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From: Brendon C. <end...@ya...> - 2002-05-02 17:13:11
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I think we should have ONE installation program which encompasses all the programs. This will allow you to decide which programs you want to install. Then within each program section you can decide which features to install. 1)Regarding HTML based installation, Mozilla as far as i know, does not have capabilities of allowing any kind of file operations, without a signed script. I have never actually done this with mozilla, but im sure there is a way. 2) Internet Explorer allows for ActiveX Scripting (security alert!!), of which can easily be used to create a nice interface with an easy to use installer. However, this is deopendent on a proproetary system in a way. 3) We could create a JAVA/swing based installation. This could be very convenienet seeing that it would be cross platform. This idea is my personal favorite, seing that it would be the most flexible. 4) We could do a perl-GTK, or php-GTK based installations, of which would not be as elegant as the JAVA installation but it would get the job done. 5) We could do a HTML based installation, of which will then send the information to a backend PHP or PERL installer via a miniture portable local web server. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com |
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From: Brendon C. <end...@ya...> - 2002-05-02 16:51:34
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would it be better to post on the sourceforge mailing list or in the opensourceware/opencd forums? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com |
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From: Henrik N. O. <h....@bt...> - 2002-05-02 15:10:19
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On Wed, 2002-05-01 at 18:30, Alex Roston wrote: > J Aaron Farr wrote: > > > On the other hand, many of the applications under consideration have excellent > > installers already developed. Do we really want to throw these out and start > > from scratch? Mozilla and OpenOffice have very nice installers for example. > > Should our installer then simply call these installers, or should we have one > > unified installer? > > Call the already written installers. Anything else is too much work, and > also assumes that we know more about the application and how it should > be installed than the people who wrote it. Totally agreed. Can anyone do a simple proof-of-concept HTML installer? It only needs to say hello, and let the user click on an image to launch an installer. Then I can put this as a zip file on org.site for everyone to download and test. If it works with all browsers and all settings, then that might be the way to go. I would certainly be the easiest. So the mock-up proof-of-concept version should contain a directory stryycture, as the CD would have, 1 or 2 HTML files and 1 or 2 tiny self extracting zips or something that can be launched. Any takers? > > I think it would be beneficial if we could discuss and set down the "design > > goals" of the installer itself since it will have a significant influence on > > how the project is set up and distributed. > > Agreed. > > > Several ideas have been suggested > > including an HTML based installer, a nice solid graphic installer, and an > > installer that can also download from the web and/or do future updates. > > I must confess to disliking the idea of an installer that can download > from the web. There are far too many things that could go wrong, and far > too many ways for an end user to be paranoid about such a download. I > think the best thing to do where updates are concerned is to simply find > an intelligent way to inform the end user that updates are available at > "this URL." I agree. Downloading really defeats the purpose of the CD. 'Advanced' end users can follow a link and download an update. The rest are very happy to wait 3 or 6 months for a new CD. If this is to be targeted everywhere, including poor countries and other places with skinny pipes, the downloading is problematic. - Henrik btw: I'm preparing a newsletter for the .org site; should be up friday. -- Henrik Nilsen Omma Theoretical Physics, Oxford 35 Frenchay Road 1 Keble Road Oxford OX2 6TG Oxford OX1 3NP h....@bt... he...@th... |
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From: Alex R. <tun...@pa...> - 2002-05-02 10:37:28
