So I’d finally set up my grandma’s computer the other day, and configured it to
run Fluxbox and Mozilla Firefox to conserve memory. Unfortunately, Fluxbox
isn’t included with Gentoo’s GRP package, and after a few hours of compiling it
was looking like my grandma’s computer would never be able to install it
either. So what I did was setup a chroot environment on my home system which is
very similar to my Grandma’s system, down to the last USE flag. I was then able
to compile binary packages on my fast home system and then have them downloaded
from my Grandma’s slow computer. It was up at
/cgi-bin/x86-packages but I’ve since lost that content. Feel free to
browse around, but please don't actually download anything, my upload bandwidth
is bad enough as it is. ;-)
It’s easy enough just to add the list of packages to an HTML file as I build them, but I figured this would be a great way to learn the CGI.pm module that comes with Perl. So I made a simple script that allows you to browse the built packages, search for one by name, and download it. Luckily, it was nothing too difficult, although I did notice that the File::Copy module just doesn’t seem to work in conjunction with CGI scripting, at least with Apache 2.
Now I just have to parlay this knowledge into improving my site, or just be happy that I know something about CGI scripting now and install some other software to improve my site. :-D
Well, off to bed, I have to get up in about 5 1/2 hours. :-(
Update 2018-12-15: So running Gentoo on a relative’s computer is not the kind of thing that ages well, is it? This whole thing is cringeworthy but I leave it up as a testament to youth.