Re: (FWD) Re: Resurrecting Indy - Food for thought

[Dinos Kouroushaklis <dinos@bigfoot.com>]

At 01:48 рм 18/04/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>From: Ryan Thomson -cEnsE- <cense@mail.ru> (RT)
>RT > I like this idea for a starting thing. As far as im concerned, in the
>RT > future when much work has been done that Indy should be a stand-alone
>RT > distro without the need to install RH first or install any RH ISOs.
>RT > Yes, you did say that there would be the option of installing Indy
>RT > stuph at install time but that raises the question, Do we want everyone
>RT > who wishes to install Indy to be forced to obtain RedHat AND Indy
>RT > packages/ISO or can we somehow make it that Indy is "standalone" where
>RT > the user does not have to "know" that it is based on RedHat? (that is
>RT > the user only has to have an Indy CD, ISO or download)
>RT >
>RT > I dont know if i am explaining myself clearly so i will try to put
>RT > this another way.
>RT >
>RT > Are we planning to have everyone NEED a copy of RH to use Indy? Can
>RT > we just ship the parts of RH that we need in Indy so that it is
>RT > transparent to the end-user?

There are points that I agree with you and some that I have a different 
opinion.

We do not need to exclude the existing RH users.
What is more important? To pass as another distribution or a make
Linux easier for the end user? I think it is the second.
Yes, we could have an Indy CD by it self as well as Indy as an add
on to RH but that will probably complicate things and slow us down
as it has in the past or even worse which we do not want to have
happening again.

Going as a different distro with just one Developer (JFM) is very hard.
Going as an add-on for RH is much easier (?JFM). In the first case our
audience is people who will be interested in changing their distribution.
In the second case our audience is all the current RH users who might be
interested in making their distribution easier to use. This might attract
other users to RH due to the value added from Indy for the ease of use.
We do not need to make enemies just friends. It will be easier to become
more useful to the public as an add on rather than a separate distribution.

JFM what is your opinion? Since you are the developer (as far as I know)
you need to tell us what will be easier for you? And you have the winning
vote as well. If you are not interested in something like this let us
know. We do not need to stray from the existing vision ... or your vison.

So far I have no problem installing RedHat.
So far I have been unable to install Indy even though I did download the
ISO images for RH7, and all the packages for the previous version.
I used RH6.2 ISO images to install, probably from www.linuxiso.org .
For older versions I bought the versions from www.lsl.com and
www.cheapbytes.com .

>RT > I dont know if my comments were clear/understand or even make sense.
>RT > Ryan Thomson aka cEnsE,

Your comments do make sense! But just like mine they might not be
applicable everywhere.

>From: Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu> (RD)
>RD > Another way to look at this is to try to take advantage of the red hat
>RD > distribution mechanisms to get the packages to the users. Perhaps try
>RD > to get them into red hat itself (with an eventual goal of having another
>RD > cd in the red hat boxed set or something).
>RD >
>RD > Try to get Red Hat to treat you as somebody who's useful and interested
>RD > in collaborating, rather than a competitor.
>RD >
>RD > The more you can actually get into high profile distribution, the more
>RD > people will notice you and the more people will take you seriously.
>RD >
>RD > As an example, there's an entire segment of the community out there who
>RD > only knows about seul because of gftp, axyftp, gps, iptraf, etc. (on
>RD > Redhat CD/powertools).
>RD >
>RD > --Roger

Agree with all that Roger said here.

Since our purpose is to make Linux easier for the user then we will make more
good if our user base is the existing RedHat base instead of needing to create
our own from scratch.

An additional example is Bastille Linux which helps Linux users to tighten
security on their existing RH and I think Mandrake distribution.
Why not be like them?

JFM ... your comments are much needed here.

Dinos dinos@bigfoot.com

PS: In my previous email I mentioned Basic Linux Training.
     The correct url is http://basiclinux.hypermart.net/