Hi Glenn, thanks for your comments.
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 1:48 AM, Glenn Lagasse <Glenn.Lagasse at sun.com> wrote: [SNIP ... ] > So, the question I have is what problem are you trying to solve? ?Is I'm trying to create one, then we can try to solve it ;) > there really a large segment of users of OpenSolaris that want to > install 4GB+ of software on their systems as a regular practice? I know quite a lot. Of course I can only judge from my own experience. > I've never installed 'the whole wad' (for lack of a better term) except back > when we didn't have IPS and had to install using the legacy install > metaclusters. ?And when I was doing that I hated it because a huge chunk > of the stuff installed had no relevance to my computing needs or > platform. ?I only did so, because it was far easier to just say 'give me > the whole wad' than it was to figure out dependencies for the things I > did actually need. Mhh. But for some compiles, do you really know in advance which small include file or tiny lib could one day be of use for you? Also, the legacy clusters were admittedly not what many users would nowadays expect. IPS furtunately changed this. I agree. > Bandwidth costs money. ?Downloading a 'starter' liveCD that gives you > enough to get up and running, with support to add in the 'pieces' you > want later seems like a perfect tradeoff for a lot of reasons. ?You > don't end up having people downloading gigabytes of data (software) that > they aren't likely to ever need or use. On the other hand, think of inexperienced users who just want to give OpenSolaris a try. Maybe they don't find everything they would have wanted via pkg search or the Package Manager GUI. Maybe they then stop using it and rather take FC. In my case it was exactly the infinite _abundance_ of software, choices, docs, manuals, configuration scenarios, everything, which impressed and fascinated me so much, when I first got in touch with Solaris in 1999 at cs.tu-berlin.de . People are different, have different expectations and preferences. All I want is what Sun's Execs always promised and supported themselves (when I listened to their quarterly conferences) : Choice! Most users will probably continue to fetch the CD. Also: The DVD could be hosted on genunix.org . I'm sure there are enough people who think like me. FC can also be installed from DVD, you can install everything at once. Later you have repo-access. Many FC users seem to appreciate this. > Not to mention, at some point IPS will have a 'repo on a disk' feature > (or better known as the on-disk package format for IPS packages). > Presumably there will be a way for consumers to construct such a thing > and then use it on an installed system (or perhaps even during > installation). Mhh. Now _you_ are discussing nieche-customers, aren't you ;-) Those few who take the time to do that then, can also do it right now. I'm addressing a broader audience with this idea ... Maybe ask users in a survey, then we can get a better understanding. > > To be honest, I personally don't see the value in a liveDVD. ?Purely for > the fact that I don't think many typical users would find installing > 'the entire wad' particularly useful or interesting. ?There's a whole > lot there that isn't very useful in the majority of cases imo. This is true. The opposite can be true at the same time. That's what made LinUX so Hyper-hyped, widely used and famous. We can do the same. Here is what many outsiders currently think: They (not myself anymore, now that I know the background) ... they think Sun "didn't manage" to write a more choice-ful installer. Same with the Install-CD versus DVD. I'm sure you Engineers and we together can silence them by giving them what they expect. In addition to you really good current LiveCD / Installer combo. That's all I want to propose. > > My .02. My 0.01 . Cheers -- Martin Bochnig
