[126] in SIPB_Linux_Development
UNIX kernel and X for 386/486 based machines
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (svalente@athena.mit.edu)
Tue Aug 24 16:33:12 1993
From: svalente@athena.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 16:32:52 EDT
To: abagchi@athena.mit.edu
X-Also-Sent-To: linux-dev@athena, so they can tell me what I got wrong.
In-Reply-To: abagchi@Athena.MIT.EDU's message of Mon, 23 Aug 93 13:18:55 EDT <9308231718.AA09187@cacciatore>
Hello.
> I was wondering
> who/what I should ask regarding reliability, rights to, configuring
> of, and compiling of linux.
Reliability: Linux changes quickly. It is always under development.
That means that when there are bugs, they get fixed quickly. It also
means that new bugs can get introduced quickly, which is something to
watch out for. Over all, I've found it to be pretty reliable.
Rights: You can use it as long as you dont try to keep people from
getting the source code. It's impossible to keep people from getting
the source code, so don't worry about it.
Configuring of: Hmm... You figure out how you want to configure it.
Compiling of: the easiest thing to do is to get it in binary format.
There is a particular distribution called the SLS distribution
available in the Linux locker. Read the file
/mit/linux/sls/SLS/README for more information. Installing Linux is
incredibly easy.
> If I'm totally confused, all I really want to accomplish is set
> up my desktop machine to run like a recognized X terminal.
> Any suggestions?
Well, there are X terminals that run under Dos and Windoze and O/S-2.
Linux is a whole operating system, not just an X-terminal, and it is
somewhat more complicated to maintain than MS-Dos is. It might turn
out that you don't want to run a Unix clone. (Fortunately, Linux is
free, so if you don't like it, you can (re-)install something else,
and you didn't lose anything.)
---
Lots and lots of questions that you may or not have about Linux are
answered in the Linux FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). This is a
very large document found in /mit/linux/faq. Before you install
Linux, you should browse the FAQ to get an idea of what you're getting
yourself into. :-)
Have a nice day.
-Sal.
