Fedora desktop spin size issues, update

[Matthias Clasen]

On Mon, 2009-07-06 at 13:28 -0400, David Zeuthen wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> Is it really worth the effort to keep our flag spin on a CD? I really
> don't think so. How about doing this
> 
>  o  Make our flag spin be even more useful by including apps like
>     OpenOffice and other things we can't currently fit. We'd also
>     include things like, say, the Bugs Bunny trailer and some of
>     the http://truthhappens.redhat.com/ videos, so it's easy to
>     showcase Theora and other _cool_ stuff. [0]
>
>  o  Have a very minimal desktop live _CD_ for installs. Bandwidth-
>     and/or DVD-constrained users can then use this and then install more
>     stuff via PackageKit. This would also help the PackageKit "install
>     software" story. Might also help save bandwidth altogether.

So, I think both of these are excellent ideas that we should pursue.
Targetting a 1GB usb stick as the primary medium would probably allow us
to include OpenOffice (with some subset of languages), in addition to
adding content. 

And having a smaller, cd image that still gives you a barebones desktop
+ browser, but is otherwise optimized for common rescue operations is a
great idea. I think this is pretty close to the original vision for
firstaidkit; unfortunately, it is not there yet.

To make 'targeting the stick' a reality, we will need a collection of
suitable content - Ubuntu are doing a pretty good job at this, for all I
know. Maybe it would be worthwhile to look at some of their ideas;
having a 'Fedora presentation' and other materials that ambassadors can
use right on the image would be pretty neat. 

The other thing we need to worry about for 'targeting the stick' is the
deployment story. When I was last trying this for F11, I had to follow
at least 4 levels of links and then copy-and-paste a bunch of scary
commands to get the iso onto my stick. The Windows story is much better
with the liveusb-creator, but it is also hidden too deep below the
download page. We need to get much closer to 1-click install than we
currently are. And it needs to work that way on Linux and OS X too,
ideally.

Quite a bit of work, but worth trying.

Matthias