bftprAzor
September 13th, 2004, 09:03
For the past year, I've been working on a project that I've called "Blast from the Past" ... it's now finished.. problem is finding hosting for it.
It's not exactly small.. and the hosts that I thought would take it (Sourceforge, BerliOS, etc..) have rejected me because of it's nature.
It's a LiveCD. As such, files are kinda on the large side... and the way most opensource dev networks work, is by keeping a nice history of your work... so that's gonna be nasty when the Main ISO is 160mb in size (and that's small ... look at some distros that kick in at 3 cds at about 650mb EACH).
Here's basically the BFTP pitch that I've been using...
Project is called "Blast from the Past" (BFTP) and is in two distinct parts.
The first part is a Linux LiveCD based on Morphix that is aimed specifically to run older games from the DOS era.. and has the added bonus of several emulators so it can run games from Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, various Atari systems, etc.. basically a wide range of systems. We do NOT however provide any copyrighted roms or games or whatever to play on these emulators, and any BIOS files that are still being sold (Amiga's for example) are not included. This is where the more special part of the project kicks in, in that the end user chooses what games they want to put on the disc.
The games are stored in what we call BlastPacks ... each Pack is a compressed filesystem that is loaded on boot with the CD and linked into the running system to provide access to the goodies inside. The system auto-generates a menu comprising of everything that is in the Packs. The user only needs to select the Pack name, to get a list of everything in it, then select which game they want... the system then loads up the appropriate emulator and the game starts up without the user having to deal with configuring emulators, games, or Linux itself.
Each month or so (probably longer now...) we will release a complete "Release Set" which will include the Base Image (the bootable system itself) and various BlastPacks with Freeware/PD Games and Roms for testing. We are trying to make sure that the end-user can squeeze asmuch onto a 700MB CDR as they possibly can, so each Base Image is as small as possible with a lot of stuff taken out or streamlined. For example, we use XFCE4 as a window manager.. rather than the more heavy KDE or GNOME alternatives.
The current Base Image size is 160mb. The BlastPacks can vary greatly in size.. and OUR Packs that we release, will only ever contain PD/freeware/etc software/roms .. no commercial software will be released unless we get permission (which I highly doubt).
The second part of the project is the community side. A central place for helping gamers get their classics running on new hardware and operating systems. This can be via using various emulators or tricks such as VDMSound, or the BFTP-LiveCD, and we will help them get their games running.
We want two branches... a Testing and a Stable.
Stuff in Testing can change often and eventually be promoted to Stable, whereas if it overwrites something already there, the old version should be deleted as it would be deemed of no use anymore.
All materials we CREATE will be under the GPL, however, the programs and games from the Packs and inside the LiveCD itself may be Freeware or PD or Demos. There will not be any Commercial or "time-limited Shareware" (for example, only 30days use) software in our releases. The Enduser however, is free to make Packs with whatever they have... it's up to them to deal with the consequences of their actions should they put games they have no license for on their CDs.
We also don't (at the moment) support users installing to their hard-drives, however should they do so.. because it's based on Morphix which can be traced back to Debian, they can use apt and the usual method Debian people use to keep their system up to date.
We will need web hosting (for the community part of the project, and for guides and howtos on using the LiveCD itself) which would involve using PHP and 1 MySQL database (we would be most-likely using PHPBB with a Portal frontend).
I've worked out that the MAX space we will EVER need is about 1gig.. we will NOT go over that.
So the run down of what I would need is about 1gig MAX (and about 250mb minimum .. I could work in 250mb.. just means I can only ever have one "release set" at a time), php support, 1 mysql database... as for b/w.. I don't really know to be honest.. but due to the large file sizes I would assume that I would need a lot (example.. 10gig b/w would mean 64 people could download the Base Image at 160mb... assuming that no one goes near the site/community..).
It's funny... you'd think the hard part of coding stuff is finishing a project... it's actually finding hosting now :-\
Why am I looking in free hosting when obviously I don't have much of a chance and would be better with paid? I head off to uni this Saturday... I have no money to pay for hosting or I would...