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J Aaron Farr wrote: > On the other hand, many of the applications under consideration have excellent > installers already developed. Do we really want to throw these out and start > from scratch? Mozilla and OpenOffice have very nice installers for example. > Should our installer then simply call these installers, or should we have one > unified installer? Call the already written installers. Anything else is too much work, and also assumes that we know more about the application and how it should be installed than the people who wrote it. > I think it would be beneficial if we could discuss and set down the "design > goals" of the installer itself since it will have a significant influence on > how the project is set up and distributed. Agreed. > Several ideas have been suggested > including an HTML based installer, a nice solid graphic installer, and an > installer that can also download from the web and/or do future updates. I must confess to disliking the idea of an installer that can download from the web. There are far too many things that could go wrong, and far too many ways for an end user to be paranoid about such a download. I think the best thing to do where updates are concerned is to simply find an intelligent way to inform the end user that updates are available at "this URL." Just my .02 Alex |
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From: Buchan M. <bg...@ca...> - 2002-05-02 09:32:42
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I have posted my demoshield demo at: http://ranger.dnsalias.com/openoffice/autorun.zip If you unzip the zip file at what will be the root of the CD, then this is the path from the root of the CD that the setup programs are run from ~ (obtained with 'strings autorun.dbd |grep path|cut -d">" -f2|cut -d"<" - -f1' under linux): win32\WinNT\NT4sp6a\Nt4sp6ai.exe win32\Win2000\W2KSP2.EXE win32\Win2000\directx8-Win2000.exe win32\Star Office 5.2\office52\setup.exe win32\Star Office 5.2\office52\setup.exe win32\Star Office 5.2\soplayer\setup.exe win32\Star Office 5.2\adabas\adabas.exe win32\OpenOffice\install\setup.exe win32\OpenOffice\install\setup.exe win32\OpenOffice\dictinstall.exe win32\Compression\Power Archiver\powarc60.exe win32\Graphics\Gimp\gimp-1.2.3-20020310-setup.exe win32\Graphics\Gimp\gimp-1.2.3-20020310-lzw.exe win32\Graphics\Gimp\plugin-pack.exe win32\Graphics\Gimp\gimp-1.2.3-gdk-20020313.exe win32\Internet\Browsers\Netscape 4.7\cc32d47.exe win32\Internet\Plugins\ar500enu.exe win32\Internet\Browsers\mozilla\mozilla-win32-latest-installer.exe win32\Internet\Browsers\ie60\ie6setup.exe win32\Internet\Java\j2re-1_3_0_01-win.exe You will note that anything that was zipped (OpenOffice.org, Gimp) when it was downloaded was just unzipped in place, I keep all the zip files in appropriate places but generally don't put them on the CD). If those of you with access to win boxes can give this a try, and just see how it works, we can get our ideas together. (Note to those who haven't seen my first post, this is just something I have made for my own use, and for CDs I give away, using a trial version of DemoShield. I don't think this is what we should be using in future, although it may be good for a quick hack, like for when Mozilla 1.0 is out to join OpenOffice1.0). Buchan P.S. You can get the text of all the descriptions by running strings on the autorun.dbd. - -- |----------------Registered Linux User #182071-----------------| Buchan Milne Mechanical Engineer, Network Manager Cellphone * Work +27 82 472 2231 * +27 21 8828820x202 Stellenbosch Automotive Engineering http://www.cae.co.za GPG Key http://ranger.dnsalias.com/bgmilne.asc 1024D/60D204A7 2919 E232 5610 A038 87B1 72D6 AC92 BA50 60D2 04A7 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE80Qd8rJK6UGDSBKcRAvXZAJ9VSb4jAQRSawBXVYRXUB3qz6ESMACfQXsY 8Ant4pACP73Zf2jaz8nMOnc= =rd44 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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From: Doug M. <fil...@sb...> - 2002-05-02 07:14:47
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Just an FYI- I've been developing a tool/project that may be useful for this project. I'm basically ready to release an alpha version, though I'm still polishing. Its several projects really. I break it up into 3 layers. Layer 1 - VirOS - A tool that converts an installed system, and munges it onto a bootable CD. I started using bblcd, then switched to bick with the philosophy- assume 2.4 tmpfs and devfs because they are g00d. I ended up tweaking bick so much, that I rewrote a similar project from scratch. It currently doesn't support the big bick feature of booting up sparc as well as x86 (on the same CD), though with enough work, that could be added back in. My primary divergence with the bick methodology is that I optomize less for storage space, and more for ease of use. Bick uses 3 very tight C programs for its stages. I optomized this into two stages, that use (my patched version of) nash scripts. Nash scripts are just nicer to work with than no library C code. My other main improvement over bick comes in the form of a new 3rd stage, run immediately before handing off to the real /sbin/init, which does 'g00d stuff'. The main 'g00d stuff' is that it automounts readonly, all supported partitions it finds, and puts them under /mnt/local/disc?