[indiana-discuss] Ok here come my 2c

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sun, Jun 10, 2007 at 03:35:36PM +0100, Michal Bielicki wrote:
> Actually these are not mine but Brian Guptas:
> 
> > There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other
> > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a
> > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to
> > also be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of
> > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada.
> 
> So getting back to the point, the q. for me is not which GUI, which
> packaging, which bla bla app to add but rahter, what all can we get rid
> of ? What is the smallest common denominator ? How to make this smallest
> common denominator usefull as a demo ? How to make it so that it is easy
> to roll your own ? Lets say Freelaris, the distro that includes
> freeswitch or siparis, the distro around the sipx server.
> 
Debian netinstall CD comes pretty close :) If you want to add anything 
else, you just apt-get it. There's a GUI mode to the installer if you
really want it.  Start to finish install for a complete KDE desktop 
system is less than 20 minutes on a fairly slow machine if you've a 
fast network connection / access to a local mirror.

If you want to do this right, get Sun to take over Nexenta and negotiate 
with Debian to make the stuff part of Debian :)  If the whole of Solaris
is possibly going to be licensable under GPL3, then most everythings 
done. Debian is Linux done right on multiple architectures - I've run
Debian for sparc on a Sun Sparc 20 which I'd have hesitated with Solaris 
on. As a datum point today: Nexenta just hangs on the 32 bit machine 
next to me which is fairly ordinary - Pentium III motherboard at 1GHz, 
768MB of RAM, 3 x 160GB hard disks and an old Nvidia graphics card.

The other thing: Debian has no particular commercial axe to grind and 
a distributed network of developers: Debian support is thus potentially 
worldwide and in the world's languages.

BIG DISCLAIMER GOES HERE - I am not speaking on behalf of the Debian 
project in any capacity. I am, however, a Debian developer in good 
standing - my main claim to fame is that I helped settle a flame war
and can claim to have named apt :)

> Anyway thats just MHO
> 
> cheers
> 
> Michal <cypromis> Bielicki
> 
>
As are my comments IMHO

Andy