[Ambassadors] Re: [Fedora-marketing-list] Making installation easy (XFCE as third official desktop?)

[Luke Satin]

It would be good if user would be able to select additional packages
from other repositories (including Fedora Extras) during the
installation.
Choosing between GNOME,KDE,XFCE,Enlightenment,Project Looking Glass,etc.
would be great. It would be also good if user could
switch between Compiz(XGL,AIGLX).

There are thousands packages to choose from - classic menu with software
categories such as Development,Office,Games would not be very user
friendly.

There should be default templates for jobs that will be performed by
different users. 

For example: 
Web Developer - this template would install
httpd(Apache),database(MySQL),WYSIWYG(nVU) editor,some sort of web
language/framework support(Ruby On
Rails,phpEclipse,NetBeans,Eclipse/Callisto) as well as some software
that is used for creating and editing web graphics - Gimp is not
suitable for webdesign and web graphics, it's good if you need to edit
your photos or something like that, but if you need to make a web
design(vector objects,rounded corners,shadows,glow and other bitmap
effects,image slicing,bevels,gradients,etc.), you have to use something
like Macromedia Fireworks which is not available for Linux - the only
opensource alternative I've found is Xara Xtreme.

There should be also templates for Office/Corporate,
Desktop/Server/Mobile developers, 2D/3D artists, music producers,
gamers, home video users. And you should be able to combine those
templates, so if you develope mobile games and produce music for
example, you could choose Mobile Developer and Music Producer template.

Next, there should be some kind of checkboxes that will allow you to
install MP3,Flash,Sun Java,XVID/DIVX support and 3D accelerated
NVIDIA/ATI drivers directly. During the installation or after the
first-boot, but it should be automatic and simple. Yes, if you open a
terminal and execute 'yum install xmms-mp3', you'll get mp3 support, but
only for XMMS, not for XINE/GSTREAMER. You have to type tens/hundreds of
commands or manually download non-rpm installers if you want to do
something more than read e-mails,browse the web and chat in Linux.

The basic settings and installation took me one week before I got FC5
working and ready for everyday use - that's horrible. I had to search
Google, read Fedora forums and learn about new bugs such as HWCursor
issue on all NVIDIA cards(with official and unofficial drivers).

If I didn't know Linux before and was switching from Windows for the
first time, I would format my HDD after few 'yum install ...' commands
and switch back to Windows XP.
I'm a developer, I write tens or hundreds of lines everyday and I get
mad when I have to type anything in console or anywhere else in order to
communicate with my operating system. Desktop OS should be intuitive -
when you can't do something through simple button,menu,widget or window
and have to type manually different commands, ordinary PC users gets
stucked.
Imagine that you bought an iPOD or Sony PSP and had to type some
commands with different parameters in order to play music, start a game
or browse a network - that's what you have to do on PC if you use Fedora
Core. If you try Linspire for example, everything works like a charm.
Linspire could be an inspiration for Fedora devs/ui makers.

Terminals and console services are good if you are administrating remote
server(thin client without GUI) and can't use VNC. Or if you are
developing a software and need to use some shell commands or libraries -
you can then use the shell as a communication protocol between different
applications that were written in different languages.

If I were installing a Fedora Core server, I wouldn't need GNOME or
anything else, but if I'm installing a desktop OS intended for everyday
home/office use, I need all those user-friendly features such as
windows.

Microsoft doesn't have very secure and stable operating system, but they
have made everything user-friendly. Why my Fedora Core Linux can't be
user-friendly too? There are other distributions which are already
user-friendly.


On Sun, 2006-10-08 at 17:24 +0200, Heiko Adams wrote:

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> Am Sun, 08 Oct 2006 20:11:05 +0530
> schrieb Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org>:
> 
> > GNOME and KDE are not anymore official in Fedora than XFCE is. Fedora 
> > Core 6 installer includes the ability to install applications from 
> > Fedora Extras repository. So the end users would be able to do a
> > network based installation and select XFCE as default. This has been
> > made relatively easy.
> > 
> Okay, but "normal" users could get the impress that GNOME and KDE are
> more "official" than XFCE. But anyway thanks for the correction.
> So as I wrote before my friends have already moved to fedora but they
> were a little bit surprised that XFCE wasn't available at Fedora Core 5
> installer. So at the moment they've got a fedora core 5 system with
> XFCE and (a never used) GNOME. They selected GNOME because it's more
> like XFCE then KDE and it's never wrong to have a fallback option ;-)
> 
> > We are also discussing some changes in the release strategy including 
> > availability of extras packages in media. So essentially eliminating
> > any practical differences between these repositories at the end user
> > level potentially as close as the next release. I guess that should
> > satisfy your friends and fans of other alternative window managers
> > included in Fedora Extras.
> > 
> I think that many people would be happy about that.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Heiko
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> --
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--
Regards,
Luke Satin
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