Hello all,

On 07 Apr 2007 03:34:49 -0700, Thomas Elam <tomelam@...> wrote:
> Thanks for your continued interest. I was disheartened in this group's
discussion about putting together a Lisp CD-ROM because it seemed like our focus
was lost. My original idea was to put together the CD-ROM so people without
copious Internet bandwidth and oodles of spare time could get started with a
fairly good Lisp development environment simply. Other people seemed to want to
put a lot of stuff on the CD-ROM like a bunch of the old stuff laying around on
the Internet. I also succumbed to the idea that the first revision of the CD-ROM
should be, in some way, well-rounded.
>
> Shall we try to revive this Lisp CD-ROM production? Who should decide what
will go onto it? I feel that a single Lisp with a bootable CD-ROM (I am thinking
`Knoppix' for Intel & AMD processors) included should be the way to go. In spite
of huge demands upon my time, I am willing to commit to that idea. To fill out
the idea: the CD-ROM would boot up to a Knoppix-based GNU/Linux system. This
idea allows me to concentrate upon what I know best and could get going fairly
quickly: a Debian GNU/Linux system usable even in Internet cafes, without
touching the hard disk. I think it would even be possible for people to install
Debian packages this way, without using the hard disk. Probably even
asdf-install would work. People with the capability to set aside a Linux
partition could use knx-hdinstall so later boots would not require the CD-ROM.
>
> Personally, I am only interested in making sure SBCL, CMUCL, and CLISP install
and run properly. The latest Debian package for SBCL runs UCW with SLIME and
threads just fine (see http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/ ), so I would
work to get that stuff on the CD-ROM too. Getting UCW installed is not easy, but
I have it pretty much under control now and can even add a few notes about it.
;-)
>
> Would anyone be interested in having a CD-ROM with a GNU/Linux
command-line-Lisp-startup and about 4 good Lisp books (PCL, CLtL2, On Lisp, and
CLHS)?
>
> Perhaps this could even become our group's gift to the world.
>
> I know this is all just talk, but this is right on target with the group's
purpose.
>
> Regards to all of you who don't just unsubscribe when they get this message.
To the rest of you: get lost! ;-)
>

Personally, I think a bootable CD is not a good idea.It is very
difficult to work in an environment which boots from a CD. Emacs and
friends loading (grinding) from a CD can easily give wrong signals wrt
to the performance of lisp based software :) . For example, what
happens to the source files that the user creates? Where do they go?
Trying out a lisp development (or any other development for that
matter) from a read-only media is not a good idea unlike operating
systems which are basically used to get the computer off the blocks.

Besides, it is quite easy to install a free lisp on popular unices
(FreeBSD for example). However, for people without access to internet,
we can provide the packages on the CD (FC, Ubuntu and debian) along
with the goodies. Has anyone played with clbuild? Perhaps it could be
tweaked to work offline and that should be pretty useful.

Documentation is the most important part. So, we need to pack as many
books as possible. SICP videos are the biggest plus the lisp community
has in the form of documentation. Plus there are a few good ones on
google videos (Peter Siebel's comes to mind). How do we cram them in?
Is it possible to reencode them in a format that compresses better
(eg: H.264)?

Cheers,
-Krishna
--
Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give
yourself to it.
-Buddha