Rescue and Installation (was Re: VI reasons)
On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, Dale Scheetz wrote: > I believe the right solution would be to design a separate, true, rescue > disk (what we now call the rescue disk is, in fact, the installation boot > disk) that has none of the installation software installed, but simply > boots into a single user shell with an appropriate set of tools, like vi, > fdisk, dd, ... so that the exprienced sys admin (or consultant) can come > in and recover broken systems. This is fundamentally a different job from > system installation. (in fact if the system installation is perfect you > need no additional tools at all ;-) Exactly! System "rescue" is fundamentally different from "installation". It is logical and expedient to seperate the two functions. -steve -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian goes big business?
On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Mark Phillips wrote: > > How about the following variation on the theme? > > Rather than starting a for-profit business as a value-added seller of > Debian products, why not start a not-for-profit, user centred, > association that does the same job? It would work a bit like an > automobile association. Users would join by paying a membership fee. > It would be run by a board elected by the members - one vote per > member. Membership fees and other income would be used to pay > employees who do the work. How about an ISP that in addition to user support etc also does some real technical training in Linux admin and C programming. An Internet Service Provider, that is a school and user "club" and Linux/Debian advocate. Where else could youth go to gget real technical training; the High Schools don't teach any thing techncial and probably couldn't do a good job of it anyway. The ISP's won't teach squat to their clients, scared they might give away some "secret" of the trade and have more competition. There must be some potential in this idea. What about a "network" of mutually supportive organizations that have some real local (geographically)presence. No one else is doeing this. What a great way to expand the technical user base and recruit youth and build the Internet at the same time. Or am I dreaming to much? -steve
Re: Reality check! [was: Re: Debian goes big business?]
On 23 Jan 1999, Paul Seelig wrote: > and annoyances they'd have with Debian. They won't care about > Debian's rather unaccessable technical superiority if the installation > hinders them from getting the beast at least easily up and running and > will recommend SuSE to the rest of the world. That's how SuSE became > the biggest player on the Linux market in Germany. And because SuSE Since when has the purpose of debian been to appease the interests of the mass of unskilled consumers? There are lots of dists that are trying to do that. I'm sure they will do a good job of introducing newbies to Linux. But I never thought that was the purpose of Debian. > is even easier to install and maintain than Redhat it will eventually > become a major player in the US as well. Debian in comparison is > still a far cry from what it's really all about becoming popular for > the world. Debian IMHO should be aimed toward the skilled technical user and those who are already Linux skilled. There is no other dist that is trying to fill this role. And it is not possible to please the "mass market" of unskilled consumers and the skilled technical person at the same time. Their requirments are quite different. > > I wouldn't recommend Debian to my non Linux savy friends either > because i want them to *like* Linux and currently it is really hard > for a newbie to find something likeable about Debian. I myself like I started with Slackware. That is the dist that I recommend and install for newbies. The reason I use debian now is because of its technical excellence and such a distribution saves me the time of having to put together my own distribution. If it wasn't for debian I would have to spend a lot of time compiling and editing source to get a technically competent system that gives me the freedom that I require. > > The first thing a future Debian entrepreneur interested in financial > success would have to address would be to fix all those things which > we Debian propeller heads have preferred to mostly neglect up until > now: ease of install and ease of useability for both sysadmins and > users. These things have to become *at least* as dead easy as it > *already is* with SuSE. The key to debians future is not market sales of its dist. Debian like UNIX will succeed because it is possible to learn how everything works, and it is designed to accomplish a technical not a "commercial" goal. It is an excellent example of the fusion of pedagogy and production, of fashion and function. The future lies not in "selling" to a mass market of unskilled consumers but rather in the technical training and recruitment of a cadre of technical leaders and knowledgable advocates. To be sure, there is much work to be done in the area of technical training. Already there are discissions starting around Linux certification. But this effort may not lead to a program to develop technical competence. In fact it may lead completely away from it. The training/user/developer/distribution/Internet_service collage posses some fascinating possibilites. How debian or its progeny figure in that future will be quite interesting. -steve
Re: Reality check! [was: Re: Debian goes big business?]
