From release notes for FC5T3 (web)

[Rahul Sundaram]

gb spam wrote:

>On 3/10/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>
>
>and still there is no quantification of "high".  if i said that not
>having an everything install button has a high cost, would you accept
>that if i just continued to wave my hands in the air? (please don't
>take this as abuse or anger, i just have trouble accepting something
>when a question is not answered several times)
>  
>
Again, I did very specifically answer this question in various occasions 
in the earlier discussions.  I cannot quantify the exact amount of code 
required to reimplement this beyond the assertion that was it is non 
trivial as communicated to me by Anaconda developers.  What I can tell 
you is instances where I have been involved where users had problems 
trying to recover from a everything installation because they installed 
a whole lot of packages unnecessarily.

>  
>
>>Combine that
>>with the effect of this "feature" and the time spend in fixing and  hand
>>holding new users who choose to use this option innocently
>>    
>>
>
>If there are problems merely because multiple packages are installed
>together, that is entirely another problem, which should _also_ be
>dealt with.  we shouldn't be trying to hide from those problems.  on
>the contrary, we should be looking for them.  if one problem comes up
>frequently (like the oft-cited gfs kernel) then it quickly becomes a
>known problem, work arounds are made public, mailing lists are well
>aware of the problem and can direct people experiencing them in the
>right direction and hopefully the problems also get resolved too.  the
>net result being that the project wins in the long run.  this is
>actually the direction we should be aiming for, not shirking away
>from.
>  
>
In many cases, for example with multiple mail servers, you just cannot 
run them together. So this is not a flaw at all and there is nothing to 
fix.  The problem with earlier definitions of user profiles - personal 
desktop, workstation, server etc 
(http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=335&slide=7) is 
that users didnt fit this precisely and choose custom. There is a effort 
in resolving that through a new package selection design 
(http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/tasksel.png). While it makes sense to 
install everything (using kickstart or yum ) and test them if we can 
during the test/development phase rigorously and testers should be 
focusing on testing applications that they use,  it isnt something we 
should be encouraging otherwise for regular end users. The problem with 
the GFS and other kernel modules was already known and well documented 
in the release notes 
(http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/#sn-kernel) and 
something we have been trying to resolve with great effort 
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/KernelModuleProposal) but this 
problem wouldnt be there for users who didnt choose the everything 
installation despite having no need for a storage cluster. So in the 
longer run, there are discussions happening on reorganizing the packages 
in core to meet the needs better 
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CoreBrainStorm) and then installing every 
package in the ISO images would be much better.  Fedora Core 5 Anaconda 
uses yum as a dependency resolver and the next step would be support yum 
repositories like Fedora Extras during installation and consider moving 
more of the packages there. In the longer run (which might be as soon as 
Fedora Core 6( our arguments are actually converging and  installing 
everything in the Fedora Core would be good if the images contained just 
the default packages.  So dont scream at me just because I am trying to 
communicate the understanding that we have better.

-- 
Rahul