Why Knoppix 3.4 is delayed again ...

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I agree with probono. OO is impossible to use unless you hdinstall on a PIV! So, if you're going to drop an office suite, kill off the bigger one, KOffice or OO. I'm not sure, but I imagine its OO.

Further, I agree with keeping the CDROM format. CD drives are much more readily available for demoing Linux to noobies.

Also, games are a big hook to get noobies into Linux. So keep some games. In fact, get rid of some in preference for more LAN party style games (bzflag, freecraft, etc).

If you can make room, add nvidia drivers! Its a big hassle to run scripts everytime I do a hdinstall to get my nvidia cards working right....

Oh, and keep teTex and QLyx which are very useful!

EDIT: Oh, keep Mozilla, I love Composer!
Also, why keep 2 kernels??? Support 2.6 in KNOPPIX 3.4 and maintain KNOPPIX 3.3 with kernel 2.4 for a short transition period!

Well, that's my 2 cents.

Regards,
AJG

[farvardin]

Probably I'm biaised but I think in addition to KDE (even if I don't like it much it's useful for having access to many configuration options), some window managers like icewm could be removed. FluxBox is nice, so it should be kept, and WindowMaker is very good, clean and fast even on my old computer.

I tried AbiWord, Koffice, KWord etc..., and even if OpenOffice takes time to start, it's MUCH faster to edit long texts with it than with the others (on an AMD K6 350 mhz, 200 mhz ram). I edited a text of around 120 pages with Abiword (rtf file), and tried to work with it, the scrolling between pages was far too slow. KWord crashed when I wanted to save my rtf file, and was much slow too. OpenOffice is more reliable than the others. As I said, it's long to start, but long texts can be edited efficiently and fast once it's in memory.

3 acrobat readers are too much. Ghostview is enough since it can read postscript too.

dosemu could be included

most games should be removed, even if knoppix could include at least a few (small) games for demonstration only.

Kstar is interesting, and also useful for educational purposes (to demonstrate to other ppl an original and nice software)

joe, zile and old useless editors are not needed. Of course you can't consider a unix system without Vi. About emacs, I personally don't use it, but it's propably usefull to some pple. In console, vim is the choice, in X-window, nedit is good.

About TeX, Lyx and such, probably ppl interested in this prefer to have in on hard drive and not on a "live-cd" ? It's so huge and requires so many library (for ex. if you want to write french or german texts you needs the dedicated libraries...), so it could be removed

FireFox and ThunderBird could replace Mozilla.

Nvidia drivers could be included it seems to be a common video card.

To sum up, I think Knoppix should be usable both on old and new computers (don't make it boot in 1200x... resolutions, and on DVD only... we still want to use our cdrom players), and oriented for an "office" usage (writing texts, using spreadsheets, going on internet, using emails, listening to / recording music, viewing / editing vector, 3d and bitmap graphics, maybe programming too...).
Some scientific tools should be included as well.

[farvardin]

Forgive my asking - why not consider the high density CDs (800MB)? If the ISO is 765 or even 785 MB, it would still fit in one of these...

many old cdrom players can't run high density CDs.

About the space problem, why not include a modular compressed file with around 60 / 120 (or more ) extra megabytes for putting on an usb key ? For example there could be a 3d pack, with extra 3d applications, a game pack, a music pack (with trackers, soundrecorders, sequencers), etc.
I don't know if it's technically possible, and i don't have any usb key, but it could solve some of this space problem, and give some modularity to ppl who would like this ? Also while keeping a regular "knoppix" core for most users, those extra packs could be developped separately by fans of thoses special topics.

[TyphoonMentat]

Just wanted to make a small point about an addition here - nano. I haven't tried any of the releases in the last month or two, so I'm unaware if it's been included or not.
I use joe instead, and it gets quite annoying when it makes lines flow to the next one, and then you have all those pesky backup files it creates as well. Nano's much more intuitive - it's great for simple admin tasks as it's quick and hassle-free.

[peterx2]

I vote for removing Koffiice and Mozilla. Mozilla is easily loaded and is pretty time sensitive. As long as Konquerer is present, tailoring the system is easy. Kpackage may also be superflous. I use synaptic as it presents a good picture.
Alternatively consider the Mepis route of a second disk of stuff, possibly KDE. once XFree is working most stuff is easily added although KDE is a big one for 56k. (I live in the country.)
pete

[coolmos]

To me, Knoppix should stay a CD based distribution. That is the only way to keep the huge userbase.

Removing applications could be done, but somehow i think you would alienate some users, whatever you choose.

The only way is to drop the 2.4 kernel. People who NEED the 2.4 kernel can use version 3.3 (or the Ct version). But to keep old kernels while Linux moves on is not good. 2.6 is a huge improvement.

I don't know if the kernel takes 65MB though. If that's not enough, drop some of the things that are double (office, editors, Acrobat Reader). If people already using Knoppix need that, they will get it. People new to Knoppix will get used to this new standard.

Please PLEASE do not drop the games. It is very useful to show the diversity of apps in Linux, and the quality in that.

[DinB]

As a real newbie here are my thoughts

drop koffice, keep it as a CD distro, only have the 2.6 kernel and drop the lesser used duplications, you are not going to satisfy every one, but this thread will probably give the team a good idea of what is considered unnecessary.

[wooac]

Is there anyway to setup a minimal version of knoppix to remaster
on the fly? The steps would be

1. Boot into minimal knoppix.
2. Mount temporary disk space
3. Present the user a list of possible packages available over the net.
Let him select until reaching 700MB.
4. Remaster Knoppix.
5. Burn the CD.
6. Reboot but tell the user to remove the original CD.

Then everyone could have just the packages they want or don't want.

Alex

[hkfczrqj]

Now people can download any utilities, office software, games, etc. they want and install them with the live-cd into the ramdisk.
Let the resulting download statistics tell you what the majority of people want.

That seems a good solution, BUT I know a LOT of people who use knoppix on systems that don't have Internet access (or that use dial-up, and can't download big programs), and can't do a HD install...

The TeX issue... I use it, but I mostly use a remastered version of knoppix (Quantian) which includes a more complete TeX system. I won't miss it in knoppix. And, the faster the new knoppix is ready, the faster the remastered versions will update

[Hasse]

REMOVE:
kde-i18n-* (keep the relevant english/german ones)
All games, except Mahjong & frozen-bubble
koffice
gnumeric

If anybody would like Knoppix in their language, set up different versions similar to the german & english version. The i18n files take a lot of space, and whe can skip italian, spanish and so on.

Oh! Add icons to the menus for applications on disc, like nedit, xeyes and so on.