Restart after long silence

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

All going well tomorrow we will have something like a 0.0.0 Indy in
the ftp site.  I have hacked the RedHat 7.0 beta installer to work
with Indy but it still displays RedHat logos and texts.  This will
have to be fixed.  The _only_ benefits for now are support of multiCD
installations, a compiling environment with gcc 2.95 granting a 30%
speed bonus at floating point and the use of RPM 4.


After that we will have the question of how to make evolve the
software base, we can be coventional and just add tools or radical and
do things like replacing sendmail by postfix, drop TWM and (don't shoot)
make the user explicitly install VI ie VI would not instlled by default.

Why to make such crazy things?  Because it really marks the fact Unix
and Linux are different worlds so we should not accept to use/include
a tool just because it is the standard in Unix.  The user who is used
to Unix and/or expects to get a Unix job can use it but we should not
accept it as our standard if it is not in Linux users best interest.
Of course this was just to test reactions, you can disagree with the
radical path.


What is wrong with Unix?  It is based on three hypothesis.  First
hypothesis: The user is in a soft learning environment.
Unexperienced users have a teacher, can call as syadmin to solve
probelms and/or can ask senior colleagues.  That means cryptic
utilities are not a problem.  If you are a private user (non existent
in proprietary Unix due to price) but a strong opportunity for Linux
then you have to solve your problmes yourself from your first day so
cryptic utilities _are_ a problem.

Second hypothesis: The system administrator has no other tasks to do.
That means he has the leisure to read FAQs, HOWTOs and books for weeks
if needed.  This is only possible if organization is big enough to
have a non directly productive employee.  It does not work on say a
threee person medical cabinet.  These did not exist on Unix because
such organizations had enough with cheaper systyems but again Linux
could go there but not with sendmail as the default (often unique)
mail server.

Third hypyhesis: Unix assumes it will be used for relatively important
and/or mission critical tasks like web serving not for having fun,
Wysywyg word processing and so on.  But few organuizations would have
allowed use of a Wysywyg word processor on Unix when it could be used
on the far cheaper Wintels and Macs.  On Linux this is not a nonsense
but we need to conisder that handling fonts, printer configuration,
shipping of the right software for desktop and homen are not
unimportant problems..  I stiil have to see a distribution who does
not end the installtion with the user having a functional web server
even in betas but I have seen many who either don't configure printers
and/or have buggy printing subsytem and/or provide such crappy fonts
that use of StarOffice is a real ordeal.  This low priority for the
desktop should no exist in Indy.

Now if you are wondering why I have been silent for so long, I was
busy with my new daughter Cecile.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

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