[indiana-discuss] Re: 3.1) Installation

[Shawn Walker]

On 15/06/07, Dirk Wetter <dirk.wetter at drwetter.org> wrote:
> On 14.06.2007 05:56, Shawn Walker wrote:
> >
> > The registration and download process for Solaris is one of the
> > easiest for stuff that requires registration that I've downloaded
> > before.
>
> Shawn, I don't know what else you downloaded before and where you
> come from... (and I don't know whether you're referring to Solaris or
> SXDE/SXCE).
>
> But if I want to get SLES or RHEL through their portal I don't have to
> fight using wget/curl with obscured URLs, unzipping and concatenation and
> checksum whether it failed at one step or the other.  Also I from Novell
> or Red Hat I can download the ISO image (DVD or CDs!) as often as I like.
> (Yes, I know the download manager and I know that there are some license
> issues)

You don't have to use the download manager so I don't understand the
complaint about that.

> Don't want to appear harsh here, but Sun can be do this better. Why isn't
> it just possible to
>
> a) download a DVD ISO image (alternatively CD images for people which
>    don't have yet a DVD drive)

Currently they have some technical limitations on the download center
last I heard and I heard grumblings about the number of successful
downloads going dramatically down once the size of a file hits a
certain range.

> b) forget about zipping the image

Its perfectly reasonable to compress the image and saves bandwidth and time.

> c) provide the images through the portal just by using authentication
>    of individuals with their portal accounts.

It would be nice to somehow tie the authentication of OpenSolaris.org
accounts to the download center, but that again is a Sun issue.

> d) just use straightforward URLs

Not even RedHat does that when you download RHEL which is what Solaris
is equivalency wise. Though you can use their URLs with curl or wget.

> e) provide more bandwidth: In the cases above I normally max out a
>    16Mbit DSL line. With *Solaris I get at most 500kb/s for the
>    first few minutes, then it drops down to ~200kb/s. But that maybe
>    also a network issue to Europe?

They beefed up the network connection recently, it used to have an
artificial cap. The download speeds range from acceptable to great for
me in the US.

> This way with one or two mouse clicks you would have the image on the
> disk (or with ONE command like "wget --http-password --http-user
> http://....iso", if possible).
>
>
> If you put too much obstacles in the path, users are at best wondering
> why the heck this is "so difficult", cursing about it, or, worse just don't
> download it. Both is probably what nobody wants.

In the grand scheme of things, these are issues for Sun and are not
related to OpenSolaris at all except for the fact that we currently
depend on SXCE and SXDE as a community.

My short answer is the current process is *not nearly as cumbersome*
as some people claim it is.

However, it could definitely be better.

The things that should be easy that I see on your list are:

1) Make downloads possible once the user has a URL via copy / paste to
wget, curl, or whatever utility I want to use.

2) Put the full image up instead of splitting it into separate files.
If people have problems downloading the large image, that's what the
download manager is supposed to be for!

The other stuff isn't as important, but would be nice.

-- 
"Less is only more where more is no good." --Frank Lloyd Wright

Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
binarycrusader at gmail.com - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/