Re: first time install
Quoting David Pilz (dpilz@ucsd.edu):
> I am about to install linux for the first time, and am having a few
> problems: what are the symbolic links for? what do they do? They are not
> being downloaded to my computer when I download the packages. Do I need
> them? Also, the file sizes specified for the packages are relatively
> small - 3 Kb, 4 Kb, etc., but when I download the packages they turn out
> to be larger - 3 Mb, 4 Mb, and devel was about 150 Mb. Why is this? Any
> help would be appreciated.
The same package file may be appropriate in more than one directory.
For example, documentation files need to be in the directories under
various architectures (i386, sparc etc.) and some slink packages may
still be used in potato.
Symbolic links avoid the need to actually store the file more than once.
All except one occurrence consist of a link to the real file.
Unfortunately, not all ftp programs, for example, can handle links -
i.e. they can't follow the link to the real file. You have to read
the link and navigate there yourself. (Yes, you need them.)
I'm not sure where you're reading the smaller file sizes from, but
as the factor is 1000, it may be that you are reading a listing given
in 1Kbyte blocks and thinking it's in bytes.
Cheers,
--
Email: d.wright@open.ac.uk Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
Disclaimer: These addresses are only for reaching me, and do not signify
official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.
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