Idea for Lucid (and beyond..)

[Steve Dodier]

2009/12/5 J. Anthony Limon <j at flippo.net>

> Lionel Le Folgoc wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > (I stripped some parts to reduce the size of the mail ;)
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 05, 2009 at 03:41:03PM +0200, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:
> >> Charlie Kravetz wrote:
> >>> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 09:05:45 +0100
> >>> Steve Dodier <sidnioulz at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> [snip]
> >>>
> >>>> Both Synaptic and gnome-app-install are being replaced by the Software
> >>>> Centre (not sure if it's the exact name). This new app brings a few
> >>>> dependencies but it's likely that removing gnome-app-install and
> synaptic
> >>>> will make enough room on the CD for it.
> >>>> As long as it doesn't pull mono and gnome* I'm all for giving the new
> app a
> >>>> try.
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe we could ask the desktop team what they think will be ready for
> Lucid
> >>>> in the software centre, and whether they think they'll be able to
> replace
> >>>> synaptic in this release.
> >
> > There is enough room on the livecd anyway. I think that we *have to*
> > switch to software-center for lucid, because gnome-app-install has
> > already been demoted from main to universe in karmic (which means that
> > Canonical folks don't want to support it anymore, and since they were
> > the only ones touching it…).
> >
> >>>>> 2) gnome-system-monitor
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> [snip]
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> For now, I don't think the Xfce components can deliver the same
> amount
> >>>>> of features and, regretfully, quality. I also like htop, but we can't
> >>>>> consider it as the main application for system monitoring, as it's
> CLI
> >>>>> and many people fear command line.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> Gnome system monitor monitors system load, network load, ram and swap
> usage,
> >>>> and HDD usage. It may be doing too much for one's needs, but when you
> want
> >>>> to know if some app is using all of your bandwidth, it's cool to can
> check
> >>>> in the system monitor without having to go in command line.
> >>>>
> >>>> While xftaskmanager may be more appropriate for your needs,
> >>>> gnome-system-monitor is in my opinion better for end users.
> >>>>
> >
> > We have already xfce4-cpugraph-plugin, xfce4-systemload-plugin,
> > xfce4-netload-plugin and xfce4-taskmanager. The fact that gnome devs
> > decided to make a single program (gnome-system-monitor) for that doesn't
> > imply that we should blindly do the same.
> >
> > (Anyway, I've no strong opinion on this, I think htop is the best one.
> > :P)
> >
> >>>>>> 3) Totem
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> [snip]
> >>>>>>
> >>>> I can name only one player that also uses a decent backend and that is
> >>>> written with a proper GTK+ GUI. It's Parole, and I'm looking forward
> to it,
> >>>> but considering that it's rather new, we can't expect it to be as
> integrated
> >>>> in the desktop yet (for instance, does it already manage to find
> missing
> >>>> codecs for the user?).
> >>>>
> >>>> Whats the point of a player with tons of features like audacity,
> mplayer or
> >>>> vlc if it crashes miserably when you launch a file or if the GUI is
> >>>> difficult to use because of some particular skin, or very debatable
> keyboard
> >>>> shortcut choices? I'm all for keeping Totem for the LTS, and testing
> Parole
> >>>> from the very beginning of Lucid+1's release cycle (ie. before alpha
> 1, and
> >>>> until beta 1 at least, so we can report bugs to Ali and see what's
> missing
> >>>> from the Xubuntu point of view).
> >
> > The issue with mplayer, vlc, or any ffmpeg related player, is that they
> > can't be shipped on a live cd (decision of the TB).
> >
> > About the missing codecs, I think any gstreamer-based player will be
> > handled by gnome-codec-install without problem (this is the case for
> > totem currently, so it might work fine for parole as well).
> >
> >>>>  [snip]
> >>> I do NOT want to look for a firefox replacement and the issues it will
> >>> bring into an LTS release. That belongs in the regular release, perhaps
> >>> lucid +1. Lucid as an LTS needs to be as solid as we can make it. It is
> >>> not the release to test what we can in, but rather, the release to fix
> >>> what we can in.
> >>>
> >> I have to agree with Charlie here. Changing the default browser to
> >> something not Firefox in an LTS release would really make our users mad,
> >> even if it was working. And at this time, I'm not sure if midori is even
> >> working fairly enough.
> >
> > Indeed, there are lots of possible changes:
> > 1/ xfce 4.6 -> 4.8
> > 2/ brasero -> xfburn
> > 3/ totem -> parole
> > 4/ gnome-system-monitor -> xfce4-taskmanager, xfce4-*-plugin
> > 5/ gnome-app-install -> software-center
> > 6/ gnome-screensaver -> xscreensaver
> > 7/ firefox -> midori
> >
> > As lucid is a LTS, I think we should focus on the most "safe" ones: 5/
> > and 6/. Keeping gnome-screensaver is dangerous (who knows what stupid
> > ideas will gnome developers have for lucid? -- currently in karmic,
> > there's no screen locking without gnome-session); I consider
> > gnome-app-install as "unmaintained upstream", so we shouldn't keep it
> > either.
> >
>
Agree with you, Lionel. And this leaves lot of room for working on upstream.
:)



> > Cheers,
> > Lionel
> >
> >
>
> Software Center seems OKAY, as long as it's easily removed (hehe) - but
> it seems to suffer from the same issues as gnome-app-install in that it
> only shows a small percentage of what is in the repositories.
>
> I also think it's a shame that gnome-app-install made it into Xubuntu
> 9.10 as it ships with a fairly major bug (no icons displayed for the
> categories).
>

That's clearly due to the lack of testers: noone used gnome-app-install, so
noone saw the bug.

-- 
Steve Dodier
Student at École Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Bourges
Free Software Developer
OpenPGP : 1B6B1670
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