Re: First impressions on installing Debian 1.3 (and an idea!)
> > >
> > I think this is a very good idea - imagine when Debian is ported to other
> > hardware platforms and (dreaming maybe) other OS's - one JAVA application
> > could handle the installation regardless of Hardware and OS.
>
> Wait: you've apparently missed the thread that I've been carrying on all
> day. The point of the whole idea was to provide a way for people to get
> information on and install packages. We discussed the idea that "finding
> linux software can sometimes be difficult because we didn't know where to
> look" and the fact that, while dpkg is a _GREAT_ tool, it doesn't
> provide much information and isn't very user-friendly.
Don't know that I missed anything. The two tools available - dselect and
dpkg - are both good, yet they are both lacking. Dselect has all of the
information available, but is harder than all-get-out to learn. Dpkg is
easy to learn but doesn't provide all of the needed information. On this
I think we all agree.
> All I'm suggesting is a deselect-like, x-enabled friendly
dselect-like, yes. X-enabled, no.
> neighborhood package finder and installer. Keep in mind that at this point a
> remote java process (one _NOT_ running on your machine, but on the ftp server
> or someplace else) CAN'T access your hard drive in a meaningful installation
> way, as a security precaution. Locally, you could run it, but then you'd
> already have to have X installed.
>
This is my point. Make something that *does* run locally, but write it in
a language - any language - that has some flexibility. If the install
scripts were HTML pages and Java-script (or *whatever*) loaded locally,
then a person with a text-only browser would be able to access Debian.
After X was installed, if that user chose to use a X-enabled browser,
then Debian would also be available.
I'm not always good at expressing myself in text - what I'm trying to convey
is that *perhaps* Debian should break the User Interface away from the
Debian-specific functionality.
The functionality I'm referring to is: checking on package availability,
installing/removing/upgrading packages, configuring packages. (ie. Package
manipulation.)
As an example: there are several Debian packages that are available, but
are not available from any US archive. If the Debian routines were written
in something like HTML, we could have pointers to the non-US sites. The
user wouldn't have to know to check multiple sites for a complete installation
of Debian, nor would they have to use multiple access methods to retrieve
the requested packages. If they selected a package that required PGP or
SSH, then the Debian routines would go and get those packages - from the
non-US mirror.
Help me is I'm missing the point.
Chuck
--
Chuck Stickelman, Owner E-Mail: <stick@richnet.net>
Practical Network Design Voice: (419) 529-3841
9 Chambers Road FAX: (419) 529-3625
Mansfield, OH 44906-1302 USA
--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-user-request@lists.debian.org .
Trouble? e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .
Reply to: