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Topic: Petition for a bare DSL System, and hope that you would hear the masses.

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slimeph

Group: Members
Posts: 18
Joined: Aug. 2006

Posted: Sep. 01 2006,08:12

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/dslbarebone

Here is a petition to have a bare/base dsl system only with the option to have a gui/not and probably add mydsl for extensions fetching.

Please give feedback.

--------------
thanks&regards, ~kray
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/dslbarebone

bokaroseani Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 61
Joined: Nov. 2005

Posted: Sep. 01 2006,13:51

Although I agree to the petition, I would not suggest the DSL team to abandon providing the current OS with its selection of applications. I think DSL has already shown a clear focus in its development of a system that runs with minimal computing and memory resources. What I would like to see though is greater choice and ease of customizing.

No distribution can be 'everything to everyone'. There are a number of us who like to just boot any available system with the CD and get running with whatever we want to do - browse the net or create a text document, for example, without having to download anything seperately. A bare-bone DSL would need us to first download the extension from the respository before we can start working.

I was introduced to linux through DSL about a year ago and have been following its development since then. I am amazed to see to what extent the developers have gone to reduce the RAM requirement to run a DSL system. The recent addition - uci extensions are truly great. There are of course more that can be done which I am sure will happen steadily with future releases. For example, I wonder if its possible to include applications in the CD so that when we use the cheatcode "toram" only the bare-bone system with GUI gets copied to RAM but all other applications (Firefox, VNC etc.) can be mounted from the CD (somewhat like UCI extensions) on as-per-need basis. These mountings can also be made possible during booting by making available new cheatcodes like "withapps" so that when we use the boot options "dsl toram withapps", the system will boot into something that looks like the current version of DSL with all its applications. Or something in these lines. Such an arrangement might allow folks with RAM as low as 64 MB to also run DSL using toram option fairly comfortably without compromising on giving up any of the applications that are currently part of the 50MB iso.

I will be interested in hearing what the more knowledgeable folks here think wrt these ideas.

WDef

Group: Members
Posts: 798
Joined: Sep. 2005

Posted: Sep. 01 2006,19:32

Quote

I would not suggest the DSL team to abandon providing the current OS with its selection of applications.

Indeed. No cute lil' apps = no character or personality.

It's the efficient little apps, scripts etc that characterise dsl. Otherwise it's just a torso without limbs.

How much smaller does anyone need, and why?

bokaroseani Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 61
Joined: Nov. 2005

Posted: Sep. 01 2006,22:37

Well, 50mb is small enough but there will remain the scope to improve the performance of DSL systems even further. If not, the developers would close there shop and go for a long vacation. One way to do it would be to give more control to the user over what she/he uses their boxes for. Mountable uci extensions are a step in that direction. I am just proposing to take this idea to the next level where we can even control mounting of the core apps (Ted, Firefox, xMMs etc.) also. And this also will conform and extend the developers' one of the goals of keeping DSL as "nomadic".

I am not a programmer. So I will not have any clue if these suggestions are impossible to achieve or not. I am just throwning an idea to the pool.

slimeph

Group: Members
Posts: 18
Joined: Aug. 2006

Posted: Sep. 02 2006,01:06

majority of users of dsl would want to fully customize it according to their needs. thus, don't want the other excess apps and packages. some resolution about the core apps and packages will be devised, then would be the standard base system. one would then need to download his very own pick of apps he would want to incorporate.

also the ability to burn it in an iso would be a plus.

--------------
thanks&regards, ~kray
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/dslbarebone

6 replies since Sep. 01 2006,08:12

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