Re: Newbie Idea

["Scott D. Boyd" <sdboyd@fastlane.net>]

At 11:42 AM 4/23/99 -0700, you wrote:
>> The mail from "Newbie needs help" gave me an idea.
>> Why not have a version of Independence without all the
>> programming applications? MS Windows does
>> not ship w/Visual C or Visual Basic. It would make the
>
>Thank you Rob, for restating my main point so succintly.
>
>When I get my Linux Mandrake 5.3 CD I will aim for a
>*minimum* install for a single user, and X, and KDE. No
>development tools. No command line. Just like a (*horrors!*)
>Windoze consumer!
>
I think that's a great idea! Does anybody in the Independence Project know
what RPMs are *not* needed if one is not a hacker or programmer? I'm pretty
sure that would cut down needed disk space and download time (if a person
*had* to download rather than buy a Redhat CD.

Sure - there's lots of new apps and utilities coming out every day that are
only in source form. But how many "Windoze consumers" (as Lorne put it) are
going to want to try to compile a "tarball" or a gzipped source file into a
working app? The consumers that the Indy project are aiming towards are
people that want to have fun with their Linux system - play games, play
with Gimp, play MP3s, or maybe balance their checkbook, right? But every
one is still advised to either get a RedHat CD (which is aimed towards the
programmers/hackers) or to download the entire distribution. Neither method
tells a person exactly which files are not needed if one is not a
programmer. Those apps can easily be added later if the average consumer
*does* decide to take a whack at compiling, right? 

In my instance, I've been turned off of new progs. available only in source
form because of the fact that the first two progs. that I tried to compile
- didn't. (The cryptic error messages were no help either.) So
consequentailly (sp?), I don't need or want all the
dev/programming/compiling apps and utilities cluttering up my hard drive.
I've been using computers for 16 years, but I'm not a programmer or hacker,
not by a long shot! I'm a computer technician for a major corp. and a
Website designer on the side. I've been using Microsoft products for the
past 10 years, so I've been shielded from having to do things like "run
./config" and "make install" and "make clean". And 1000's, maybe millions,
of other people have been too. After all, isn't that the main idea behind
Redhat's RPM and Debian's packaging sytems? Isn't it to keep the average
comsumer from having to deal with compilers?

So how about it? Anyone want to tackle the task of figuring out which RPMs
aren't needed for "having fun" with your computer? I'd take a stab at it -
but it would probably be a case of "the blind leading the blind" here.

OK, I'm finished venting - it's someone else's turn now. 8-)

Until later,
Scott


Scott D. Boyd -- Web Weaver
Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org