Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (930 mails)
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Re: [opensuse-project] How to improve the openSUSE experience [Was: independence]
- From: Richard Creighton <ricreig@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:14:30 -0400
- Message-id: <201006101314.30885.ricreig@xxxxxxxxx>
On Thursday 10 June 2010 12:16:15 Anshul Jain wrote:
want to become myopic if we can avoid it.
I do think that is the intent of Yast2's package manager. Zypper isn't
really designed for the "normal" user which was the thrust of your initial
statement :) So, I think the effort might be better spent on the module
within the Yast2 environment so that it better interfaces with the features in
zypper so that it gives the control that zypper offers without the complexity
of a CLI. IOW, I don't advocate another GUI which is mostly the only way to
simplify zypper for a "normal" user, don'tcha think?
much more intuitive and flexible, as you state. It does use the Qt library,
which I'm pretty sure the Gnome folks would never agree to, BUT, they could
import the look and feel into the GTK library, eg, to have the same feature
and menu structure but with the GNOME look and feel interface. Then, both KDE
and GNOME and other DE's that use one or the other as a basis, would all have
the same basic look and feel and only the "window-dressing" aspects would be
different, eg, themed items.
I don't like the 'vomit green' theme too much either :) but having no
experience with Plymouth (except as an automobile), I'm open to education.
This is a pet peeve...More fundamentally, "Official vs Unofficial". Many
times I've been told that I have to use some OBS this or that repo to overcome
some bug or omission in the basic distro that won't be changed until the next
release, if at all, BUT, if I do, I am no longer running a "Supported" distro
because it is running unsupported software even though from a repo that is in
the OBS and recommended by the Bugzilla repair dev as a fix. The confusion
of Stable, Unstable, KDE etc, is just an added layer of confusion because
really, NONE of those are "Official", only OSS is official with Non-OSS being
quasi-official but they won't/can't change anything there.
My personal first choice is PCLinuxOS, but as they say, YMMV :) I have never
cared too much for Ubuntu, preferring Kubuntu because of KDE, UNTIL the 4.0
fiasco. Now that KDE has evolved to where it needed to be when 4.zero was
released, I would have no real reason to go to 'buntu except maybe for its'
relative ease of installation. If you frequent its' support MLs, not a whole
bunch of people are really happy with the most recent release though....
Don't mistake a difference of opinion for a flame. What we need to do is
reach a workable consensus of opinions that work best for this distro.
Things like dump Novell aren't practical, at least in the short run. As a
long term goal, maybe there could be some merit in Independence but there
needs to be a realization that isn't going to happen by magic, but by well
thought out planning and implementation. And more importantly, TIME.
Richard
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Edit: I'm cross-posting my comments as I feel that this deserves aOn Thursday 10 June 2010 10:48:42 you wrote:
thread of its own, independent from the originating thread which was
on another issue...
<snip>
Well, the overall solution needs to address both user types, so we don't
Couple of my observations on how we as a community can make openSUSE
better:- (Disclaimer: This is for the normal user and not the expert)
want to become myopic if we can avoid it.
1. Simplify zypper: The whole upgrading procedure where patches and
packages are treated separately have to be streamlined. It is a tad
confusing for the normal user. Mandriva provides a very elegant and
neat way to upgrade the system through their mdkonline applet.
Something we should look at as well
I do think that is the intent of Yast2's package manager. Zypper isn't
really designed for the "normal" user which was the thrust of your initial
statement :) So, I think the effort might be better spent on the module
within the Yast2 environment so that it better interfaces with the features in
zypper so that it gives the control that zypper offers without the complexity
of a CLI. IOW, I don't advocate another GUI which is mostly the only way to
simplify zypper for a "normal" user, don'tcha think?
2. Package Management through YaST: The Qt version rocks, but theI tend to agree that one or the other should be chosen. The Qt version is
GNOME version simply is sucks.
much more intuitive and flexible, as you state. It does use the Qt library,
which I'm pretty sure the Gnome folks would never agree to, BUT, they could
import the look and feel into the GTK library, eg, to have the same feature
and menu structure but with the GNOME look and feel interface. Then, both KDE
and GNOME and other DE's that use one or the other as a basis, would all have
the same basic look and feel and only the "window-dressing" aspects would be
different, eg, themed items.
3. Better bootsplash experience by using Plymouth
I don't like the 'vomit green' theme too much either :) but having no
experience with Plymouth (except as an automobile), I'm open to education.
4. Simplify the repository structure. There are too many confusing
ones, Factory, STABLE, UNSTABLE etc...the KDE guys are working on
simplifying it...I guess. GNOME needs simplification.
This is a pet peeve...More fundamentally, "Official vs Unofficial". Many
times I've been told that I have to use some OBS this or that repo to overcome
some bug or omission in the basic distro that won't be changed until the next
release, if at all, BUT, if I do, I am no longer running a "Supported" distro
because it is running unsupported software even though from a repo that is in
the OBS and recommended by the Bugzilla repair dev as a fix. The confusion
of Stable, Unstable, KDE etc, is just an added layer of confusion because
really, NONE of those are "Official", only OSS is official with Non-OSS being
quasi-official but they won't/can't change anything there.
Many mistake Ubuntu to have the best user experience distro....but
that tag actually belongs to Mandriva, which still has managed to keep
itself alive (I don't know how longer though). Some of their tools are
very good like msec (Mandriva Security), menu layout for GNOME and KDE
which is unique and very consistent. We could take some cues from
there and add the requisite polish on top of it.
My personal first choice is PCLinuxOS, but as they say, YMMV :) I have never
cared too much for Ubuntu, preferring Kubuntu because of KDE, UNTIL the 4.0
fiasco. Now that KDE has evolved to where it needed to be when 4.zero was
released, I would have no real reason to go to 'buntu except maybe for its'
relative ease of installation. If you frequent its' support MLs, not a whole
bunch of people are really happy with the most recent release though....
I'm sure some of these suggestions will be flamed...but I'd appreciate
if this not be taken as criticism, but as suggestions to greater
improve the distro that we all like.
-Anshul
Don't mistake a difference of opinion for a flame. What we need to do is
reach a workable consensus of opinions that work best for this distro.
Things like dump Novell aren't practical, at least in the short run. As a
long term goal, maybe there could be some merit in Independence but there
needs to be a realization that isn't going to happen by magic, but by well
thought out planning and implementation. And more importantly, TIME.
Richard
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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