use Perl

• A few more oddities on the Panasonic... (Score:1)

  by scrottie (4167)

  I tried to run the working Linux X.Org X server in NetBSD under Linux emulation, and with a symlink between /dev/console and /dev/tty5, it got as far as the mmap of video memory before it failed with a mysterious signal 11. Dang! Almost worked! Also, the keys on the Panasonic Toughbook are awkwardly small. I own an old Compaq Aero 4/25 which is an antique 486SX25 that's smaller than almost every other laptop I've seen. It's a little deeper, but it's just barely larger than a handbook format book, and it has
• SMI_GEReset flood on FreeBSD, still (Score:1)

  by scrottie (4167)

  Nope. *sigh* FreeBSD has the same problem as NetBSD and OpenBSD - the Xorg.0.log in /var/tmp is just a flood of SMI_GEReset messages after the point where it should have started up.
  
  NetBSD's lfs, the log structured file system, is 100% unusable, reliably crashing a machine daily, yet it's been listed as supported and available without any warnings for years and years. And there's a flood of bug reports, all of which get killed as duplicates. This is just another case where Free Software turns a blind eye
• Knoppix to HD (Score:1)

  by scrottie (4167)

  I've used Knoppix before when I was otherwise doomed to borrow someones Wintel box as all my of my VGA-signal-producing or displaying hardware was down for the count. It's not as cozy as my little NetBSD install but I've come to get pretty good at getting my work done using it. While running NetBSD I'd steal large numbers of libs and binaries from it as it presents a whole running systems worth in an easy accessible location - not futzing with dependencies and brain dead package systems further aggrivated b
  • Re:Knoppix to HD (Score:1)

    by scrottie (4167)

    Changes for KNOPPIX 3.6: ISOLINUX is used instead of SYSLINUX. Apparently the isolinux.bin file, which was created with the configuration in isolinux.cfg, understands how to talk to the BIOS and get data from the CD-ROM in order to fetch the kernel and it's root disk. Per the isolinux.cfg, there are two kernels: linux24 and linux26 which use minirt24.gz and minirt26.gz respectively. These files are no longer bundled up inside of a boot.img file but are on the main CD filesystem in the boot/isolinux director
  • Re:Knoppix to HD (Score:1)

    by scrottie (4167)

    Ahhh, a little more on the KNOPPIX system. There's a cloop module that a compressed filesystem can be mounted through (it's a filesystem layer, not a filesystem, apparently). But only one cloop device can be mounted at a time. http://www.lugatgt.org/articles/smallfootprint/ [lugatgt.org] explains how to uncompress (and compress) this filesystem: the magic is in the extract_compressed_fs and create_compressed_fs commands.
    • Re:Knoppix to HD (Score:1)

      by scrottie (4167)

      Based on the extract_compressed_fs and create_compressed_fs utilities, here's a script to modify the KNOPPIX-based LNX-BBC image [linuxmafia.com]. It uncompresses the compressed filesystem, mounts it lookback, copies in whatever, and then recompresses it.