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Alan Dayley wrote:
| There are two, well, three decision points here.
|
| 1-Do we really want a preferred distro?
I think it's a good thing, but maybe not a PLUG thing.  Maybe this
becomes an AZOTO issue.

| 2-If so, which distro?
That is to be decided if (1) is decided.  I think the only two worth
really considering are Debian and Red Hat.  I will list briefly my
problems with other distros (for this purpose)...

Mandrake - The company is on shakey ground.  We want to make sure we are
suggesting something that is strong in the market place (community)

SuSE/Lindows - Too much non-free stuff. (Don't sufficiently value
Freedom) **note SuSE is a great distro please no flames

Xandros/Lycoris/Etc - Not enough peneration for support outside the LUG

Gentoo - Compiling is not user friendly

*BSD - Non-GPL kernel (no flames please thats another thread) **note
there are several GREAT BSD distro's, if you haven't tried one you should

| 3-And thereafter, which desktop?
|
| (Maybe the 3 falls out of 2 since most distros have a default or
| preferred desktop already.)

I think 3 is less important.  I would say use the default desktop of the
distro, but install others so people have ability to "play" if they so
desire.

| If someone buys into 1, they must do so understanding that their
| personally preferred distro may not be picked at 2.  ie. no sour grapes
| at 2 if you agreed to 1.

Absolutely.  I have stated even if it's not Debian (my choice) we still
need it.  The only choices I could not tolerate would be one's that
infringe grossly on freedom (like say Lindows)

| On the other hand (and to throw more fuel on the debate), does the
| entire group need to decide this?  Other groups have a designated

No not necessarily, but it's interesting to hear feedback here, from
newbies and non newbies a like.

| support coordinator who leads a group of voluteers on support issues.
| That sub-group could decide on the preference based on their own reasons
| (see http://lugod.org/projects/lert/).  Maybe this is something better
| under the direct supervision of AZOTO and PLUG just follows what the
| AZOTO support group decides.  AZOTO could accept $ donations for timely
| assistance.  PLUG has no structure or mechanism for donations.

Since PLUG has no "structure" to make decisions, short of a steering
committee, it makes a certain amount of sense to maybe make it an AZOTO
thing.  It will be nice once AZOTO is sufficiently organized enough to
do membership and get the members involved. :)

- -Derek Neighbors
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