On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, thomas lakofski wrote: > > I also am disappointed with the attitude of some people towards making > these things easier to do. Is it some kind of techno-snobbery, maybe? There is nothing wrong with making things easier. Simplicity is an important technical value. But there is a huge difference between a simple setup/system and automating an install to appease the "needs" of someone who is about to go through the process without knowledge about what is happening. Is it not better to educate this person a little first? There is nothing snobbish about teaching what you know and insisting that users be interested enough to learn something about the system that they are going to use. The real techno-snobs will teach nothing and insist on installing a system in which control of the system is impossible for the user. Not because [s]he is incapable of assimilating the skills, but simply because the politics of the situation will not allow for training and the transfer of knowledge. > Making things easier does not necessitate dumbing-down things for more > competent users. Once up and running, a Debian system is far more Perhaps not. But perhaps you should ask yourself the question- Why is debian like it is today and not like something else? The answer is deeply rooted in the role the developers have played in its production AND the role debian has played in the technical lives of the developers. Production for use is a two way street, and it is short and narrow. Nothing prevents what you and some others advocate from happening, except perhaps your own will and ability to facillitate it. But to insist that the creators of a system change it when they are satisfied with it is to fundamentally misunderstand what is happening here and why debian is different than a commercial dist and even why Linux is different than a commercial OS. The requirments of a commercial market driven distribution or OS is not the same as the technical system that debian is evolving into. There is no reason why debian could not be the basis of the system that you want. The freedom to take it and go in that direction is there. But you must stop insisting that others do it for you. The developers have done well and it is BECAUSE they have satisfied their personal requirments (self-interest), understood co-operation and the "enlightened self interest" that is the origin of the Linux community. Perhaps the "answer" for what you are seeking is simple. Find others who want the dist to look like you do and organize to create somthing a little different. Debian as the product of wage labour and consumer driven markets would simply not be as good for me or the developers. Is that not the very lesson of Linux/GNU itself? -steve
Re: Reality check!
On Sun, 24 Jan 1999, Marcus Brinkmann wrote: > installation easier requires hard work. If it would be easy, it would have > been long done. The trick is to keep flexibility (and don't tell me SuSE is > flexibel). Doing it easy for the newbie and configurable for the experienced > user requires a well though out configuration and administration system. At > least for multi-installation this is currently developed on the > debian-admintool list. I suspect that it is impossible to get the best of both worlds in a single solution. You would probably end up with the worst of both. Perhaps it would be good to consider two (2) different installations One the same/similar to what we have - and another that caters to newbies ie. one that is easy/basic and satisfies the pedagogocal requirments of the new user. If debian were able to have both the advanced capability that it has now AND a simple basic install for novices and teaching purposes it would stand out amongst all other dists. Would it not? Like who else has thought about the REAL requirements of the newbie? I mean as a future technical user? -steve
RE: Call for mascot! :-)
On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Darren Benham wrote: > > On 28-Jan-99 Chris Waters wrote: > > While I'm on the topic of the logo, it occurred to me that it might be > > nice to choose a mascot for the Debian project. Some sort of beast that > > we can use in the logo and in other Debian-related images. Much as > > Linux has its penguin, BSD has its devil, and GNU has its, erm, gnu. > > Debian should have its own mascot, IMO, separate from any of these. > This may be a little to wierd, but what about a turtle swimming in a endless sea (like the old cosmology) and then on its shell riding along are a penguin and a Gnu as if they were friends. Or perhaps some other penguin Gnu combo? just a thought - steve
Re: Call for mascot! :-) -- flying pigs
On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, M.C. Vernon wrote: > On 30 Jan 1999, Ben Pfaff wrote: > > > Kevin Dalley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > >Anderson MacKay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > >> On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Avery Pennarun wrote: > >> > Octopi and ants may also be good, if they have wings. > >> > >> Octopi with wings? Now -that- is a confusing bunch of appendages, if > > you > >> ask me. =) > >Squid is a better choice than octopus. Some of them actually do fly > >for short distances. Perhaps glide is more accurate. What about a hybrid. An octupus/squid with a penguins head. OR a penguin with octupus tentacles. Same thing. -steve
Re: evan leibovitch and the LPI certification tests
On 18 May 1999, Craig Brozefsky wrote: > > Mr. Leibovitch is the executive directory of The Linux Professional > Institute, which is non-profit corporation attempting to provide > standardized certification across all Linux platforms. Normally, such > rhetoric as he spouts in this article (and a previous one which I have met Mr. Leib... personally at our local lug. For information he has a company that is involved in the distribution and support of Caldera/Red Hat. I suspect that his motives for trashing Debian are quite personal. -steve
Re: evan leibovitch and the LPI certification tests
On Fri, 21 May 1999, Craig Sanders wrote: > > we're not here to get 100% market share, or 50% or even 20%. we're here > to make the best system we can and share it amongst ourselves and with > others, and also to encourage others to join in the effort. > IMO the property relations that exist between developers of GPL'd software are quite different than the property relations of the participants in market exchange. GPL'd software does not compete IN the market it competes WITH it. -steve
