Distrowatch on Fedora this year
Greg DeKoenigsberg
gdk at redhat.com
Mon Dec 17 16:39:47 UTC 2007
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"
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