More UCI
Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: More UCI
started by: hrwusesdsl
Posted by hrwusesdsl on Oct. 08 2006,08:31
John, Robert, all DSL contributors: Kudos. You have succeded at creatihg the long-sought, much-debated, often maligned "Internet Appliance" - a good, reliable, tool to surf the Internet. DSL has the latest, best browsers - Opera and Mozilla. DSL has a nice and easy firewall. And Java. And the promise of more easy updates and extensions.
Knoppix has outdated, incomplete Internet software. It is effectively impossible to update for an ignoramus like myself - and all the "normal" people out there - 99% of the species.
Windows is unreliable. With DSL on CD, you just press hardware reset and in a couple minutes all viruses, key loggers, trojan horses, spyware, worms, whatever; are gone. A lifesaver.
The last point might be worth greater focus from all of you. The fact that it does take two or more long minutes on my poor old machine might tempt one to install DSL on a new fast SATA hard drive. But then you lose the lifesaving "clean CD boot" capability which I insist is crucial.
Soooooo... The UCI format is the solution. Boots fast. Runs from CD. MORE UCI! Especially: -The Gimp -Abiword -Flash Macromedia [[licensing??]] -A really good hex edotor -FreeBasic [[yes, FreeBasic]]....
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 08 2006,16:03
You can still have that 'lifesaving "clean CD boot" capability' by doing a frugal installation. However, SATA drives are only supported in the 2.x-2.1b versions of DSL (2.4.31 kernel).I agree, I like uci's - they're essentially 'clean' and contained,
but I might suggest for you to try the new unionfs-type extensions (DSL 3+), as they are also another low resource extension solutions but easier to make.
Posted by hrwusesdsl on Oct. 08 2006,21:17
SATA; SCHMATA; whatever;. The point is: A Live CD is THE solution to Internet software damage, but it is way slower than the fastest IDE; SCSI; whatever. I guess I do not understand "frugal install". I don't see how any HD install can gaurantee a clean boot.Anybody working on Gimp / Abiword for UNIONFS? I am very satisfied with DSL 2.x.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 08 2006,22:39
I guess you were missing out on some of DSL's benefits 
See < http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....d_Drive >
Posted by humpty on Oct. 09 2006,02:13
I think this is a good point. We shouldn't overestimate users. Some of them really do enjoy the convenience of the portable CD. I'm not sure if boot options can be incorporated to be saved/loaded to the backup file, but they can certainly be modified on a floppy bootdisk in syslinux.cfg (i think it's the 'sata' cheat code), it means you also have to carry around a CD+floppy, this is most reliable boot-kit you can have.I love the 2.4.31 dsl-2.1b kernel, it tends boot most of the PCs I use (compared to later versions), it's the most robust version I've ever used, but it doesn't support .UNC (dsl-3.x), which is why i don't make .UNCs yet.
Posted by WDef on Oct. 09 2006,15:59
unc extensions offer almost all of the benefits of uci extensions, and they are much easier to make. You can leave man pages and docs and READMEs 'n' all in them (in fact, you should) because they use no ramdisk. I can turn all of my existing .dsl's into unc's instantly just by running a simple script. There's no real reason to load xfree86.dsl or aliendebs.dsl anymore and take up all that ramdisk.Perhaps though some users still have a little trouble getting their heads around this ...
The only advantages ucis have over uncs - and I suspect for 99% of users these just won't matter - are:
1. unc extensions are effectively uninstallable. But for frugal, boot from iso or livecd, who cares? Just reboot :=).
2. unc extensions appear to the system to "put" files on the system, so you could still get a "collision" ie "overwrite", say, a lib with an older version (newer versions should in theory be ok, but only in theory). But this will be rare, and even rarer that this actually has any bad effects. If so - again with frugal, livecd or boot from iso - just reboot.
Posted by hrwusesdsl on Oct. 14 2006,00:03
OK, great, so UNC's have advantages for you experts who set up linux packages. Now, how can a lowly dial-up user using dsl.2.2b, get a listing of availble UNC's so i can see if there are goodies there to justify the trouble of an upgrade??
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Oct. 14 2006,00:11
see MyDSL > UNCIt's simple enough to create unc's from older .dsl/.tar.gz from the available scripts that are floating around.
Posted by mikshaw on Oct. 14 2006,01:47
in my opinion, it's overkill to convert tar.gz to unc. They already run in opt, so a UCI conversion is sufficient. It would have none of the benefits of unionfs if converted to UNC, since tar.gz doesn't install anything into system directories.WDef: your benefit #1 is more important than you may think...at least for some people. Personally I like uci _mainly_ because it is easily added and removed. I can have my DSL system running for days and be constantly adjusting the installed applications according to my needs without needing to reboot. This is sweet.
Posted by roberts on Oct. 14 2006,02:28
UNCs are not for experts or builders of extensions.UNCs can make low ram frugal system have even more capabilites.
For example, I have a tiny subnotebook Sony Picturebook C1V
It has a weird 1024x480 screen. Thanks to an XFree86.unc I am able to enjoy full screen X. The .dsl version used up too much memory.
I would like to see .tar.gz to be replaced by UCI and .dsl be replaced by UNC.
Posted by WDef on Oct. 14 2006,11:21
| Quote |
| benefit #1 is more important than you may think...at least for some people |
You're in the 1% Mik ...
I guess it goes without saying that for anyone with hd install or who is avoiding rebooting, uci's are preferable.
If I want to compile something on dsl, then I'll try to build it with PREFIX in opt and make a uci - though in the case of all that stuff in mplayer uci, that was quite an interesting project
It's good we now have these choices. Much better than the old days of .dsl only, eh?
Posted by mikshaw on Oct. 14 2006,12:54
definitely.I have yet to really try unc in normal 'putering...maybe I'm just resistant to change. In any case, I agree with the original poster...more uci is a good thing =o)
Posted by hrwusesdsl on Oct. 15 2006,11:50
ehhhh...... Mr Hat:When I click on MyDSL no UNC shows up at all . Only UCI. Remember I use DSL 2.2b.
Posted by mikshaw on Oct. 15 2006,13:13
Try the repository through your web browser:< http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/mydsl/ >
| Quote (roberts @ Oct. 13 2006,22:28) |
| I would like to see .tar.gz to be replaced by UCI and .dsl be replaced by UNC. |
I think something big would need to be done with the structure of the repository as the number of uci/unc applications increases. It seems as though the uci section has already grown too big to be a single category. Perhaps eventually uci and unc could be incorporated into the 'regular' categories....maybe color-code the extension types in the mydsl browser, or include the filename extensions? Just some thought off the top of my first-thing-in-the-morning-aint-had-a-coffee-kick-yet brain.
Posted by humpty on Oct. 15 2006,14:36
i would like to see UCIs default behaviour to 'open '(touched) under emelFM just like .DSLs. Then I'll probably convert most of my /opt DSLs to UCI.
Posted by WDef on Oct. 15 2006,18:39
I get the impression (maybe I'm wrong) that uncs are seen as a threat to ucis ie "if people take to uncs then they might stop building those nice ucis."But not many people are building ucis anyway, and the users that are will probably keep doing so I think - for me at least it's not an either/or choice, and I hope it isn't for others. Ucis are still my preferred build option. But if I have to build a dsl from precomplied binaries, it might as well *also* be an unc.