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Deadmonk
09-01-2003, 08:00 PM
hey, your site is cool!
but why only windows softs?
i m looking for Opera v <5 for gnu/linux but i can&#39; t find it :(((((

locustfurnace
09-01-2003, 09:46 PM
Tt was already discussed, in a similar request, and again in a question on hosting MAC software.
for one, hosting old GNU/Linux software is impossible and really not worth while. Since alot of the older software will not work with newer libs in a GNU/LINUX distros, Since alot of the dependencies change so fast, that even a program that worked with RedHat 7, might no longer work with RedHat8.
thats due to the rapid pace of software development in the Linux community, Even hosting 1 app on this site, would mean, you would have to also host the related deps. and that is a long chain of deps. to maintain.

Your requesting a program that doesnt come in source form, its just a bin file, that is usually statically linked to certain libs.
So it is an easier file to host, if one would to host it. But hosting and keeping old programs that are in source code, would mean when someone wants to build it, they will also expect the associated libs necessary to build such programs. And since GNU/Linux apps can be had in bin tarballs, src tarballs, rpms, debs, .slp, thats alot of files to host, and which does OV host, If they chose the rpms, someone will say why not host debs, and if you host debs, someone will say why not host tarballs. and some else might want older .slp files or slackware tgz. Then if you pick rpms, someone will want src.rpms. or i386rpms, then someone else will ask for i585rpms, or ppc.rpms. And if you host tar.gz, someone will want tar.bz2.
PLUS the fact that there exists alreayd alot of places that host GNU/LINUX apps.

But the reason for OV is to host old version of apps that have changed in such a way to make it difficult to run on present systems for users. Mainly due to bloat factor, ads, spyware and the like.
Which really is not a problem in GNU/Linux apps, since a large majoprity of the apps are free, and come in source code form, so if you dont like a newly added feture you can remove it from the source code, and recompile the app as you want, Which you can not do this in Windows apps.

But as I said, the problem with running older apps on new distros of Linux is that you might be unlikley to get them to work, since they were built against older libs, have older verison deps and which might no longer be present. thought this is not a absolute, but can cause problems.
A simple solution would be to purchase older CD&#39;s with the distro you want software for. Or download older distros, this way you will get thousands of older apps with each distro you can pick over.

Alot of the software creators will keep older version of their works around on their site, Since the apps take up a small amount of disk space it is much easier for them to keep older verison around even when newer apps have been built. But not for commerical software, like Opera. They prolly wont keep older version around.

after all this, what about the person who now wants old Amiga Software, or old Acorn software, or Commodore, or Atari, or CP/M or Deskmate titles.
Can&#39;t host every single old title out there, have to draw the line somewhere.

you can get this opera and see which version it is, the site doesnt specify
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/apps/www/...&#33;INDEX.html (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/apps/www/browsers/&#33;INDEX.html)