From: sadkins@bigbird.cs.ohiou.edu (Scott W. Adkins)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: SLS, etc
Date: 10 Jan 93 03:54:53 GMT
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept., Athens

In article <wHX5wB1w165w@mintir.new-orleans.la.us> craig@mintir.new-orleans.la.us (Craig Johnston) writes:
>Peter, thanks for all the work on SLS...I flamed a bit earlier about
>things not working, so now I would like to be a bit more constructive...
>I personally, and I would think a lot of other people as well, are prob-
>ably more interested in a distribution on which everything works than
>a 'cutting edge' distribution with bells and whistles but broken 
>binaries.
>        What would be the possibility of 2 distributions, one on which 
>everything def. works, and one "latest 'n greatest" one?  Is there 
>perhaps something like this on some FTP site other than tsx-11?  It's
>very depressing to download megs of stuff at 1200 baud and find that the
>same things are broken or perhaps more things break.  
>        Anyway, Linux is great, without it I'd be in a constant state
>of depression over the state of OS's for my machine.  Thanks Peter and
>Linus and all others for all the work. 
> 
>Craig Johnston

I am thinking about setting up another distribution to be made available
via ftp.  The goal of this new distribution would be to provide a setup
that would be easy to install (aren't they always?) with kernel source
that always matches the initial installation, binaries and directory setup
that would be standard to most unix systems (nothing new here), support
for some of the newer stuff (like shadow passwords and the like) that
actually will work completely and correctly, etc.  

I will have to come up with something like this anyway to facilitate the
setting up of local systems and such.  I like SLS a lot, but it bugs me
that it comes with permissions and ownerships messed up, password file
stuff messed up (like adding a user but unable to change password...), or
anything of that kind of sort.  I also think that the source to all of 
the binaries that I distribute should be made available (like an 's' 
series) to make it easier to patch, modify, or recompile when things break.

It would be nice if the kernel would be as up-to-date as possible *with*
the patches applied whenever they come in, since this would limit confusion
as to whether you have truly got the newest release or not.  There are a 
lot of things that could be done.

If people would like to send me some wish lists, I will be happy to compile
and consider them.  I have an internship this quarter (which just started)
that is specifically working with setting up Linux on a machine and learning
the ins and outs of everything about it... which means learning how to be
a good system administrator of it and learning how to make the system work
efficiently, without problems, and as secure as it possibly can (I have a 
lot to learn in *all* of these areas).  Once I am satisfied with this 
system, I will then work on moving it to disk for distribution.

Well, anyway... maybe I should have let the cat out of the bag so soon,
but I just thought you would want know.  I *will* be creating this 
distribution, but the question is more like, should it be made available
to the public?  (Peter, I don't want to compete with you, since I think 
you have a great package... I just want to provide an alternative.)

Incidentally... this distribution might be geared more for a University
setup than a home personal setup (but would work well).  I think that 
the a lot of Universities could benifit from Linux if some of their
machines were dedicated to such for the learning and teaching of Unix! :-)

Scott Adkins
sadkins@ohiou.edu
-- 
         Scott W. Adkins           Internet: sadkins@ohiou.edu
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                     ak323@cleveland.freenet.edu
    Ohio University of Athens        Bitnet: adkins@ouaccvma.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux