Common remasters/meta-extensions for better user uptake:

[tinycorenoob]

Laptop/Desktop remasters with all the apps a user would need would be an amazing addition to TC.

As fun as customizing my very own TC, I do indeed like using it and the amount of time that it took me to customize it and get a variety of apps going was just a tad bit too long.

As much as I understand the fun that hacking around with a system is, I'm not sure that everyone might. And the only thing stopping tinycore from being widely used is the lack of a version which just dumps a few killer apps in it. As in cmd-line IRC/IM (Finch/Centerim), Firefox/Elinks/Chimera, Leafpad, XFE/MC, getFlash10 etc. - list your killer apps in any post so that I get a better idea - these are the ones I used from appbrowser.

^thehatsrule^ stated on IRC that a metaextension might be the better way to go - as it follows on the frugal design of TC but allows users that like the OS to get up and running - and using TC in a short amount of time.

Leading to more users, hence more bug discovery (people get annoyed), hence more bug reporting, and in turn a greater number of bugs being fixed and more documentation being created (WIN-WIN no).

Yes a one size fits all metaextension or remaster is not exactly following the design principals of this OS, but who can say that they don't use the above applications?

Perhaps call it easy TC; a metaextension with all the common apps I know all of us use and the frugal install.

What do you think? Correct me if any of my above assumptions are incorrect.

[curaga]

I wouldn't be against it if someone created those, but wouldn't use those either Guess customization is too deep within by now.
The metaextension concept is close to what we early thought of as collections. Maybe it would be best to create a new category for those, instead of adding to the standard repo. Making it easier to find them, and not clutter the extension repo.

Fighting over the defaults of one collection should not happen, since it's rather easy to create your own.

The advantage of a collection over a remaster is that of updated extensions. If I boot the latest TC, set the tce dir somewhere, and grab a collection, I get the latest extensions, unlike with a remaster, which might have an old TC as well.

[thane]

There are other distros (e.g. Puppy Linux) which (as you suggest) offer various combinations of applications more or less "off the shelf".

Personally, what attracted me to TCL WAS its extreme customization feature. I could decide for myself what applications I wanted. I'm not at all sure we can make those decisions for each other. One man's killer app is another man's bloat.

There's certainly nothing wrong with current TCL users listing the applications they've found useful, as a guide to others who are trying out TCL. But it only takes a few minutes for each user to download whatever apps he/she wants. I don't think offering remasters would save anyone much time.

My two cents.

edit: Actually, one metaextension that I would use would be one containing the various gtk2 libraries. So many apps depend on this set of extensions that it might make sense to look into combining them.

[tinycorenoob]

Looks like a TC startup metaextension/collection using TCZ would be the most efficient ways to get a TC up and running. Perhaps sticking together a variety of cmd apps that would come in well under 10-20mb would be the way to go (nano/chimera/weechat-curses) or the gtk2 libraries that thane stated above.

Without extensions TC can't do too much for any user including us frugal TC users. And the fact that it such a collection would be well under any competing distro (see Slitaz), it doesn't go against the design principles of TC. TC is meant to just work and be good at what it does - boot, load WM, connect eth0 and wait. So a TC startup metaextension would be the same thing - install (TCZ - wouldn't slow down boot up too much as only a few apps such as filemanager/txt editor/browser/im are included) and bang you have got yourself a fully running system with the apps I know most of you use in under 30 mb (meta+base).

Yes it "bloats" TC on the disk, but how much RAM does any TCZ take on boot up (not much). Such an extension would cause more people to adopt/use/review the system if, say there is only one thing they have to do to install the main apps that the majority of us use.

And if such a metaextension could come under the main development of TC - wouldn't we get more up to date extensions than otherwise?

Maybe I'm wrong, but whats wrong with giving TC the ability to, in a couple of clicks, get the majority of apps that we all have. TC just needs to work and work fast - TCZ metaextension with the apps we all use would allow it to do that, and allow a newcomer to do more with the system. Perhaps we need a poll or something - a list of the most downloaded apps - and how many TC users use them.

[tclfan]

Tinycorenoob:
Although I see some users would like a system with some pre-packaged applications ready to go, I see the unique strength TC has the wat it is now: strictly modular architecture to build anything you want on top, without including anything not necessary.  Since it is running entirely in memory, the user needs to be aware of this and not load the whole bunch of useless applications, since it wastes memeory. E.g. if I want to build a system dedicated to internet browsing I just install Opera. Such LiveCD would be able to run with minimal memory requirement, on about just any machine. If I put together a system for such specific purpose, then even loading a file manager could be unnecessary and useless bloat.
This is my personal opinion as TC end user, not a developer, so this architectural wisdom of TC is not just a developer's fancy but reflects a growing need for a modular architecture system, such as TC the way it is.

[tclfan]

And just to add, I had been using other systems, such as SliTaz, Austrumi, ZenwalkLive, etc.  Only Slitaz is somewhat modular and it is well done, and used for quite some time, but eventually I found TC strictly modular architecture a key asset I do not find elsewhere...
Have you tried Kolibri? That is a system written in Assembler (light fast!) and has  a bunch of applications packaged along with the system, all in 4M...