Re: An idea for a CGI

[Stephanie Lockwood <sjl@chaucer.ece.ucsb.edu>]

> The essence of my suggestion is a single package with a script designed to
> be installed directly after installation of Red Hat 5.1 (with the default
> selection of packages). The principle is to keep it very simple: it knows
> only how to install its few RPMs on an untouched Red Hat 5.1 installation,
> and perhaps carry out some extra configuring not done by the RPMs.
This client side stuff sounds good to me. We can make its work easier on
the server side by making links in a special directory to the lastest versions 
of our core rpms, and it could download everything in the directory. 

It seems like it could just be a script that uses ncftp to do the downloads
and rpm to install. Perl perhaps, using alarm() to timeout bad 
connections and either retry or if the modem connection died ask the user to 
re-establish it?
Also, it should have an option to cleanly uninstall, not that anyone would 
actually want to use it ;)

Main parts to this task then: writing the script, choosing the most
impressive packages to include, and testing it all out for user-friendliness
on a typical RH 5.1 system. That last could be done well by a relative newcomer
to linux, I think perhaps I might get somebody in my family to volunteer
after the RH 5.1 cd from CheapBytes arrives..


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                              S. Lockwood
                         sjl@zorbas.ece.ucsb.edu
                    http://folletts.ece.ucsb.edu/~sjl
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