[Rule-list] Definition of mini distro

[Marco Fioretti]

> Can we come up with a marketing strategy for a mini distro?  If we can 
> reasonably define what will be in the package (how much disk space it 
> will take), and how much bandwidth will be needed, we might be able to 
> define what we need for hosting.
> 
> Is this what you mean by mini distro: just the minimum needed to boot 
> up, including packages such as less, Mutt (which I've never been able 
> to figure out), lynx, and the latest rpm package manager from Red Hat 
> so we can add in whatever RH packages we want?
>

Glen,

this was discussed in quite some detail at the beginning of the
project (feb/mar 2002). As a matter of fact (see that post which
talked about "parsing kickstart files" we could even do something like
(see archives, again!):

        1) Create a small ISO that includes ONLY:

                an installation that will just boot up

                rpms (not installed automatically) for *very* old
                        hardware, like old XFree for some cards

                rpm

                scripts that install some predefined packages groups

        2) tell the user : install our iso, then run the included
           scripts on RPMs from the standard RH CDs/ftp/http/NFS...

        3) that small iso might even include just what is needed to be
           a single purpose print/firewall/email server, or maybe be
           some sysadmin portable tool

Basically, as long as the initial thing can suck the stock RPMs from
somewhere else, and knows which ones are "good" in the RULE sense of
the word, we are golden, right?

In this sense, the 19 MB iso that Michael just put together is an
excellent start!

In general, the bandwidth issue is solved with anything below 25/30
MBytes, right?

        Ciao,
                Marco Fioretti