[Wolves] Ubuntu Derivatives

[Alan Pope]

On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 02:29:09PM +0100, Peter Cannon wrote:
> On Tuesday 15 August 2006 14:09, Alan Pope wrote:
> 
> > There you go, same kind of thing as Debian, 5 CDs plus an add-on CD.
> >
> > With Ubuntu you get one CD (for your release of choice).
> 
> Hold the phone, this is a totally differnet issue this is about "Ubuntu is 
> better because theres less CD's"
> 

I never said that. I was merely pointing out that if Ubuntu strives for its
ideals which appear to include being accessible to many people no matter
what their hardware then making it available on one cd, not a dvd, and not
lots of CDs helps to attain that goal.

> > If they continue to stick to the "one cd per release" then they're never
> > going to have room for ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu on one CD are they?
> 
> So why not do an Ubuntu base CD with KDE & Gnome on another CD?

Complexity. The live CD boots to a desktop that Joe-Idiot-User can quickly
and easily be "used" or "installed". How would that be easy to do with the
distro spread over a number of CDs.

> and before you 
> say cost that's silly because there is already loads of different CD's 
> available.
> 

I wasn't going to say cost, but now you come to mention it AIUI the shipit
system is one of the single biggest costs Canonical have! 

> Um so are you saying the only differentiating factor from the rest of the  
> herd is the fact that Ubuntu comes on 1 CD? I honestly don't think you 
> believe that?
> 

I never said that, and don't believe it, no.

But look at the facts. A user can try Ubuntu out from *one* convenient CD
sent to them for free in the post. If they like it they can go through the
easy graphical setup procedure and get pretty much the same content as the
Live CD installed in under an hour.

Can you do that on any PC if it was a) a DVD, b) spread over a number of CDs?

No. So it's a differentiator, but it's not the biggest selling point. 

Cheers,
Al.