General


Forum: User Feedback
Topic: General
started by: donaldduck

Posted by donaldduck on Dec. 07 2006,10:43
Dam Small Linux
I have downloaded the program.  The first was version 3.0.1.  I popped in into my little laptop computer (old one compaq 1244,  4 meg hard disc, 160 k ram.  Everything worked fine.  I then installed it to the hard disk  hda1 and that worked just fine.  The downloading to the hard disc was easy but I have some questions.  Why was I ask to make a choice between grub and lilo?  I picked lilo just for no reason.  I checked the program list just to see what was on board.  Fire fox is ok but an old version.  Beaver and Ted not my cup of tea.  Slag work ok but would have liked to have Thunderbird.  Dillo is ok but Firefox is my choice.  I was able to download Open office version 2 (an older one) using the mydsl  and the tab uci.  Wow was I surprised to see the icons pop up on the screen and the program works just fine.  Not the case with Thunderbird. It was downloaded but I have not been able to use the program.  

I upgraded to the GNU Utils  to replace the busybox again I don't know why.  I also clicked on the enable apt again I have no Idea why.  When I read the directions mydsl -seamless extensions for dsl  I just become lost as to what to do.  

Using windows is so much different.  You find the program you want click on download save to a disk or open and everything is done.  Wow not that way with Linux.  I have some questions.  What about firewalls, spy ware, anti virus program.  Are they still needed with DSL.  

I have downloaded the new version of DSL 3.1.  I was not able to download open office with this version.  I had to reinstall the older version of DSL 3.0.1 and it worked fine.  

I don't think DSL is the problem I think it is me and I need to have some guidance.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 07 2006,11:41
Forgive me if i don't make much sense...i just woke up =o)

Grub is much more flexible than Lilo, but Lilo is much smaller and not as demanding.  DSL began with Lilo only but, as with the addition of Firefox, sometimes size and speed must be sacrificed for useability. The slimmer alternatives in both cases have remained for those users who prefer not to have the extra baggage, and for cases where the larger applications just aren't suitable.

The gnu-utils package replaces many of the Busybox tools (common unix utilities) with larger yet more flexible versions.

Apt provides package management for Debian software packages.

A Linux system is built to be molded to the user's tastes, where Windows is built to run as Microsoft wants it. One result of this is that there are many ways you can do things...many ways to install software and many ways to configure the system.

At this time there is very little need for virus and malware protection in Linux. Partly because of the way linux handles file permissions and file ownership, it's very difficult for a third party to force software to run on your system without your knowledge. This may change in the future, but so far there is little sign of it happening. A firewall is probably a good idea on any system, although DSL's default setup refuses remote connections of any kind, so it's pretty safe without one until you start running services that are open to the outside (ssh, web server, etc).

I don't know what the issue with DSL 3.1 and open office would be.

Posted by donaldduck on Dec. 07 2006,15:28
Now what to do.  
I have loaded the dsl  to my hard disk.  When it ask to make a partition I made one called hda1 which is the entire hard disk.  Is this good or Bad?
Second thing: when I boot up the computer I always have to go to the mydsl extension tool to get back my open office icons.  Is this normal?
Now lets work on this problem.
Thunderbird has been downloaded and is in my file.  When I click on load local mydsl extensions a window comes up with a list of many mozilla-tbird files.  one of which is  tbird gtk21.0.2dsl a second with md5.txt
When I click on emelfm I get 2 windows the one on the left is /home/dsl  the one on the left is just / if I go down the list of filenames on the right I find one called tmp/   When I click on it I find a number of Thunderbird files in blue and black along with my open office 2 programs.  It look like I also tried to use Thunderbird 1.5 as it is also listed.  
So what to do next
on the botton is a block that has dsl@box$ and a place to enter instruction.  
How to I get this program to work?
Maybe I should start over with good directions to make the right partitions of the hard disk so that I can use dsl right.

If I start over I could again try the new version 3.1

Posted by Juanito on Dec. 07 2006,15:46
donaldduck - I felt exactly as you do when I started to use DSL a couple of years ago. In those days the wiki was not a lot of use (sic) and it was hard to search the forums when you didn't know what to look for.

These days, the wiki starts to be useful - you do worse than start reading there...

Posted by donaldduck on Dec. 07 2006,16:24
Do you know any of the sites to check?
Posted by Juanito on Dec. 08 2006,07:16
You mean like "http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page" ?
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