World: r3wp

How is Syllable going, by the way ? It must be nearly time for my 
yearly attempt to install Syllable. (I have a new machine to install 
it on.)

For example, it's the fastest starting of all available distros

That is a good feature. :)

Not as fast as Syllable, of course. :-) Syllable is doing fine, but 
you still have about a fifty-fifty chance to get it to work. You 
may want to try the live CD first. If the install CD doesn't work, 
you can try the weekly build, which has additional fixes]

hardware support issues?

Yes, it's an enormous amount of work to get everything to work

But we're progressing

so when are you compiling it for Apple machines   ;-)

It should almost work as-is on Intel Macs. Just that as far as I 
know, the boot loader doesn't entirely support the Apple firmware 
yet. But the latest Macs might work

(I was pulling your leg a little there ;-)

OK, but it's probably closer than you thought. :-) Last year we said 
that Apple was porting the Mac to Syllable

hehe

Anton: I'll probably go with Kubuntu. It's based on Debian, it's 
well supported, and it has worked well enough for me in the past. 
I have used Gentoo but it's too much work (you get your own system, 
which is great, but it means you have to compile everything - and 
the config files need to be updated manually). I've never used Slackware... 
so I can't comment on it. I have a dynebolic CD, looks nice in its 
field, not sure as general-purpose.

Shameless plug;  Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
The Debian model is the way to go with Open Source.
Don't release software before it's time.

Regardless of the "It's late! It's late!" yelling and gnashing of 
teeth.
When it comes out, it's ready to come out.


Plus (the shameless part), the more rebols that code on a Debian 
base, the happier I'll be, with scripts that work out of the box. 
 :)

Gabriele, did you look at Mepis?

Linux DLL interface question: it looks to me, that if I declare


    settimeofday: make routine! [tv [struct! []] tz [struct! []] return: 
    [integer!]] libc.so "settimeofday"

and


    tv: make struct! [tv_sec [int] tv_usec [int]] reduce [seconds 0]

then

    settimeofday tv null-struct

works, but if I do instead:


    settimeofday make struct! [tv_sec [int] tv_usec [int]] reduce [...] 
    null-struct

, then it doesn't work. Can somebody confirm this?

I tried Ladislav;  I've never purchased a Command license, so have 
zero experience...

What are the defintions of

seconds   and null-struct

and I'll try it here under Debian and 2.7.5.4.2

And I guessed that libc.so  was  libc.so: load/library %/lib/libc.so.6

So far I've tried with

seconds: 0
null-struct: make struct! [secs [integer!] usecs [integer!]] none


All I'm getting back is a return code of -1  for both of your examples 
and remain too new to know what ERRNO is set to.  Plus I'm executing 
the code from a user process... so I did not expect it to work.

Under a root process the first form works...
and the second form works as well...

assuming I am anywhere near "getting it"

Of course it boned up my system clock...but that was easy to fix. 
 :)

then it worked, interesting

thanks for checking

Anytime...learned a lot.

-1 as the result: I think, that it means you didn't have the right 
to set the clock - I guess that only ROOT has

just tried it again (Mepis6.5) and there is something strange

Yeah, the user mode tests were coming back EPERM...   I'll try some 
more tests with different  seconds.

you don't have to, that is not the problem I see

I posted a private question, did you notice?

Ok...  I'm still learning.  So I might just play with it anyway  
:)

Just now.

Can we file share here...never tried it.

it looks like not being available here

Ok, I'm btiffin canada com

Ladislav, Mepis looks nice. Do you use it ?

Oh, you do :)

A comment by a reader: "...I've grown accustomed to SimplyMEPIS for 
every day, basic desktop needs. I run plain Debian when I want to 
test out tons of software, but I've been sticking with SimplyMEPIS 
when all I'm doing is reading Email, browsing the Web, and listening 
to streaming audio. .."

So it looks like you get good ease of use, but there is some restriction 
when it comes to trying out heaps of software. It could save me time 
when making machines for other people.

Gabriele, I just noticed Sabayon, based on Gentoo, but initial install 
is pre-compiled, and they provide a pool of pre-compiled packages.

you can install gentoo precompiled too, but that defeats the purpose 
of gentoo. :)

ie. if i were to use a precompiled gentoo then i'd rather go with 
debian.

mepis: never tried it; isn't it debian based? i think, that it's 
better to go with the most popular one in this case (ie. ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu). 
you find ready packages for stuff (eg skype). :)

Mepis is fine, it is Ubuntu-based currently. I tried Kubuntu too, 
but stayed with Mepis

Mepis was Debian-based, but is now indeed Ubuntu-based

Anton, all the distros based on Debian package pools have a big problem 
in that, when you start adding the Debian repositories and installing 
software from them, you run a high risk of pulling in dependencies 
that will destroy system packages that were modified from Debian

Ubuntu doesn't have this problem because they build everything themselves, 
not using Debian binary packages. For the distros that are now based 
on Ubuntu repositories the problem has been lightened, because they 
don't have to modify as much in Ubuntu as they had to in Debian, 
but the fundamental problem is still there

Building on a major distro seems nice, but this issue means that 
it's really only the major distro itself that is more or less guaranteed 
to work, as far as that's possible with Linux. So that's usually 
Debian and Ubuntu

Interesting Linux-based idea for the always-on generation....Its 
the return of the thin client!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/17/babellinux/

Gabriele, good point.

Kaj, that's very good info, thanks !

I could still use Mepis as a simple "don't change much" install for 
friends who just want a basic computer.