Re: [K12OSN] perhaps a radical idea

[dahopkins comcast net]

A hot topic just in time for the weekend!

Seriously, I think that Eric has covered this before, but ...  my two cents.

> is going to be, whereas Debian has proven to be a Rock, for many years.

I agree that Debian is very stable (almost static at times), but there may be issues with the philosophy of Debian and the rate at which things are added to Debian may be an issue as well.

> 	My personal favorite solution would be to try to divorce the K12LTSP
> system from any particular distro as much as possible by turning it into
> a set of customizable scripts that could be tweaked to take into account
> a variety of distros. I realize that this would be a pretty large
> undertaking and there are a lot of downsides to this, the most obvious
> one being the potential to fracture the little sub-community we have
> built up here, but I think that's surmountable. A look through the
> archives proves that K12LTSP is not the only thing this group is about.

I remember reading that K12LTSP is divorced from any particular distro if you are willing to recompile from source rpms (or tarballs, perhaps) all of the add-ons.  I think Eric already has this organized, but haven't checked, so feel free to correct.  I do believe that someone with copious free time and skills should add a section to the wiki describing how to go from a plain distro (say Debian) and incorporate everything that is included in K12LTSP.  This would be fantastic documentation for anyone that wanted to 'split' from the main distro.  I would not be too worried about fracturing the community as long as everyone has the same goal that K12LTSP is promoting.

>  	For example, I've been playing with making a K12LTSP ebuild for my
> distro of choice, Gentoo. I haven't put a whole bunch of time into it,
> but it seems doable, so once my universe settles down a bit, I am going
> to tackle it more seriously.

So you are ready to add to the wiki? :)

> 1- Should other distros be considered now as a platform for K12LTSP?
     Yes
> 2- Should K12LTSP keep going as a "distro" like it is now, or would it
> be simpler *in the long term* to divorce from any particular distro?
     Yes, but a complete How-to if someone wanted to go in another direction would be useful.  It might also have an side-effect of making the current K12 distro even more robust (and popular) since others would then be less intimidated at adding to the current distro.  And, it may help Eric find some free time.  I personnaly think he never sleeps, nor has any life outside this project.
> 3- Any other Gentoo odd-balls out there want to help me make an Ebuild
> for K12LTSP? ;)
     I have never used Gentoo, but hope to one day get a system at home for these fun exercises.

> I realize that these may very well no be popular suggestions, but I
> think they are things that should at least be discussed, and I
> personally would be willing put time into seeing some of them happen.

I personally consider honest open discussions about these types of issues to be very beneficial.

I currently have more than I can handle just trying to get/keep my daughters school up to speed.  I am not a Linux guru, but am able to muddle through most issues (I am stubborn?).  If I can get the local LUG to start helping out and thus reduce the workload, I would be very interested in learning how to get K12LTSP onto another distro.  For the gurus, this is probably just a weekend's work.  For me, it would be another job.

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins
Newark Charter School
Newark, Delaware 19713