RE: Moving on

["yiyus" <jg_yiyus@jet.es>]

>
>
>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.
>

I think I could do it. Make a bootdisk with initrd
isn't so difficult if you find the right docs. And
I can obtain some help from people who have done
Spanish distributions.

>
>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?
>

I like :-)

- yiyus

>--
> Jean Francois Martinez
>
>Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
>http://www.independence.seul.org
>
>