Alternatives to Fedora Core, was: [RULE] APT, YUM...

[M. Fioretti]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 08:13:48 AM -0500, Gabriel M. Beddingfield
(gabriel at teuton.org) wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 19:06, M. Fioretti wrote:
> 
> > What does all this leave, besides Fedora? Slackware, Mandrake, what
> > else? Feedback is welcome
> 
> SUGGESTION 1:
> Not to beat a dead horse (since I know it has been suggested before)...
> but what about Gentoo?
>

Just seen on another list and copied (no idea if it makes sense, just
to ask what you think):

>From my POV there are two problems with gentoo:
>        * bugs that are never ever seen anywhere else show up there
>        * the beliefe that turning on every possible option in gcc
>	   gives you best results (see also previous point ;-)

About Knoppix and/or DSL Linux: I have tried DSL Linux on my 32 MB
Laptop and it ran without real problems (apart from not seeing the
PCMCIA ethernet card). Knoppix instead seems to require much more
memory.

General thoughts:

RULE tries to (also) build usable desktops for SOHO/school end
users. They look for functionality, not which distro is below. So, as
long as there is, say, imap email, digital signatures, some gui office
suite, newsgroup and email (possibly graphic), etc.... they could even
ignore the distro. However:

1) live cdroms are a very good starting point (if nothing else, to
   study their package choices), but probably not a day to day
   solution:

   run slower (everything must be loaded from cd)
   no cd available (some allow you to eject it though)
   no upgrade (to upgrade or install one program you must reburn a CD:
   and how do you do it when the burner is *also* the place where the
   OS is?)

1.a: there is also a Fedora live CD somewhere online
1.b (Gentoo specific): how do you upgrade gentoo? Can you use and
    upgrade Gentoo for one year without compiling anything?

2) After install support: whatever the RULE starting distro is, it
   must have a large desktop user community. So, after install with
   RULE, people can count on an existing documentation and support
   base *much* larger than we are. And we have more time ("the power
   of not being another distro").

3) The bloat is in the applications, not in the starting distro. DSL
   default *is* light, but not for the faint of heart, first time
   Linux user. He'd have to add something (=already have on the CD)
   That's why I came up with the minikde idea, it can be applied to
   any distro. Whatever distro you start from, you then *have* to make
   something like minikde to make of it a *light* desktop for
   beginners. Ditto for the X server (kdrive)

Right now, we don't have slinky for FC2 because Michael is very busy
with work, and I (for reasons unrelated to RULE) I am still stuck 90%
of time with RH9, no possibility to test FC stuff.

However, everybody, please *do* try other distros: customize the
installer so it runs in little memory, and smaaall disk space. Publish
results and software on the RULE website. And let's everybody test
it. As far as "mission statements" are concerned, consider that we
don't even have to have only one distro at any time. The more we
experiment, the better.

Thanks for your support,

Marco Fioretti

-- 
Marco Fioretti                    mfioretti, at the server mclink.it
Red Hat & Fedora for low memory   http://www.rule-project.org/

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and
many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad,
wholesome, charitable views of man and things cannot be acquired by
vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
						       Mark Twain

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