Console-Mode running on Slax Linux notes

[PDP8]

Just some notes on how happy I am running the latest BBC-Basic Console Mode on the 64-bit Slax Linux Live, ver 9.11

Obviously one can run bbc-basic on any number of linux distros, but just some thoughts on why I ran it on Slax and some tips - without repeating the whole of their own fine instructions..

Small <300mb in size. Can be booted from CD/DVD, but I chose to boot from usb sticks with persistence. Like anything, make backups of your critical work.

Install for sticks: you do NOT use an image "burner". All you do is open (double click) the downloaded iso, which mounts the iso. Then you copy the /slax directory from the iso to your fat32 stick (or ext fs, but see site for further info). Then, if running Windows or even another linux box, run the .bat file in /slax/boot *on the stick!*) which makes the stick bootable. Shutdown / remove eject stick in a nice fashion.

Again, do not burn the iso for sticks - do the above instead which is a simple copy and bat file operation.

Basically, Slax is small and not my daily driver. It runs as root, so beware. Very small selection of applications, but all I needed was the included xterm. The browser makes it easy to read this forum and html docs of course if you decide to actually take it online. Sure you can update it and go bananas, but all I wanted was a launcher for bbc-basic console mode! I use other things for daily driving on the net.

Xterm notes for those who have never used it - to get a larger font, just CTRL-right-click and choose your desired size for fonts.

So in the end, I can just take my stick to any of my 64 bit boxes, and run this specialized little distro - which for me is a dedicated bbc-basic stick more or less! Not much to get distracted by, so I can concentrate.

Thanks Richard - coming from the command line days, I still dig console mode, so thanks - works a treat on my Slax usb boot stick!

[PDP8]

Forgot how easy it was to get bbc-basic console mode up and running ...

Throwing caution to the wind, I used the browser to get to the bbc basic site, and use that to download the console-mode zip file.

I'm a little leary of making this a daily driver, so I didn't spend a lot of time online with it - just enough to get to the site and grab the file. I'm not going to do my banking with it.

One can use the gui de-archiver, but I simply used the unzip command to unarchive it to my desired directory. Amazingly, file permissions were maintained, so I didn't have to do anything special with permissions. I was up and running.

I forgot to check if it supported spinning down the cpu (with cpufreq etc), and I may change the boot stanza so that screen blanking will occur. Different topic - maybe next year when I get around to it.

Happy new-year everyone!

[PDP8]

Just some more tips - without turning it into a distro-specific thread - so that BBCBASIC looks and runs nicely in console mode in either an Xterm or at a pure console...

Your font-size selection in Xterm (ctrl-right click) is not remembered. If you get tired of using this mouse method to change font size, you can change the default to your choice by modifying the fonts line sizes in the ./Xresources file. Logout and log back in (and run startx) to see the change. If running with persistence, this WILL be remembered. The nano or mcedit text editor makes this change easy, or use the gui Leafpad editor.

If you boot to pure text mode with no X11 gui at all, you can change your fonts in two ways:

dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

I normally followup with the menu choice of
UTF-8
Guess optimal character set
Terminus-Bold (programmers font for long hours of viewing)
14x28 (framebuffer only) .. for old-guy eyesight..

But this won't be persistent either. Nor will it be seen in Xterm. For pure console modes only.

Another way to achieve it in pure console mode is to run the setfont command, and manually choose your font. Turn it into an executable script and this will be persistent.

My quick hack:
setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/Lat2-TerminusBold28x14.psf.gz

Idea: use bbcbasic and call this command with a * . BBCBasic makes an interesting shell of it's own! Make your own "user friendly" menus and commands calling system commands. If one isn't a wizard at bash shell scripting, bbcbasic's abilities are quite powerful.

Off-topic - the cpu spins down on my hardware just fine without having to do anything during inactivity.
DPMS monitor power-saving (actual standby and shutoff) can be achieved by the old xset command:
xset dpms force on

Lots of little details left out that one can look up since the intent is not to be totally about SLAX, but more about making bbcbasic look great with some common tasks on it.

Of course Knoppix works just fine too! Many options out there obviously.

[PDP8]

WARNING!! Crypto-miner in SLAX ..

I don't know why I didn't notice sooner. There is a cryptominer extension baked into Chromium browser on Slax 9.11.

So sad. I never planned to take this online, so I didn't look closely enough until just recently.

Just thought it fair to mention since I didn't catch it in any docs or other discussions, but it's there! Ugh.