August 2010 - openSUSE Project - openSUSE Mailing Lists

[opensuse-project] Meego Conference 2010
by Klaas Freitag 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

Hi, the Call for Session Proposals [1] for the Meego Conference 2010 is open now, the conference happens from nov. 15th through nov. 17th in Dublin. On topic is Platform development, where one sub bullet point is * Packaging tutorials, including OBS use and deployment, deploying custom builds, UI customization and differentiation methods. Sounds like we should consider to go ;-) Klaas [1] http://conference2010.meego.com/program/call-session-proposals -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] openSUSE Strategy Discussion: #1 KDE distribution
by Pavol Rusnak 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

Hi all! The next strategy that came from the community is "#1 KDE distribution". Here you are! ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- === openSUSE - #1 KDE distribution === == Statement == There is a powerful movement towards simple and easy software targeting end users. Most distributions focussing there use Gnome for it, but KDE appplications also have a lot of potential. The technology is there, it's just, by default, cluttered and complicated in some areas. openSUSE has always had a great KDE based distribution, it's our stronghold. Like most distributions, we shipped a mostly vanilla desktop. We polished some area's, stabilized and backported some upstream patches but not much more. Only Mandriva currently ships a heavily modified KDE based desktop, making it look and work like the previous 3.x series. There is surely room for a distribution which changes the focus of KDE software more to end users, making choices upstream finds hard to implement. This means mostly changing default configuration, choices of applications etc, all in all setting up an environment end users should be far more comfortable in. The proposal is thus: let's focus the openSUSE efforts on KDE as the main application and desktop provider and put a lot of effort in customizing, simplifying and polishing it to be ready for end users. Of course we should also make sure we cater as good as possible for Qt and KDE developers, giving for example MeeGo developers a welcoming home. Note: This proposal is not meant to start another flamewar, nor to drop GNOME or any other desktop environment (of course there still will be GNOME, LXDE and Xfce Spins available), it's just about our primary focus. == Activities == = We need to be excellent in the following = * create a visual unique desktop experience with KDE * adopt the latest KDE technology early, but care about stability * offer the best development platform for Qt/KDE developers * work together with the KDE community to establish a compatible release cycle * integrate MeeGo (focus on Qt) * offer a LiveCD spin which contains the latest KDE version (like the KDE Four Live) but a bit more official) * lobby for KDE * offer KDE reference implementation(s) and the tools to build them (OBS, Suse Studio) * improve KDE upstream * create a more usable experience by tuning defaults and having a better selection of software * market our product as a great, easy end user distribution * work to integrate technologies like ownCloud, OCS, Social Desktop and a GHNS centric "AppStore" in openSUSE = We will try to do the following effectively = * deliver a build service for building distribution and applications * provide best desktop experiences with KDE and MeeGo (focus on Qt) * offer an good platform for Java, Ruby, Python and other developers * improve Kolab integration to offer a complete groupware suite (client and server) * create Qt user interfaces for apps which only offer a GTK frontend * bugfixing * testing * collaborate with other Linux distros * support community-led spins of other desktop environments to benefit from the rich spectrum of Linux software available * improve integration of non-KDE applications (GTK, wxwidgets, Wine) with KDE file dialogs, theming, etc = As project, we will not focus on the following anymore = * trying to be the best in 'everything', but in tasks where we already rule * server stuff? ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- -- Best Regards / S pozdravom, Pavol RUSNAK SUSE LINUX, s.r.o openSUSE Boosters Team Lihovarska 1060/12 PGP 0xA6917144 19000 Praha 9 prusnak[at]opensuse.org Czech Republic -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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Re: [opensuse-project] openSUSE Strategy Discussion: #1 KDE distribution
by Graham Lauder 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

On Friday 06 Aug 2010 12:02:16 Jos Poortvliet wrote: > On Thursday 05 August 2010 13:36:30 C wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 13:23, Martin Schlander wrote: > > > I'm in Denmark :-) > > > > > > And here Ubuntu (+derivatives like Mint) have at least 60% of the home > > > user linux market, maybe even more. And steadily growing. > > > > And therein lies a question... why? Why is Ubuntu gaining so much at > > the expense of others like openSUSE? Maybe because it's dead easy to > > install. I am amazed at how well 10.04 works, and how easy it was to > > install... openSUSE on the other hand... not so easy. It's not hard, > > but t's certainly a lot more involved and cryptic than Ubuntu is to > > install and use... ease of use.. ease of install go a LONG way towards > > acceptance and uptake. <snip> > > Imho the problem is more marketing than quality - but marketing also > depends heavily on a clear and consise message. KDE marketing for example > got a huge boost from the KDE 4 