[Mageia-discuss] Handbooks - the lot

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2012/4/11 Olav Vitters <olav at vitters.nl>:
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 02:23:36PM +0200, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
>> > Seems you're just repeating what I suggested: if there is a need, check
>> > if it can be possible.
>>
>> Hmm, Obviously we are talking about different things. I thought I
>> clearly showed that there is a need and that the topic of thei thread
>> is to find a solution.
>
> The thread is just a request to exclude documentation. IMO the real need
> is unclear (not only disk space apparently). If you fulfill every
> request right away, you'll end up with a lot of options. Better to
> analyse why something is asked and provide that. Gives a better
> experience than just another option somewhere.
>
>> > At the moment the only concern seems to be disk space. If that is the
>> > only reason, just do it automatically and/or have a special disk space
>> > concious section. Fully analysing why to exclude would allow that will
>> > ensure it is there when expected, instead of just being an option you
>> > have to search for.
>>
>> No, disk space is not the only reason but the most prominent. For the
>> rest of this paragraph I have no clue what you are talking about.
>> Either it's the language barrier or maybe my lack of tech
>> understanding.
>
> I mean that is is better to know more than "exclude documentation". That
> is just a request, but I don't get why it is made. E.g. if the sole
> reason would be to minimize disk space, then the most logical thing is
> to include this where disk space is handled.
>
> I'm not talking technical, but more use cases.
>
> E.g. yesterday one of my disks was full. I could easily resolve, but
> once you understand that one of the reasons for the exclusion of
> documentation is disk space, then you can put intelligence to exclude
> documentation not only in the Mageia installer, but also in the
> notification of not enough disk space (you could have an option to
> remove the documentation on disk). Similarly, if I move to a bigger
> disk, I might want to easily reinstall the documentation that was
> manually removed.
>
> Now if the only possibility to exclude documentation was in the Mageia
> installer, then such an installer option doesn't really help when you
> lack disk space later on.
>
> Hope you're getting what I am after.
>
> Btw: I am not trying to do anything near "stop energy", just want to
> understand the use case better. The "why" is what I am after.

Yes, I see, thx for clarification.

Now, we have several use cases here:

1 - disk is small (I have a netbook with a 4Gb SSD), I don't want to
waste space for ballast.
2 - disk is small, I don't want to waste space for ballast but I want
some handbooks and/or some documentation (meaning I can mark the
handbook I want and leave out all others)
3 - disk space is no issue but I do not want to bloat the installation
and only want the software installed which I really use.
4 - disk space is no issue but I want to save download ressources when
doing updates with rpmdrake (where you can't just say '--no-suggests')
5 - disk space becomes an issue later so I want to remove all the
handbooks with rpmdrake but not the applications themselves. And I
don't want to go 'rpm -e -nodeps' for each and every single handbook

I am sure there are more use cases, for me the need for a small
installation was the small SSD in the netbook but I also think as #3

-- 
wobo