Re: [K12OSN] perhaps a radical idea

["Robert Middleswarth" <robert middleswarth net>]

> On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 09:55, Jim Hays wrote:
>> While I agree with some of your points about commecial distributions
>> (which
>> Fedora is not not one), I disagree with the idea of turning K12LTSP into
>> a set
>> of "scripts" that you can put on top of another disctibution.
>
>> Here is a case in point:
>>
>> A couple of weeks ago, several "Tech-Geeks" (http://www.tech-geeks.org)
>> gathered
>> at a small grade school in a small town in SE Illinois.  We installed
>> K12LTSP in
>> their media center lab to "recover" some older hardware (and release
>> them from
>> the grips of a certain software company).  The tech person at this
>> school is not
>> a Linux "geek".  If she had to add scripts to the top of a distribution,
>> she
>> never would have agreed to, nor convinced her sup't to agree to, trying
>> K12LTSP.
>>  There are many more tech coordinators in schools that have NO Linux
>> experience
>> that there are who have Linux experience.  The ones that I know with
>> Linux
>> experience at all gained that experience from trying K12LTSP.
>
> I think you misunderstood my idea, or the more likely case, I did not
> express it clearly enough. Making scripts that are aware of various
> distros installation methods and config file locations would allow
> K12LTSP to be easily installed on any distro. It would:
>
> 1-Fetch the appropriate packages using that distros package management
> system
> 2-Install said packages
> 3-Configure said packages
>
> So that once the script has run you end up with exactly what you have
> now.
>
Something like Openoffice install script does.  It looks for what is
needed.  Installs it.  Modifys files to find the new programs.

The problem with this is that you either just copy files where they need
to go like open office and make in imposible for easy upgrade with
something like apt or yum.  2nd option is to create 20 to 30 version of
each package witch takes time just check out ltsp.org and see how many
version they have there of the same files.  Both have tradeoffs and create
extra problems.  K12ltsp could be moved to any distro that get supported
by ltsp but I think overall it is better to stick to one distro to keep it
simple and switch to a new distro if it becomes an issue.

Thanks
Robert