Anyone able to help?
Thanks in Advance,
rAzor
It's not exactly small.. and the hosts that I thought would take it (Sourceforge, BerliOS, etc..) have rejected me because of it's nature.
It's a LiveCD. As such, files are kinda on the large side... and the way most opensource dev networks work, is by keeping a nice history of your work... so that's gonna be nasty when the Main ISO is 160mb in size (and that's small ... look at some distros that kick in at 3 cds at about 650mb EACH).
Here's basically the BFTP pitch that I've been using...
Project is called "Blast from the Past" (BFTP) and is in two distinct parts.
The first part is a Linux LiveCD based on Morphix that is aimed specifically to run older games from the DOS era.. and has the added bonus of several emulators so it can run games from Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, various Atari systems, etc.. basically a wide range of systems. We do NOT however provide any copyrighted roms or games or whatever to play on these emulators, and any BIOS files that are still being sold (Amiga's for example) are not included. This is where the more special part of the project kicks in, in that the end user chooses what games they want to put on the disc.
The games are stored in what we call BlastPacks ... each Pack is a compressed filesystem that is loaded on boot with the CD and linked into the running system to provide access to the goodies inside. The system auto-generates a menu comprising of everything that is in the Packs. The user only needs to select the Pack name, to get a list of everything in it, then select which game they want... the system then loads up the appropriate emulator and the game starts up without the user having to deal with configuring emulators, games, or Linux itself.
Each month or so (probably longer now...) we will release a complete "Release Set" which will include the Base Image (the bootable system itself) and various BlastPacks with Freeware/PD Games and Roms for testing. We are trying to make sure that the end-user can squeeze asmuch onto a 700MB CDR as they possibly can, so each Base Image is as small as possible with a lot of stuff taken out or streamlined. For example, we use XFCE4 as a window manager.. rather than the more heavy KDE or GNOME alternatives.
The current Base Image size is 160mb. The BlastPacks can vary greatly in size.. and OUR Packs that we release, will only ever contain PD/freeware/etc software/roms .. no commercial software will be released unless we get permission (which I highly doubt).
The second part of the project is the community side. A central place for helping gamers get their classics running on new hardware and operating systems. This can be via using various emulators or tricks such as VDMSound, or the BFTP-LiveCD, and we will help them get their games running.
We want two branches... a Testing and a Stable.
Stuff in Testing can change often and eventually be promoted to Stable, whereas if it overwrites something already there, the old version should be deleted as it would be deemed of no use anymore.
All materials we CREATE will be under the GPL, however, the programs and games from the Packs and inside the LiveCD itself may be Freeware or PD or Demos. There will not be any Commercial or "time-limited Shareware" (for example, only 30days use) software in our releases. The Enduser however, is free to make Packs with whatever they have... it's up to them to deal with the consequences of their actions should they put games they have no license for on their CDs.
We also don't (at the moment) support users installing to their hard-drives, however should they do so.. because it's based on Morphix which can be traced back to Debian, they can use apt and the usual method Debian people use to keep their system up to date.
We will need web hosting (for the community part of the project, and for guides and howtos on using the LiveCD itself) which would involve using PHP and 1 MySQL database (we would be most-likely using PHPBB with a Portal frontend).
I've worked out that the MAX space we will EVER need is about 1gig.. we will NOT go over that.
So the run down of what I would need is about 1gig MAX (and about 250mb minimum .. I could work in 250mb.. just means I can only ever have one "release set" at a time), php support, 1 mysql database... as for b/w.. I don't really know to be honest.. but due to the large file sizes I would assume that I would need a lot (example.. 10gig b/w would mean 64 people could download the Base Image at 160mb... assuming that no one goes near the site/community..).
It's funny... you'd think the hard part of coding stuff is finishing a project... it's actually finding hosting now :-\
Why am I looking in free hosting when obviously I don't have much of a chance and would be better with paid? I head off to uni this Saturday... I have no money to pay for hosting or I would...
Anyone able to help?
Thanks in Advance,
rAzor