Why I can't recommend Arch or Gentoo

[John G Heim]

Good point. I'd say perhaps that the  real problem wouldn't be that 
these machines have CD-ROM drives but rather  that a lot of older 
machines won't boot from a USB stick.  My scanner machine is like that. 
I have a linux machine with an ISA hardware speech synth and a SCSI 
flatbed scanner attached and it won't boot from a thumb drive.  I would 
hate to give up that machine.


On the other hand, I think it is reasonable for the developers of 
talking arch to say that they can't be all things to all people. You 
will just have to use another flavor of linux.


On 09/22/2015 09:07 AM, Karen Lewellen wrote:
> Just an aside on the cd media  issue.
> Perhaps you have not considered that Linux is not simply a north
> American effort.  additionally even in North America, a person just
> starting out with  Linux might get their hardware second hand.  for
> example from any of the many freecycle groups around the globe.
> Those machines will still use cds, which is why they are second hand.
> You can  still purchase blank cd media as well.
> So do you really want to prevent a person from trying this distribution
> if they are starting at the bottom based on the thinking of those who
> have used it for a while?
> I am simply speaking in general here.  If I were making this decision, I
> would keep a cd simply because  there can still be an audience for it.
> Just my totally from the sidelines thought.
> Karen
>
>
> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015, Tony Baechler wrote:
>
>> I'm not going to quote Kyle's very long reply here, but I'll address
>> the highlights:
>>
>> 1. No, I wasn't complaining.  I was simply pointing out observations.
>> I apologize if it came across as complaining, but I tried to keep
>> things as unbiased as possible.
>>
>> 2. My live CD is meant as a rescue CD since there currently isn't a
>> Debian rescue CD, let alone a talking one.  One can install it to a
>> hard drive if they wish, but that's not the purpose.  As I also
>> mentioned but you failed to address, Debian is eventually going to get
>> this fixed and it will talk, so there will be no need for my CD.
>>
>> 3. I was not complaining about or requesting CD media.  Some people
>> have mentioned this and older machines might not have DVD readers.
>> That's it. Personally, I agree with you that CD media is probably no
>> longer necessary.
>>  My live CD is at the max of 700 MB now and is still missing packages
>> I want to add.  I'm faced with the choice of freezing development or
>> growing to DVD media.
>>
>> No, I won't join your IRC channel and no, I won't bother with the
>> sound card issue.  It is a Sound Blaster Audigy and the issue has been
>> fixed in Debian, so borrow their ALSA configuration.  I did read the
>> blog before downloading the CD image several months back.  Eventually,
>> I'll take another look at Arch, but not for a while.
>>
>> Finally, not once did I say Arch is bad or what you're doing is bad.
>> I have suggested Talking Arch a few times, but people weren't
>> interested.  For the few people who only want the console for whatever
>> reason, Arch is a good alternative and I didn't say otherwise.  I
>> simply pointed out why I personally can't recommend it.  I look at
>> several issues, such as what I previously mentioned.  There is no
>> public bug tracker specific to Talking Arch, there are only two
>> developers, support email didn't get answered, etc.
>>  That is understandable given the volunteer nature of the project, but
>> does unfortunately mean I can't recommend it to the masses.  I'm never
>> close-minded, so when you feel this issues have been addressed, please
>> post here or contact me and I'll take another look.
>>
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-- 
John Heim, jheim at math.wisc.edu, skype:john.g.heim