Dag Wieers wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Dag,
I am amazed by the usefulness of the CentOS LiveCD and I would like to discuss the scope of the project. Some of the recommendations I made go against the original idea of LiveCD project.
But my (outside) stance on the LiveCD is that it should give the best achievable experience possible for people when trying CentOS. To me that includes adding drivers that are available in other repositories (which are missing from upstream, including wireless firmware, etc...)
I do agree that as soon as we leave the deliver-what-upstream-has path, we may open a can of worms (do we also want to fix known bugs ? replace upstream software ? legality ?), so we have to decide what is desirable, what is possible and where the project's effort ends.
I don't think that there is a need to divide from upstream atm. and am not really willed to break compatibility for features.
Concerning the Live-CD, I would suggest to offer a stable version that reflects the CentOS release with all dis-advantages it may have (not installable, e.g.)
So it becomes effectively useless for everyone with a netbook/laptop and needs wireless ? I cannot use the LiveCD unless I somehow transfer the firmware (or remake the LiveCD), you loose users, hurt the project.
Upstream doesn't have a LiveCD, so I don't see a good point in maintaining the same hardware support in that respect. It only hurts the LiveCD effort. (Same for additional drivers for netbooks/laptops/desktops)
What's even more, upstream does have wireless firmware in their addon repository, so in effect we are not offering the same as they are offering to customers.
Creating to different LiveCD (official vs plus) does make sense. With the official LiveCD, you experience the equivalent CentOS release and see how your hardware is supported.
The LiveCD 'plus' includes packages from 3rd party repositories. It could include monitoring software, rescue utilities. It could also demonstrate how CentOS could be improved to support additional hardware. However, trying to find a consensus about which packages/features should be included in this LiveCD is nearly impossible.
A collection of kickstart configuration files could be placed on the project page with the corresponding name for the resulting ISO image. These supported configurations could be updated and maintained. The creation of the ISO images could be done by the interested users.
-- Patrice