On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:03:19 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> 1. How do you get it so a terminal is always available? (Most distros
>>> I've seen make the terminal program one of the hardest things to find.
>>
>> Alt-F2 ->  gnome-terminal.
>>
>> Done.
> 
> I presume that only works if GNOME is your WM?

Pretty sure that's also in KDE3 and KDE4 as well.

>>> It's easy to find Firefox or Evolution or Jabba, but the terminal
>>> window is usually somewhere under "advanced"... It's almost as if I'm
>>> using a Microsoft OS!)
>>
>> It's usually under "system tools", which is appropriate.
> 
> With Ubuntu, it's "accessories". With OpenSUSE, it was somewhere else. I
> forget where the heck it was with Debian.
> 
> KNOPPIX put it right on the desktop though. Smart guys...

Easy enough to do with other distributions, excepting GNOME3, which 
doesn't let you put anything on the desktop (but I actually quite like 
GNOME3).

>>> 2. Why type "bc" when you can type "ghci"? ;-)
>>
>> Because 'bc' actually does something on my system - namely, it starts
>> an arbitrary precision calculator. :)
> 
> Yeah, I wasn't entirely serious with that one. ;-)
> 
> Typing "ghci" starts the Glasgow Haskell Compiler in Interactive mode -
> i.e., an REPL for Haskell. Which has arbitrary math support backed by
> the GMP [which is probably what powers bc, I wouldn't be surprised...]
> But it's also a full Turing-complete programming language, not just a
> calculator.

See, that's why I get "command not found".  I do nothing with Haskell.  
But you're right, bc is more than a simple calculator.  bc is actually an 
'arbitrary precision calculator language'.

bc only has dependencies on libc, ncurses, and a few other things.  
Nothing related to GMP that I see.

Jim

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