SEUL: Starting point for SEUL - why not simply offer alternate installer for Debian?

[Roland Turner <raz@arrakis.com.au>]

I haven't read the mailing list archive exhaustively, but I'm intrigued
that this approach hasn't been suggested. I have in fact considered
doing it myself, but with the dozens of other projects that consume my
time, I haven't tackled it.

It seems to me that for SEUL to start from scratch would be something of
a waste of time. Instead, it should build on an existing distribution.
Such a distribution should:

- already be capable of package management (RedHat and Debian spring to
mind)

- be free of charge (this limits RedHat's appeal)

- have plenty of pre-packaged software ready for use (Debian already
exceeds 1000 packages) (*)

- actively soloicit third party freeware extension

(*) This deserves some explanation. Yes, SEUL should be straightforward
to install and maintain initially, and should present a limited number
of choices to novices, but it should be attractive to experienced users
as well, in fact it would be good for some portion of the users who come
to SEUL as novices to become experienced users. If the only pacakges
that can be installed are the comparitively small number that the SEUL
team can maintain, then the unpleasant possibility of having to switch
to another distribution, or indeed, avoid SEUL to begin with, raises
itself.

There are other distributions that have some of these characteristics,
but it appears to me that Debian fits the bill best. In fact, the only
thing that I don't like about Debian is that its installer is
brain-dead, hard to use and exceedingly ugly. Providing a much simpler
installer would make Debian an excellent base for novices and gurus
alike - even gurus benefit from being able to complete installs in a
hurry and without a lot of stuffing around.

Importantly, it is fairly likely that Debian would take this onboard
their own distribution, much as they do any other package. The fact that
it would appear as an installer is a little novel, but the nett result
would be great for both Debian and SEUL and avoid the creation of yet
another distribution to choose from, instead users could, having chosen
the Debian distribution, choose how difficult (powerful :-)) an
installer they wanted.

- Raz