[Mageia-discuss] Suggestions

[Juergen Harms]

There is a secondary issue tied to the questions discussed in this 
thread: is it good strategy to do all package selection quite early 
during system generation? At present, package selection looks to me as 
an integral part of the system generation process, "burned" onto the 
installation media. Must that be so? has this question already been 
discussed?

Naively, I see an alternative: cut package selection into 2 parts:

(1) have system installation start by configuring a minimum set of 
packages, those that are strictly necessary to obtain a running system 
for the hardware and the desktop environment auto-detected / user-selected.

(2) install additional packages that customise the system to the profile 
desired by the user only at the end of system generation - that could 
even be delayed to the time the system does its first bootstrap (that 
could still be done in a way that is transparent to users who want an 
out-of-the-box installation).

The advantage I see to such an alternative is that it moves the issue of 
targetting (customisation to the profile a user or an 
apoplication-specific set of users want) out of system generation and 
makes the corresponding decisions at release definition easier. To some 
degree that may correspond to what RHEL - or is it Scientific Linux? - 
propose.

To play with this idea: the second phase might be done with a tool that 
could also be available when the system runs under user control, and 
allow the user to change / enrich his profile (without requiring him to 
go down to the level of urpmi and installing task-xxx).

A small additional advantage is that this might help to remove some of 
the "installation-stress" for new users: when they install their first 
system, the questions on detailed package selection (if the user wants 
that) would come at a time when the system is basically ready to run and 
the user has received his first "congratulation" message: when he has 
stopped being scared.

Please, dont misunderstand: Mageia needs to turn out the first release 
as rapidly and safely as possible - I do not suggest to modify things 
now. But - given the present discussion - considering a more flexible 
way of doing package selection and profiling would open up a different 
background to the present discussion, it might be helpful at mid-range.