Re: SEUL: A few thoughts

[Gabriel Krabbe <satan@bofh.studfb.unibw-muenchen.de>]

On May 31, Micah Yoder wrote regarding "Re: SEUL: A few thoughts": 
>
> Greg Bell wrote:
> 
> > we have to look at what a devices a 'stock' computer has.  A zip
> > distribution has been mentioned but zip drives are still a relatively
> > rare beast amoung computer users.  I would have to cast my vote for a
> 
> Not really.  Quite a number of people and organizations I know of have
> one.

whoah!

folks, are  you trying to build a new distribution? slow down a little,
there's more than plenty as it is.

take something like debian, add some rather more comfy installation
frontends plus some admin & config tools that are probably less
functional than those existing, definitely less functional than
hand scripting, but hopefully rather more pretty to look at and thus
more comforting.

as for hardware support: a little dos-program with an ascii-frontend
to choose between two, possible three basic bootdisks that prompts
the user to insert the correct disk at the correct time should suffice;
remember, we have modular kernels; remember, that quite a lot of params
that the unprobeable devices require can be read from c:\config.sys;
remember, _everyone_ has access to a cd-rom _somewhere_ - a can't
really imagine a home user  w/ a 486 or somesuch that has an internal
zip drive that can't be hooked to his shiny new ppro200 (with 4 megs
ram or so, but that's beside the point for now <g>) but no cd-rom in
the same machine... either it's an external zip that he'll be able to
hook up to the big brother (er... watch out for different config.sys
files in such cases) and create from the cd, or he'll have a cd-rom
in the target computer anyway.

what it boils down to is: ask, what hardware he/she/it wishes to install
from, and make sure the appropriate module is on the bootdisk and is 
loaded with the correct parameters.

> > the factor of having to maintain multiple distribution on multiple
> 
> We'll probably just distribute this as a bunch of package files and a
> few install programs and scripts.  

precisely. write the stuff, package it as .deb and as .rpm, gpl the
whole lot, and give it to redhat and the debian project. full stop.

> > Just a small note:  There has been a message about getting linux into
> > grade schools
[...]

<ahem> there's more countries than the us, you know. thinking about
schools is in itself nothing wrong, but don't discuss the problems 
of advocacy here. that's what comp.os.linux.advocacy and friends 
are for.

cheers,
	Gabriel
-- 
Dawson's First Law: You don't have enough outlets.

email will be posted as i see fit.

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