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

[M. Fioretti]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2004 00:55:41 AM -0400, Da Worm (daworm at comcast.net)
wrote:

> The biggest advantage of Gentoo is that you can optimize for your
> system, and can include only the components you want.

One problem I find in many other distros, starting from RH/Fedora, is
what does "component" mean? If the whole KDE is "one" component, for
example, then it wouldn't include "only" the components we want. Can
you say in Gentoo "install only konqueror, kmail and koffice"? (same
for Gnome of course)

> The biggest disadvantage is the space it requires to hold the
> sources and final binaries

Yes, this can be a real showstopper: If you have to have CPU power and
lots of space to upgrade, you can't keep current a single box.

> Another problem is time... I did it to see if it could be done.
> Well, yeah, it can, but why?
Exactly what I feared

> One possibility is to use Gentoo to build several "mini-distros".
> The problem is that it would require several of them to cover a
> large percentage of potential users.

Maybe this wouldn't be a problem. What happened with the vum:BOX is
that we provided only the installer and the *base* system (a working
demo, if you will), and then *they* built their "mini-distro". RULE
didn't dictate to them what include, they did it for their own
installs. This can, and should, remain possible. Whatever distro is
used.

[...]
> I wish I had answers that would satisfy all potential users, but the
> best I can come up with requires someone, somewhere, to have at
> least one "big box" to do the grunt work for each and every install.
> Practical in some circles, but not in most, I'm afraid.  The end
> result is wonderful, but too many people can't even start.

Yes, I had the same impression.

Marco

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

Human beings act intelligently only after they have exhausted the
alternatives -- Abba Eban

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