[indiana-discuss] Tim's 0.02

[John Sonnenschein]

On 6/10/07, Tim Foster <Tim.Foster at sun.com> wrote:
> My thoughts:
>
>   - Package management
>
>   I echo the comments so far: a network-based package repository,
> that's smart enough not to re-install libraries already on my system
> would be super. 1 CD to install would be great too.

I actually disagree with the second point. I think we'd be much more
well served from a testing/stability standpoint if we installed
package "bundles" so to speak, where all the dependencies are
satisfied within that bundle... so, for example, the gnome bundle
would include GNOME, GTK+, dbus, aspell, and so forth; keeping the
bundles well fenced off from each other & only using Sun's guaranteed
stable interfaces to communicate between them would seriously limit
the number of permutations of packages that can go wrong

Sometimes version X of a package doesn't work with version Y of
another package, and users installing willy-nilly creates problems
that are practically untestable


>   - Power management
>
>   For me, getting suspend-to-ram working would be enough to make that
> switch. Solaris already archives all my photos, music, etc. but being
> able to get instant-on would promote Solaris to being my main platform
> for nearly all my home computer use.
>

That's an O/N problem, not a problem of "how will we package this
stuff up", so it's really out of scope

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