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Nicholas LaRoche wrote: | | Hi: | | This is my first time posting to this list, and I think I have a | suggestion that may help: An anaconda like front end to handle | installation could incorperate 7zip and create a transparent layer | between the installer and the actual data. This layer could uncompress | the installation medium depending on the type of compression. A | combination of compressions suited toward certain kinds of files would | be ideal. The user would never know about or need special tools to | install ROS and you could keep the very best compression on the actual | medium to save space. |
While I'm not a dev. on this project, I fail to see the need to disturb the installation envrionment. If a user is going to get ReactOS to replace Windows, then I'd rather see the installer *not* confuse the hell out of them, so to speak. If you go with what is similar to what people have always known as a Windows installer, then they will feel more at-home. 7-Zip could be used to decompress files in "chunks" as they're placed on the user's hard drive, resulting in a smaller size of the installation medium. However...
| | As for the dialup user, a smaller more compact distribution method is | obviously going to be needed. Something that combines this | 'anaconda-like' installer with an automated compilation system could | work. Source compresses much more easily than do binaries and my thought | was that perhaps we could compile small utilities on the fly that would | normally take 200-300k but in source fit into just 10 to 15k. This is | assuming they are not statically linked and ROS provides everything they | need at runtime. On a fast machine the average user probably wouldent | notice a 3 or 4 second delay for a small utility to compile for the | first time upon being run (from a linux perspective they compile very | fast.. I'm unsure of ROS and compiling in general). |
Why? Why would you compile things on the user's machine? If you want the "Gentoo" for React, perhaps, but otherwise, I'd think not. What about someone who's (finally) able to use their Pentium 200 MHz again?
You'd be waiting for next Christmas, more then likely. That wouldn't be an option, either. When ReactOS becomes usable and marketable, I'm sure someone out there will pick it up, package it, and redistribute it. Users on a dial-up connection can go to their local store and pick up the newest, most reliable, and secure, version of a clone of Windows, and it will be compatible with what they have on their system. Best of all, if they like it so much, they can copy the CD and pass it on to their friends.
Or, maybe said redistributor would be smart and include extra GNU/GPL software on their disc. ReactOS, OpenOffice 2.0 (or whatever is current at the time), Mozilla, and so forth.
| | This whole space saving advantage would be the justification for dialup | users to use source over binaries at the expense of some initial | slowdown at installation b/c of compiling. This wouldent exist if they | were using a broadband connection to use or download ROS. |
They could also get a CD from a friend that isn't using Dialup. It's not like this is proprietary software. They have the freedom to pass it along on a CD.
| | Also, a self extracting medium could be used with both zip and 7zip | incorperated into one another. You use the best method, either zip or | 7zip for a file and then archive the whole thing without compression in | a larger zip file and then slap an executable in the same directory to | handle it (i.e: installer.exe, installer.archive). |
I don't understand this. It would add (very little, but still) overhead to the process. Why would you want to wrap everything up? You can just package the files and have the installer know how to handle the format. ~ Right now, Windows has support for compressed cabinets and such directly in the operating system's API. ROS could in theory add an API interface for handling of 7z-formatted files. They need to do this with cabinets already for compatibility purposes, I would think they would be able to use even the same call and have it "auto-detect" which archive format it would be handling.
| | My 2 cents, | Nick LaRoche |
All in all, if we were talking about any one of my customers, I would rather be able to just hand them a CD and never again need to worry about licensing issues when a user says that they want a copy of Windows 2000 and I can't find it anywhere, which may well be the case in another year or so. By then, XP will (most likely) be obsolete, and Longhorn will have made it's public debut, if you can keep to what MS says about it. In short, I'd rather hand them open-source software, that I know that they can use and copy, and explain to them what the difference is, then hand them a licensed version of something and then go on my way, knowing that they'll probably copy it and violate it's license agreement (even though they've been told that they can't do that).
Regards, Mike
- -- Michael B. Trausch fd0man@gmail.com Website: http://fd0man.chadeux.net/ Jabber: mtrausch@jabber.com Phone: +1-(678)-522-7934 FAX (US Only): 1-866-806-4647 =================================================================== Do you have PGP or GPG? Key at pgp.mit.edu, Please Encrypt E-Mail!