OK, here's what I think SuSE would benefit from including. I'm leaving out glibc and gnome, but those would be #1 of course. I hope SuSE's relationship, if any, with kde doesn't keep them from backing gnome. After a month of getting the gnome mailing list I can honestly say I'm excited about the prospects. Never have I seen such an active and productive list. You can't help but feel that gnome will be important in the future of the linux desktop.:
I agree.
1. StarOffice- this is free, unlike Corel and Applix, and a nice office suite to boot. Does Stardivision have an agreement with Caldera that prevents other dists from including it?
I believe that Caldera *does* have an exclusive with them. Also, it's not "free" for commercial use so I think Star Division only wants to deal with distributors on a royalty basis per copy that they sell so that they are assured of the revenue from companies that buy the Linux distro (ie if a company pays $50 for a Linux distro and SO is on there they are going to assume they can just use it and not pay).
2. Automake 1.3 3. Libtool 1.2
You want those so you can build Gnome. :-)
4. Xenon- an excellent and lightweight text editor for x...think notepad for linux. Very cool.
Got a URL handy?
5. Poptart- a POP mail retrieval program that is infinitely easier for linux newbies to figure out compared to the included alternatives.
Is it easier than fetchmail? I can't imagine it is unless it includes a GUI for setup or something. Care to give us a comparison?
8. Games Doom
Doom can't be shipped in Germany. It's illegal.
Xmame- the best emulator is finally as good in linux as in win95.
Well, of course I'm speaking for RH here, but Xmame is dangerous at best. For one, to come close to legally shipping it you can't ship any ROM images. That makes it pretty useless without the user having to go download stuff anyway (and at that point they could just download Xmame while they're at it). For another, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Sure, I'm in the US so we have to be more scared of that than in most other *sane* places, but...
9. BitchX- the world's greatest irc client. Everyone uses this, but I've never seen it in a dist. Why?
The name? ;-)
10. x11amp and amp- We all use mp3s, right?
Again, legal issues. The MP3 format is patented and at least under the law of many countries (the US included and SuSE does have a US office so they have to consider this) it is illegal to ship it without paying royalty. Read the MP3 FAQ for details. Personally, I say boycott MP3 and develop a competing standard. That implies the folks who care have the knowledge and time to do it, though. :-(
13. Xmftp-1.0.4- The best ftp client for x.
That's motif based, though, right? Does it work with lesstif?
14. egcs-1.0.3a- gcc-2.7.2.1 is more reliable than gcc-2.8.x, but I'm starting to run into apps that need a newer gcc. egcs-1.0.3a compiles everything I've tried, where gcc-2.8.x unexpectedly bails on some stuff.
Yep, egcs is the way to go.
15. neXtaw- because NeXT is the most elegant gui devised by man and SuSE already includes tkstep so why not?
Again, got a URL? I'd do a net.search, but I'm sure others are interested... :-) --Donnie -- Donnie Barnes <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/~djb"><A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/~djb</A">http://www.redhat.com/~djb</A</A>> djb@redhat.com "Bah." Challenge Diversity. Ignore People. Live Life. Use Linux. 879. My Dad used to say I have deceptive quickness. I'm slower than I look. -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e