Re: SEUL: Re: SEUL distribution?

["Erik Walthinsen (Omega)" <omega@sequent.com>]

Reply-to: omega@seul.org  <<<-- !!!

On 16 Jan 1998 jfm2@club-internet.fr wrote:

> Precisely.  I have been on this list from the foundation of SEUL and I
> never saw a such thing than a Debian review.  In fact _I_ was the one
> who published the reviews about Redhat, POwer Linux (alias Caldera
> Lite) and I think also Linux Universe.
Yeah, I thought you did those.  I guess I was wrong about the Debian
review.  Well, I'll post and see if I can get anyone to do one.

> Only answer we got from the Debian partisans was hype, not reviews.
That has been a problem, but then that's been the problem with RedHat as
well.  This is partially why I want to build a core distrib and be done
with it.

> -How Debian installs?  Dselect  :-(.
That will be changing.  SEUL is in the right position, with e-Linux as
well, to help Debian's Deity project become the best installer Linux has
ever seen, and easily outdistance anything M$ can come up with.  The key
is to work together and make sure the project is generic enough to work
for all distribs, but simple and stable enough for actual users.

> -How Debain configures?  That is not bad with the concept of
> configured and unconfigured packages.  :-)
I like that idea, though I don't know if a SEUL machine would be able to
utilize it very much.  Depends.

> -How good is the DEbian user interface?  You don't even get
> auto-upgradable menus.  And you get mosly raw X apps so the user is
> supposed to twinkle with resources.  :-(
And RedHat is much better?  Yes, they have put some work into developing a
few window-manager setups, and some menu automation, but have they tried
to build a set of tools and applications to flesh out the interface?  Not
that I've seen.

> -Is kernel compiling mandatory?  (A no-no for SEUL).  Yes (little use
>  of modules).  :-(
As Bruce mentioned, the 2.1 series is almost completely modularized.  For
those things that can't be modularized, such as what processor it's built
for, there's a really simple fix: give them a 386sx kernel (what RedHat
gives you right now), and a Pentium-optimized kernel.  Easy as that.

Of course, I'm not even remotely advocating using the 2.1 kernel for SEUL.
However, I think 2.2 will be out and reasonable stable before SEUL is
ready to be released, so we can plan for it.

> -What software is included?  In theory there is much in Debian.  In
> practice I found than there is much software for computer phreaks (six
> Web servers, oh god don't they know the law of decreasing marginal
> utility?)  but is below average in software more or less suitable for
> an end user.  :-(
This is what a core will be used for.  SEUL will not be distributing all
of Debian, plus some of our own work.  It will be distributing the core,
plus the relevant layers, which will be common to Debian, SEUL, e-Linux,
etc., plus our own work (i.e. applications, etc.).

> My overall apreciation on Debian 1.3 is than as a starting point for an
> end user distribution only Slackware is worst.
It depends on how much work is being put into it vs. how much you want to 
get out of it. I agree that RedHat may be the logical choice to start from
if we wanted to get something out the door in 6mo.  However, RedHat has
its problems, and given that RedHat is an actual company, working with
SEUL to better their own distribution at the expense of their own plans,
well, that's just not gonna happen.

With Debian, we have the opportunity to work together with the largest
distribution team around, and they are heading in some of the same
directions we are.  Why do it all alone if we can get another 200ppl to
help us out???


     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
        __
       /  \                SEUL: Simple End-User Linux -
      |    | M E G A            Creating a Linux distribution
      _\  /_                         for the home or office user