Hello All,

I would like to hear Your feedback on following idea. I guess there could be something like Linux Console starter pack. I was thinking about it. At least one person in the World would use it. And that's me.

The reason for this is I'm often switching machines to BBS from. And on the most of them I want following setup:
1) No Windows, No X Windows, No GUI
2) Connect to BBS, post messages, download / upload files
3) Be able to read mail offline
4) Be able to view artpacks
5) Be able to make BBS modding

The response for these requirements on my computer is as follows
1) good font for the Linux console (I just converted the Hack TTF to psf) and get 80x24 resolution. That means two things. Either You have to fbset Your resolution or use largest psf font available. In my case on Full-HD monitor both fbset and hack-16x32.psf has been used
2) qodem - solves the trouble. It works in terminal. It works with ssh.
Allows ZModem usage. Works with both ANSI and UTF-8 boards.
3) mm - MultiMail is the choice. You can easily switch from qodem using ALT+M when everything is properly configured
4) duhview - my choice for the console mode. Last several months I spent with coding ansiu. It works with some files. duhview works better. I'll probably merge ansiu into duhview and go with it. The main reason duhview works better is it's derived from console.c from the Linux kernel. And it just by this
must work great.
5) duhdraw - console mode ANSI editor. I made some tweaks to it so it
displays on UTF-8 consoles. That's just because the result is displayed well
in both gnome-terminal and PuTTY.

To sum it up. Would anyone be interested in such a pack? I'm afraid I have no capacity to convert it all to Windows. And I assumed I will drop the Windows. Just to allow anyone with the slowest hardware to join the BBS World.

I'm almost done. All above is compiled and ready to hatch. I'd have to
provide source code and thanks for all the people that worked on the
programs. But as I said. There is at least one person on the World that's
using this pack (me right now).

I don't think it's not the best idea to release it under the Phenom group.
Just because there is too much taken from other people / releases. But prior I'll ask Avon if he's interested in it and will take it on my own I wanted to know if there is anyone interested in contributing to the package.

Best regards

|08Shinobi <.Phenom.>

P.S. Thanks Hawk for allowing me to use his board to post this message.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A42 2019/02/01 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (10:101/2)

I like the idea, but how are you thinking to apply it? Are you building a VM image? a Docker container? or a script that will download all necessary tools and make the customization?

I am really interesting it this. :)

.----- --- -- -
| Another Droid BBS
: Telnet : andr01d.zapto.org:9999 [UTC 11:00 - 20:00]
. Contact : xqtr@gmx.com

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A41 2018/12/27 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Another Droid BBS # andr01d.zapto.org:9999 (10:101/10)

I like the idea, but how are you thinking to apply it? Are you building
a VM image? a Docker container? or a script that will download all necessary tools and make the customization?

I am really interesting it this. :)

Right now I'm trying to collect the programs. What I found is the incompatibility of the programs across Linux distributions. Once I compile program on Debian 9 it doesn't work well on Red Hat etc. That's just because there are dynamically linked libraries to it. So when I compile it on machine with curses5 it doesn't work well on machine with curses 6.

The solution to that could be static linking of required functions. I have to explore the possibility of this path. The size of the binary would be larger. But the troubles with the incompatibility ought to be solved.

What I'm now up to is exploring the possibility of bringing the tools to android too. I managed to compile qodem, multimail and today magicka BBB.
That makes the toolbox complete. Together with duhdraw and duhview... it's I guess all one needs for BBSing.

The trouble right now I have on android is that Termux keeps killing my programs. But that's probably some setting I have to discover to prevent it.
My phone is quite customized and have some high battery saving capabilities. Even when I turned that off it still keeps killing my programs in background after some time of idle.

That toolbox is supposed to be distributed together with source code. The
main reason for this is when I opened AcidDraw 25 years later it doesn't work in the native environment. And the sources are de-facto impossible to obtain.

