iB::Topic::Should DSL-N start moving forward?

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Question: Should DSL-N start moving forward? :: Total Votes:20
Poll choices	Votes	Statistics
Yes, in a direction just like it was before development stalled.	1	[5.00%]
Yes, in a direction similar to DSL 4 (integrated drag and drop desktop, etc.) but with GTK2, more modern apps, etc.	5	[25.00%]
Yes, it should be a 2.6 version of DSL 4 with GTK1 by default and GTK2 by extension.	3	[15.00%]
Yes, but I want apt-get.	6	[30.00%]
Yes, but make it more modular even if it means starting over from the ground-up.	0	[0.00%]
Yes to at least one of the above or to something else, and it should be community-developed if the developers don't want to move it forward themselves.	3	[15.00%]
Nope, long live RC4!	0	[0.00%]
Something else (please explain below).	2	[10.00%]
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Topic: Should DSL-N start moving forward?, is it time?

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lucky13

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Posted: Aug. 13 2007,12:22

Quote

Is it possible to offer the LKMs as an extension and to load them only afterwards?
That way the base distro could be light weight.

The base distro is already light weight. I don't think moving modules to extensions is the best way to make it lighter. Just look at the aggravation people who need the ipw2* driver extensions face. I don't think people want to have to download one driver for one old soundblaster card on one machine and then another driver for another card on one machine just to save a couple MB on the CD.

I don't see how (or why) you'd want to do that en masse per what I wrote above about how it's a live CD intended for a wide audience. Looking at it from a cost:benefit angle, I think it would be too much of a hassle to start removing the modules from the CD and make them to extensions. The CD wouldn't be useful as a CD until people downloaded the drivers they'd need.

You could do that on your own remaster with your own kernel if you wanted, or you could do a remaster suitable for more specific hardware configurations. But for a general audience, it needs to have a wide variety of modules so it can be as one-size-fits-all as possible.

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lucky13

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Posted: Aug. 13 2007,18:03

Piggybacking on earlier thoughts...

The more I think about it, the only place it makes sense to pare down the available modules is in a machine-specific environment either narrowly for your own computer or more broadly for a particular model of computer like a certain brand of thin client where additional modules will never be needed. This is already something accomplished best via remaster, and in those cases it's probably better to compile the drivers into the kernel anyway (no modules) because it's for limited use.

Where it doesn't make any sense to me is for those who will use the live CD or a USB stick promiscuously on any number of computers -- and these are main uses of DSL. Moving the modules to extensions to lighten things by a couple net MB would require people to know exactly which modules they'll need ahead of time so even the CD can be run properly.

It also wouldn't work well for those of us who shuttle hard drives between very different computers. As it stands now, I can move any of my hard drives around and run xsetup and DSL will work on any iX86 PC I have here. I'd have to keep multiple configurations to either move my hard drives around or to use DSL-on-USB on different computers so the different extensions would load when I need them.

But my main thought is about the people who will download the CD just to give it a spin. Some of them have a difficult enough time as it is adjusting to DSL from whatever OS they were using before. I imagine it would be a deal-breaker if they had to figure out every single driver they need and then load them manually just to get things up and running.

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"It felt kind of like having a pitbull terrier on my rear end."
-- meo (copyright(c)2008, all rights reserved)

curaga

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Posted: Aug. 13 2007,18:38

Sorry, but you seem to be repeating yourself for 3-4 posts..

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lucky13

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Posted: Aug. 13 2007,18:39

tinker

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Posted: Aug. 14 2007,13:32

It's difficult to get significant results in a poll, especially in an unofficial poll. That difficult is increased if one who runs the poll continues to let their own preferences show or who discounts the explanations that were asked for. You would probably get a better idea of what people want, or what they think they want, (and more people would be comfortable discussing it) if you let this go as a "brainstorming" session and then discuss the results and whether or not the suggestions would work after the poll closes. However, it's your poll so you can run it as you choose, I just wanted to mention this for your consideration lucky13.

35 replies since July 28 2007,16:56

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Damn Small Linux Board » DSL Not » DSL-N » Should DSL-N start moving forward?