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Re: SEUL: Observatons
From: Micah Yoder <yoderm@geocities.com>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; Linux 2.0.27 i486)
> 3. Boot into linux setup. Starts stripped-down vanilla VGA
> Xserver by default for config tools which will allow setup of X,
> PPP, users etc. etc. Tell the user about the X three-finger salute
> and try the X configuration. If it fails, have a way to revert to
> the generic VGA server again. When it is done, present the user
> with the "tour of linux" by HTML. (I just know the X-thing is
> going to give me a lot of grief - but at the same time, I don't
> know anyone who doesn't run X)
OK. I used to be of the opinion that we should do the install in curses
AND do not require X to be used at all. But it seems as though most
"end users" want GUIs and most of them have decent computers, so I guess
I can concede to making X be a "standard". Perhaps there should be
another distribution for people with peices of junk 386s that can't run
X but would still like to do useful stuff (Internet, BBSs) with their
computer.
I disagree. The fact is than the VGA server will run with *almost* any
card. But not all.
There are PCs with NVidia Cards (correct me if I am wrong but that is
a modern card) that won't run with the VGA server. They will run with
their specific server however.
And there are other cards where the VGA server will only support 320x200.
That means than we would need a second curses based installation tool.
So I think than we must develop first the curses tool and then if the
team finishes ahead of other teams and finds itself unemployed, then
and only then, they should start an X based tool.
Also if we go the X way (by selecting the proper server instead of
VGA) then don't try to be smart when configuring the X server for
installation: don't try high resolutions, stick to something every
monitor can display 640x480. Don't use a virtual desktop (when
installing RedHat 2, a window prompting me appeared in an invisible
area of the screen and I wondered for ten minutes why the installation
had frozen and it was when I made a "ps" from a text console than I
found what was happenning). And don't forget about national
keyboards.
Also 8 meg machines will have a hard time with an X based install.
> 2. Management - we might as well hack away at RedHat's control-panel
> stuff. It works pretty good. One thing it's missing is that you should
> be able to fire it up as a normal user, and then have it prompt for a
> password to let you do the management.
Well, it's allright, but it would need quite a bit of work. I think we
should probably start over.
Its already done in the LST distribution.
> I also think we should have a database of available programs
> that the user can peruse, and tell them to go visit sunsite or redhat
> or debian (or the CD)for that matter to get packages. This implies
As I mentioned before (and don't think I got any replies to), I think it
would be a good idea to have a client/server install system. Set up a
software.seul.org (or whatever), have a client program to connect to
it. This program would let people query the software available,
determine if it would run on his/her computer, give good descriptions,
maybe screenshots, and let them download it and automatically install
it. I'd actually like to work on that part of it myself!
Sorry but here in France day time phone rates for local calls are
about 15 cents for three minutes. Downloading 100 or 200 megs over a
modem is not viable here. So until France becomes one of the United
States of America :-) I vote against that.
--
Jean Francois Martinez
==================== The Linux. Use the Linux, Luke! =======================
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