series: a strong focus on innovation and > new things. Now the actual product wasn't that great, initially, but ppl > saw the vision and we had literally hundreds and hundreds of new > developers join the KDE community, while the GNOME numbers kept the same > or even shrunk a bit at that time. I'm with Jos on this one, it's about marketing, nothing more, nothing less. People who want to try Linux on the Desktop think in terms of Brand! Ubuntu has high brand recognition. Unsophisticated Desktop users don't think "I want Linux", they think more along the lines of "I want an alternative to windows" The default to them is either Apple or Ubuntu because to them Linux IS Ubuntu. That's a function of brand recognition. Ubuntu have done their marketing well lifting their brand recognition > > openSUSE lacks a clear direction, Ubuntu does not. So Ubuntu has a very > clear image - anyone can see what it is about. And it helps them. > It's less about clear image than about a distinctive, recognisable image. Firefox and Ubuntu have both done well in the visibility stakes. High recognition, warm colours and Ubuntu added a good back story. That's good marketing and at the sharp end of that is the idea that "Ubuntu is the only economical alternative to windows". Are we then competing with Ubuntu, on one level yes we are, it is one of the distinctive attributes of the bazaar model we are competing against but with each other. But as far as the Simple enduser is concerned our two stalls are for all intents and purposes selling the same thing, just different coloured wrapping paper. One of the basic tenets of marketing: "Find your point of difference" One of the reasons I like the idea of the "No 1 KDE Distro" is it gives us a point of difference that the enduser can see and thus easily sets us apart from Ubuntu. Given no point of difference and no price differential then our Enduser is going to go with the recognised brand. I'm keen on the Retail Boxes because that also allows us a price differential, and I believe in our favour. A price gives a consumer security, there has been an exchange of values. The consumer has made a decision that the value he is receiving in the boxed set is equivalent to the amount of exchange he has made in the purchase. He has by that action placed a value on it. Another simple marketing tool is "Competitor Analysis." What are their Pros and Cons Pro side High Brand recognition Simple install Fits on a CD and this is a biggy - Local community support It's what makes windows so dominant, jo blo next door, or brother or kids can help out and give support. Ubuntu does this better than we do. on the Con Side Installation gives the user very little choice media is limited to a CD to someone who doesn't have broadband this is an issue during install, (however the CD does allow for a fully functional system.) Limited to Desktop only unless you get separate media So therefore, you attack the weak points and you strengthen against their strong points. We need to increase our brand recognition..... no argument there, although there maybe debate as to how we achieve that, I have some ideas but that's for another thread. Set our install up so it's possible to get a functioning install with minimal interaction from the user. That means a default desktop: KDE to emphasise the point of difference. /However, given the size of modern harddrives I see no reason why KDE, Gnome, XFCE, icewm and Window Maker can't all be installed if the install script detects an HD over say 160 GB. Then on the Login screen make the ability to choose more obvious, an icon for each desktop. Lets live by the: "Have a lot of fun". I did, just once, set my wife's desktop default to Window Maker with one of the Goth style naked lady backgrounds! :D So we have a default but with choice!/ Additionally common proprietary codecs and drivers should be on the DVD or at first launch a script should launch asking the user if they want Video and Audio codecs installed so they can play their windows media files. Graphics drivers would be good, but the Nvidia ones have been a bit too variable, so for reliabilities sake..... For OEM, that would obviously be a different issue That's not a big marketing thing but it is a selling point and good selling points that work, turn into good marketing later as word of mouth kicks in. <snip> > > So again. Nobody knows this stuff (I know I didn't until a few hours ago, > darn) and that's why Ubuntu seems so popular. Reality, while nobody has > hard numbers, is most likely different. And I hope now that I'm here the > openSUSE marketing team can work more with the Novell marketing team, and > get the word out on how populuar our dear Geeko (both openSUSE and SLED) > really is! > > > Anyway... this is beyond the scope of the original discussion. > > Yep, and I made it worse, sorry about that... But I wanted to make clear > that it ain't that bad and we can reverse it. Having a clear strategy, > whatever it turns out to be, will help with that. And as I've kind-of said > before, I support a focus on powerusers and developers or the cloud/mobile > one. Both bring the opportunity of a clear direction throughout the stack > and much potential for improvement and growth. And both are easy to market > ;-) > A word of caution: "Easy" to market often ends up in lousy uptake. Find the area of achievable growth. Define the demographic, then create to pitch at that target market. Strategies that fail are those that try to be all things to all people and thus lose focus. Define your goals, test results against those goals and modify to suit. simple really Cheers G Apologies for the length of this :/ -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. Ambassador for OpenSUSE Linux on your Desktop INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Office Technologies) www.theingots.org.nz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] Limited products available
