[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] The story of Evergreen virtual images: help wanted!

[Rick Mason]

I suspect that this suggestion may involve even more work, but I will 
throw the idea in the ring:

Would a .iso of a full Evergreen installation on either Ubuntu or Debian 
be a viable option?  Being able to pop in a disk, reboot the computer, 
and work with the software without having to install would move the 
evaluation of Evergreen into the "comfort zone" of quite a few people 
who can't or won't go through the extra trouble.

It also allows for demos and distribution at conferences and other 
gatherings, and can allow for the tweaking of settings to ensure that a 
given installation is showing the software at its best.

This could also be useful as a training platform for libraries that are 
switching to Evergreen.

I have thought about doing a full installation and attempting to create 
a disk image, but never having done it before, I don't know what 
time/effort/hassles it may involve.

Just a thought...

Rick Mason
http://www.libology.com/blog/

Karen Schneider wrote:
> "To be honest, though, all of those packaging steps require a surprising 
> amount of time in testing and documentation to get it all right."
> 
> That is indeed the crux of the issue. The images are potentially 
> valuable to the community at large. If there were a group that wanted to 
> help create these images -- right through the documentation and testing 
> milestones -- that would be a plus.
> 
> But given that we aren't there right now, it's a question for discussion 
> among the community members whether the Evergreen project website should 
> even offer images right now, given such limited resources for producing 
> them. There's an implied suggestion of functionality that if not carried 
> through in the images could unintentionally reflect less than positively 
> on the community as a whole. This is not a decision Equinox can or 
> should make... but it is certainly a good one for broad discussion (and 
> thank you for bringing this up). 
> -- 
> -- 
> | Karen G. Schneider
> | Community Librarian
> | Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts"
> | Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712
> | kgs at esilibrary.com <mailto:kgs at esilibrary.com>
> | Web: http://www.esilibrary.com
> | Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009!
> | http://www.lyrasis.org/evergreen