Re: About democracy was Re: Organizing for 6.2

[JF Martinez <jfm2@club-internet.fr>]

> 
> Paul.Newman@pgen.com wrote:
> > 
> > It doesnt need to install from windows. If the CD is bootable that is surely the
> > simplest thing there could be! Instructions: turn computer off, put cd in cd rom
> > drive, turn computer on. So provided the install program looks like what windows
> > users are used to seeing (ie nice GUI), and not like DOS, then that's all that's
> > required. Or am I missing something?
> 
> This sounds fair enough - The only thing I would do under windows is
> have a setup program - which would autorun when you put the disk in
> the CD and allow you to browse the documentation on the CD (i.e.
> the online installation guide - basically, the html files are on
> the redhat cd anyway - just create a button that fires up the web
> browser to view them when you click on it), tells you to reboot with
> the CD in the drive to begin the install process and possibly a button
> to press which prompts you to put a blank disk in the drive and would
> create a boot disk if you need them - i.e. your CD isn't bootable.
> 

The two things that could be done from Windows is the defrag part and
then the FIPS part (the later probably from DOS due to Windows
caching) but with a nicer front end.  Howver problem is not waht but
who.



> > 
> > Of course, once you have been using Linux for a while you begin slowly (over a
> > period of months in my case) to appreciate when being in console mode is
> > preferable to being in X. But people from a Windows background simply dont see
> > it that way. The quality of the GUI during the install is important. Thats not
> > just the "look", but also the on-screen instructions, overall intuitiveness, and
> > on-line help available from within the install.
> > 
> > One of the most off-putting things about doing an RH custom install are the
> > paltry descriptions given to the RPMs (from a newbies perspective) - if you know
> > what DHCP is and what its for, you'll know whether you need it. If you dont know
> > what it's for, and you are confronted with a choice as to whether to install it,
> > you will be stuck if all you get is an expansion of the acronym.
> 

Thats waht the precooked installs are made for: beginnes should not
use custom installs.  Of course I disagree with the choices of Redhat
about precooked: their workstations lack features I consider essentail
and there is no homesation.

> This I agree with - however a newbie should be gently directed down
> one of the prepackaged paths. A way of wording it so that newbies aren't
> put out but won't use it is needed - perhaps 'Advanced Install' is 
> more appropriate than custom install?
> 

Yes.

> It also needs to be easy for a newbie to add extra packages without
> too much difficulty once the system is running - i.e. without having
> to su or logout and login as root - a graphical RPM browser with 
> setuid wrapper round the actual install so that a privaledged user
> can install things without being root - the initial non-root user 
> created by the install should be allowed to install packages.
> Can RPM keep track of who installed packages? i.e. can you allow

No.  That should be added to the front end assuming the user does not
do an su.

Problem is that your feature is dangerous.  How<ver I am thinking
there should be away to give special status to the other userid of the
person wwho is the physical root).  Fo instance automatically set up
the duistro for him getting root's mail and so on.

I also thought in giving him security privileges butproblem is how to
avoid those privileges being used by a virus (by the way we should
educate users about benefits of security: prsently they see it as
chore.

> a user to install an RPM, try it out, then decide he doesn't
> actually want that package and remove it without allowing the
> user to remove every package on the system?
> 


That is already in RedHat 6.1 (expet you have yto give the password) .
In addition when it notices you want to install something you don't
have the required  dependencies it tells you the additional packeges
needed (and the packahges needed by those additional packages).  In
addition RedHat 6.1 supports autorun disks (it calls the gui front
end when you insert the Redhat CD)

> --
> Mike Manley
> 

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org