/part?. If it finds one with enough free space (say, 1G), it will automatically temporarily mount it readwrite, and dump an image of the CD there. Thus in the typical case when you have /usr (or more, viros is very flexible here) mounted from the cdrom, now these can be mounted via loop from the local disk, thus freeing up the cdrom drive for user functionality (read: ripping music). Layer 2 - Gendist_mdk82 - This is a script, which given as input a spec file, and the mandrake-8.2 source media, with *generate* a minimal installed system. Obviously for the use of handing to VirOS above. The specfile covers a few things, though mainly, it is a list of rpm's to be added with urpmi (unless requested, urpmi and its rpms are removed after they have been used to install the rpms). Thus in the spec file, you don't have to worry about dependencies, you just say "I'd like a minimal distribution, but with xmms, xmame, WindowMaker, etc...". Also simple 'patches' (i.e. sets of files to just be copied onto the system) are supported as well. Layer 3 - TVOS - As a first proof of concept app, I wanted a bootable CD that served a very narrow purpose. Turn a random spare 300MHz+ PC with 128+M ram, into a living room jukebox PC. I wanted (it works now :) a CD which boots the PC straight up into xmms, having searched the cdrom, PC's local disks, and network for music. With full screen eyecandy as the default display. I optomized this 'system' for 640x480 resolution, figuring thats what most tv-out video cards play nicest with, and that can be fed trivially to hdtv's as well. And it keeps the fonts nice and big enough to read from a couch, even if its a crap 14" monitor thats being used. IR remote controls are supported, but for now, just the kick ass ast/logitech one. Grip is also started, configured for brain dead autoripping. Autodetection - ============ Most basic funtionality here is autoconfigured. Lan (defaults to dhcp client, if 2 nics, defaults to simple masq firewall). Videocard - none of this vesafb crap, I use XFree86 -configure, with autodetection/autoinstall/autoconfigure of the binary nvidia driver. Thereby booting straight up into 3d supported if available. Sound is autodetected with sndconfig --quiet, as well as just blindly loading all modules reported by pcimodules. Mice are currently not autodetected, except that I assume a logitech/ast IR remote acting as a mouse. User Experience ============= The main goal of all this is to provide a useful system/app (living room jukebox) for the user, with absolutely no user installation/configuration required. They just drop the CD in the PC as if it were a game cd for an xbox (I would love someday for my project to run on an xbox :). Then they get a splash screen saying "system loading" (no text mode at all, just a few splash screens while loading, ala tivo). The user does have to wait awhile, as loading from CD is very very slow, and caching to the harddrive is also slow (dd if=/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 of=...). But if the CD has already been cached, it is a very quick bootup. Anyway, the loading splash screen fades to an X splash screen as the user is told "just a few seconds more" while xmms, mozilla, grip and kin are loaded into X (behind the users splash screen). For simplicity, I load each app onto its own desktop. As I personally dislike the whole *windows* aspect of GUI's, which certainly have no business on a living room jukebox TV display. Anyway, it sounds like this could be a good base for a rapid prototype (and beyond perhaps) for opencd. I'll try to get it hosed on sourceforge in the near future. Here is an example of my specfile to give you an idea- gd_mdk_basedir="/mdk82" gd_mdk_updatesdir="/mdk82-updates" gd_mdk_customdir="/root/viros/gendist/basemedia/contrib" gd_urpmilist=" devfsd file losetup pciutils bootsplash autologin lirc sndconfig emu10k1-tools aumix syslinux dhcpcd frozen-bubble tuxracer XFree86-server xinitrc xinput WindowMaker xmms xosd xmms-more-vis-plugins xmms-mesa xmovie iptables rp-pppoe mozilla grip eject gzip bzip2 openssh-clients rxvt nmap strace Mesa-demos libgcc3.0 xli urw-fonts samba-client xmame-SDL xmame-xgl " gd_patchlist=" viros hack-tvos-bootsplash nvidia uemacs tvos tvos-lirc-logitech tvos-mozilla tvos-home-hack music-acdc-back_in_black music-black_sabbath-we_sold_our_soul_for_rock_n_roll music-pink_floyd-animals music-the_doors-an_american_prayer music-tori_amos-to_venus_and_back sendxevent tvos-mameroms x10 xmms-lirc xmms-goom XmmsChannels xvkbd snake3d " gd_remove_rpm=1 gd_prunelist=" /1 /var/lib/rpm /lib/modules/2.4.18-6mdk/kernel/drivers/video/riva " |
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From: J A. F. <jaa...@ya...> - 2002-05-02 05:08:33
