Re: SEUL: Is there a user for S.E.U.L.?

[Micah Yoder <yoderm@geocities.com>]

Jay Bloodworth wrote:

> think we need to focus on making SEUL appealing to the first group -
> organization IS managers - because if we can sell enough organizations on
> Linux, computer manufacturers will start selling preinstalled Linux
> systems.

I believe we need to focus on BOTH big IS departments AND home users. 
There's a project going on to make a gaming API, and if they succeed
(hopefully before SEUL is released), Linux could be a very good gaming
platform.  And we know that's what attracts a lot of home users.  :-)

> * Network installation:  Use the CD to install on one machine, then just
> boot with a floppy to install over the wire on the rest.

Yep.  Shouldn't be a problem...RedHat does it, all we have to do is
touch up the interface.

> * Dynamic configuration: It's getting to be a DHCP world out there.  IS
> people don't like to manage huge blocks of static IPs.  Can you blame
> them?

Right...or at least an easier way to manage static IPs.  They're not
*THAT* bad!

> network file systems as well as networkable menu management, ie you add
> app xyz to the server and it shows up on the appropriate users menu's next
> time they reboot.

YES!!!  We could blow Windows away with that one!  And have a good set
of user-control options.  My company has a large mill client who spent a
LOT of money keeping their users out of games using DOS/Win3.1.  They
finally upgraded (in terms of Windows, 3.1->NT is an upgrade) to NT,
which helped, but they are still using the 16 bit office.  I had to come
up with a way to hack the DLLs to disable the VBA commands that could
potentially launch games!  If we could make this easy, IS people will
love us!  :-)

> * Other intranet goodies: We need to provide good mail/news/IRC/WWW/ftp
> clients out of the box and provide a means to configure them sensibly for
> the local environment.

Right.  Hopefully Mnemonic will be ready before SEUL.  That would seem
to be the natural browser of choice.  Or, we could make like OS/2, and
provide an icon to download Netscape (and then have a script to
automatically install the correct libraries so they don't get the @#$%
Bus Error)

> be able to contribute to remedying these deficiencies as our talents and
> interests allow, I don't think that really falls under the scope of SEUL.

Actually in a way I think improving/creating apps *does* directly apply
to SEUL.  If the "end user" apps aren't there, why have an end user OS?

*We* should probably focus on the OS and getting a collection of apps
together, and possibly recruit for projects to create apps.

The one thing Linux *really* needs is a good visual programming tool.  I
use Visual Basic at work (not by choice), and though there are several
drawbacks to it, I must admit it is incredibly easy to develop certain
kinds of apps quickly, especially data access.

I think we should try to start a project to develop some kind of RAD
tool for Linux - hopefully more like Delphi than VB!

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Micah K. Yoder            My computer is 100% Microsoft free!
yoderm@geocities.com      Support freedom in computing:  Use Linux!
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/2359
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