Re: the danger of specialized Debian

[Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@msu.edu>]

Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com> writes:

> On the other hand, I think there *is* room for some set of single-CD install
> images tailored for different target audiences.  This is a logical extension
> of the task- concept, and is something I've thought about while thinking about
> what package pools could help enable.  
> 
> My notion is that each of these install images would serve as an easy 
> installation path for some group of users with common interest in a subset of 
> what Debian has to offer.  By making absolutely sure that each of these 
> installation vectors can be easily and "normally" updated and augmented from 
> the main Debian distribution paths, we get the benefit of forks in the 
> distribution without any of the angst.

One example of a targeted Debian sub-distribution might be my own
PPP Net Connector, which I built and released about a year ago
(and have failed to update since then, because my sponsorship
dried up).  It's a single bootable .iso image for x86 with a
simplified installation that makes it trivial to set up a
dedicated dialup masquerading machine.

I can see how some support for this sort of thing within Debian
would make it easier for this sort of thing to get off the ground
and, especially, for these mini-distributions to stay current.

[BTW, if anyone is interested in PPP Net Connector, it's at
	ftp://pfaffben.user.msu.edu/pppconn
]