Darrell May wrote:
>
> > > What about the further thought for an uninstall option if for
> > > instance webmail isn't enabled why not offer a further
> > option to uninstall
> > > all related packages to free disk space. Thoughts for
> > future versions...
> >
> > OK - my time for devil's advocate. Given that the total install is
> > less than 500Mb, I'm not sure that saving disk space is a real issue
> > these days. Have you tried to buy a <8GB disk (or is that <12GB)
> > recently? :-)
While we are in the spirit of dissention - please don't overlook that
many hackers (and maybe some production sites) need to be able to run
this on an older, possibly otherwise-obsolete, hardware configuration. I
snaffled a PII-266 / 128 / 6G machine off a friend, but the backup
option was a PI-120 / 32/ 1.2G. While no-one is going to use such a
lowly machine if they can get something better, I am reluctant to buy
new hardware until I've seen e-smith work well.
> To clarify further, your point on hard drive space is well taken but e-smith
> is less than 500MB today. As new features are constantly added what will it
> be tomorrow? One of e-smith's stated goals and something I believe e-smith
> excels in is simplicity in design. However following Brad Herd's recent
> Multiple Products e-mail it would be superb if e-smith had this type of
> uninstall feature (or CUSTOM install at the other end) so that if someone
> wanted to use an e-smith box only as an Internet Gateway or a web server
> only, all other features could be removed (or not install in the first
> place). This would follow the logic of the less products installed the less
> things to go wrong, less memory usage, better performance etcetera.
I think you have misinterpreted what I said (or, more likely, I didn't
say what I had in mind...). I think that a complex install that requires
selecting lots of options (a la RH7 - Gnome, KDE, server, etc) is a bad
idea for e-smith. The whole point of e-smith is that users don't need to
know anything about Linux or network admin. They get a machine, put in
the CD, and follow some trivially simple instructions. And it works -
over and over again. The most common comment should be "oh gee, this is
just too easy". Lots of people don't get that experience when they do an
Linux distribution installation (more like "whats the difference between
all these kinda similar options", and which ones do I need, and
partitioning makes a mess, and ..."). That is where e-smith is different
(along with the web interface which isolates the typical admin from the
horrors of config options).
Now the end configuration should be the same (from selective install OR
full install and selective de-install OR different products), but the
user experience is quite different. That is why I suggested multiple
products (i.e. comes as seperate CDs / isos). If you need to do a custom
install, then it is probably best to just get RH7 and put on the e-smith
management RPMs.
Just some more thoughts.
Brad
