Could we have an official Core ISO with a text installer ?

[melodie]

Hello,

It was a long long time ago, we had this discussion on the pclinuxos.com forums and a project started at mypclinuxos.com forums, which you know have been closed because of the spams and vandalism.

Here, tuxmies had asked:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,79592.0.html

here, Hootiegibbon asked for a text installer to make the IcedLatte/PCLinuxOS Light lighter easier to install on very old machines, which is a great idea imo:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,84951.msg739590.html#msg739590

Here, I keep the cli.iso versions from ETJR:
http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/PCLinuxOS_cli_iso_and_children

I thought that this text mode installer was such a good idea, that I have sent a mail to Etjr, to ask him if he would be willing to do cli isos with a text installer such as this one, to ease the start for new remasters, without having to strip from an already made PCLinuxOS. He sent back a mail telling me this : he is willing to work on it, provided it could become a project agreed by Texstar, officially supported, and getting complete testing. I said I will be willing to test it, and probably more people would, at the forum.

At the very beginning when I started the project "Openbox Mini" built in cli.iso : the first one from Etrj, I met with many many issues, and as I wanted to succeed and go through I came with the first built in the "small versions" section of the forum. (The first Openbox version had been built on Neal's Lxde version). There, I found a great gang of testers, who have helped me ever since and together we went through the problems, during several months. (64 pages for the thread... ) A few weeks later I sent a mail to Etjr, with the summary of the main fixes done, so that he could improve for following versions.

One of this was related to the belonging of the users to the groups : the testers had reported that after install the user didn't belong to any group. This was very annoying. I had been googling during several days, then found the start of the solution at Mandriva wiki, and reading through the comments in the userdrake perl script in my personal install. My companion helped me find how to use theses findings : by installing and using userdrake in the Live cli iso before performing the install.

Then I went through a few actions which allowed me to send Etjr this report. Here are the screenshots I had done, to keep track of the actions easily. The first image is the one that contains the more informations:


this was just after I had installed userdrake in the cli.iso running Live, then I checked what groups the user belonged to, with the command "id". It was bare, guest had just his id, gid and belonged to his own group. Then after I added guest to the desired groups, I got some message errors that were also giving the solutions along with the commands to use, which I followed in order to correct the errors. For example they were two lines for dialout in the /etc/group file, I had to delete one, I chose the one with the higher number, just because in my main install I had a dialout line with the smaller number, so I did it so to match what we usually have.

The next image shows how it was in X after fixing:


The third one shows that I started to install just after this:


The fourth image shows the result in the following RC version, the RC4 which is the result after the post install of the RC3 corrected:


This time the user had not lost his groups after the install !

I remember that after the RC4 we met with a new problems, that we all together fixed one by one, until the iso was declared good to go by all the testers who had been there from the beginning along the 64 pages of this thread.

As a conclusion  I would like to say that my main motivation for this "Openbox mini" project was due to the fact that having tried to strip Openbox to make a small version fit to make a good Education version, I failed at first try because I removed what allowed to do the post install steps. At that time I didn't know enough about the distro to be sure what could be removed safely or not. And the other motivation was I had other projects in mind (not yet started) which could benefit of a very small and clean start. I thought I was probably not the only one in this case, so it could be interesting for all to have a very small version to build anything on it more easily than starting from the rpms of the repos, which is really not at reach for most of us. ^^

With the recent works of Hootiegibbon and Ongoto, I am now interested again to ask for a core iso that could be installable. Some other distros used to provide one, I am not sure which ones now, maybe Slackware, or Zenwalk ? Well, I think it could be much appreciated to have this possibility in addition to the main official and community versions we have at PCLinuxOS.

I am looking forward to reading your answers.

Regards,
Mélodie

[Hootiegibbon]

After a long discussion and an extensive review of the original thread for this question we have come to the following decision

There will be no official CLI iso as it does not fit in to the 'mission statement' made by PCLinuxOS - to be the the best desktop experience available -

This does not stop any individual from making a CLI based (or any other) remaster for personal use so long that any potential redistribution is undertaken under the terms described elsewhere by Texstar

Thanks for reading.

[melodie]

Hi Hootiegibbon,

Thank you and anyone who took the decision to bring back this first post of mine. If this can't be a product delivered for all, I would like later, as I don't need one in a hurry at the moment, to ask it to be made available for the developers and testers. When it will be time I think I will send a message to the mailing lists.

Best regards,
Mélodie

[Neal ManBear]

Melodie,

This does not stop any individual from making a CLI based (or any other) remaster for personal use so long that any potential redistribution is undertaken under the terms described elsewhere by Texstar

     

If you want one, you can create one for your use.     

[Hootiegibbon]

Hi Hootiegibbon,

Thank you and anyone who took the decision to bring back this first post of mine. If this can't be a product delivered for all, I would like later, as I don't need one in a hurry at the moment, to ask it to be made available for the developers and testers. When it will be time I think I will send a message to the mailing lists.

Best regards,
Mélodie

Melodie,

Just to reiterate as the concept of a CLI iso falls outside the scope of PCLInuxOS, there will be NO official CLI offered at this or at any foreseeable future date.

please do not ask again now or in the future as this has now become a point of current policy,

This thread will be left for others benefit when searching

Jase

[melodie]

Hi,

Is it asking too much to ask (fr) humblement who are the "we" who you are talking about in this post ?

After a long discussion and an extensive review of the original thread for this question we have come to the following decision (...)

[Hootiegibbon]

Hi,

Is it asking too much to ask (fr) humblement who are the "we" who you are talking about in this post ?

After a long discussion and an extensive review of the original thread for this question we have come to the following decision (...)

Melodie,

by WE I mean the core developers of PCLinuxOS, it has now been set in policy.

if this is not a policy you can accept then perhaps this is not the distro for you.

This does not affect of course self made remasters as per the initial post above.

you have been advised several times that an official CLI iso will not be made available

Not sure where the difficulty in under standing is

Jase

[melodie]

Not sure where the difficulty in under standing is

Jase

Hi,

I get it clear and loud as they say.
Would you (and the core developers) agree to define clearly what "official" would be like ? If for example, someone having skill and willing to help would be authorized by Texstar to provide the "all made tool" easier to use for a new creation, to the developers, would that be possibly assimilated to an official core, or not ?

* melodie thinks I should have never started this thread at the forum...

[Hootiegibbon]

Melodie,

This is my last post in this thread, what part of

There will be NO OFFICIAL CLI iso made available

do you have a difficulty in understanding

why do you continue to request after it has been made clear that it will not happen!

Jase

[Neal ManBear]

Locking this to stop further Q & A, as the answer has been given.