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[snip] --- Fireklar <fir...@ho...> wrote: Possibly Horrible Idea: Installer program that works either from a CD or just by itself. When included on the CD, it would be able to install from the CD, any of the software, optionally, software not included on the CD could be downloaded and installed by the installer. When not on a CD, it would be able to just download and install from the internet. [/snip] This is similar to Cygwin's "setup.exe" installer that is also used for XEmacs for Win32. I haven't been able to find cygwin's source, but I did look at the xemacs installer a bit. The only trick I see is that the cygwin installer expects everything in a tar.bz zipped file (I think, or something like that at least). Not all the applications we're considering are distributed this way and there are other issues too. However, I think that if we want to develop some sort of installer that can install from either CD or Internet and potentially handle future updates too, then I think we should look at the cygwin installer, if only as an example. On the other hand, many of the applications under consideration have excellent installers already developed. Do we really want to throw these out and start from scratch? Mozilla and OpenOffice have very nice installers for example. Should our installer then simply call these installers, or should we have one unified installer? I think it would be beneficial if we could discuss and set down the "design goals" of the installer itself since it will have a significant influence on how the project is set up and distributed. Several ideas have been suggested including an HTML based installer, a nice solid graphic installer, and an installer that can also download from the web and/or do future updates. All these ideas have definite pros and cons. Perhaps we need to look at what features are most important and move from there. (If this has already been discussed somewhere, please let me know.) jaaron __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com |
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From: Alex R. <tun...@pa...> - 2002-05-02 04:09:43
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Steve Mallett wrote: > > On Tuesday 30 April 2002 11:41 am, Alex Roston wrote: > > I think it would be lovely if there was some good "HOWTO" material to go > > with the programs. Do you have access to good, freely distributable > > instructional stuff? > > > > Alex > > What do you have in mind? How to: Install on Windows??? That was more or less a preliminary thought - that, for example, if we were to include the XBasic compiler, that we include more than its manual if possible - stuff like HOWTOS, sample code, etc. However, if we're going to use a "Best of Breed" approach and only include apps that are fairly transparent to end users HOWTOS are of no use whatsoever. However, I've also been considering a couple other possibilities. First, the CD could have multiple levels of install, one for end users, and another for serious geeks, along the lines of the "Custom" and "Typical" options Window's installers display. Second, (and I really like this one) the installer could include some kind of dialog which tries to pin down the users interests. What I have in mind would look vaguely like this: PRINT "Do you want an office suite?"; # or MP3 player/browser/whatever IF YES, INSTALL OPENOFFICE; PRINT "Do you like to write programs?" IF YES, DISPLAY AVAILABLE_LANGUAGESS; PRINT "Please click the programming languages you want to install." ELSE; PRINT "Do you need some network administration tools?" ETC. I think a dialogue like this might go a long way toward demonstrating OSS's commitment to easy usability. It would also allow us to include stuff that might interest budding programmers/sysadmins without making the install too intimidating. If you don't need something (or a class of somethings) one click takes it out of your life forever. As I've said before, I'm not an able programmer, but I'd be happy to write out the question tree for such a dialogue and provide whatever other text the project needs, including documentation, help, and general copy. Alex |
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From: Fireklar <fir...@ho...> - 2002-05-02 03:07:29
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<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV>Possibly Horrible Idea:</DIV> <DIV>Installer program that works either from a CD or just by itself. When included on the CD, it would be able to install from the CD, any of the software, optionally, software not included on the CD could be downloaded and installed by the installer. When not on a CD, it would be able to just download and install from the internet.<BR>The common programs would be obvious with less common, user friendly apps taking a little effort to find (clicking on "Additional Software" button or something). Each program would include a short description and an icon for easy visual recognition. I am not sure if installation should be done with a custom program or the default one. Custom is better, but, of course, harder to do. Once installation is finished, pop up a quick guide to getting started.