Poll: Customized Fedora

[Adam T. Gautier]

>I think it's a bad idea.  
>
Great, this is the discussion I want...

>It sounds like what you're doing is giving folks the
>ability to select "Choose packages" in the Fedora installer before actually
>installing the operating system.
>  
>
Well technically that is how Anaconda works, using a tiny linux image to 
load Anaconda but other than that it just collects information for 
configuration and  installs packages.  Anyway, a user would choose 
packages that are available to installation.  The installation would 
happen the same way it does now.  Eventually, a customized Anaconda 
installer would probably be available that would allow customization of 
the install process.

Also, I am not thinking that the any joe schmo would use this service.  
It would really be for IT managers, developers, and technical hobbiest.  
They would choose the packages they wanted available to be installed.  
Instead of using the one size fits all Fedora install, which also has 
the contraint of only using packages allowed by RedHat, no third party 
packages.

>Maintaining a distribution requires more than just tossing together downloaded
> software and praying it works.  There is a fair amount of release engineering
>that goes into it.  You need to ensure software and libraries work, 
>
That is why I want to base the service on existing distributions.  Open 
source is just standing on the shoulders of giants.  A user could throw 
a bunch of packages together and hope that they worked but that is their 
perogative, I could do that now if I wanted but I know it is a waste of 
time.

>that the
>installer is consistent and easy to use, etc, etc, and 
>
Agreed, I would work to make the existing installers better.

>then provide some means
>of ongoing maintenance (even if it's as simple as "here's a diff file, there's
>the code, have fun").
>
>  
>
I agree, Red Hat, Mandrake, and Suse already have thriving businesses 
based on the support model.  I expect users to get their support packs 
and package upgrades etc from them.  I just think there is a group of 
people that want to define their own distribution parameters: look and 
feel, packages, configuration, etc... If these systems are based on say 
Fedora why can't they get support from these mailing lists.  Would it 
not be the same as installing fedora and editing a file in /etc?

>This process is not conduive to, nor indeed feasable, via a "public one size
>fits all" webpage service.
>
Why not?

>  If you have something else in mind, like a
>"pre-customize Fedora Core with your own logos" or something, that's another
>thing entirely.  You could just release your own version of fedora-logos.
>
>  
>
Creating custom RPMs is one way to go... But people use technology to 
implement solutions not to install software.  I am just trying to 
provide another distribution of complete solution sets not just 
installable software.  Sure I could create a custom RPM of postfix to 
implement a specific part of a solution, I could also create a 
pre-configured distribution that I know will have the correct packages 
for the solution.  Just seems like another way to go...