From: Vince Skahan (vince@victrola.sea.wa.us)
Date: 04/03/93


From: vince@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: Re: Linux newbie reactions
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1993 17:08:19 GMT

jem@sunSITE.unc.edu (Jonathan Magid) writes:
>In article <s_fuller.733784067@vincent2.iastate.edu> s_fuller@iastate.edu (Steve Fuller) writes:
>>I'd like to see some descriptions of what each package is named
>>and a brief description of what it is used for. Some thing like:
>[examples deleted]

>I thought so too, so I wrote a database of descriptions to go with the
>current SLS. Unfortunately the problem is that SLS changes to much,
>even if the contents don't change the disk contents are always be
>re-shuffled. I've started to write some tools to allow Peter to
>automagically rebuild the contents databases, when he changes the
>disks around, but I ran into about 10 miles of work.

>I plan on finishing the tools this weekend, though and I will send
>them and an updated database to Peter.

>When he adds this to SLS is his call. ;)

>jem.

ummmm....
it's already done.

I offered such a tool to you (jem) and Ted at tsx-11 and Peter
a number of months ago. It reads a flat file and rebuilds a files
listing that looks something like the following. Nice thing is
that if you move stuff around from disk-to-disk, the description
didn't change (right?) so that the next time you rebuild the list
of all files, the description automatically follows the moved file(s).

(no, I didn't integrate it into sysinstall, which is what needs to be done).

I use it on a anon-ftp site I manage to generate a SIMTEL-20-like
00-index.txt file with all files and their descriptions.

running it on my SLS tree on my hard disk results in something
like the following:

============================================================================
a/a2:
============================================================================
          a2 1228800 8-Mar utilities disk (rawrite to floppy)

============================================================================
a/a3:
============================================================================
    base.tpz 544998 17-Jan base binaries
   comms.tpz 201260 17-Jan terminal emulators
      diska3 26 17-Jan disk a-3 info file
  dosemu.tpz 54581 17-Jan dos emulator
    efs2.tpz 50909 4-Mar alpha extended file system
     etc.tpz 165793 17-Jan passwd and friends
 fontpak.tpz 11672 4-Mar
   getty.tpz 15369 17-Jan getty/uugetty
     joe.tpz 25710 17-Jan the 'joe' editor
select14.tpz 19454 17-Jan selection (cut/paste in vc's)
 term099.tpz 86673 17-Jan term
  theory.sls 4195 17-Jan how SLS kits are set up
  vgalib.tpz 9500 17-Jan vga library

-- 
     ---------- Vince Skahan --------- vince@victrola.sea.wa.us ----------
                     +++ A Waffle Iron - Linux Division +++