From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 10 01:35:18 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8698816A4CE for ; Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:35:18 +0000 (GMT) Received: from node15.coopprint.com (node15.cooperativeprinting.com [208.4.77.15]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C47C743D1F for ; Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:35:17 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ryans@gamersimpact.com) Received: (qmail 99077 invoked by uid 0); 10 Feb 2005 01:35:01 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.0.5?) (63.231.157.250) by node15.coopprint.com with SMTP; 10 Feb 2005 01:35:01 -0000 Message-ID: <420ABA5E.9090307@gamersimpact.com> Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 19:35:26 -0600 From: Ryan Sommers User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 (Windows/20040803) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Peter Ross References: <20050208145219.491D143D39@mx1.FreeBSD.org> <11935.203.51.156.53.1107878311.squirrel@mailbox.TU-Berlin.DE> <200502082246.10596.mark.rowlands@mypost.se> <11888.203.220.51.162.1107997737.squirrel@mailbox.TU-Berlin.DE> In-Reply-To: <11888.203.220.51.162.1107997737.squirrel@mailbox.TU-Berlin.DE> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The case for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:35:18 -0000 Peter Ross wrote: > I would suggest to add a desktop option at the end of the installation > ("Do you want to configure this machine as a desktop?") and then offer the > package above and OpenOffice (including a language option) > What if instead of making it an option on the main FreeBSD distribution we leave that to groups like FreeBSDIE. I know Scott touched on this awhile ago; I really liked the idea. I think it would be great for FreeBSD to work with groups like this in making the main FreeBSD code more receptive to these niche releases. If one group wants to maintain a "desktop" or "live CD" release, try and incorporate the ability to do so in the tree. Most of this would not even effect things like performance or interfere with others. I imagine it would come down to a lot of Makefile Magic and just giving the user a different set of choices on disc1. Instead of trying to cater FreeBSD to every different type of user, make it easy to be catered by other developers. I think a large part of this could be filled by a new installer with well documented methods to change the default distribution. It's an area I really want to work on, but being that I've been in transition between jobs for awhile, I haven't had enough free time to do much more than make some notes. I think it'd be amazing if we had All-In-One disks. For instance, a single CD designed to install a FreeBSD email server, or a Small Business Release, containing things like email server, DNS, file-sharing, web server. Put these on individual CDs that make it super easy to download and install. The only real difference in all of these is what packages get installed, nothing beyond that. I don't know if I've seen any Linux distributions do this (though I don't stay in touch with Linux development). However, I DON'T think it should be the job of the @freebsd.org developers to maintain this assortment. I believe it would be better handled by individual groups. A certain amount of core support in the main distribution could be provided to make everyone's lives easier, but I don't imagine that being much beyond where we all hope the project is going. -- Ryan Sommers ryans@gamersimpact.com