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also, possibly as a separate program, an update mode, allowing the newest stable version to be downloaded. Maybe also have a mode to show installed software - current version, whether or not an update is available, link to some sort of manual, link to makers of the program, and the ability to uninstall. The difficulty of progamming an installer like this, and maintaining the downloadble software packages might be prohibitive.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-Fireklar</DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://g.msn.com/1HM105401/44'>http://explorer.msn.com</a>.<br></html> |
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From: Buchan M. <bg...@ca...> - 2002-05-01 23:57:38
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Hi All, Sorry I am joining the list late, but I had some other priorities (ones where the words "multiple" "failures" "RAID 1" "simultaneous" "data" "loss" come into play) .. anyway, I am here. Firstly, I made a Demoshield demo for myself about 3 years ago, to give to friends to make it easier for them to get all the good software easily. Note, this was in my days of freeware/shareware use, before I was too involved in linux/open-source stuff. I think initially it had things like Netscape, Winzip, up-to-date IE, Paint Shop Pro etc. Shortly afterwards I got involved with a company which grew out of our research lab, and I adjusted the demo for use there. More recently I have added Open Source software. I currently have two versions of the demo, once for use inside the company (including site-licensed software) and one which I give away. I am currently working on an updated demo, which will contain: -Windows 2000 SP2 (we can try and ensure their machines are at least not a hazard to the internet) -OpenOffice.org 1.0 (one for multi-user via the -net switch, one for sinlge user), with dictionary installer (needs some work to allow it to install dictionaries from the CD rather than from the net). -Mozilla 1.0rc1 (hopefully this will be 1.0.0 by tomorrow) -Netscape 4.7x (it's days are numbered in less than 2 digits, I hope) -IE6.0 -Adobe Acrobat 5.0 -JRE1.3 -Gimp, Gimp lzw plugin, Gimp GDK-fix, Gimp more plugins (from the gimp win32 site with the installers). I have also downloaded a smart-print zip file (haven't played with it yet). -PowerArchiver (version 6 was free, as opposed to Winzip which is 30-day shareware) I will make it available as soon as I have finished, I am just updating some of the graphics, and making more things work. Hopefully you guys can see it in less than 24 hours. The demo should really (IMO) just be used as a prototyping tool (although it may be a quick way to get something out). Either we must 1)Use the best tool for the job, even if it is closed-source and costs money (such as Demoshield). or 2)Use open-source software. The third option, using other proprietary software (ie VB) doesn't gain us anything. Also, from a technical point-of-view, I would: 1)Avoid VB. I may be wrong, since have only tried to distribute two arbitrary VB apps (and that was a while back), getting all the dll's in place is quite a problem. Delphi or a C++ MFC app would be better. 2)Avoid relying on the installed HTML viewer. Some machines are still stuck in the ice-age they were bought in, and still run (horror-of-horrors) IE 3.0 or Netscape <4.5. This will not be fun >From a philosophical point (we are trying to promote open-source software, aren't we), we should be using open-source software for this. Also, we might want to try and make it cross-platform at the same time (meaning Mac's for the most part, linux users don't need this anyway since we use urpmi or apt). So, my gut feel would be to go with something like wxWindows. Final point is that I am not too happy about distributing an ISO image. Most windows users don't know what an ISO image is. Most ftp mirrors carry a lot of what we are ditributing (OpenOffice, Mozilla etc). So why not: 1)Standardize on locations for the various pieces 2)Make the installer be able to install from the network, given a file containing the applicable mirrors. I am thinking, you want people to be able to download one installer, and have it do the rest for them. In this case I am thinking of a university scenario (like ours) where the mirrors are accessible for free, and most students don't have CD-writers. 3)Make the tool be able to build an up-to-date ISO image from the mirrors. Having to update ISO images because a new version of the print plugin for the Gimp has been released is a bit over-board. Anyway, that's probably enough for now, this should probably have been at least 3 seperate mails, Regards, Buchan |
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From: Imran G. <im...@bi...> - 2002-05-01 20:27:48
