Minimalist Installs (was Checkbox for "Install Everything")

[Mauriat M]

On 5/21/07, Eric <spamsink at scoot.netis.com> wrote:
>
> For the record... Starting off with some minimum default installation, and
> then adding stuff later, doesn't necessarily work all that well either.

You are using a test release to base that conclusion. The behavior in
beta software does not necessarily represent how the final product
will be.

> I did an F7 Test 4 installation taking JUST the default packages that the
> installer presented to me, including Gnome but no KDE.

This is the default setting in Fedora's installer. It is not new.

> Now, whenever I do a new installation I always install both Gnome and KDE,
> but this time I resisted the temptation.
>
> Then, after I got it all up and running, I logged on as root and tried "yum
> groupinstall "KDE (K Desktop Environment)"".  Result was:
>
> Transaction Check Error:
> file /usr/share/config/kdm conflicts between attempted installs of
> kde-settings-kdm-3.5-23.fc7 and kdebase-3.5.6-10.fc7
>
> Tried using "Add / Remove Programs" to install KDE and got pretty much the
> same thing.
>
> Amazingly enough I couldn't find anything about that in the bugzilla
> database, so I reported it as bug 240717.

Perhaps you did not search for the right thing:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=240517
"conflict between kdebase and kde-settings-kdm"

> Have any of you run across that, and what did you do about it?

You are asking in the wrong place. Since you took the time to try a
test release, you should also post to the appropriate mailing list:
fedora-test-list at redhat.com

The issue you mentioned has already been discussed there.

> Eric <trying VERY hard to resist the temptation to ask
>          WHY these installations always default to Gnome
>          and not KDE...>

I am not sure why people have a difficult time accepting that Redhat
(hence Fedora) have a vested interest in Gnome. It has always been
that way.

As for defaults in an installer, it seems pretty simple. The installer
should at least have 1 option selected for every basic need (desktop
environment, office, graphics, multimedia, etc.). Multiple *default*
selections for the same type of application don't make too much sense.
Since more time is put into Gnome, that will be the default
environment in Fedora. Other distributions may invest more into KDE
and default to that.

-Mauriat