Re: FAQ Suggestions/Perceptions from a Novice--worth 2 cents.

[Luke Davis <ldavis@voicenet.com>]

Good day, Gary:

I am not going to answer all of your questions, by far.  However, I think
there are a few things with which I can help you.

Please do not take any offense at anything I say here: I am going to be
extremely blunt with the below.

1.  There seems to be more going on here, than just an inability to make
Linux work for you.  Some of the things you state in your message, lead me
to believe that there are things you do not know about Unix, Linux, and
its programs an utilities, that you really aught to.

2.  I happen to agree with you regarding Emacs.  Some of us like it, and
some of us will take great lengths to avoid it.  I fall into the latter
category: I have used Linux since 1995, and have not yet found a use for
it.
For general text file editing in Linux and Unix, I use the program "pico".
It is very basic, very simple, and there is a menu of commands at the
bottom of the screen if you are not familiar with its operation in any
respect.
Try it.

3.  You state that you are using elm under Unix.  That is fine, but I
would suggest you take a look at pine.  It does not have the Y2K problem
you reference, and the latest versions have many very nice features.  For
the most part, it is menu-driven (the keyboard accesses everything, but
there is always a list of commands at the bottom of, and some times in
other places on, the screen for easy reference).
There are cassette tutorials available on its use; contact me for more
information if you require them.

4.  I do not know the version of lynx that you have, but I suspect it is
somewhat older than current.  Even if this is the case, however, it does
have the following feature.
If you want to acquire a full copy of any web page, press "p" while
viewing that web page or document.  That will take you into the lynx
printing option screen.  The first such option is "save to file on disk",
the second is "send the file via e-mail", and the third is "scrole the
file".  It is the third option you would use if you wanted to do a capture
on the file: the entire page would scroll, top to bottom, up your screen
for commo to capture.  I do not advise this, however, because of option 1.
Selecting option 1, will allow you to write the page to a file.  To do
this, press control and "u" (to erace the current proposed name), and type
some file name you like, such as "file.txt".  Press enter after that, and
you will be returned to the document.
Once you leave lynx, type the following at your shell prompt:

sz file.txt

That will send the file to your commo download directory (I can tell you
how to set that privately, if you wish).

At that point: the entire page will be available for your use in what ever
situation you see fit.  While you had it on the Unix system, you could
have done this:

pico file.txt

to edit that file, to remove the name of links, etc.

Do you also know that you can have links numbered in lynx, so you need
only type the number of the link you wish?  The same can be done with form
fields and such, which may halp you with searching.

5.  Regarding web searches: you may do better using:

http://www.google.com

6.  Regarding what you said about 4dos: other than the "except"
feature, the Linux shells are quite a bit more powerful, and even one of
their most basic, supports the 4dos features.

7.  Cheapbytes.com works fine with lynx.  Either your ISP's version of
lynx is extremely old, or you may need some further education on the
operation of lynx.

8.  The Linux DOS Emulater, is not something a new Linux user should
tackle.  I tried it a year or two ago, and failed.  I do not claim to be
an expert, but it could have been better documented.  It may be so now,
but I have not recently evaluated the program.

 I may have more to say later; but this should help a bit, I believe.

Luke