[ubuntu-studio-devel] Elementary OS

[ttoine]

Ralf, I truly believe that when it will be possible to use a Linux
distribution without the terminal at all, Linux will become popular. That
is why Ubuntu became popular at the beginning (you install, it runs, you
work, no tweak)

The success today for Canonical is that with Ubuntu, they provide the same
environment for devs, tests, servers, cloud, embedded devices, with support
and regular updates. But that's another story.

At the opposite of dev and sysadmin use, what we need is something simple,
that works without having to tune it too much. Just keep in mind that
multimedia producers are looking for a system that feet their workflow.
They already have a lot to learn, configure and tweak within their own work
area. And they are used to GUI: a sound console, a video console, camera
buttons, or pots on rack analog effects are GUI.

They don't need (and most of them don't care) to learn how to do something
in a Terminal... Ask a sound engineer using a Mac or a Win PC if he knows
where is terminal: he will most likely tell you he doesn't know what is it.
The system must work and be reliable without having to understand how.

I agree with you that DE independent applications run faster, are lighter,
and easy to use in many DE. However, we are not the developers of
multimedia applications : from the beginning, what we do is selecting the
better apps available, and make them work together.

And by the way, I totally understand that Pitivi developers, who are
relying on the Gstreamer framework, are developing their GUI using Gnome
tools: this is simply logical, we can not fight againts that.

I am convinced that what our users are waiting for is something simple and
intuitive to use. And we need also to explain how to install open source
based, and non open source software like Lightworks, Mixbus, and other
great applications available on GNU/Linux.


Antoine THOMAS
Tél: 0663137906

2015-09-01 12:35 GMT+02:00 Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net>:

> On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 14:32:40 -0700 (PDT), Len Ovens wrote:
> >However, the real place we could shine is system infra structure.
>
> Assumed I'll find a place for a blog, I'll give some hints. It's not
> only jackd that could cause trouble for newbies. The Debian/Ubuntu
> policy is to autostart everything by default that can be autostarted.
>
> Even while I'm aware about this very evil policy, I was bitten by it a
> few day ago and newbies much easier could be bitten by this policy.
>
> Even the possible minimalist Ubuntu install by default installs the
> package command-not-found. A beginner might read a howto, a command is
> missing to follow the howto and command-not-found recommends to install
> package foo.
>
> The user installs package foo without using --no-install-recommends.
>
> The user gets the wanted foo command, but without getting aware of it,
> the user also enabled the foo-daemon installed by the same package, in
> addition a recommended dependency enables the foo-bar-daemon.
>
> The Debian/Ubuntu policy is the most worse possible to realise a
> multimedia distro that is based on real-time abilities and btw. it's
> also bad for portable devices, when energy-saving is important.
>
> Ironically command-not-found is one of the tons of completely useless
> packages for a minimalist install I removed. As a
> 10-years-linux-power-user I installed smartmontools to get smartctl,
> being aware that there is the autostart policy. I missed that the
> package enabled smartd and now it becomes much more ironically.
>
> To check if any broken software automatically was installed, that could
> damage external green drives, I used smartctl. Using smartctl I
> noticed that something caused a never ending spin down and spin up loop
> for my external green WD drive. Everything known to damage green
> drives, such as gvfs was removed, so I needed to searched an
> unknown culprit. The winner is smartd. Nothing waked up my green drive,
> but the package I installed to check if something wakes up the green
> drive.
>
> Now imagine what happens if inexperienced users install software and
> all recommended packages. Easily hundred unneeded init/systemd services
> will be enabled and in addition tens or more unneeded desktop crap things
> too. The first line of my openbox's autostart file is to clear the
> XDG_CONFIG_DIRS variable.
>
> [rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ head -n1
> /mnt/moonstudio/home/weremouse/.config/openbox/autostart
> export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=""
>
> You might think that this isn't an issue for desktop environments, such as
> Xfce4 and Unity, since they provide a GUI to select what should and what
> shouldn't run when starting a session. It seemingly is, on the Ubuntu user
> list somebody was convinced that some GNOME-keyring-thingy doesn't run,
> because he disabled it by such a GUI. I recommended to check with pidof or
> ps aux. The thingy still was launched by starting a session.
>
> Unneeded services are a show-stopper for real-time usage.
>
> IIUC providing packages by a PPA is done by uploading source packages that
> follow the Ubuntu policy, there's no way to upload helpful binary packages.
> I hope there's a free of charge place for a blog, were I can post scripts
> that build packages for Ubuntu. I know how to build the packages I like to
> provide, I know how to write scripts that could build this packages for
> inexperienced users who don't trust my binary packages. I'm not willing to
> learn how to build Ubuntu packages, it's to time consuming to learn this
> and
> it gains nothing.
>
> Btw. for good reasons I don't use Xfce4 anymore. A while back Xfce4 became
> as odd as other DEs. My recommendations are openbox and jwm. I prefer
> openbox over jwm. Even when using Xfce4 or other DEs I would replace
> several
> apps, at least the terminal emulation and the file manager.
>
> It's too funny, but a lot of software that starts much faster and performs
> much better, often provides more features, than apps that belong to a
> desktop
> environment. I hope that Ubuntu Studio at least replaces xfce4-terminal
> with
> a terminal emulation that at least allows resizing the window. It's
> ridiculous that a DE allows to resize the window, but without fixing the
> line wrapping when resizing the window.
>
> If by default a good terminal emulation, IOW roxterm, would be provided,
> than users perhaps would be more willing to use the terminal, instead of
> GUIs that try to be user-friendly, by providing a GUI for something, that
> not really can be provided by a GUI.
>
> Providing GUIs that try to set up things automagically is the wrong
> approach.
> The right approach is to provide good tools.
>
> The user should spend time in learning how to set up jackd and other stuff.
> There should not be the need to learn what software to use and how to use
> this software. The software should be self-explaining.
>
> [rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ grep EDITOR
> /mnt/moonstudio/home/weremouse/.bashrc
> export EDITOR="nano"
>
> How needs vi(m) when e.g. running visudo or editing /etc/security/limits*?
> Who is able to use vi(m)?
>
> Btw. using upstream recommendations for jackd's /etc/security/limits* might
> be better, than providing Debian/Ubuntu fantasy settings.
>
> My mail already is too long too read, but I could continue ;).
>
> Regards,
> Ralf
>
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