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

[Peter Robinson]

>>> > 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.

Quite clearly you've not used one of the Fedora Live CDs. Which BTW
are what the SoaS ones are based on and use exactly the same process
as the Fedora LiveCDs except with a different list of packages. It
works perfectly and I've used them on everything from a NetBook right
through to a 32 Core, 256Gb RAM Enterprise server.

> 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.

Its uses udev and hal in exactly the same way that every other distro
does. There is no difference. X autoconfig works very well and is the
default for every X driver in Fedora now and has been since F10. Even
the geode drive supports this.

>>> 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.]

Actually your wrong there as well. The Fedora 11 live CD uses ext4
which is the same default as a proper F-11 install. In fact if you do
a install from LiveCD you'll notice that you can't actually select the
FS of the root partition as it basically dds the FS out to disk.

> 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.

Your wrong there as well. selinux and all the standard stuff is
enabled on their livecd as well. The only difference is the live user
setup for autologin, which is disabled if you install to disk. It
doesn't need to be autologin either, it can be a required login as per
a standard distro, this is configured when the live cd is built.

>> 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.

I don't understand the whole need of calling it "portable" and
"transportable", in fact I don't even really like the SoaS name
either. Most people look at you blankly when you mention Sugar on a
Stick.

Peter