Re: [Debian-NP] a couple of ideas

[Micah Anderson <micah@riseup.net>]

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, Steve Langasek wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 10:39:18PM -0400, Micah Anderson wrote:
> > In general I like the idea of trying to fit the needs of the server
> > side of things as well as the desktop side, however I am worried that
> > it might spread ourselves to thin and not be able to accomplish
> > either. 
> 
> Is there much tailoring that would need to be done to Debian on the
> server side?  I think being able to use Debian on the server also has
> important potential as a cost-saving tool, I'm just not sure how much
> is actually involved aside from default package selection.

I think that there would have to be a considerable amount of tailoring
in order to make something that is simple and works out of the box for
people. Specific packages should be selected and configured for
defaults that would fit most scenerios, asking as little or no
questions if possible. It should also have a simple installation, with
predefined partitioning and ways to deal with common problems. 

> > I think that if we focus on identifying what needs our target audience
> > has for something like this then we will find that a lot of what the
> > client Morphix has would fit, and we could easily tailor that to have
> > the additional things that we need, and remove the things that we dont.
> 
> This is the sticking point for me.  How do we go about identifying the
> general needs of CSOs?  There've been a fair number of case studies
> posted to the list already, but most use task descriptions that are
> largely unfamiliar to me as one having no experience in the day-to-day
> administration of such orgs.

A lot of the needs identification has been going on here has been
pretty useful if you ask me. In fact I've compiled a lot of the things
that people have been saying on the wiki, which can be found here:
http://wiki.debian.net/index.cgi?DebianNPNeeds.

micah