Ethereal

[Oren Beck]

On 1/25/07, Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins at tarcanfel.org> wrote:
> I've seem someone - I'm pretty sure it's the same person - complain about
> another distro besides DSL because he had to look for Ethereal instead of it
> being installed by default.  He makes it appear that he finds Ethereal to be
> an essential tool in his daily use of Linux.
>
> I seriously doubt that this is the case, or he wouldn't be talking about using
> it from a Live CD.  In real life, Ethereal tends to accumulate large data
> files that could easily overwhelm a system running entirely from RAM and CD.
>
> Introducing it to a discussion of compact OSs for low-end hardware is
> completely spurious, and suggests that there isn't a real debate going on
> here, just someone taking aim at whatever he can knock, for whatever reason.
>


Skipping the Ethereal issue I will try closing my concept path this way.
Craft the minimum overhead CD to provide a GUI net connect and
browser, Then use anything left in system resources to either improve
that usability or cautiously add functions? Examples to me would be
this:

Zero level build- hardware detection, network configuration scripts, a
most skeletal GUI browser with configure as "pages". Everything else
is done on either a local LAN server or "the net"  For many daily uses
this is IT.

A bit more functionality- this gets a bit harder to decide, Spell
check locally or a full word processor seems trivial in footprint but
comment is appreciated here.  After that choice are we beyond  a thin
client zone?



Ok, last steps to examine- do we go for audio alone or is VOIP even
thinkable? As in if we have USB what does it take to run the Vonage
dongle? An encrypted VOIP to keep script kiddie level hackers from
overhearing where you hid that spare door key? Do consider that last
one as a "full system resources hog" mode on lower end hardware.

All of my scenarios are to pick brains for getting such projects
either assembled by others or getting directed myself to do these
things.