Re: Debian-edu/Skolelinux and Edubuntu cooperation
fredag 13. mai 2005, 13:57, skrev Gavin McCullagh:
> On Fri, 13 May 2005, Markus Gamenius wrote:
> > >Would it be at all possible for a semi-official debian-edu/skolelinux
> > >backports archive to exist for this?
> >
> > This approach would not help us keeping up with hardware, just some
> > programs.
>
> I presume that the major issue with hardware is the installer. An extra
> APT source won't really help that. Hardware problems with initial
> installation would likely be with new disk controllers, network cards and
> possibly video cards. For a novice, if the cd doesn't have support they
> might as well forget it. They really need a cd that has this stuff.
>
> A second aspect of hardware is that of thin/half-thick clients. An APT
> source with a newer version of LTSP or Lessdisks, or a new kernel for them
> etc might be a help. The nature of thin clients is often that they aren't
> usually that new so I suspect this is not so important (although the X
> Server in LTSP 3 is very old now).
>
> My intention in saying this was not so much to propose a solution to the
> hardware problem as to show that there are one or two things other than
> hardware which cause issues when out of date and to suggest a possible
> solution to those.
>
> > How should we solve the hardware-problem?
>
> Good question.
>
Just a small comment on this issue ...
I totally agree with the argument that no novice might be expected to tweak
the installer to support new hardware. However I do oppose the notion that
the installer can't do so.
Why can't the installer (on the cd) seek trough a predefined repository on the
Internet for new versions of it self? And if found, download it an initialise
it in it's own place?
!! This is an outrageous security risk I hear som argue. Not so: Why not get
inspiration from the IpCop project on how to implement trace of origin ...?
With an embedded public key in the original installer one can make sure of
the authenticity of a particular package. All this can be done on the fly
before any hardware except the NIC being detected. (Obviously this implies
that there exists a connection to the Internet of some sort.)
In my head this would be feasible to achieve even on a 56K modem-line, given
that one only really needs to download this update twice thanks to squid
running on the main-server installed during the first download. The second
download is cached in squid.
How to escape this download if not needed or wanted? The easiest way would be
to keep the Internet link down during installation or perhaps even as a
choice presented together with choice of profile?
--
Regards
Gjermund Skogstad
(http://www.linuxfolk.net)
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