> I read somewhere that dpkg can handle "mangled" filenames because it looks
> inside the package to determine if it is the correct version. Is dpkg what
> I need to be learning to use?
>
It is certainly worth knowing how to use dpkg directly for one-off operations.
>
> CD-ROM is not an option. Modem is not an option. Are files in my
> /hda3/debian (which is my Windows 3.1 c:\debian directory) an option?
> That's where I rejoined the perl_5.004.04-6.deb file tht I'm trying to
> install.
>
> Thanks for the on-list and off-list suggestions I've already received. The
> idea about changing my ms-dos partition to a vfat partition which would
> support long filenames is a good idea, but I don't know if that will help
> me since I have Windows 3.1. Thanks for your patience. I'm trying to leap
> from Windows 3.1 to Linux instead of following the path from Windows
> 3.1...to Windows 95....to Windows 98....to an old Windows NT....to a new
> Windows NT....to who-knows-what. The get-the-CD suggestion was also a good
> suggestion but right now I'm trying to introduce myself to Linux on my
> computer which has no CD before I make big changes to my other computer
> which my family uses every day (it has Windows 3.1, also).
>
>
It may be worth investigating the UMSDOS file system - this provides a Unix
file system (with long file names) over an MSDOS filesystem. The Unix files
live in an MSDOS directory, with a DOS file called something like linux.---
which holds the long filename and protection/ownership info etc; all the things
that Unix likes which DOS does not have. The files themselves look to the
DOS side of things like a truncated form of their long names.
It is useful for people running in a mixed environment because it allows you
to pinch space from your DOS partition and use it as real Unix space
John Lines
p.s. Slackware had support for a UMSDOS boot disk - you could run with no
'real' Linux partition at all. It would be very handy to have that in Debian
at some stage.
