fc5: install everything?

Frank Samuelson expiregmane0306.m.cudgle at neverbox.com
Wed May 10 14:25:52 UTC 2006


Mark Haney wrote:

> 
>>It is just not worth my time.  Next time it will be SUSE instead.
>>
>>-Frank
> 
> 
> Good luck with that.  I have a SUSE box that has virtually nothing
> installed by default.  You think Fedora's installation is sparse?  I was
> amazed at the total lack of packages installed in SUSE.  Really, it's a
> total joke to work on that server.  It has KDE /and/ GNOME installed (on
> a /server/ no less) and yet I had to install the sysstat packages along
> with ntpd and about 3 or 4 others just to make the server really
> manageable.  The SUSE install is just silly.  The Fedora installer is at
> least more /sane/ than most other installers I've seen or used.
> 
> But it seems rather childish to switch distros just for that.  Kind of
> like taking your ball and going home, eh?
> 

No, not childish, just efficient.  These distributions are really not
all that different.  The same packages are  there, so the question
is just which is easiest to install?  And yes, SUSE has an install everything
checkbox that works very well.

I've been using RedHat since 4.0, but this is a show stopper.

Installing everything is not a security risk.
All of my installs (and I would guess most installs) are for machines
with  user bases of known trustworthy people, such as my family or coworkers.
Local exploits are not an issue.  People running servers with shell access
for scores of remote unknown people are the exception, not the  rule.

Some people have said that I should only install programs that I'm going
to use.  Well, my wife uses KDE, my son uses Gnome, I use fvwm.  My wife
uses kmail, my son uses mozilla, and I use pine.  My wife uses OpenOffice,
I use emacs/latex, my son uses, uh... I don't even know what it's called.
I could go on and on.  And that's just my family.  At work
the situation is even more diverse.  I'm _not_ going to hunt all those
down.  For years I've just done install everything and it just worked.
Until now.

I don't understand the mentality of taking away a very useful
feature that lots of people want (even if it's not perfect),
and saying that it is better.

-Frank


> 
> 
> 
>>
>>Eugen Leitl wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, Mar 28, 2006 at 12:27:56PM +1030, Tim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Discussed to death here over the last few weeks.  But in summary,
>>>>"everything" never really installed "everything", and if you actually
>>>
>>>The point it took to click one checkbox to install a shitload of packages.
>>>User attention is a scarce resource.
>>>
>>>Hard drive space and bandwidth is effectively free. Time is not.
>>>
>>>
>>>>did "install" *everything* you'd have conflicts up to your earholes, not
>>>
>>>Is "conflicts up to your earlobes" supposed to be a feature?
>>>Why can't conflicts be autoresolved? Why are there conflicts in the
>>>first place?
>>>
>>>
>>>>to mention masses of updates to manage.
>>>
>>>If I asked for it, and bandwidth is no issue, I don't see why this
>>>is a problem.
>>>
>>>Please stop rationalizing deficits being features. They're not.
>>> 
>>>
>>
> 
> 
> - --
> Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum
> 
> Mark Haney
> Sr. Systems Administrator
> ERC Broadband
> (828) 350-2415
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