Ubuntu CD's for Free

[A. Khattri]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, Michael Hipp wrote:

> I didn't say it wasn't a good distro. It is, in fact, an excellent distro. It
> is just missing one essential feature - the built-in ability to get a system
> up and running in a minimum of time and manual labor.

Not true - go read about stage 3 (or GRP) installs.

> The ability to tightly control machine configuration is a great feature but it
> is not accurate to imply that other distros can't do the same. The approach is
> different and Gentoo may be able to achieve it to a greater extreme, but it is
> definitely a case of diminishing returns beyond the simple tactic of being
> selective about what packages are installed.

The base install is very minimal - you can be selective about what gets
added on to the base. But you can also decide what features get built for
any package, something the other distros dont bother with . They get round
it by enabling all the features (which subsequently pulls in a huge number
of dependencies and you descend into dependency hell) or they end up
offering multiple binaries for the same package. I haven't seen anything
better to deal with this yet.

> Is Gentoo so superior on the back end that it entirely makes up for the the
> excessive costs on the front end? Perhaps. But the ROI calculation isn't obvious.

The costs on the front-end diminish over time and in the long-term the
backend ROI is some much better for me from a maintenance standpoint.

> Please don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing about a frilly gui
> installer. I said a *real* installer. A very non-frilly installer like Debian
> would be fine. Even those auto install scripts for Gentoo that are rumored to
> be in the works would probably be fine.

There's several floating around. The article mentioning an installer
talked about a curses-based installer too which would probably be useful.
More useful to me would be user-defined package sets (its on the GLEP list
of possible future enhancements). Then one could build a "server" or
"workstation" or "thin client" package set that was integrated into
installer. Add some automation and it would be like Kickstart.

> Last time I installed Fedora, it involved maybe 15 minutes of actual labor
> followed by about an hour of listening to the DVD grind while I did something
> productive elsewhere. Debian is somewhat more.

Im very selective with installs so my package selection in RH takes longer
than that especially when you have to go back and forth dealing with
dependencies - Im loathe to simply select "Server" and end up with Gb's of
stuff that I will never use.

> Last time I installed Gentoo it was several hours of heads-down tedious manual
> labor followed by about a day and a half of endless compiles. I can't make
> money that way.

So automate it. If you have several machines you can distribute the
builds. Or you could pre-build all the binaries ONCE on a faster machine
and simply copy the packages over when building a new machine. (Hell a GRP
install has binaries on CD so there's no building required for an
install).

> People rightfully complain about the excessive "religion" in the Debian world
> over what is puritanical free/non-free. Unfortunately Gentoo is crippled with
> a worse religion about keeping out the riff-raff and measuring the length of
> the male body parts over who can come up with the most difficult install process.

This is rubbish and you know it. Gentoo is fairly new compared to RH and
Debian but its only a matter of time before it gets an installer. The
current install process is the best it can do in the absence of an
installer.


-- 
nanobot /nan'oh-bot/ n.

 A robot of microscopic
   proportions, presumably built by means of nanotechnology.  As
   yet, only used informally (and speculatively!).  Also called a
   `nanoagent'.