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Message-Id: <004801c242c7$fe001aa0$3864a8c0@sabeo.ie>
From: "Matthew French" <mfrench42@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "Brian O'Donoghue" <Brian.ODonoghue@kbs.ie>, <ilug@linux.ie>
References: <55DA5264CE16D41186F600D0B74D6B0924727A@KBS01>
Subject: Re: [ILUG] SUSE 8 disks? (thread changed slightly)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 13:50:22 +0100
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Brian O'Donoghue asked:
> > Of course, it would require a minimum of EUR300,000 in funding
>
> It would?

Well, yes, if I were to add all the frilly pink bits and the crunchy
chocolate flavoured pieces... :)

Seriously, I can only see two reasons to start another distro: you have
something fundamentally different to offer, or you are customising an
existing distro for an unusual and specific situation. Between
Mandrake/YellowDog, RedHat/SuSe and Debian you have enough options to cover
most day-to-day requirements. And a lot of the specific situations are
already covered (smoothwall, familiar, etc.)

Therefore, if I were to create a new Linux distribution, I would have to
spend time crafting it so that it offers a lot more than existing
alternatives. My requirements normally involve better support/easier
maintenance, and if one follows the logic through, this would require a
company to be behind such an initiative.

I imagine it would be possible to create a new distribution in about one
week[1]. For example: take Debian as your base, slap a specific set of
packages on CD, change a few config files, mention that it has been untested
on most hardware variations, and voila, a "new" distie. :)

- Matthew

[1] That is, IT weeks. 1 IT week ~= two months. :)


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