Today I've so far adjusted my scripts for Fediverse access so I can show a detailed view of a status by giving it's Mastodon post ID number. This was a gap in my capabilities: I could pick a post from a timeline to view it, load its context and even retrieve an arbitrary status URL (I added that a month or so ago), but getting a specific ID number was something I had missed for some reason. All it took was tweaking a script so if it had only one argument it was the ID number while if it was two (or more) it was specifying the timeline and list ID.
I rely on flpicsee 1.3.1 for viewing images in this old TinyCore version, but it appears that the sourcecode for that is no longer online, so, unless someone can find it, there can be no newer versions and no porting it to other platforms. It's a shame because it's a tiny application that can handle most image types and does so by magic number rather than extension, so I have a script that downloads a specified URL to /tmp/pic, then tries to open it in flpicsee, which is really useful for viewing pictures posted on the Fediverse. There are some FLTK programs to replace it, but they're much bigger in memory footprint (and with only 128MB of RAM for everything, I need the smallest software I can get).
Weather is good today. We're predicted to possibly hit 24C by 4pm, which is much better than the wet and dreary July we've had so far. I should probably go on a walk to enjoy it while it's here, rather than sitting here drafting this post...
After yesterday's memory issues, I removed the ezremaster.tcz from the extension list as I don't use it and installed it on a whim. It may only be 24KB, but it loads in a 450KB dependancy too, so hopefully it'll save a little. I've moved it to being ondemand instead in case I ever find I need it (ondemand extensions are only loaded if I ask them to be, but I only started installing things as ondemand long after I added ezremaster.tcz).
Apparently, old laptops are meant to have terrible screens? Well, apart from a limitation to about 1024x768 (which, given the era, is not a surprise), this screen has been fine so far. Granted, I haven't tried to use it in direct sunlight, but even my phone struggles there, so I think this is doing well! It probably helps that it was a high-end machine on release and has been well-cared-for (hardware-wise, apart from when I cracked the speaker grill because the aging plastic is very thin there). It's a really robust system and a joy to type on! They don't make good laptop keyboards anymore (aside from the MNT Reform 2, of course) and this is from the era of keyboards with a nice action to them.
I think my only real issue with this PC (apart from coping with the lack of memory so inability to get sound working on Linux(!)) is the lack of recovery from suspend: if I close the lid, I basically have to reboot with the power button held down as it goes to sleep and I can't get it back. Apparently that's a common issue on Linux laptops though? I can't even put my desktop to sleep when it's on its Zorin/Ubuntu partition as the nvidea graphics doesn't like it (even under Windows that sometimes causes problems), so I guess it's just a tricky area...
I've been looking at this post for a while now and am getting hungry. I think I'll hit Post, then go get something to eat and maybe go for a walk in the sunshine. :)
It had clouded over by the time I got outside, sadly.
I had been unable to do much with sound because ALSA is so big. "anthk_" on the #OldComputerChallenge IRC suggested OSS 4.2 and I subsequently found an old build (2005) in the extensions repo. However, mplayer is still fairly large (8MB) so I'm going to reboot to clear the ondemand extensions before I try it. Here goes...
The OSS 4.2 build 2019 source shared by anthk_.
Nope. Doesn't work. There are no OSS drivers (at least in the repository) for my hardware.
According to ALSA, my hardware is: "Maestro3" "SigmaTel STAC9721,23" "AC97a:83847609" "0x1028" "0x00a4". I'll have to look further for any OSS drivers...
If I, on boot, exit X, start alsa, restart X, load curl.tcz (for updating this file) and mplayer.tcz, I then can enable sound but have 2MB of RAM free!!!