>
>
> > > Can you give some examples of such redundant programs? I hope you're
> > > not thinking of dropping lots of text-based software based on the
> > > assumption that the whole computing world is moving toward graphical
> > > interfaces.
> > >
> >
> > Well there are several small editors for people allergic to VI, three
> > or four mail readers, same thing with mailers. I am a man of simple
> > tastes: I want the best in everrything and I have no place for second
>
> I used pine a lot, as do many others. Many prefer elm. Which is better?
> Pine users presumably think pine is, elm users disagree. Others again
> swear by mutt; I thought it a bit of a dog.
There are millions of Linux users coming from Windows who would hate
such software. But these people are a silent majority who don't dare
to tell their opinion because they lack self-confidence in front of
the "experts". In addition when they find the console based tools
they react by using Windows for sending mail. And then we have a
probably small but vocal minority of people coming from proprietary
Unixes who swear by console based tools and exert en influence far in
excess to their numbers. I think this is a bad thing.
>
> Nobody chooses amongst them because of the purchase price; some presumably
> use one or other for the reason I use bash as my shell; it was there and
> someone pointed me at it.
>
I was thinking mostly in mh-exmh. Are there so many people using
them? Are they so good they could not be dropped now that KDE and
Gnome have what looks like far more exciting clients?
>
> This argument applies equally to editors... Not that the editors an email
> clients amount to much.
>
Five or eight megs at most between console-based editors, mail readers
and news readers. A few more if they drop the desktop-backgrounds
packages: with the exception of the NASA photos they are awful.
>
> What I have thought of is putting XFree and everything that needs it on
> one CD, everything else on another. I suspect that gnome and kde will
> account for most of the increased bulk in the near future.
>
The RedHat install is designed in a way it needs all the packages
being on the same media so either RedHat changes the whole philosophy
of its installation or they ship 6.2 on DVD. :-)
--
Jean Francois Martinez
Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org
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