Re: [seul-edu] Distro Dementia II

["Richard Smedley" <richard.smedley@futurenet.co.uk>]

Alan Chen wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 28, 2001 at 03:01:23PM -0600, Les Richardson wrote:
> > Hi Richard,
>

Hi, it's been a long time since I've had time to _look_ at the list, much less post
to it I'm afraid :-(

> > >Hmm, surely you just take a GPLed distro, add in the edu packages and
> > distribute
> > >disks of the whole lot - Debian, Red Hat & Co have all taken care of the
> > >installation routines.
> > >However just distributing the applications means making too many assumptions
> > >about the installation someone has - even assuming that they already have a
> > >GNU/Linux distribution.
> > >
> > >- Richard
> >
> > I would assume that if someone builds a .deb or .rpm file, that they could
> > then add them to that particular installed distribution, since that is the
> > whole point of having package managers.
>
> Unfortunately, there can be subtle problems with using rpm's across
> distributions.  RedHat conventions are slightly different from SuSe's,
> are different from Makdrake's.  Most of the time, its not an issue,
> but occasionally there are problems, and often there are minor
> irritants. e.g. config files structured differently than the
> distribution conventions. For a large number of applications or
> utilites, it can be a pain to manage differences. That's why I tend to
> lean towards working with Debian, maybe eventually getting to a
> task-education set of packages.
>

Absolutely, task-education has been suggested a number of times. It's just waiting
for someone with a _lot_ of time and energy to step forward.

>
> > Also, if we distribute the "whole lot" it would be DVD production time for
> > us. We are effectively entering the distribution business then.....
>
> <shameless plug> My small business, Digikata, was pretty much formed
> around the idea of providing use-specific "mini-distributions".
> Generally, system administrators split up computing resources
> according to boxes anyway.  Mini-distributions using some minimal base
> distro, RedHat, Debian, etc.

> [snip] I'm working on a education-paperwork-datareporting oriented mini-distro

> right now, and may be applying a similiar model in other areas.
> </shameless plug>
>

The thing to bear in mind about DVD/7 CD distros is that they ship with a massive
_choice_ of apps.
Schools don't want choice (at least here in the UK). They want standard tools to
learn and use.
Everything a school needs, along with a base RH or Debian distro, can easily fit on
one CD. This means no worries about dependencies, package choice, etc.
Where schools _do_ want a choice of other apps the local sysadmin can compile, or
d/load the debs, no problem.
Making it easier by cutting down on unwanted choices does not take away those
choices from those who need them or may want them in the future.

>
> > And building an entire distribution means entering into competition with
> > Red Hat, SuSe, etc. This doesn't seem like a particularly wise idea.
> > (Although, of course, some people "just 'gotta" do this and so be it. It's
> > a lot of work.)
>

Competition is good :-)
Seriously, if a RH-based GPLed schools distro takes off there is nothing to stop
Red Hat offering competitive support services for it, and even taking on some of
the development.
A Debian-based distro is best done within dedian (with task-edu) as this ensures
packages stay up to date and compatible.

- Richard

--

Richard Smedley
Production Editor, Linux Format

Telephone +44 (0) 1225 442244 ext 5038