I found the Acid View for X windows. But that's not even close. So when I
would compose toolbox for BBSing the sources are must to keep the thing alive.

Till later

Shinobi <.Phenom.>

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Bottomless Abyss BBS * bbs.bottomlessabyss.net (10:102/3)

The solution to that could be static linking of required functions. I
have to explore the possibility of this path. The size of the binary
would be larger. But the troubles with the incompatibility ought to be solved.

Why don't you make a bash script that will work across all systems? The script will contain all commands to get and install the programs. This way the size
of the "distributed package" will be minimal, all programs will be compiled with their requirements and dynamic linking, the programs will be able to be installed to various linux systems, even in termux.

You could also make multiple scripts, instead of only one. Each script will be responsible for one program to install. This way, users will install only what they think is necessary for them and skip others.

The trouble right now I have on android is that Termux keeps killing my programs. But that's probably some setting I have to discover to prevent it. My phone is quite customized and have some high battery saving capabilities. Even when I turned that off it still keeps killing my programs in background after some time of idle.

It seems an "android" problem. There is a daemon, that works in the back, that kill apps that are idle. Make sure to "whitelist" termux. I hope that its not termux that kills the apps.

That toolbox is supposed to be distributed together with source code. The main reason for this is when I opened AcidDraw 25 years later it doesn't work in the native environment. And the sources are de-facto impossible
to obtain.

With the scripts idea above, you can download only open source projects, licensed with a "free to use" license, perhaps by using GIT repos. Personally
i wouldn't like to get the source code of a project that is long forgotten and it wasn't intended to be open source. :)

.----- --- -- -
| Another Droid BBS
: Telnet : andr01d.zapto.org:9999 [UTC 11:00 - 20:00]
. Contact : xqtr@gmx.com

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A41 2018/12/27 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Another Droid BBS # andr01d.zapto.org:9999 (10:101/10)

On Monday, March 11th shinobi muttered...

Right now I'm trying to collect the programs. What I found is the incompatibility of the programs across Linux distributions.

You can statically link, but as you say the binaries may be fairly large. The standard Linux way of doing this would be to create packages for these with the
dependencies enumerated therein. ie: .deb, .rpm, etc.





--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.10-alpha (linux; x64; 10.13.0)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (10:101/9)

You can statically link, but as you say the binaries may be fairly
large. The standard Linux way of doing this would be to create packages for these with the dependencies enumerated therein. ie: .deb, .rpm, etc.

What I have is BETA package. It's done by compiling from scratch. There are issues to be solved. The very first are the licenses. I hope by repacking open-source I wont violate anything.

This is the procesd:

1) Install Termux on any android device
2) wget elinks.xf.cz bbst.sh
3) . ./bbst.sh

This is how it should look like:
https://youtu.be/LeD9alyiOhI

Best regards & thank You for response

Shinobi <.Phenom.>

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Bottomless Abyss BBS * bbs.bottomlessabyss.net (10:102/3)

do you have your fork of duhdraw with patches somewhere?


--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.9-alpha (linux; x64; 10.6.0)
* Origin: Undercurrents BBS (10:101/29)

do you have your fork of duhdraw with patches somewhere?

It's on github. https://github.com/mtatton

|08Shinobi <.Phenom.>

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Infolinka BBS (10:104/3)

On Apr 4th 1:02 am shinobi said...

do you have your fork of duhdraw with patches somewhere?

It's on github. https://github.com/mtatton

Shinobi <.Phenom.>

Awesome, thanks. I used duhdraw in the past and this patch is useful!


--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.9-alpha (linux; x64; 10.6.0)
* Origin: Undercurrents BBS (10:101/29)

do you have your fork of duhdraw with patches somewhere?

It's on github. https://github.com/mtatton

Awesome, thanks. I used duhdraw in the past and this patch is useful!

I'm glad it's good to You. It's a great editor. Send some ANSI's if You many. :)

|08Shinobi <.Phenom.>

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Infolinka BBS (10:104/3)