On Monday, August 10, 2015 07:32:40 PM Steve Litt wrote:
> Hi golinux,
> 
> I base this reply on the assumption that the idea of a base
> system is relevant only to the initial install, and that Debian would
> certainly continue to have packages for xorg, Xfce, LXDE, Openbox,
> *box, Windowmaker, IceWM, and of course, for those who like to boot
> straight to GUI, lightdm.

Yes that is exactly what I meant, Steve.  I'm just looking at the standpoint 
of rather than trying to work on the entire repository at once, that the world 
could be done in sections.

I personally think that Devuan *should* be done differently that Debian, and 
segregated up into smaller divisions, with a more specific focus for each: KDE, 
XFCE, mailserver, webserver - whatever. Special teams could provide a really 
quality experience for each by having a user/task oriented focus rather than 
the hodge-podge that is Debian.  Rather than providing 20 options for each 
thing, I would rather see 5 options that work out of the box without my having 
to muck about for 2-3 days to get everything working together.  

Debian tries to do everything and be everything.  As a result, they seldom do 
any one thing very well.  Many times I have to tweak something just so it 
behaves properly.  

To me at least, the end goal with software is not a "bazaar" approach with 
dozens of choices, only half maintained.  It is to take a few things and refine 
them so that they are useful to a task: stable and ubiquitous, and more 
valuable as whole.  Software is a tool, not an end to itself.  

Take KDE4 is an example.  The desktop is nice, but each iteration still has 
longstanding Plasma  bugs as they add new features.  I would rather see them 
fix what is broken on their DE first: Kmail, etc before going out of their way 
to create a new version of Plasma - in this case Plasma 5 - with an entirely 
new set of problems.



> 
> If my assumption is correct, the only way making the base install tiny
> affects you is that you do the following instead of one big install:
> 
> * base install
> * apt-get install xorg
> * apt-get install xterm (if not installed by xorg)
> * apt-get install Xfce (or whatever)
> * apt-get install lightdm

In this, we agree wholeheartedly.  Building in layers rather than just one big 
slop means that you can test each carefully, and do a much better job.


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