Distrowatch on Fedora this year

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> Even a lot of long time Fedora users don't seem to be thinking of Fedora 
> as a newbie friendly distribution though and this is to some extend 
> because our focus on the desktop has not been immediately evident.

Small steps every release.  PackageKit is a great step.  Codeina is a good 
step.  Rootless install will be a good step.  Encrypted homedirs will be a 
good step.

> Most Fedora users still download the DVD where we don't even enable 
> NetworkManager yet.

Which is a problem.  Who's pitching in to fix it?

"More NetworkManager" is already listed at:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/9/FeatureList

> We also have sacrificed many features like good webcam support (requires 
> third party kernel modules like gspca) in favor of upstream focus which 
> is a conscious trade off.

One which we *should not* walk away from, btw.

> If we are thinking of the next major milestones after the merge of Fedora 
> Core and Extras and custom spins, a clearly conveyed focus (IMO on the client 
> - desktop, laptops, embedded devices) is what we need.

Want to know the direction?  Look at the proposed feature set.

Want to drive the direction?  Propose features.  :)

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/9/FeatureList

> I have heard this as a complaint fairly often and Oracle even recently ported 
> Yast from SUSE to RHEL (for "Unbreakable Linux") so there does seem to be 
> some demand for it.

Meh.  Everyone will have their own opinions; my opinion is that YaST is an 
ugly hammer that breaks as much as it "simplifies".

>> Awesome!  (Seriously.)  Configuration is evil.  With few exceptions, things 
>> should "Just Work" without needing configuration.  See NetworkManager, 
>> gnome-power-manager, work we're doing with bluetooth, killing off 
>> xorg.conf, etc. etc.
>
> You are looking at this from the desktop perspective where you are 
> right. Things like Postfix, Apache and Samba are always going to need 
> tweaking in various circumstances. As a former sys admin who was 
> managing data centers, I don't see configuration requirements just going 
> away anytime soon on servers. We can make it easier but 
> system-config-httpd doesn't seem to be the answer here. Microsoft 
> Management Console goes way beyond that for example.

Desktop config tools are the 100% wrong approach to this problem.

Highly customizable server/web-based config tools are the 100% right 
approach to this problem (which is, incidentally, a whole class of 
problems that are different for different admins.)

Which is why func matters:

https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/func/

But guess what?  That has *nothing* to do with the newbie users to whom 
the reviewer alludes.

--g

-- 
Greg DeKoenigsberg
Community Development Manager
Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255
"To whomsoever much hath been given...
...from him much shall be asked"