[ubuntu-studio-devel] Feature Spec Discussion: Introduce New Netinstall ISO

[Len Ovens]

On Mon, 19 May 2014, Kaj Ailomaa wrote:

> By netinstall, I don't mean in the traditional term. Just that most
> things get installed over the net, instead of from the ISO.
>
> My view, as I said before, would be it is to be used for two things:
> * installing only what you need over the internet (so, no need to
> download the entire 2+GB ISO)
> * simple troubleshooting/testing (again, no need to download the entire
> 2+GB ISO).
>
> Also, it would be nice if could fit on a CD, all though the CD is a
> dying medium.

200 Meg CDs fit in pockets real nice. I once had (maybe I still do) an 
ISO image that would fit in 200 Meg with a DE, browser and a pack of 
network and other admin tools... even a windows reg editor. Seems to me 
the browser was very basic, but there was a menu item for downloading and 
installing firefox into memory.... But, are there any machines made since 
2000 that will not boot from a USB stick? USB started showing up before 
then. I do have One running laptop from 98 that while it does have a usb 
port, will not boot from it. However, at 360Mhz and 256M ram, it is not 
going to do much of any audio. In fact, there is no Ubuntu flavour that is 
worth running on it. Funny, I used to be able to get videos to run 
smoothly on it at one time. I used vcds to keep the kids busy on long 
trips.

Anyway, Aim for CD size, if for nothing else besides short DL time. Do you 
want it pretty too? or are coloured backgrounds ok? Can we ditch plymouth?

Is there some kind of "sandbox" we can build ISOs in? If the ISO has a 
package blacklisted so it is not included on the ISO, can ubiquity still 
DL and install that package later? Right now our (and most flavours) rely 
on a basic desktop package (i'm guessing X and some generic X apps/utils). 
It would be nice to still use that but be able to blacklist things at 
least to try without them. IS there any reason to do both 32 and 64 bit.. 
at least to start? I wouldn't mind playing with a seed package for this.

ubiquity uses gtk? (on top of python) So the DE should also be GTK based. 
LXDE has announced they are moving towards QT, so that is probably out 
unless there is a qt based version of ubiquity that does not also use the 
kde toolkit. XFCE is probaly the only one that makes sense, or to put it 
another, any other DE will still result in the gtk libs just for ubiquity 
anyway.

We need a menu, but not indicators or systray, the netman will run without 
them. Do we need the panel? Is there a menu without? (if so would the 
average user find it?) How stripped down do we want/need? The install 
option has no DE. ubiquity becomes the wm. It will start the netmanager if 
it is needed for example. We can make something with very little that will 
do the job, but should we?

Matchbox anyone?

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net