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Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?
- Subject: Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?
- From: David Cantrell <usenet-20010705@barnyard.co.uk>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 22:42:42 +0100
- Newsgroups: alt.amiga, comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, comp.sys.amstrad.8bit, comp.sys.apple2, comp.sys.atari.8bit, comp.sys.atari.advocacy, comp.sys.atari.st, comp.sys.cbm, comp.sys.sinclair
- Organization: This space intentionally left blank
- References: <9ikva3$ple$1@nereid.worldonline.nl> <dcpskt8o93grt93kd0qpr9q3mt95oacsqk@4ax.com> <9im5nt$1dk4$1@rivage.news.be.easynet.net> <j8eukts68qfrh1lo3flmkgpe1ufpqcanbt@4ax.com> <9iovh3$kd1$1@nereid.worldonline.nl>
- Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.amiga:1507 comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:21757 comp.sys.amstrad.8bit:3661 comp.sys.apple2:10753 comp.sys.atari.8bit:6846 comp.sys.atari.advocacy:581 comp.sys.atari.st:14023 comp.sys.cbm:18297 comp.sys.sinclair:44920
On Sat, 14 Jul 2001 01:13:24 +0200, "T.J.T van Kooten"
<thomas@-nospam-worldonline.nl> said:
>David Cantrell <usenet-20010705@barnyard.co.uk> wrote in message >
>> I've been using and sysadminning Linux for the past few years, and
>> none of the distributions I've tried have been sufficiently
>> idiot-proof to put in a consumer device*. However, that doesn't mean
>> that one couldn't be created.
>>
>I've tested various distro's and for the moment Suse 7.2 comes close to your
>ideal.
Hmmm ... I don't think that any of these groups are the right place
for advocating any particular Linux distribution over another. Some
of them are, of course, the right place to maintain that the Amstrad
roXX0rs and anyone who says otherwise is an inferior lifeform :-)
However, I'll come out from under my bridge, take a nibble from your
snack, and say that I don't think SuSE is suitable because of its
woeful package management and questionable security.
The package management is fine for the sort of people using Linux
nowadays, but is inadequate for use in an appliance. In this regard,
I feel Debian comes closest - but is even less appliance-like than
SuSE in many other areas.
[replies to the above three paragraphs will be cheerfully ignored, as
I ain't interested in advocacy]
No distribution (yet) comes close to pleasing me wrt security*. In
this sort of device, the biggest enemy is not an outside hacker
(although they still need to be kept out) but the owner. He must be
prevented from breaking his toy whilst still retaining the ability to
use most of its functionality, including the ability to install
software. The fact that this would break his ability to upgrade the
system isn't that much of a problem. A boot-time option to either
come up normally or to do an upgrade from the net would be sufficient.
I have some fairly detailed ideas for how such a distribution could be
put together, but I doubt most people here are interested in such
arcana :-)
* - not even in terms of securing it as an ordinary Unix workstation,
let alone as an appliance.
--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david