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On 1 May 2002, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote: > Hello all, > > Jeremy will help me set up a new (and hopefully less breakable forum > :). So, in short, we are on the case. In the meantime try the Java > chat room (just don't break it please :) > Any chance of using an IRC channel instead and using one of the Java-to-IRC applets on the site ? Imran -- http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran |
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From: Henrik N. O. <h....@bt...> - 2002-05-01 20:09:03
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Hello all, Jeremy will help me set up a new (and hopefully less breakable forum :). So, in short, we are on the case. In the meantime try the Java chat room (just don't break it please :) - Henrik -- Henrik Nilsen Omma Theoretical Physics, Oxford 35 Frenchay Road 1 Keble Road Oxford OX2 6TG Oxford OX1 3NP h....@bt... he...@th... |
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From: <mr...@ne...> - 2002-05-01 18:08:29
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Hello All, I would just like to say that the idea of this CD is very exciting and I would love to help out in any way I can. I currently do freelance design specializing in layout and logo design. Lately, I have been doing flyers, logos, ads and brochures quite a bit. I would like to volunteer to help out with the package design and any other graphic work that is needed. Thanks for your time and I look forward to seeing this idea to it's completion. Lee McLain -- Remove *NOSPAM* from email address when responding to this message! |
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From: Jeremy H. <jh...@li...> - 2002-05-01 17:46:24
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If a new forum is to be used, I highly recommend phpbb (http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpbb/) which is very nice, easy to use and robust forum. Cheers, jhise ############################################ On 01 May 2002 18:37:48 +0100 Henrik Nilsen Omma <h....@bt...> wrote: #Hello all, # #Yeah, the forum is broken, and I have no idea why ... #I'll look into it. In worst case we may need to set up a new one, but #at least the data in the original one should be stored ok. # #.henrik # # #On Wed, 2002-05-01 at 16:58, J Aaron Farr wrote: #> Greetings. #> #> I've been unable to login to the theOpenCD.org forum site all morning. Is that #> just me and my browser or is anyone else facing similar problems? I've tried #> in Mozilla, Opera, and even IE. #> #> jaaron #> #> #> __________________________________________________ #> Do You Yahoo!? #> Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness #> http://health.yahoo.com #> #-- # #Henrik Nilsen Omma Theoretical Physics, Oxford #35 Frenchay Road 1 Keble Road #Oxford OX2 6TG Oxford OX1 3NP #h....@bt... he...@th... # # # # # # # # # # |
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From: Henrik N. O. <h....@bt...> - 2002-05-01 17:41:51
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Hello all, Yeah, the forum is broken, and I have no idea why ... I'll look into it. In worst case we may need to set up a new one, but at least the data in the original one should be stored ok. .henrik On Wed, 2002-05-01 at 16:58, J Aaron Farr wrote: > Greetings. > > I've been unable to login to the theOpenCD.org forum site all morning. Is that > just me and my browser or is anyone else facing similar problems? I've tried > in Mozilla, Opera, and even IE. > > jaaron > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness > http://health.yahoo.com > -- Henrik Nilsen Omma Theoretical Physics, Oxford 35 Frenchay Road 1 Keble Road Oxford OX2 6TG Oxford OX1 3NP h....@bt... he...@th... |
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From: Jeremy H. <jh...@li...> - 2002-05-01 16:46:02
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Are there any plans to allow guest/anonymous posting to the forum any time soon? Thanks, -jhise ############################################ On Wed, 1 May 2002 08:58:09 -0700 (PDT) J Aaron Farr <jaa...@ya...> wrote: #Greetings. # #I've been unable to login to the theOpenCD.org forum site all morning. Is that #just me and my browser or is anyone else facing similar problems? I've tried #in Mozilla, Opera, and even IE. # #jaaron # # #__________________________________________________ #Do You Yahoo!? #Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness #http://health.yahoo.com # # # |
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From: J A. F. <jaa...@ya...> - 2002-05-01 15:58:09
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Greetings. I've been unable to login to the theOpenCD.org forum site all morning. Is that just me and my browser or is anyone else facing similar problems? I've tried in Mozilla, Opera, and even IE. jaaron __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com |
