Hi Jorn, > Now - I frequently read about the term "end-user" and I started to wonder. > Who is the targeted end-user? Is it the DIY guy that really do not know > much about linux but just want to have a firewall, or is it the more > experienced user who want a good utility box with a lot of features? Or > both? To me it seams the latter is the answer however I've noot been around > since day one, thus some input would be cool. Good question. I guess you'll get as many different answers as there are developers. I'm of the fundamental "if you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't be configuring your firewall yourself and instead pay somebody who knows something about it" fraction (ok, this is overly simplified, I'm not quite as radical as that, but I do subscribe to the idea that foolproof systems are only used by fools - and that firewalls/networked appliances these days exposed to too much of a hostile environment to be configured by somebody who's just skimmed the docs (if at all)). I'm sure other people will have other views. Since Bering uClibc (and even less so LEAF, since there is not "product" called LEAF) is not a product designed by marketing folks, there's no clear target group.
But a reasonable description would probably be "computer enthusiasts, willing to do some reading and not expecting a point-and-click-interface". This too is not because somebody designed it to be so, but rather because there aren't any tools/frontends to appeal to any other user groups. As always - that's just my point of view, I'm not speaking for anybody else. >>>So, to me the question is more along the lines of "is there somebody who >>>is willing to work on making booting off something other than floppy and >>>DRom easier?" So far, the answer to that has been "no" (and there's >>>only so much 5 or so people can do in their spare time). > > What would the effort be? I mean - would it just be to replace one LPR with > another and create a ISO of that whenever a new release is due? And maybe > test-burn it to a memory stick and then give it a go on a few machines? Or > are we talking about, as I suspect it do mean, create a lot of scripts that > will do the task, and make the ISO work an all kinds of HW? Or could we > make the task a bit smaller in the beginning? The effort will be as much as somebody is willing to put into it. If somebody can provide a dd-Image that works (no matter how that image was created), great. If that somebody can also provide a set of scripts to rebuild that image with updated packages, even better. If somebody can come up with a build system that will be clean, do a true cross compile, possibly even be able to compile Bering uClibc for ARM and _also_ create a bootable image for USB - goodness, I wouldn't even have words for it. You get the idea - this is not a matter of setting requirements, and expecting somebody else to deliver. This is an open source project, and contributions (no matter how small or large) are appreciated. > Now - I do have a Leaf install about once a month. These days is more CF > based, however I still find it easy to get it all working as loong as I know > the kernels modules I need. But before you know that - it kan be a bit of a > hassel. Maybe we could create a list over hw vs kernel modules? Togheter > with the modules.lrp builder that would make things easier. I could maintain > such a list if created one. That would surely be something - even though I wouldn't have much use for it, since I have a limited amount of hardware that I tend to install LEAF to. But then, it doesn't matter what _I_ would use. If somebody provides a tool or docs and somebody else can benefit from that, it's a great thing to have. The only thing one would have to make sure is that this list would have to be kept up to date (few things are worse than out of date docs). Such a list could probably at least partly be "stolen" (we're GPL afterall) from any other distro that provides hardware detection. Martin ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ leaf-devel mailing list leaf-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-devel
