Could some helpful soul direct me to a site where we can obtain the meanings (that flash off the screen) when downloading our Linux packages. It would be most helpful for beginners such as myself to be able to know what “Swig” or “olwm” means. It also helps to know whether or not we need to install these items. Many thanks Bob
roberta@clear.net.nz

Bob, can you be a little more detailed? What version of Linux are you using? Are you seeing these things in an actual download from the Internet, or just when you are trying to install packages? Are you downloading and installing RPM's, .Deb packages or tarballs, (packages ending with tar.gz etc.)? Someone here will probably be glad to help if we have a little more information.

Yes sorry, I should explain they are the messages that we get when downloading from CD's distro's. The club here are using Mandrake 9.2 and trying others such as Knoppix and Slackware but all the screens have a short explanation of the common programs that are going in. We would like a list of these common Linux packages in order to really know whether or not we really need them etc. Some of our members have quite old machines and space is a premium. Thanks Bob

Are you talking about the boot up screen when you turn your computer on after having installed an operating system, or the packages listed as you are doing an install? Mandrake has a pretty good installer that gives a breif explanation of the packages being installed.

Yes, the ones that flash by as they load from the CD's. We would appreciate being able to print them out for members of our Linux club.
Most folk know what GIMP etc is but their are many that we have never heard of.
Thanks Barry

The ones loading from the Knoppix CD's? I'm afraid I'd be at a loss to tell you how to get all that stuff printed out to look at. Seems I remember there is a way to view that stuff line by line and interact with it, but I can't remember how... Anyone else?

I think he is talking about the boot messages. Can you not redirect these to a file on the hard drive?