[RULE] FWD: question about RULE installers

[M. Fioretti]

Hello,

this is part of an email exchange between me and Matthew Miller, a
sysadmin at Boston University where they package their own Red Hat
derived distro for their users. Any comment/further explanation is
welcome (I have asked to Matthew to subscribe temporarily, so he can
ask further questions). I'll take care to reformat any answer and
update the miniconda/slinky pages with any information that you think
needs to be there. 

	TIA,
		Marco

----- Forwarded message from "M. Fioretti" <marco at rule-project.org> -----

Subject: Re: Question about your Linux FAQ
From: "M. Fioretti" <marco at rule-project.org>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 17:57:29 +0100
To: linux-help at bu.edu
Cc: "Marco @ RULE" <marco at rule-project.org>
Reply-To: "M. Fioretti" <marco at rule-project.org>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i
X-Bogosity: No, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.283111, version=0.9.1.2

On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 09:41:14 at 09:41:14AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:

> Now I have a question for you. :)
> 
> Does the RULE low-memory-modified installer do everything that the full
> anaconda does? Are your improvements going back to the main tree or is it so
> drastically changed that it needs to stay a fork? Do you have a version
> based off the current Raw Hide? Basically: would we be best off adopting
> your installer for BU Linux?

I will forward your questions to the mailing list, so that Michael
Fratoni (the guy who actually wrote the installers) will be able to
answer, and all the other list members to contribute. I'd suggest that
you subscribe for some day (low volume list), to ask directly any
further question. Michael and others are much more qualified than me
to give updated details on this.


Temporary answer:

We have two installers: 

	miniconda, obviously an hacked anaconda
		 working below 32 MB of RAM. IIRC, not developed
		 anymore
	slinky, a new thing based on busybox.

More details (but 1 year old!) here:
	 http://www.rule-project.org/en/sw/inst_internals.php

You can do your own boot images with those installers, or just
download our bootable ISO (~25 MB). In both cases you will be able to
install Red Hat 7.x and Red Hat 8.0 (look at the install reports
available at http://www.rule-project.org/en/test/). I'd guess that you
can easily do the same with rawhide or any other customized Red Hat.
Our goal is to stay current, not to stick to the past, so we will do
keep the installers up to date.

About your last question ("would we be best off adopting...") the
answer is probably yes in these two cases:

	1) you at BU use current Red Hat for all the excellent reasons
	   explained in your Linux FAQ, and want to do so, for obvious
	   reasons (familiarity, ease of central administration...)
	   even on boxes (< 32 MB of RAM, < 4/500MB HDD) otherwise
	   doomed to the junkyard.

	2) You want to place a current Red Hat, just really stripped
           to the bare minimum, on some PCs (**even** your quad-P4
           department server with 2 GB of RAM), without yelling for
           one week at the Raleigh guy who packed everything but the kitchen sink
	   and called that "base" install...

I look forward to see you on the list, even temporarily, and hope that
RULE and BU can help each other (even some testing would do great!)

	Ciao,
		Marco Fioretti  
-- 
Marco Fioretti                 RULE developer and project leader
Red Hat for low memory         marco at rule-project.org
and developing countries       www.rule-project.org

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.
                                      -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Marco Fioretti                 mfioretti
Red Hat for low memory         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.


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