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

[Adam Williams]

> >> Now, was this the right thing to do at the time? 
> >It was the easiest way to get Boogies up and running at the time.
> >Being the easiest to get going is not necessarily the best way to do
> >things in the long run.  It made updates to a new release of the
> >underlying distro (Redhat) a real pain (as ONE example).
> It sure wasn't modular!
> But that was the way we did it... one HUGE tar file.
> The only way to update that was to update the MASTER image, make a new
> CD, run around and re-install...
> However, this is a matter of execution, not principle. 

We knew the machine configuration, network configuration, etc...  so it
was easy to cheat.  An installer the like of SuSe's or ananconda is no
trivial thing,  when one starts to enumerate the issues that they
seemlessly (hopefully) deal with and configure for it gets REALLY long
in a hurry.  Much longer than I suspect most people realize.

> >> 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. 
> >If "we" (KLUG) were to distribute this software, a complete distro is
> >the WRONG way to do it, mainly because it takes a _LOT_ of work to
> >maintain a distro, "we" don't have the manpower, and our time could be
> >better spent by focusing on the cybercafe software.
> It's a big "IF" in any case, since I see no demand for this software.
> Now, if someone wanted the timekeeping software, that could be packaged
> up nicely, in any of a number of formats (tgz, deb , rpm and so forth).

One could do what the K12 LTSP people did and retrofit an existing
distro (ala the old BS-Ware Pro).  That would seem the ideal way to go
about this,  or just write a doc about setting up a kickstart server to
do this on-site - since I suspect the cyber-cafe (if any still exist) is
a frequest re-install/replace-hardware kind of deal.

> >I recently installed one _large_ open source application on a major
> >distro.  This application consists of over 60 RPM's, and was
> >surprisingly easy to install on top of the distro.

Hmmm, 60+ packages.... what could that be?

> >(this large application
> >shall go unnamed for now so Adam doesn't start bugging me to do a
> >presentation, and I don't know enough about the software to do it yet :)
> Smart move! :)

Aw, come on!