[Gnumed-devel] Live Media

[Sebastian Hilbert]

Hi all,

Take a look at
http://bornkessel.com/kesselblog/?p=30

given that I am constantly trying to keep up with providing recent versions of 
GNUmed as live media let me compare the solutions for openSUSE and Debian

backend
openSUSE : kiwi 
Debian: Live-helper

both are script based available for the command line. live-helper has been a 
moving target for me. I have not tried kiwi in a while. This reflects my 
personal very biased view and I am looking for comments. A year back both 
solutions were barely usable (for me).

frontend:
openSUSE: private beta openSUSE studio (unclear when they will open it)
Debian: I am not aware of any

non-standard repositories
openSUSE: all packages in openSUSE buildservice can be included
Debian: a custom sources list for apt needs to be carefully crafted

custom files
openSUSE: can be added via webinterface
Debian: can be manually supplied in target directories, it is kind of hard for 
me to track when changes need to happen 

building
openSUSE: compilation in multiple formats server side
Debian: available in multiple formats but kind of hard to produce for me, did 
not bother with anything but iso image

testing
openSUSE: can be tested server side inside the browser
Debian: needs to be downloaded and fed to some virtualization solution as 
virtual or physical CD

sharing
openSUSE: supposedly available via their servers
Debian: needs to be hosted by us

In short I think live-helper has come a long way. It is now usable for me in a 
way that I can keep up with providing CD images for GNUmed. UI-wise I think 
Novell has put some effort into Studio. I suppose it should be possible to 
reuse the studio ui and plug in live-helper in as the backend.

Here are some things I would like to see covered from the GNUmed perspective.

1.) ease of use when simply updating the package list such as a new GNUmed 
release
2.) point and click switching between USB, CD, network media
3.) One media for 1) live demoing 2) installing of the image to a harddisk 3) 
installing the software to the system.

Issue 3.3 is especially close to my heart. If you put the CD/media into a OS 
of your choice there should be an option to install GNUmed.

I envision something like placing local repositories for Debian , openSUSE, 
Windows on the CD. A webpage would detect the OS (just like our download 
pages do) and of the installation of the software and its dependencies. 

In that case a user needs just one DVD for evaluating GNUmed, deciding to 
install the software along with the OS  (the Debian or openSUSE image) or 
simply install the software in the already installed OS.

In a quest to reduce my workload and provide GNUmed to a wider audience any 
comments are appreciated.

-- 
Sebastian Hilbert 
Leipzig / Germany
[www.gnumed.de]  -> PGP welcome, HTML ->/dev/null