Re: [Pan-users] Click on URL in a post??

[Beartooth]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:

> GTK is the 'toolkit' or 'widget set' that Gnome is built with.
> Gnome is the environment, GTK is the building-block

        And Gnome hasn't gotten to gtk2 yet? So if I download and
install gtk2 it will replace gtk1 and break things? Or is there
backward compatibility that a subtechnoid can count on? I'll get it
if I dare -- I feel like more of a fossil than usual, running 0.11

> AFAIK, updates to redhat boxes are primarily to provide security
> fixes; not necessarily new versions. (tho sometimes those come
> along as part of the deal). the object is to avoid breaking old
> apps; so it doesn't install radically new versions of packages.
> (at least that's what I'm guessing. I actually have little/no
> experience with RHN).

        Seems to square reasonably with what I've seen -- there
*are* upgrades, but most of the traffic goes to fix security
(normally, I'm glad to say -- touch wood -- before any exploits've
been heard of).

> IMHO, if you want bleeding-edge support; debian unstable is the
> way to go.  mandrake's URPMI tool and 'cooker' packages seem to
> be liked by many on this list, but I also seem to hear a lot of
> questions about compatibility and crashes. the debian packages
> seem to be comparatively quite reliable, and are updated within a
> few days of each release. install of the latest version is as
> simple as 'apt-get install pan'.

        I don't *want* bleeding edge -- I keep getting dragged up
to it, kicking and screaming (well, squirming and spluttering,
anyway), because I stumble over these great things that turn out to
use it. Sometimes I feel like I'm driving an electronic I-81, where
the traffic will push you up well over 80 mph (ca. 130 km/hr)
before you even notice it ....

        Otoh, linux of any sort is so vastly better than MurkySlop
-- which I was chained to for years at work, except on email (we
telnetted into pine on an AIX machine in the basement), that it's
like having gotten out of a closed coffin, whatever I do.

> install RH8.0, and you'll have it. simplest way. just keep in
> mind that RH *.0 releases are considered to be a bit buggy. stick
> with a *.2 or *.3 release for stability.

        My desktop -- the first machine I could walk out the door
with, four years ago when I finally got gummint up to the eyeballs
and retired ASAP -- had W98. I've been ignoring that for not quite
a year, runnning my RH 7.2 on a second hard drive. I don't speak
hardware; but there's an installfest this weekend at which I hope
to have the old drive replaced with one that'll run RH 8, and then
dual-boot back&forth while I learn/configure that, as I did for a
while between W98 and RH 7.2; wish me luck! I'll certainly put Pan
onto my favorite panel, where it is now, right away.

> this is another reason I like Debian. there's no big upgrade
> steps; it's just a smooth curve (if you follow testing or
> unstable). bugs may appear, but they get hammered out pretty
> fast.

        Maybe in a year or three; better stick to two distros for
now. (The wife's retirement present, an iBook, has YDL (which I
use) along with OSX -- YDL being supposedly the nearest I could get
on an MS-free machine to Red Hat.) I get confused enough this way!
Otoh, YDL apparently uses apt-get; gotta learn about that one of
these days -- and apt-get is native to debian, isn't it?
>
> upgrading from RH7.2 to 7.3 is pretty straightforward, and
> shouldn't really break anything.

        My firewall/router/auto-backer-upper, when I get it
connected into the mix, has a bare-bones 7.3; I'll try
administering that first -- and, I hope, make the big jump next
summer straight from 7.2 to about 8.2 :-)

        In my youth I helped an uncle clear brush from a farm that
hadn't been worked in twenty years. You just keep cutting what hits
you in the face next, and eventually things get to where you can
build brush piles -- even if it feels at times like you'll never
get out again. Sometimes all this stuff feels that way, too.

> true enough. I have lots of problems myself, trying to explain
> things, because a lot of technique I can only recall as "do the
> obvious thing at the obvious time".

        Yes -- and it's the things not obvious only to me that are
the biggest stumbling blocks. Intuition has to be built.

> Linux is a bit better for things like that, since you speak in
> sentences to your computer (the command line), rather than use a
> point-and-grunt interface (Windows). it's easier to remember
> sentences (and write them down), than gestures. (at least for
> me).

        There we differ -- maybe because I don't (yet?) see the
commands as sentences. I spent a couple years trying to teach
myself linux out of manuals -- with RH 6 on the second hard drive
-- and getting nowhere. It was only when I broke down and started
using the GUI that I got far enough to be able to *do* anything
while I'm learning. Visual memory supplies a crutch that helps me.

-- 
Beartooth the Stubborn <karhunhammas (at) lserv.com>
Double Retiree, Linuxer's Apprentice, Curmudgeon On Line
Keep in mind that I have little idea whereof I speak.