[KLUG Members] Can anyone say...Boogies?

[Robert G. Brown]

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 12:54:09 -0500, Bruce Smith <bruce@armintl.com> wrote:

>>>I don't know if what "we" made for Boogies could really be called a 
>>>distro, but it had some pretty nifty little apps that could be retrofitted 
>>>to just about anything (IMHO and as I recall).
>> The only thing it was really lacking was a well-packaged installer, and as I
>> recall, we didn't do a lot WRT probing hardware. However, it was a complete
>> Linux OS configuration, from kernel to window manager, and it had a well-
>> defined installation procedure that worked every time. If that's not a distro,
>> then it's a few man-days work away from one. Even in it's current shape, (and
>> I still have the CDs) it could be installed and gotten to work quickly, given
>> some knowledge of CLI, tar, lilo, and similar tools.
>IMO, it should NOT be made into a distro.  It should be a set of
>packages that can be installed on the user's distro of choice.

What was done for Boogies amounted to a distribution, since it included 
the kernel, base libraries and so forth. Another way of saying this is 
that it stood alone, and didn't need any other software to be installed.

Now, was this the right thing to do at the time? Probably, but we were 
not thinking about more general distribution of the software at that point,
only getting a system installed at one place, for this project. With additional
demand, who knows? That's why these things are called "distributions".

Frankly, I feel that a good case can be made for either method of packaging
the software. A full distribution would probably be easier to install, and
it would be free of compatibility problems, since the underlying OS would
ship with the packages and would be installed with it, and the distributor
would ensure that thngs are compatible. A set of packages is more portable,
and gives more choice to the local maintainer and operator; they are freer
to integrate the cybercafe stuff with whateve they want to do. This presumes 
a level of skill with the locally installed OS, but that's fine too. If we
had a lot of demand for this, we'd probably do well to listen to what the
customers are willing and able to do, and package accordingly. 
 
>> The effort could be repeated, with todays software... Boogies was done with
>> Red Hat 6.0/6.1 as I recall. Several QT 1.4 apps were written for that pro-
>> ject.
>And/or TK/TCL apps.
I know of no Tk/Tcl apps that were written and deployed for Boogies. If it were
done today, there's no reason not to use TK/Tcl or other development tools for
the work.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---