Fedora's way forward

[David Zeuthen]

On Mar 31, 2006, at 2:15 AM, Hans de Goede wrote:
>
>
> Eric S. Raymond wrote:
>> Michael J Knox <michael at knox.net.nz>:
>>> After looking at the link I gave closer, I noticed this:
>>>
>>> http://easylinux.info/wiki/Fedora_frog
>>>
>>> This is a script that installs and sets up a lot of the things  
>>> people are looking for.
>>>
>>> How about we work on/from/with that? Its certainly a start.
>> Agreed.
>
> No this is way wrong:
> -it drags in mscorefont which is atleast a legal gray area
> -it enables all repos under the sun causing repo conflict nightmare,
>  I've had to help many new Linux users fix their systems after  
> following
>  great advise like this.
> -and does all kind of other evil

Strong agreement, please don't base this on a hackish script.  
Ideally, the solution should just, upon the user pressing the link in  
the Web Browser do the following

  - Serve an RPM file with the right mime type (e.g. not Realaudio)
  - User opens RPM with Pirut (because Pirut is the default handler  
for RPM files)
  - RPM contains .repo file and have Deps on the packages you want to  
install
  - Please be conservative in what packages you pull in; suggest just  
to provide the gstreamer plug-ins initially
  - Done

Suggestions

  - Avoid pulling in more than one repository as 3rd party repos do  
tend to provide same packages and it gets muddy if you get pkg Foo  
from repo A and then repo B provides an upgrade => stick to a single  
3rd party repo

  - Though it is tempting, please avoid installing proprietary  
software for which we already got an excellent, better or good-enough  
free replacement
   - e.g. for movies we got Totem, e.g. we don't need mplayer (if  
Totem can't play a specific stream the user should file bugs)
  - for document viewing we got Evince (if the user needs a11y make  
the Evince authors fix it, don't install adobe reader)
  - Ditto for Ekiga vs. Skype

  - Initially avoid pulling in kernel module packages until automatic  
rebuild of said packages works... otherwise you get users unable to  
update their kernel..

  - Don't use hackish scripts to reconfigure other parts of the users  
system; if you need default configuration for one or more packages  
changed then file a bug in bugzilla and solve it in Fedora

So the bottom line is... keep it simple, transparent and easy to  
understand... if you start providing a script like  that Fedora Frog  
thing you are bound to get ignored by package maintainers in Core and  
Extras. Suggest to just start with media codecs. Once the project is  
a success think about pulling in more stuff.. but the mantra must be  
that clicking this link should never ever fail...

Another suggestion, if you want the mindshare of the developers and  
package maintainers in Core/Extras (and you do because if you get  
them to use this they sure as hell will do their part to make sure  
upgrades works with the 3rd party packages you pull in) make sure you  
enable this solution on Rawhide too... yes, this includes making sure  
that 3rd party repos rebuild for Rawhide everyday or whenever  
necessary. Getting 3rd repo to buy into this might be the biggest  
hurdle though ICBW.

HTH,
David