by xizoa2655＠nehp.net 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Herbal solutions at great discounted prices limited period only http://www.barsarmy.ru/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] openSUSE Strategy Discussion: For the productive poweruser
by Pavol Rusnak 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Hi all! Okay, you know the drill. This one is the "openSUSE - For the productive poweruser". ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- == openSUSE - For the productive poweruser == === Statement === openSUSE should strive to be the productive distribution for powerusers on modern PCs (workstation, laptop, netbook, server) and having a healthy balance of innovation and stability. We cannot compete with Ubuntu for the übernoob segment, and we shouldn't compete with Fedora on being experimental bleeding edge - instead we should pick the middle ground. This strategy would be nicely in line with SLE and what (open)SUSE has historically been, and what existing users expect from openSUSE. The main purpose of the strategy in my opinion is to help developers, contributors and marketers all pull in same direction, and to clarify for users what openSUSE tries to be and do. NOTE: In my mind you don't have to be a kernel hacker or a guru sysadmin to be a poweruser, in my estimation powerusers cover: * ~10% of all PC users * ~50% of all Linux users * ~75% of existing openSUSE users * ~100% of existing openSUSE contributors == Activities == ==== We need to be excellent in the following ==== * Making sure as much as possible just works out of the box * Having good and sane defaults so the user can do what ''he'' wants to do * Focus on providing tools for being productive/creative (IDEs, editors, authoring tools, graphics manipulation, office productivity, etc.) * Providing admin tools that are powerful yet (reasonably) easy ==== We will try to do the following effectively ==== * Deliver a strong, general purpose distro that anyone can use without too much effort * Innovate and keep up with latest upstream developments === As project, we will not focus on the following anymore === * Dumbing things down for Aunt Tillie * Going out of our way to support old hardware and non-mainstream architectures * Supporting form-factors that are not workstation, laptop, server or netbook ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- -- Best Regards / S pozdravom, Pavol RUSNAK SUSE LINUX, s.r.o openSUSE Boosters Team Lihovarska 1060/12 PGP 0xA6917144 19000 Praha 9 prusnak[at]opensuse.org Czech Republic -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] Problems with strategy discussions
by Lubos Lunak 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

Yesterday I read several hundred mails on this list, that is, the whole strategy discussions, and after finishing the main impression I had was that it was quite a pain to read, that a good part of the discussions is pointless and that as a whole it is going nowhere. Specifically, there seem to be two big problems: - some people taking part in the discussion do not understand some, even basic, things about the strategy discussion, such as the purpose - the strategies either fail or very poorly state some practical aspects (most notably an answer to the question 'why should we do this?') and feel more like something abstract that should be discussed over coffee Additionally there is of course the usual problem of openSUSE mailing lists that some people make long threads even longer by straying completely offtopic or posting various irrelevant comments. And I hope the reason for this is that those people do not understand the purpose of the discussion rather than think that chatting in a huge project discussion is an interesting way to spend their afternoon. And these problems indeed reinforce each other. So, let's try to make some things clear: The purpose of these discussions: ====================== Right now, we are discussing the proposed strategies. That means pointing out their strengths and weakenesses, making them more clear, etc. The strategies are now supposed to be prepared for later, when a strategy will be selected. That specifically means that we are not voting on them now (and as such exclaims such as "with this strategy I won't be with openSUSE" are irrevelant, just like adding "me too" and similar). If you think there is something unclear about a strategy, discuss to clear it up, if you like a strategy and think it could be improved, discuss to improve it, if you think a strategy has a weakness that's been missed, point it out, and if you disagree with a strategy because of your personal preference, shut up. This is not about winning an argument. http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Strategy has a description of what a strategy is and other requirements for this discussion. If you for some strange reason haven't read them yet, do so now and do not waste other people's time without doing that. Why we need a strategy: ================ And since everybody gets things better when there's an example, let's have one hypothetical case. Assume that in time for openSUSE 11.4 the latest Firefox release will be 4.0.1, which will support some latest Web technologies, but will not be as tested as Firefox 3.x and its KDE integration will not be ready. The maintainer therefore will need to choose one version as the shipped