NetBSD is distributed very much in that way. It just install a very basic system (much smaller than linux/slackware, say), and when teh administrator wants to install a package, it will download it with the required additional packages. It is not really a new idea, Freebsd also does it, but the Freebsd distro is more full of stuff by default. Netbsd can be painfully lean, though... On the other hand, I do agree with the comment on the problems of setting up a minimal distro that satisfies every user. Nice distros like, say, tiny linux or pygmy, but with no compiler - not very useful, at least for a novice! Only when I did install Zipslack, I had a taste of the real thing. But for someone who knows, Zipslack is still bloated. Difficult trade-off - and when you need to install something in a laptop with 4 mb ram/70Mb in hd, dramatic! > > if they offer a distro slimmed down to just what a > single user at his own pc needs, it'll be a > considerable improvement in functionality. > > This is an attractive idea, but it's a slippery > slope. The > needs of the 'single user at his own pc' vary > tremendously. > One user needs a powerful editor with all the > bells+whistles; > another needs a simple, easy-to-use editor. One > needs support > for his (non-English) native language; another needs > support > for his speech synthesizer. One needs a hi-res > gaming; another > needs ultra-secure email. One needs a fancy desktop > with all > the latest gadgets; another needs an efficient > desktop for his > survPC. The list goes on and on. In the end, if > you try to > accommodate all the needs of all the 'single users', > you end > up with a big distribution. And why not? All this > stuff is > free, so you might as well fill the CD. And CDs are > cheap to > produce, so you might as well fill a few more.
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