[SoaS] [Marketing] Generating a list of SoaS spins

[Bill Bogstad]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:08 PM, Martin Dengler
<martin at martindengler.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 08:22:34PM -0400, Bill Bogstad wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Martin Dengler
>> <martin at martindengler.com> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:22:56PM -0400, Mel Chua wrote:
>> >> And yep. I think that keeping track of other Sugar liveUSB
>> >> implementations is going to help this, because that way we can keep
>> >> track of naming. ("Sugar liveUSB implementations" is a much better
>> >> term than "SoaS spins," which was the term I was using because I
>> >> couldn't think of any others.)
>> >
>> > Perhaps "Sugar live images" would be better?  They're not just for USB
>> > devices.
>> >
>> > Actually, the only distinguishing factor I can see (besides being
>> > talked about far more than they're tested ;)) is that they were
>> > originally designed to run from read-only media but now cannot.
>>
>> I see two other possible common factors:
>>
>> 1. They are designed to auto discover/configure their hardware/network
>> access at every boot.
>
> So is every modern major linux distro's default install.

Sure they all try to do their best at auto discovery WHEN you install
them.  To a greater or lesser extent, they then hard code
the results of that discovery process.  A truly portable/transportable
(i.e. live) system can NOT ever do this.  Nor can its developers rely
on users doing manual configuration for the myriad corner cases.

Unfortunately, it seems like most of the current live systems just
re-run the standard auto discovery software at every boot and hope for
the best.   If sound doesn't work it's not that big a deal.
Unaccelerated graphics is fine since I'm not  really going to use that
environment for long.  My impression is that networking is
important/easy enough that it tends to work although
wireless can still be problematic.

>> 2. They are designed to run from what is usually thought of as
>> removable media (this is either a result of or the reason for #1)
>
> How so?  /etc/init.d/livesys* is all I can think of, and that's not
> necessary these days.

A default Fedora install (as compared to a Live USB/CD) doesn't use
the same filesystems.  Some of that is space, some of that is concerns
about flash failure modes, some of that is (or will be) about the
inherent differences in performance characteristics between rotating
platters and USB flash. [Internal SSDs are similar enough to USB flash
that at least some of these issues are going to be dealt with in
non-portable environments as well.]

Portable/Live Linux systems tend to have different security models.
Account names and passwords just slow down the boot and you are going
to take it with you when you leave the room for very long anyway.   I
think many more people have passwords on their laptops then they do on
any Live USB installs and I don't think this is just because for many
of them the Live USB is a bit of a toy.  If it's small enough to fit
in my pocket then I don't need a password for it anymore then I need
one for my house keys.

> Could be - though to me "portable" and "transportable" are saying the
> same thing.

For me, portable has some connotations of being less capable.  But
either term will work for me.

Bill Bogstad