Re: Which task package installs gpm?
>>>>> "J" == J A Bezemer <costar@panic.et.tudelft.nl> writes:
J> Well, what would you say, when your harddisk is filled with 200 MB, and you
J> have only a shell, one editor you can use without reading lots of manuals, and
J> compilers for languages you can't even understand. This 200MB does _not_ give
J> you a graphical environment, or a usable webbrowser, or even some way to print
J> a nice letter on some omni-present non-PostScript printer.
J> ... in other words: to the average Windows convert, this system gives you
J> about as much functionality as plain old DOS. DOS is some 5 MB.
J> And most of the users installing Debian happen to be Windows converts.
J> So, _if_ we consider to install standard by default, we should probably
J> gravely re-think what should be in a present-day(!) "standard" system.
For some boxes, a standard install might be as a web server with a
mailer daemon. Or a node in a cluster. On others (perhaps a
majority?), it might be a fairly minimal "this is Linux" workstation
with some *show-off* X applications and a Mozilla pointed at relevant
documentation. We should offer a DSL/Cable home/office IP masq
router configuration also. People would like that.
For that configuration, they should be left with an "Everything Just
Works" X Login; they should log in to HelixCode GNOME (and/or KDE C++
only land), and have a few toys to goof with. Mozilla or Nautilus
should be featured, and it ought to have plenty for them to read,
starting with an overview of what there is to read and why they
should read it. Tell them right away what is expected of them to
become proficient, and how long that will take at what rate of
reading. Teach them right off the bat how to find out how to do
something. Perhaps offer to subscribe them to a mailing list? Who
will monitor that list? That's quite a job; and perhaps a boring
one.
The menus should all work. The WM ought to be well configured. It
should look nice and be immediately useful. I want to click an icon
and have XEmacs fired up, complete with `gnuserv', and if I click
that icon again, I want it to reuse the same XEmacs process. When it
starts the first time, it ought to create the ~/.xemacs/ directory,
and offer to become `viper' if they know what that is; recommending
that they not use that mode if they are not already `vi' users. When
I click a "mailto" URL in Mozilla-lite, I want it to open an XEmacs
`message-mode' buffer in a new frame.
Of course, other editors should be offered as well... with their
"full features" ;-) ready to use. Debian is still very much a kit
right now. It's sure not the one-button wonder.
It would be good to check and see how powerful and loaded the machine
is, and not start too much going at once if it's not that powerful.
But if it can deal with it, we ought to, by default, start up
`gkrellm', `xmms', and run a `gmix' to set some reasonable mixer
defaults alsa. There ought to be an *.ogg in the XMMS when it's
first time launched with a message from us. (Perhaps singing "(Join
us now and) Free the Software" as a chorus? I believe we have a few
musicians amoung our ranks.)
The `auto-apt' might be like an `autoload' then, huh? If I click one
that's not installed yet, it pops up a dialog that offers to install
it for me, installs it (must be root or know the su password?), then
launches it.
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