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From: Martin S. <bud...@bu...> - 2002-05-01 14:34:48
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In a file on the root of the CD in a file called AutoRun.inf Put the following details [AutoRun] open=whatever.exe icon=whatever.ico Replace the whatever with the relevant file and icon I would back up previous thoughts that the initial startup should be to a html page i.e. open=index.htm, this would open the web browser that has the extension registered, so if mozilla was installed and had the default extension, then it would use that. Another thing to bear in mind is which version of windows this CD will run on. It has to be bourne in mind that the CD will install apps straight off on Win9* but some applications that need to modify the registry will need administrator priviledges to install on Windows 2K, i have no personal knowledge of ME or XP may be someone else can advise on this. So windows targets include ? 95 98 NT 2000 XP - Home and Professional ? ME ? Maybe a script in the install page (index.htm) to recognise which version of Windows is being used ? and to auto refresh to the OS specific page. ie. index98.htm or index2K.htm etc. Budge -- Budgester Technologies Ltd Office : 01992 718568 Mobile : 07815 982380 mailto:ma...@bu... http://www.budgester.com |
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From: Jeremy H. <jh...@li...> - 2002-05-01 14:06:17
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Hi! I know of a guy who has been doing the FreeCD stuff (http://www.freelinuxcd.org). His name is Oktay. You should certainly talk to him about what it takes to get CD's out the door. Also, what about having actual events. I wouldn't mind standing on the street corner one saturday afternoon passing out free CD's in NYC. Any thoughts on this? Thanks! Jeremy |
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From: Dhruva B. R. <sle...@ya...> - 2002-05-01 13:27:27
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Hi all, This is the only way I could find to reach someone with this project (which I just read about on slashdot). Has anyone considered/tried going to hardware vendors and getting them to bundle the software on your CD with new machines? They would be able to add value without incurring licensing fees, giving them a competitive advantage. It would also be a great way to get your CD out to the mainstream. It's been a while since I paid the M$ tax on a new machine, but when I bought my Toshiba laptop four years ago it did not come with any kind of productivity suite. Are there still vendors who do this? I would suggest the following: -Approach any vendors who may still be selling machines without a productivity suite. -Approach your friendly neighborhood "screwdriver" shop. -Approach walmart.com. They seem more open to this sort of thing than other larger vendors. (http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/04/29/0218241.shtml?tid=7) Dhruva __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com |
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From: Steve M. <st...@op...> - 2002-05-01 12:04:52
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> It just struck me that one 'Howto' doc that would be good is a brief > explaination of what happens in the 'community' regarding 'release early, > release often'. Once we get someone hooked on open/free software we don't > want them experimenting with 'less than stable' releases. We should/can > explain that our software is release prior to a level where an average user > should even look at it for the best of everyone. I read a nice piece on > that once & will track it down today. I remember it being rather elegant. Here it is: http://jakarta.apache.org/site/understandingopensource.html It's not as elegant as I recall from an enduser's point of view. -- Steve Mallett | http://OSDir.org - Just Stable, Open Source Apps st...@op... | web...@op... http://open5ource.net <personal> "To use Linux without criticizing it is to betray it." -Clay Shirky |
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From: Steve M. <st...@op...> - 2002-05-01 11:50:31
