Victor Chew wrote:
... the latest version of ...
Let's be clear when we refer to (latest) versions under Linux. For instance, "latest" could mean "latest from current normal repo", or "latest from experimental repo", or "latest stable from upstream", or "latest from upstream development branch".
Victor Chew wrote:
What are the pitfalls on taking this route?
Several thoughts for discussion.
_ Would this customized Debian Live include or allow package management? How _exactly_ the user could customize it? The answers to these two question are *very* important.
_ When a problem would arise in this customized Debian Live, should the user expect support and/or maintenance from UBCD?
_ What's the size of the ISO (not including UBCD)?
_ How many resources this customized Debian Live would require? For instance, just to boot into LXDE, how much minimum RAM and time would be required, without using any aids (such as swap)? (BTW, this is one obstacle for SysRescueCD, and also for PMagic for the last 2 years or so).
_Have you tried *other* alternatives?
The following comment is not going to be a surprise: I am using Porteus 3.0 RC2 LXDE i486 (the stable is out, but I am waiting for some last-minute issues to be solved too). I test it in a VM with 384MB of RAM, PIII CPU, with optional modules from pmagic (I only load them when I need them).
Since UBCD has been using PMagic for several years, I want to give an example of how things could had been different, as a way to show how things could be different for UBCD in the future.
For PMagic, instead of "bloating" the main squash file, it could had been maintained (by its team, not related to UBCD) in "minimal" state, and the "additional packages" could had been “optional additional separated modules” (which are now also squash files). The user could had been more in control, and required less resources. (BTW, this is still possible, thanks to GPL, but I seriously doubt anyone wants to take such path.)
So, back to a customized Debian Live, it could be a "rolling release" based on Debian unstable or Debian experimental, or instead it could be based on Debian "old stable". Or it could be "just a snapshot", without playing with active repositories and updates. These are intended only as examples of how much the future could differ depending on how a customized Debian Live is built, or depending on which distro is used (instead of Debian).