From: "Jonathan D. Proulx" <jon@ai.mit.edu>
My initial reaction was a shudder, basicly 'cus I teak everything to within an inch of it's life and hate the limitations of GUI interface for system configuration (you can only stick in so many options). It's a pretty dirty hack, but even that took some doing. To device something that will do this from any OS, on any machine from a 386 to P4 or Itanium (not to mention all the other architectures Debian supports), with a variety of network connections (LAN, dialup. ADSL, Cable), well I hope patience is one of your virtues :)
Sounds like you have some valuable insight into the task at hand! But consider the fact that this system I propose would not be trying to cram infinite permutations on a disk. Instead, it would create a communal reference library, holding information on the configurations of many systems all over the world. What would be distributed is analagous to a free membership card which entitles the bearer to free advice, maintainence, and/or tech support. After all, if you were a confused newbie, wouldn't you want the shoemaker elves to come and fix your computer while you slept? ;)
Jack _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com