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> I know we're trying to keep the CD targeted at the "average" computer user, > therefore compilers and whatnot may not be appropriate, however I like this > idea of "HOWTO" documentation that can help people become more familiar > with using their computer and open source software. Trying to teach someone 'how to: using their computer" will be a massive waste of your resources. Assuming the project has limited resources to produce a physical CD. We should focus on people who actually use their computers & leave basic training to teachers/lugs/community access centers etc. [snip] Alex Roston: "Agreed, certainly we don't want something that's heavy with compilers, interpreters, and other geekishness. However, a couple items like XBasic and Visual Tcl might be good starters. After all, how many of us learned to program with GW and Qbasic from the old DOS installs? Microsoft doesn't include ANY programming languages with the new distros..." I totally agree. Best of Breed will avoid the embarrassment of shipping a CD with something broken on it and having the recipient hate open and free software. Better than Stable is also a good idea. I would go so far as to perhaps test the program on a Winbox first. Perhaps even a lowend box?? Another Criteria for inclusion we might consider is the product's responses to bug reports, how helpful they are with assistance, or we could go one step further & create an IRC channel for helping those who get the CD & need help thus avoiding the product's maintainers/authors/etc with noise. It just struck me that one 'Howto' doc that would be good is a brief explaination of what happens in the 'community' regarding 'release early, release often'. Once we get someone hooked on open/free software we don't want them experimenting with 'less than stable' releases. We should/can explain that our software is release prior to a level where an average user should even look at it for the best of everyone. I read a nice piece on that once & will track it down today. I remember it being rather elegant. -- Steve Mallett | http://OSDir.org - Just Stable, Open Source Apps st...@op... | web...@op... http://open5ource.net <personal> "To use Linux without criticizing it is to betray it." -Clay Shirky |
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From: Steve M. <st...@op...> - 2002-05-01 11:35:29
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On Tuesday 30 April 2002 11:41 am, Alex Roston wrote: > Steve Mallett wrote: > > I've just read about the opencd project & wanted to let you know that I > > frickin' love it. > > > > What can I help with? > > I think it would be lovely if there was some good "HOWTO" material to go > with the programs. Do you have access to good, freely distributable > instructional stuff? > > Alex What do you have in mind? How to: Install on Windows??? -- Steve Mallett | http://OSDir.org - Just Stable, Open Source Apps st...@op... | web...@op... http://open5ource.net <personal> "To use Linux without criticizing it is to betray it." -Clay Shirky |
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From: Alex R. <tun...@pa...> - 2002-05-01 05:14:52
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> I know we're trying to keep the CD targeted at the "average" computer user, > therefore compilers and whatnot may not be appropriate, however I like this > idea of "HOWTO" documentation that can help people become more familiar with > using their computer and open source software. > > jaaron Agreed, certainly we don't want something that's heavy with compilers, interpreters, and other geekishness. However, a couple items like XBasic and Visual Tcl might be good starters. After all, how many of us learned to program with GW and Qbasic from the old DOS installs? Microsoft doesn't include ANY programming languages with the new distros... On the other hand, I've just read the whole Slashdot discussion of this idea, and I'm fairly well sold on the thought that the CD needs to be a "best of breed" kind of thing with one really useful program of each type and an easy install - perhaps the 15-20 best Open Source programs out there. I think that to really take off it should be something that bridges the gap between a box with Windows only, and a mature box with lots of apps... Imagine that you've just installed Windows and you have only that basic setup. You put the OSS CD in and ten minutes later you have an office suite, a browser, mail client, file sharing software, a really good graphics program, a couple of programming languages, an MP3 player, etc. The icons are all on your desktop and you're ready to go. No long downloads, no trips to Staples - you're done. There might also be a "custom" install, or some kind of menu that would allow the user to select/deselect additional apps which are stable and useful, but go beyond the basics. Just my .02. Alex |
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From: Dale A. <dal...@ne...> - 2002-05-01 05:02:02
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I work with doctors and their staff in computer training, consultancy and the like and have already produced a CD similar to what this project is proposing. However my CD only has a small collection of very useful utilities such as OpenOffice, Mozilla but I provide them for Linux, Mac and Windows where available. I will provide a complete listing of the software soon, but if there are any other areas I may be of assistance with (such as the installer front end, or documentation) please let me know. Dale |
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