Re: SEUL: hardware detection

[Erik Walthinsen <omega@omegacs.net>]

BTW, this should be moved over to seul-dev-install, so I'm cc'ing there.

> 	Well.  I guess the best bet is to have instructions to defrag before
> install.  They should be able to get that much done.

What's keeping us from writing our own?  The FAT filesystem is primitive 
enough that we could probably do one fairly easily under Linux.  I've even 
spent hours and hours thinking of more efficient algorithms to do it (while 
staring for hours and hours at SpeeDisk's lame-a** algorithm copying the same 
data there and back, there and back, there and back).

The same should be done with FIPS.  We could even integrate them... no, let's 
not.  That goes against the principle of Unix.  Agreed, the "do one thing and 
do it well" principle may not mesh with our goals at first glance, but think 
about it some: if we were to integrate FIPS, defrag, and fdisk all into one 
program, users would have to do their own deciding about what to do.  All 
data discovered in either the do-it-all program or the installer framework 
that's calling it has to be passed in bulk, which is suboptimal.  Far better 
for the installer framework to decide which of the three steps need doing.  
It also helps *immensely* with maintainence.

It was mentioned months ago that having the installer for Linux, purportedly 
the best OS for the PC ever, boot first to *DOS* is the best possible way to
disillusion people.  "If Linux is so good, why do I need to boot to DOS
first??".

I'm going to be posting to dev-install and dev-distrib explaining how I think 
the installation process should be tied to the Linux Core (finally has a 
"name").  I hope to have it done before I leave in an hour.

     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
        __
       /  \                SEUL: Simple End-User Linux -
      |    | M E G A            Creating a Linux distribution
      _\  /_                         for the home or office user