From: Guillaume Cornet (CornetGJ@Cardiff.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 06 2001 - 23:27:58 CET
On 6 Nov 2001, at 11:29, Michele Andreoli wrote:
> Packages yes, packages no (urgency=low)
> -------------------------
>
> To make muLinux a package-based distro is still more complex to
> realize and mantain for a single person. It is difficult to design
> the set of packages and to distribute them using floppy-disk as
> preferred media. In that, it resemble to old Slackware.
>
> So, I think, muLinux will rest addon-based.
> But add-on have to be redesigned
The floppyfw package concept is a rather good one, you just drop the
gzipped tar archive into the /packages directory on the floppy, and
one init script for it (The init script is usually used to modify the
configuration files in /etc as well). Nothing else has to be done.
Remains the problem that profiles are not managed with floppyfw,
which is a minus compared to muLinux. There must be a way to deal
with it...
Another problem is to specify in advance the size of the total
ramdisk you use... Maybe it could be estimated during the first boot
by asking the user the number of floppy-disks and then calculated
more accurately and written into a profile...
However, it is very smooth to be able to make your own distro with
only the very tiny and specific packages you need. If the startup
floppy is a dos-formatted one, you can even prepare it using a NT
workstation... And it is still possible to distribute the packages on
floppy disks, grouped in "themes" (say nfs-server, samba-server,
telnet-server, ftp-server, ... on a SRV floppy disk). The user can
then copy packages and make his/her own floppy disks very easily.
If you use the floppyfw concept, you don't have to specify a list of
packages on the database on the startup floppy disk: a package is
installed if it is present in the /packages directory on any floppy-
disk. It makes it easier to add a third-party package... without
modifying any base script, but just adding the init-script for the
new package.
muLinux is REALLY great, but if you don't have a copy of it on a hard
disk, you cannot modify it. I am sure that a package-based distro
would make things easier. The floppyfw homepage is
<http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/>.
There is a HOWTO about their package concept on
<http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/download/HOWTOS/HOWTO-package>.
Sorry, the funny picture had nothing to do with muLinux.
But, after all, when you have tried it, you cannot stand without it
neither... :-)
Cheers,
Guillaume
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