[Rule-list] THE RULE SITE IS UP!

[Marco Fioretti]

Devon,

I understand your concers.

Honestly, I haven't any complete answer yet, at least none of which
I am totally sure about. Some things, like the ones you mention, have
started to pop up in my mind only after starting the project, discussing
them with you all.

So far, the most complete summary I can write down (which might still
be totally/partially wrong) is:

1) Red Hat compatibility, at least in the sense that one can upgrade
   our system with stock RPMs provided by them, is essential. The 
   reasons are that we have no resources to do a completely new thing,
   and, much more important, that we want the developing country school
   to enter Free Software world as a first class citizen: one that can
   use the same SW/support forums/online documentation available to
   people with 512 MB of RAM, not be relegated to some corner.

2) We should start to distinguish between:

	a) Make today's RH base install fit in <32 MB of RAM.
		this might touch only anaconda, fit on one or
		more floppies, and be eventually adopted by RH
		because it's in their interest, and they got it for 	
		free.

	b) Make *our* choice of packages,with comp files and all,
	   and that cannot be anything else than a separate ISO image,
	   as you did.
	   If RH sees it as valid for educating future customers to
	   buy their stuff later instead of MS's, they add the standard,
 	   already existing RPMs we choose (Postfix, etc...) comp files, 	
	   etc..to their first disk, otherwise we just make it 
	   available (still guaranteeing compatibility as stated above).

I was already thinking to post these thoughts to the list, but I'd really
like your feedback first, since you have already done so much good work 
on the installation setup.

	Ciao.

			Marco Fioretti
   
> Hi Marco,
> I will register as a developer, but I have a few questions. Some of these 
> should go to the list, but I wanted to get some clarification first.
> 
> Have we decided already to work on simply modifying anaconda to accept 
> lower memory than it currently does? Perhaps providing a modified boot 
> and updates disk? That will work, but has some possible limitations. I 
> understand the desire to have RedHat addopt it at some point, but I am 
> not sure of their interest level at this point.
> 
> Are we willing to consider a small ISO image instead, to which standard 
> redhat packages can be added? I posted one success to the list about 
> having made a small IOS that works, judging by the complete lack of 
> comment, I am beginning to think perhaps others have different ideas?
> 
> There have been comments on the list about providing postfix instead of 
> sendmail, (for example). I can't see RedHat encouraging or accepting 
> that. Also, since RedHat doesn't provide postfix, it won't be possible to 
> include it, unless we make our own small initial ISO. 
> 
> I've continued working on the version I posted about earlier. (See my 
> post "Of anacondas and garden snakes"). I now have the ISO down to 195MB. 
> The installed system uses ~165MB of disk space. I don't see the installed 
> system getting much smaller. (The running system is fairly responsive, 
> which sort of surprised me). 
> It has installed on 12MB of ram, and I am patiently waiting to see if it 
> is going to start installing on 8MB as I write this. I'm hopeful, but 
> anaconda has been loading for nearly an hour now. The 16 Mb install took 
> about 25 minutes, and the 12 MB took about 35. Most of that time was 
> spent installing packages, probably due to using the oldest slowest disk 
> I could find. (3800 RPM disk)
> 
> Understand, I am not against doing this as a modified anaconda. I think a 
> low mem option would be useful. (Though I still don't know that RedHat 
> would be interested.)
> 
> Anyway, interested in your thoughts. Please let me know. I don't want to 
> waste a whole lot more time on the ISO idea if the rest of the group has 
> decided on other options.
> 
> - -D
> 
> - -- 
> 
> pgp key:  http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/pgpkey.txt
> 
> - --
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
> 
> iD8DBQE8abWzeMAUbzJhSVcRAoDCAJ9/y9iKkWdWdycjYNvy4t5xTZuABwCfcCoe
> Y06ovftKBRVmxJNbGoiFop4=
> =s4CO
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>