On 19 Feb 2003, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

[PEM: Jason R Thorpe <thorpej@wasabisystems.com> writes:
[PEM: > And why do I need a web server installed *at all* on my workstation?
[PEM:
[PEM: I use them all the time. I'm sitting in a cafe. "Oh, you want that
[PEM: picture? Here's the URL -- just pull it across the 802.11." (I say
[PEM: this sitting in a cafe, right now, running bozohttpd and having last
[PEM: used it this way a couple of days ago.)
[PEM:
[PEM: Now you rightfully might argue "who needs that" -- but then again, why
[PEM: do you need an ftpd, or a tftpd, and you have one of both of those on
[PEM: your laptop when you're sitting in a cafe.
[PEM:
[PEM: > The same argument applies for a full-blown MTA... any "real" mail server
[PEM: > could build sendmail or postfix or qmail or exim from pkgsrc.
[PEM:
[PEM: I run a full blown MTA on every single machine I own that runs Unix.
[PEM:

Hey.  Some observations:

* This is really starting to read like a poorly-written Monty Python
  sketch.

* Isn't this sort of thing what syspkgs was set out to accomplish?

Okay, I'm a die-hard NetBSDer who's probably gonna have to learn DeadRat
Weenux to prolong his computer career.  But I digress.

One of the most convolved, yet, in the end the most usable Linuces I
have ever had the privilege (?) of using has to have been Debian.

At first it was daunting, but it was really REALLY nice once I got
used to it.  You could pick out the pieces of your system that you
wanted there.  Things like 'sendmail' satisfied any requirement of
(I think) 'mta' or 'mailer', 'apache' satisfied 'webserver' or something
to that effect.

We have a couple of options here:

1.  Install everything but deactivate what we don't want immediately; or
2.  Determine what we don't want at install time and don't install it.

#2 is better for security reasons, according to some.  I prefer #1
(and will probably be the laughing stock of hackerdom, no doubt).

If we're going to go route #2, we will need to have some sort of
dependency checking to happen at install time, such as 'nfsd', 'ftpd',
'mta', 'webserver' and the like.

Exactly how to proceed remains to be seen, but that's my suggestion,
for what it's worth.

I've heard it said that if you want a good UI design, go find a gamer.
They're not programmers, but in league with a programmer, they can
help provide a good viewpoint for a design.

The trick is finding a gamer who knows how to use a CLI, as serial
console installs are not likely to vanish anytime soon.

				--*greywolf;
--
NetBSD: Are you old enough to run it?