>>>>> "S" == SI Reasoning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
S> I like having a single distro... but each of these options
S> could be part of the installation choices
I'd second that; the current list of options don't seem to have
parallels in my work experience -- the concept is sound, but the
selection process needs a more workable arrangement than the choice of
either office, server or developer, or else hand-pick from over 2000
packages. We need a middle ground.
For example, "developer" could present a short multi-select list of
programming languages; instead of installing over a dozen languages
hardly anyone even knows exist (hands up all prolog programmers! All
those who can code Haskel from the command line?). Instead of
installing both Emacs and XEmacs, these should be choices under
development environments.
For server, we might ask "mail server", "web server", "firewall" and
so on, always keeping the number of elements to choose as a small and
manageable list, perhaps 7 to 12 choices.
What I'd like to be able to do is to quickly specify profiles where
there is as little duplication as possible. Our shop uses
openoffice, not koffice, so, for business reasons, there's no choice
as far as we are concerned; we spend a lot of time post-install
ripping out duplications, and we still end up with menu items that
only add clutter.
I know Linux people love choice, but uninformed choice is not really
an alternative. I wonder if we can offer more insight into the
differences between duplicate-function packages, or make it easier
(through MandrakeUpdate) to switch between alternatives like
Emacs/XEmacs, Gnome/KDE, openoffice/koffice. I know diskspace is
cheap, but we nonetheless need it for all the stuff we're paid to work
on ;)
This has motivated us to explore creating our own Mandrake subset;
this would give us CDs that only contain the software we use and let
us quickly install a new machine. What would be very cool is if there
was some means to quickly build a profile, proof it, and then run the
mkcds to create a custom subset, and then later, when a new Mandrake
appears, we just unpack the CDs, plop in our profile, and in one
command, our standard install package is updated.
speaking of which, what is the command(s) to check a Mandrake/RPMS
dir to ensure none of the packages depends on packages that are
missing?
--
Gary Lawrence Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: office voice/fax: 01 519 4222723
T(C)Inc Business Innovations through Open Source http://www.teledyn.com
KernelWiki Community Linux Docs: http://kernelbook.sourceforge.net/wiki
