Re: [K12OSN] perhaps a radical idea

[jam mcquil com]

I've been watching this thread, and others like it for a while.

What I think you all are missing is that it is really hard to make 
something as complex as k12ltsp work on all distros.

The configuration of such things as dhcp, tftp, nfs and xdmcp vary
on EVERY distribution.  Keeping it all straight will make a grown man 
cry.

If Eric takes the time to figure all that out, it will detract from the 
time he has to spend on making the current k12ltsp what it is today, and
what it can become.

The one word that describes my frustration with the thread is "FOCUS".

Focus on a distro, add k12 features to it, and make it the best that it 
can be.

If you spend time working on gentoo packages, so that you can 'emerge' 
it, you'll alienate all the Debian folks, because they'll want to 
'apt-get' it.

I think you'll all agree that Eric has an enourmous amount of 
credibility in this area.  More than anyone I know.  Trust him. He'll do 
the right thing.

If people really want to see a generic k12 project that works on any 
distro, then please jump in and do it, instead of talking about what 
you'd like to see Eric do.  Sadly, people won't even step forward 
and test the stuff that Eric works so hard on, until it makes it into a 
final release.

If you really want a Gentoo or a Debian or a (insert distro here) with
k12 features, you can start right now by installing the LTSP-4 package
on top of that.  All distros should work just fine.  You can go to 
http://www.ltsp.org/ltsp-4.html to start.

Of course, that's only the terminal services part of the k12 solution. 
You'd have to check the other packages and see if they are ready to
install on your distro of choice.

But please, let Eric do what he does best.  We all benefit from that.

Jim McQuillan
jam Ltsp org


On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Quentin Hartman wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 10:01, dahopkins comcast net wrote:
> > A hot topic just in time for the weekend!
> > 
> > Seriously, I think that Eric has covered this before, but ...  my two cents.
> > 
> 
> I think he has talked about it before as well, which is what got me
> thinking along these lines originally. He has said often times that
> K12LTSP is not a distro, but that is what it has effectively become,
> along with all the cruft that goes along with maintaining such a beast.
> I mean really, how many projects other than distros have to maintain ISO
> installation images?
> 
> > So you are ready to add to the wiki? :)
> > 
> 
> What I am proposing would not need to be added to the wiki becuase it
> would (to use gentoo as an example) consist of running "emerge k12ltsp"
> on a running system, and when that was complete it would be ready to
> rock. Divorcing the "intelligence" that makes it work now from the
> particulars of one distribution and making it so that a package could be
> run on different distros and end up with the same functional result at
> the end.
> 
>