On Thu, 2003-08-21 at 09:09, Bill Rugolsky Jr. wrote:
On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 09:38:09AM -0400, Jef Spaleta wrote:
File it as a bug! Or maybe you want to step up and be part of a worthwhile discussion as to re-working of the existing minimal install option. Since it seems its really a more a matter of how the packages are grouped and which groups a minimal install actually installs..its more a policy issue than an expert coding issue. This seems like something we can have a nice lovely little community discussion about...instead of just poking repeatedly at the anaconda maintainer to remove this one package here...or this one other package..or maybe add this one package to minimal. And its certainly a better idea to fix the current minimal install offering than adding another minimal minimal layer beyond the "broken" minimal.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-beta-list/2003-July/msg00569.html
This discussion always tends to conflate different notions of "minimal".
The question is "minimal" w.r.t what criterion? Is it the bare list of packages necessary to get to a login prompt on a standalone machine? Is it a networked host? Is documentation included? Manpages? Info files? /usr/share/doc?
In general, I could agree with this. However, the description on Minimal states "for small router/firewall boxes" which gives us a reasonable expectation.
IMO, part of the problem is that selecting the minimal install there are so many required packages that most firewalls will not need, and some that all firewalls should not have.
IMO, a firewall installation ("minimal") is pretty darned close to a minimal network-ready install. One certainly could use it (after the changes I proposed in another email) as a bootstrap for network add-ons.
Install the minimal, then install yum (or add yum during install), then yum-away. Then create a kickstart config file. Or, select the Minimal, then add individual packages.
Oh, and for those who say "just install and remove... then make a kickstart"...
The problem with the "just install and remove then make a kickstart file" mentality is the "and remove" section. Remove foo and find it relies on bar, eggs, bacon, and spam. So if in the package tool during installation, you have to backtrack and find all these other dependencies and remove them, then try again. It is easier to build then remove.