default, and there wil be trade-offs. 4.0 would be presumably preferred by most Web developers and bleeding-edge users, 3.x would be preferred by "stable" users and KDE users. For simplicity let's also assume that installing both 3.x and 4.0 at the same time is practically impossible because of not having enough contributors for solving the necessary problems. Currently it's more or less at the judgement of the maintainer of the component. This can lead to various problems such as the decision not being good for the majority (e.g. if the maintainer is a GNOME user who likes new Web technologies but the majority are users who use KDE and/or want a really stable browser) or leading to inconsistencies (a maintainer of a different component related to Web decides not to enable an experimental library for new Web technologies, making openSUSE not either for stable users or for Web developers). With a strategy, this is much simpler. KDE #1 strategy, productive poweruser strategy will most probably favour 3.x, while home for developers strategy and mobile/cloud strategy will presumably favour 4.0. Either way, it will also cause the other maintainer to not enable or enable the experimental library accordingly. Things a strategy does not change: ======================= I hope the example makes some things about strategies rather clear: - selecting a focus does not make other areas forbidden. The case above does not stop anybody from maintaining packages of Chromium or Arora. There are examples of e.g. KDE being provided as Ubuntu or Fedora spins even though they are not the focus. In fact, with the build service, unless openSUSE would decide to actively block some contributors (which would be pretty stupid), the only reason for a component not being anymore available for openSUSE would be its contributors deciding so. - contributors can focus on whatever they want and cannot be forced to switch. With a community distribution this just plain doesn't make sense. In the example, the "perfect" solutions would be making Firefox 3.x and 4.0 co-installable or fixing the problems, but if people will be interested in other areas and there won't be enough contributors to make these happen, they simply won't happen. How can somebody be forced to voluntarily work on something specific? - strategies cannot be just team strategies. For example, the KDE #1 strategy already is openSUSE KDE team's strategy, but there are problems that reach beyong the team. In the example above, with the Firefox maintainer's decision to go with 4.0, KDE in openSUSE obviously suffers and this is out of control of the KDE team. It is obvious that openSUSE not preferring a desktop cannot provide as good KDE implementation as it could with focusing on KDE as the primary desktop. This applies generally, in some cases making something better inevitably leads to something else getting worse in the real world. Clear now? I'd like to ask people, before sending each mail that makes the discussion even better, to think if it adds some new value and if it helps the purpose. If not, please just don't send it. -- Lubos Lunak openSUSE Boosters team, KDE developer l.lunak(a)suse.cz , l.lunak(a)kde.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] openSUSE Strategy Discussion: The Linux Distribution Platform Strategy
by Pavol Rusnak 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hi all! Today we continue with public discussions about strategy proposals submitted by you, our beloved community. The first one is the "Linux Distribution Platform Strategy": ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- === openSUSE, the Linux distribution platform === == Goals == The goal of openSUSE as a project is to provide a platform for distributing Linux and software running on Linux to a wide range of users. This platform consists of tools for creating software distributions, the openSUSE distribution as base and reference implementation, and the community supporting the tools and the distribution. On top of the platform the openSUSE universe consists of more specific distributions, which make use of openSUSE infrastructure and technology. Examples are SLES, MeeGo, openSUSE Education, KDE and GNOME live systems, and could also be for example developer or cloud oriented distributions and more. So openSUSE provides a way for subteams to address specific user groups and needs. openSUSE also provides means to distribute software independent of the environment of the user to spread Linux based software and make software easily available for use in the openSUSE distribution and systems based on it. The openSUSE distribution acts as a reference distribution, providing an environment for testing the used technology, a stabilizing ground for common components, and a real-life use case for applying technology and distributing Linux software. It's targeted at technically interested users, including programmers and system administrators. It has a focus on good user experience and making technology available to end users. It doesn't target users with highly specific technical needs. == Activities == = Essentials = * Provide stable set of supported core packages distributions can build on * Broad hardware support of components and platforms * Provide tools for package and distribution building and testing (e.g. openSUSE Build Service) * Provide common building blocks for distribution, e.g. installer, configuration tool, maintenance tools, development tools for web, native and other applications, and more * Provide home for overall community and specific openSUSE teams, e.g. bug tracker, wiki, mailing lists, collaboration tools * Create the official openSUSE