torios team mailing list archive

[Israel <israel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/27/2014 07:04 AM, Nio Wiklund wrote:
>
> Right now the OBI-9w 222 MB (10 base), 211 Mibibytes (2 base alias 1024
> base). But it contains a lot of utilities and software, that are not
> necessary, for example a web browser and several small tools, that can
> be peeled off, if necessary to keep it within CD size with a fairly
> large tarball. Say that the tarball can be 500 MB. Then the total size
> will be 722 MB (10 base), 688 Mibibytes (2 base)
>
> According to
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM
>
> a '700 MB CD disk' can store 737.280 MB (10 base), 703.125 Mibibytes (2
> base).
>
> So without doing anything with the OBI-9w itself, the limit for the
> tarball is 515 MB (10 base), 491 Mibibytes (2 base). I don't know if
> some storage space is lost due to overhead data.
>
> The tarball can be a bit smaller than the corresponding iso file,
> depending on the amount of data, that are specific for the live session
> and on the compression method.

I think we can do it if we include only minimal things.  Even Lubuntu
comes with extra things that aren't needed.

We can surely leave off an e-mail program, and only offer to install it
afterwards.  A lot of people use the web browser
for virtually everything.  Technically a web browser can watch movies,
play music, browse your filesystem, view images,
(and lots more)  even offline.  I think this will be the important app
to keep on it.

>>  ...
> lubuntu-core and lubuntu-desktop are meta packages, that make it easy to
> install a group of packages with one command.
>
> It is possible to use meta-packages or just a command line or script
> file to install groups of packages for different user profiles, for example
>
> multimedia, office, gaming
> ultra-light, medium-light
> desktop, laptop, netbook
> ...
>
> The advantage is that the installer will be flexible, the disadvantage
> is that it will need internet and downloading to make each installation
> complete.
I think this is a good idea.  We can host a PPA for testing, once it is
decided what programs to use, etc...
Maybe even get a 'jwm-desktop' or 'torios-desktop' package in the
official repos one day :)

> A text-based installer can be easy to understand. It depends more on the
> layout than on fancy graphical effects.

All UI can be confusing.  I had to install Windows about a year ago to
flash the BIOS on an old computer, and was surprised at how unintuitive
some things were.
Normal users might find certain parts of it hard and 'scary'
When you ask someone "Are you really sure you want to do that?"
it makes the user second guess, and decide not to choose what they chose.
A well designed text based program is better than a gui for certain things.
apt-get  is better than software center and synaptic *if* you know what
you are looking for already... the usage is quite clear.

>> Technically, it would be super bad idea if a suer for example wishes to
>> dual-boot ToriOS with Windows XP or whatever. However, I dislike to
>> assume. I mean, we should be ready for any possible scenario if you know
>> what I mean.
> I guess we must be able to offer dual boot, and we are ... even if we
> think it is a bad idea with very old computers.
>
>> Can the text-based installer handle the dual-boot system the same easy
>> way the GUI installer does?
> Well, I think gparted is by far the most user friendly partitioning
> tool. And it needs a graphical desktop environment. And it is included
> in the 9w Debian+LXDE based desktop, that is idling at 37 MB RAM and can
> install without any problems in a computer with 128 MB RAM.
>
>> If we shall provide 64-bit, then definitely no need for text-based
>> installer here.
> No need, but might work as well.