Checkbox for "Install Everything"

William Case billlinux at rogers.com
Mon May 21 16:58:13 UTC 2007


Hi;

I agree with Ric.  A little marketing and customer service savvy is all
that is need here.

On Sun, 2007-05-20 at 23:31 -0400, Ric Moore wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-05-20 at 21:04 +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > which is a decision that might very well have pushed me over the edge 
> > > into switching to a new distribution.

All distributions have their own definition of "everything" -- i.e. the
packages that they decide to include with their distribution.


> > Now FC7 has core and extras merged an everything install would be
> > borderline insane, if even possible where there are conflicts.
> > 
> > If you just click each of the general groups when you install you instead
> > got "all the normal useful stuff" which is rather more sensible.
> 

I agree "all the normal useful stuff" would probably include the admin
stuff and enough development stuff for those who want to bash around a
bit.

> Ok, so you can have multiple picks instead of "chose one or die"? I hate
> to be the one to mention it, but one button *could* do just that? Get
> all the "normal useful stuff" and then we'd shut up blissfully unaware
> if we really got everything or not. 
> 
> Marketing. I lied for 26 years to make folks happy and keep them
> blissfully ignorant. I'm not saying that your everlasting soul won't get
> it's hair mussed. But, just a little <ahem> "compromise" won't send the
> devel team on a bobsled ride on greased rails straight to Hell.
> Nosirree! I guar-run-tee. You can trust me! <evil chuckles> <POOF!>
> <more evil chuckles echo in the far distance> Ric

Again I agree with Ric.

It seems to me that there are two types of users who need or want an
"everything button".  The relatively new users who are not sure what all
the programs are for and don't want to be in the position of "chose one
or die" particularly when the whole install process, being new to them,
is asking whole bunch of other questions as well.  An "everything
button" tells them that this has been thought out be others (experts)
and everything that you could possibly need has been included.  I think
this consideration applies both to newbies and those that may have
experience in other Linux distributions but are new to Fedora.

The other group who are developers or administrators for developers.
These are the guys who run off to get config, make and make install
alien packages anyways.  Their needs are usually very particular, and
they don't want to be or need to be in the new user group.  If they
want, let them see, by checkmark, what "everything" means and then the
can add or remove those checkmarks.  This gets us pretty close to what
used to be. And, shouldn't be hard to implement at the gui level of
anaconda.

I haven't seen the F7 install yet, but going from past experience an
"everything button" would equal an automatic install plus plus.

> -- 
> 
-- 
Regards Bill




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