On Sun, May 04, 2003 at 08:35:08PM -0700, David Nusinow wrote:
> On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 10:19:40AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 02:17:57AM +0200, Felix Steiner wrote:
> > > But in my opinion free software fails if it is only for geeks. Why not try
> > > to coordinate development to make an easier installer? Why not bring to
> > > people what you are working for so hard? I'm sure that there are people that
> > > would like to make things simpler. I hope they will do so.
> >
> > If you're new to Linux, downloading ISOs and hoping isn't a really good
> > thing to do. Buy some CDs from someone reputable, and an introductory
> > book, and install the former while reading the latter. Unix is _very_
> > different to Windows, and if you don't want to suffer through relearning
> > all habits, you need either a book or a friend to guide you through it.
>
> This does remind me, has anyone started a real Debian Desktop
> metadistro/flavor? The desktop subproject hasn't been very active in
Yes, things in their initial steps. We must to discuss some things
still, but we have created yet a metadistros project in alioth
(https://www.alioth.org/projects/metadistros)
> terms of discussion, and I think a good piece of the work is in place
> with the new package tags to make it. apt and aptitude/dselect/other
> frontends still need to be patched to work with sublists of packages in
> order to cut things out like web servers for the user. Knoppix is a
Debian-desktop has not strictly the same goal than a metadistros
project, though debian-desktop can benefit from it, as other Debian
subprojects.
> good start, but its focus really is more on the liveCD thing than on
> being a desktop distro. Unfortunately, the really big missing piece to
> this as far as I can see is still the installer. After all, hardware
> autodetection and a pretty installer is something that many users have
> been asking for on their desktops.
You must have into account that it's not the same a general purpose
installer, such as the one Debian or Mandrake provides than the
install method used by Knoppix and other Live-CDs, in which you copy a
*preconfigured* system into your HD.
>
> One of my personal dreams is to make this very much a part of Debian,
> rather than just another fork, or another package that you install.
> Rather, it's a choice made during install as to what you're running
> (Server, Desktop, etc.) and it's a choice that can easily be changed
> and still remain wholly within the main Debian infrastructure. Vendors
> could package it up as "Debian Desktop Edition" and sell it with a
> printed copy of the special Desktop Manual describing how to use Gnome
> or KDE, how to change your screensaver and desktop background, how to
> play solitaire and the like. I feel like many of our users are asking
> for this, and they also want it to be a real part of Debian. If it
> becomes just another fork like Knoppix, it doesn't really serve our
> users because our users aren't just distro makers.
>
> How do other people feel about this? Would this be serving our users
> better? Or should we focus more on allowing project like Knoppix to
> happen and leave the sort of people like Felix to them?
Then join us. I have set up a list in alioth, but seems to have some
issues. I can send you some links in private if you want so you can
see the work in which we are going to base.
Cheers,
--
Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo
jsogo@debian.org
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