On Sun, May 04, 2003 at 08:35:08PM -0700, David Nusinow wrote: > On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 10:19:40AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > > On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 02:17:57AM +0200, Felix Steiner wrote: > > > But in my opinion free software fails if it is only for geeks. Why not try > > > to coordinate development to make an easier installer? Why not bring to > > > people what you are working for so hard? I'm sure that there are people > > > that > > > would like to make things simpler. I hope they will do so. > > > > If you're new to Linux, downloading ISOs and hoping isn't a really good > > thing to do. Buy some CDs from someone reputable, and an introductory > > book, and install the former while reading the latter. Unix is _very_ > > different to Windows, and if you don't want to suffer through relearning > > all habits, you need either a book or a friend to guide you through it. > > This does remind me, has anyone started a real Debian Desktop > metadistro/flavor? The desktop subproject hasn't been very active in
Yes, things in their initial steps. We must to discuss some things still, but we have created yet a metadistros project in alioth (https://www.alioth.org/projects/metadistros) > terms of discussion, and I think a good piece of the work is in place > with the new package tags to make it. apt and aptitude/dselect/other > frontends still need to be patched to work with sublists of packages in > order to cut things out like web servers for the user. Knoppix is a Debian-desktop has not strictly the same goal than a metadistros project, though debian-desktop can benefit from it, as other Debian subprojects. > good start, but its focus really is more on the liveCD thing than on > being a desktop distro. Unfortunately, the really big missing piece to > this as far as I can see is still the installer. After all, hardware > autodetection and a pretty installer is something that many users have > been asking for on their desktops. You must have into account that it's not the same a general purpose installer, such as the one Debian or Mandrake provides than the install method used by Knoppix and other Live-CDs, in which you copy a *preconfigured* system into your HD. > > One of my personal dreams is to make this very much a part of Debian, > rather than just another fork, or another package that you install. > Rather, it's a choice made during install as to what you're running > (Server, Desktop, etc.) and it's a choice that can easily be changed > and still remain wholly within the main Debian infrastructure. Vendors > could package it up as "Debian Desktop Edition" and sell it with a > printed copy of the special Desktop Manual describing how to use Gnome > or KDE, how to change your screensaver and desktop background, how to > play solitaire and the like. I feel like many of our users are asking > for this, and they also want it to be a real part of Debian. If it > becomes just another fork like Knoppix, it doesn't really serve our > users because our users aren't just distro makers. > > How do other people feel about this? Would this be serving our users > better? Or should we focus more on allowing project like Knoppix to > happen and leave the sort of people like Felix to them? Then join us. I have set up a list in alioth, but seems to have some issues. I can send you some links in private if you want so you can see the work in which we are going to base. Cheers, -- Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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