them
so they only read properly by either saving them into Linux
and using an editor there or mounting the C drive and opening
it from Linux. Good practice that :-)

 WC> Is there a release of Opera for Linux? Never mind I know
 WC> their URL and will check myself.

 CA> Yes, there is a Linux version of Opera.

 Yup, I even went to their site, don't seem to support 
 Slackware though just Mandrake, Debian and Redhat IIRC,
 likely just a matter of a bit of file editing however.

 WC> Is anyone writing a Linux native browser that adheres to
 WC> proper web page standards.

 CA> No one really agrees as to what the present 'standards' are.
 CA> You get various definitions depending on the source of the
 CA> information.

 Indeed that do suck. Decided against the Netscape 3.04
 install for that very reason. Heck my Win 3.1 NS 4.08 bangs
 it's head on some web sites :-(

 WC> LINKS for right now however is supercool, next time I'm on
 WC> I'll have to see what Tom's Hardware site looks like with
 WC> LINKS and no graphics by default.

 CA>> I'm from the old school. Software can be as complex as the
 CA>> programmer wants to make it but the user interface should
 CA>> be 'intuitive' or at worst consistent enough for users to
 CA>> eventually 'learn' where to find the functions to make it
 CA>> work.

Tom's Hardware site wasn't too hard to navigate and all the nasty
advertising became elective rather than foisted on you :-)

 WC> I agree which is why I really like Free Agent. What kind of
 WC> newsgroup readers does Linux offer?

 CA> I've not progressed that far along the Linux path yet. :-)

 I'm dogging your heels. Remember I'm mobility impaired and 
 essentially live next to this machine!
  Steven in New Zealand really got me going with his stripped
  down 8.1. Right now I'm debating deleting the partitians
  and starting over at a more reasonable 150 meg for Linux 
  but that's going to really cause some pruning in my DOS partitian.
  Hate to have to prune my brunette JPG file ;-)
  Hey, how do you feel about 1 meg. .wav file attaches as I've
  got a truely hysterical somewhat blue tune here.
  I already sent Steven an e-mail thanking him for his efforts.
 
--- MultiMail/PBellDOS v0.42