Re: Make that "Everything" I've asked for...

dsavage@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

This message is addressed to those who configure the anaconda installers
for FC3 and RHEL distributions:

When I set up a new system for myself I usually choose an "Everything"
install. Before I make that selection, I've also chosen U.S. English as my
default language, keyboard, etc. But what I end up with is a system with
internationalization support for what seems to be every language and
character set in the known world. I'm sure those things are keenly desired
by those who use them and should be readily available to those who want
them, but for most users they take up unnecessary disk space and bog down
updates with stuff they'll never use.

Now I see that the OpenOffice.org i18n internationalization package is
being broken up into dozens of smaller ones. In my opinion this is a giant
step sideways that will do nothing to reduce disk space consumption or
update channel bandwidth, since there's no way to avoid installing those
aspects of  "everything" in the first place. The only way to do that is to
go through one's installed rpms list and manually delete all the unwanted
internationalization stuff.

I would like to ask for a different installation default for anaconda:
Unless I expressly select all languages during an initial installation,
the "Everything" package pick choice should be narrowed to eliminate all
the internationalization packages I did not select.

-- Doc
Robert G. (Doc) Savage, BSE(EE), CISSP, RHCE | Fairview Heights, IL
Fedora Core 3 kernel 2.6.10-1.766_FC3 on a P-III/M IBM Thinkpad A22p
"Perfection is the enemy of good enough."
                        -- Admiral of the Fleet Sergei G. Gorshkov

I agree with this -- language support is extremely complex and is something that ought to be separated out from the "Everything" install option because the user is only going to want to choose a few languages at most and that should be a distinctly separate installation option. In fact, the support for requesting specific language support is already in anaconda. An "Everything" install should mean "Everything except the languages you did NOT explicitly request at the start of the installation."

Know one knows 100 languages....so why waste disk space and update bandwidth on languages the user does not want.

Bob