SEUL: Putting a bit of order

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

I have seen a lot of suggestions but this is going in all directions,
so here are general ideas.


1) Not be overly ambitious for the SUEL first edition, the less
software we develop the best:

It would be nice to have a Linux with Unix power and Mac easiness of
use, but this would require a lot of software not available now and we
have not thousands of developpers: it would happen to SEUL what
happened to HURD who is still not ready for prime time because it was
an ambitious project with limited human resources and whithout
perspective of increasing them from a non-existent user base.

A better strategy is to aim at getting the snow ball rolling.  Make a
Linux distribution significantly easier to setup and use than the
existent ones.  It must be based on existent software (a few tools can
be written for this project however like a better boot manager).  That
will attract to Linux less competent users than present users, and it
will change developpers attitude than will begin thinking about these
users and writing more user friendly software.  The software we will
use in SEUL second edition.


2) Basic installation:

I find coordinator's proposal very good


3) It would be nice if people volunteered to make a review of present
Linux distributions and exposed to people of this list what is usable
in each of them either directly if free, or as an inspiration source if
not free.  I can review RedHat and LST.


4) I think it is still too soon to discuss extensively about user
level software except (perhaps) for the theme of window managers.

The WM for SEUL must be easy to setup.  That means three things:
  It must come with an easy configuration tool for things like color of
window decorations.
  Apps must be added or removed automagically to menus whenever you
install or uninstall a new one.
  An easy way to modify what is started when starting X is also
mandatory.

A window manager where you have to manually edit a resource file is
not acceptable for the SEUL project.

KDE does the first thing and also has the Startup group concept.  The
m4 scripts of TheNextLevel allow fvwm95 to do the second thing.  I am
not fond of the W95 look so I would really like than someone with m4
knowledge hacked this scripts to make this available for fvwm2 or
still better AfterStep or Enlightenment.  But I choose W95 look with
automagic updating of menus over politically correct look with manual
editing.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

==================== The Linux.  Use the Linux, Luke! =======================

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