From: Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com>
To: devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
Date: 05/13/2013 13:51
Subject: Re: [Fedora-spins] Where are the remaining F19 spins?
Sent by: devel-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
On Mon, 13 May 2013 13:24:26 -0400
John.Florian(a)dart.biz wrote:
> > From: Dennis Gilmore <dennis(a)ausil.us>
> > Perhaps the question we really need to ask is how should we deploy
> > and install Fedora, Which is not something we can change or solve
> > for f19 or probably even f20. An idea that comes to mind is to
> > have package selections and post install config tasks ship as
> > kickstart snippets with the DVD. we then use grub/syslinux to
> > present a menu to the users to have different frameworks that
> > resemble the spins the kickstart is fed to anaconda then at boot
> > time or anaconda gives you the option to select them.
>
> I think the Fedora Formulas that Kevin proposed are the ideal
> replacement for spins.
>
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_formulas
Sadly, I don't think so.
They are cool and useful and worth persuing (If I can find some time
to), but I don't think they can completely replace spins.
Some uses of spins that don't map well to formulas:
* Security lab spin being used to examine compromised images. You want
your thing to be a read only medium.
* Desktops browsing. You may well want to boot the LXDE spin and play
around with it and decide it's not for you and move on without
installing anything. Of course you could install, test and remove,
but some people prefer to decide up front.
* Base thing to run formulas on. You need some desktop/install/media
whatever to run the formulas on, so you always need some way to do
that initial install.
* Taking a live image and booting 20 lab machines so you can run a
class, then shut down and no changes were made to the machines.
(There's probibly others).
kevin
Those are good counter-examples, especially the first. The others though
leave me less convinced given what I've been doing here for the last few
years which is to take a customized Fedora Live spin with stateless Linux
features enabled, plus puppet (considering switching to ansible), plus a
little glue to make custom appliances where networked resources dictate
the various roles those appliances play ranging from kiosks to firewalls.
--
John Florian