distribution as reference implementation * Enable, support, and collaborate with specific teams to create their own distributions * Enable and support, and collaborate with upstream developers to build and distribute their software on openSUSE = Good to have = * Provide wide variety of packages for further use * Community for user support * Work on standards which make it easier to mix components, e.g. free desktop standards * Collaboration with other distribution platforms = No focus = * Directly providing a polished distribution for non-technical end users * Bleeding edge technology ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- -- Best Regards / S pozdravom, Pavol RUSNAK SUSE LINUX, s.r.o openSUSE Boosters Team Lihovarska 1060/12 PGP 0xA6917144 19000 Praha 9 prusnak[at]opensuse.org Czech Republic -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] A proposition regarding wiki.opensuse.org
by Ann Price 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hello, Topspot-Promotions, an established advertising company, would like to pay you for placing a small advertisement on wiki.opensuse.org for one of our clients. These days we are using a few methods of advertising to guarantee that the ad we choose will fit the site nicely. After reviewing your website I thought about an advertisement that fits perfectly a few pages on your website. For full details please contact me at ann.price(a)topspot-promotions.net. *If you have other websites which I can review for advertising please send me their URLs as well. Kind Regards, Ann Price Advertising Specialist ann.price(a)topspot-promotions.net To permanently delete yourself from our list, simply reply to this with a blank email and you will never receive any communication from us in the future. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] [ANNOUNCE] bfq disk I/O scheduler
by Paolo Valente 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Hi, I have been working for a few years (with Fabio Checconi) on a disk scheduler providing definitely lower latencies than cfq, as well as a higher throughput with most of the test workloads we used (or the same throughput as cfq with the other workloads). We named this scheduler bfq (budget fair queueing). I hope this is the right list for announcing this work. One of the things we measured in our tests is the cold-cache execution time of a command as, e.g., "bash -c exit", "xterm /bin/true" or "konsole -e /bin/true", while the disk was also accessed by different combinations of sequential, or random, readers and/or writers. Depending on which of these background workloads was used, these execution times were five to nine times lower with bfq under 2.6.32. Under 2.6.35 they were instead from six to fourteen times lower. The highest price paid for these lower latencies was a 20% loss of aggregated disk throughput for konsole in case of background workloads made only of sequential requests (due to the fact that bfq of course privileges, more than cfq, the seeky IO needed to load konsole and its dependencies). In contrast, with shorter commands, as bash or xterm, bfq also provided up to 30% higher aggregated throughput. We saw from 15% to 30% higher aggregated throughput also in our only-aggregated-throughput tests. You can find in [1] all the details on our tests and on other nice features of bfq, such as the fact that it perfectly distributes the disk throughput as desired, independently of disk physical parameters like, e.g., ZBR. in [1] you can also find a detailed description of bfq and a short report on the maturity level of the code (TODO list), plus all the scripts used for the tests. The results I mentioned so far have been achieved with the last version of bfq, released about two months ago as patchsets for 2.6.33 or 2.6.34. From a few days a patchset for 2.6.35 is available too, as well as a backport to 2.6.32. The latter has been prepared by Mauro Andreolini, who also helped me a lot with debugging. All these patches can be found here [2]. A few days after being released, this version of bfq has been introduced as the default disk scheduler in the Zen Kernel. It has been adopted as the default disk scheduler in Gentoo Linux too. I also recorded downloads from users with other distributions, as, e.g., Ubuntu and ArchLinux. As of now we received only positive feedbacks from the users. Paolo [1] http://algo.ing.unimo.it/people/paolo/disk_sched/ [2] http://algo.ing.unimo.it/people/paolo/disk_sched/sources.php -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-project] Confused by Contrib write-up on new wiki
by Greg Freemyer 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

All, My impression was that packages in contrib could be upgraded to newer versions with relative ease if the package maintainer wanted to do that. In fact, I thought that was one of the major differences between factory/distro and contrib. Reading http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Contrib#Rules_for_the_repository I see: === The repository is branched at openSUSE release time (openSUSE:Factory:Contrib -> openSUSE:<version>:Contrib) * After the branch no version updates are allowed anymore, unless explicitly allowed by openSUSE:<version>:Contrib maintainers. * Bugfixes happen as patches to the packages === That says to me, it has the same basic update rules as the distro. Can someone clarify if the above is right. If so, it leaves me with one big question. What is the difference between factory and contrib? Reading the contrib page, I see nothing that tries to answer that question. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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