Moving on

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

One thing we can do right now is a "virtual distribution".  Until now
I have been obsessed by the lack of disk space in our successive
sites.  But we can put together a directory with a selction of our
packages (we discard the non-free and some experimental or conflicting
ones) or more exactly symlinks to the real ones and an install
allowing to upgrade the current redhat to Independence.  In fact this
is akin to the piggy-vacked distribution I detailed when creating the
project.

More details:

Four directories of symlinks:

-RedHat upgrades (the errata to the current redhat)
-Independence specific (our "authorized" software
-Extra software (the experimental things)
-Non free (ghostsdcript 5, sharefonts, etc).  It would include software
who cannot be put on CDROM and stuff the user could be using illegally
without noticing like shareware fonts.   I don't include Qt in this
category: you know what you are doing when you use it for programming.

The install would be along these lines:

-Download redhat upgrades and Indepence specific and put them in a
 directory.  Then a script makes symlinks to the user RH 5.1 for the
packages who have not been obsoleted.

Then use _OUR_ boot images and install software indicating install from disk.
The reasons the user should use our install is a) we need to prevent
installation of conflicting software in case the user tells "install all".
An example of this is RedHat's sendmail clashing with our qmail.
b) we must provide for the mounting of CDROM in addition to the 
partition containing the packages+symlinks
c) We must remove the RedHat name for legal reasons

I have been looking at RedHat's install source and hacking it doesn't
seem too difficult.  In fact rebuilding it seems to be the hard part.


Of course having a directory with symlinks to a CDROM implies the user
has a Linux partition if installing from the net.  But it would made
simple to burn a CDROM and in addition it would be far better for
developpers to see their work going into a full distribution instead
of simply in a web site.

Opinions?

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org