Applications selection discussion....

[Jim Gettys]

On Wed, 2008-09-03 at 14:50 -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-09-03 at 11:08 -0400, Jim Gettys wrote:
> > As the following touches many topics, please reply suitably modifying
> > the subject line.
> > 
> > I'd like to start a discussion about what applications set to include on
> > a spin targeted at G1G1 purchasers looking for a "conventional" laptop.
> > Daniel Drake's initial experiments make it seem like with care a Gnome
> > desktop is usable, which is a much more polished environment than xfce
> > (which while smaller, is much more of a hacker's system), if one is
> > careful on app selection.  Having said that, if someone wants to do an
> > xfce spin too, that is not a bad thing to have in one's hip pocket. 
> 
> So, the thing is, rather than trying to think about a bazillion
> different spins that each largely replicate decisions that already have
> to be made in other situations, I think there's instead a lot of value
> in just ensuring that a user with a G1G1 can just download *any* spin of
> Fedora, put it on a USB stick/SD card and use it.

Yes, but right now, the requisite kernel support is not available.

Nor will any existing spin fit in 1GB of internal flash.

So we need something for the moment.

> 
> Then the discussion could still be relevant for a preloaded "dual-boot"
> XO, but exactly how much so could be debatable.
> 
> > Toolkit stack
> > -------------
> > ATK, but only as an option (it pulls in some of the more objectionable
> > bonobo dependencies at the moment).
> 
> ATK itself is, I suspect, pretty much impossible to avoid.  The higher
> level bits that are actually the accessibility implementations I can see
> not including

Could be...

> > Fonts
> > We'll need to sort through a lot of these and nuke a lot 
> > of bitmap and other fonts (e.g. type1, etc).
> 
> The default font set that's being installed now should be pretty
> reasonable.  If not, letting someone from the fonts SIG know would be a
> lot better than just pulling haphazardly.

Sure...  But it looks like there is a significant amount of space to be
had.

/usr/share/fonts# du
1684	./default/ghostscript
4536	./default/Type1
6224	./default
296	./mathml
7076	./bitmap-fonts
13600	.

The Type1 renderer we have is terrible, and the bitmap fonts are antique
and not used by any current modern Linux application.  Some fallbacks
need to exist, however.


> 
> inkscape ends up being expensive as its one of very few things which requires gtkmm. 
> 

Interesting.


> > 1) mail client....  The logical candidates would include Thunderbird,
> > Claws, Sylpheed, Balsa.  Are there others? Sylpheed has poor docs.  I'd
> > be quite interested in Thunderbird, but right now, Thunderbird 2 is
> > based on the old gecko engine, and won't make it in time, so would come
> > at a higher cost of both flash and RAM footprint.
> > 
> > Possibilities I know of boil down to Claws and Balsa.  Opinions?
> 
> Claws is just an obsolete version of Sylpheed that's basically not
> maintained anymore iirc.  Balsa is ...  not good.

I think you have it backwards; sylpheed-claws was the predecessor to
claws, and is not maintained anymore.  Sylpheed seems less developed.

> 
> Maybe someone looking at building tinymail and modest would be
> interesting.  As if it can fit on the n8x0, then surely it should be
> fine for the XO.
> 
> > 2) RSS reader....  Claws has a plug in; Firefox can do it, but dunno how
> > well; others?
> 
> How many people really use standalone rss readers?  I'm not really sure
> this is something that matters as part of a "default" application set.

OK, we seem to be getting to consensus: don't worry about rss at all.

> 
> > 3) Printing...  Several options:
> >    a) none at all unless you yum install it
> >    b) default config cups client library only (no cups server);
> 
> If you don't have cups-libs, you don't have GTK+.  So a) really isn't an
> option.  This might work, but owuld need someone testing

cups-libs certainly has to exist; but it's a gnome print dependency
rather than GTK+, just to be pedantic.

> 
> > 4) What themes?
> 
> While it's silly, having a few things to choose from by default here
> really makes people feel "better" about it being a complete desktop.  If
> your target is someone using their G1G1 as a "normal-ish" laptop, then
> having a few themes by default is worth the small cost

OK, let's plan on 2 themes, unless space gets really tight.

> 
> > 5) What camera application?  Need something to demo the camera in the
> > XO.  This will likely need testing, as gstreamer/VFL2 seems immature in
> > OLPC's experience....
> 
> cheese should be the answer here.  And if it's not good enough, file
> bugs/fix it.  

Presuming dependencies are tolerable, let's go for it.

> 
> > 6) what IM client?  And don't suggest xchat ;-)  Pidgin?
> 
> With Fedora 10, there may be a transition to empathy from pidgin -- it's
> at least being tested out for the beta.  Following that is likely the
> best plan
> 
> > 7) music player Rhythmbox? or something else? There are many to choose
> > from.
> 
> As someone else said later in the thread, if you just want to play a few
> songs (seems somewhat likely given the lack of storage :), totem may
> well be plenty here.
> 

OK, we'll leave a music player off the initial manifest, beyond what
totem provides.


-- 
Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org>
One Laptop Per Child