On 10/21/23 19:45, Christian Lanig via openSUSE Factory wrote:
Hi,
first and foremost, the preview in the provided ISO looks great, almost the way I would have dreamed it. :) - It looks really simple, getting the user straight into the new system.
My personal preference would be keeping roles visually in the installer though, being able to aggregate several patterns under a role, because this appears to provide the most functional and customizable experience based on the actual workload that will be run on the system. This way, a single selection done by a user can still include multiple patterns and a user could be allowed to deselect patterns based on their preferences. I always considered the role selection as a benefit compared with the competition and it is very function oriented.
If we are talking only about the selection of software, the same could be achieved just using patterns. A pattern can depend on other patterns. We just need to select a reduced list of high level patterns we want to display during system installation. As already proposed in other branches of this same thread, that could be achieved by implementing a new flag for patterns to indicate they are "installation roles" (and, of course, then keep that list consistent and small enough over time).
Except from the role "Generic Desktop", I consider the existing roles beneficial to address a broad audience. Instead of "Generic Desktop" though, which advanced users could still achieve with manual customization, I would prefer a role "Multimedia/Gaming" to specifically target additional audience, which might e.g. require a realtime kernel for media production or an improved experience in time critical 3D applications. This would allow targeting an audience which might currently be absorbed by distributions like Nobara Linux. > Reviews of Tumbleweed on youtube.com, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSaUj_Okbnw&t=289s criticize that the current setup was not among the most user friendly ones. One reason is an overwhelming amount of options. As a result, it appears to be helpful having a reduced set of options, as provided by the roles and maybe even facilitating the selection of e.g. patterns, by providing symbolic images showing the corresponding applications/packages that are not installed if a pattern becomes deselected or the other way around, in case it gets selected. Judging from your preview on Agama, this is on a great track but might need to be improved from my perspective.
Well, the preview showed in the animation is intentionally rough around the edges. We wanted to first showcase the current structural problem (too many patterns and to inconsistent) before we jump into polishing small details in the UI. The final UI will likely be quite different.
Another way to facilitate the installation even more would be providing an installer that just installs a default system (specific role) by wiping the disk, providing a setup later after the first boot to configure the users etc. to simplify the pre-deployment of the operating system and providing an easy installation process for users with low experience. A candidate as a desktop environment chosen for such installation would be Gnome from my personal perspective, because it might suit well to generate a positive first impression due to it's simplicity and overall design by default.
That's actually a way we want to go with Agama as opposed to YaST. YaST is great but it takes cares of MANY things that could easily be customized or improved after the installation. And there are very good tools nowadays to customize an existing system. In a world where such tools exists and where deployment from images is becoming more common than traditional installation, it's debatable if the installer should go that far in tweaking all aspects of the system instead of just focusing on deploying a basic working system that can be customized afterward (that includes installing any package beyond a basic initial selection). So let me quote my own original mail: "[...] Agama to be simpler than with YaST. Even without any selection of packages to install. But quite some people expressed their desire of being able to customize the software selection while installing the operating system itself."
I would personally prefer the "System Role" instead of "Software". I am less interested in how big the installation will be than what will be installed, so if e.g. the Installer would preselect "Gnome" and write: "Gnome will be installed", I would be more happy. (Just because I am not lacking space on my disk... ;) )
Again, what you mention can equally be achieved with installation-related patterns. We don't need a different concept like system roles. Agama would just pre-select the "installation-gnome" pattern and you could enter the Software section to un-tick it, maybe in favor of ticking an "installation-plasma" pattern instead. Talking about defaults, that reopens the desktop war, but I don't care much. ;-) Maybe we should have a default like "no desktop" or "both Plasma and Gnome". YaST have had a strong requirement in the past of not encourage Plasma or Gnome over the other. :-) But I consider that as a minor detail.
Maybe I would not like to have games installed, so I would prefer to untick a games pattern in case I like to click on "System Role", or select another role, if I would want something else.
That could be done if the Software section would have an extra option to display all patterns and not only the ones with the new flag.
I would prefer to just boot Agama, wait a bit and then click on "Install", without even creating a user - and this would be the only thing that would be required to change in order to have a predeployment option without personalization.
That's actually the ideal goal. But we didn't find a reasonable option to skip the configuration of users. The administrator needs to set at least one password or SSH key. We don't want to create an installer that installs all systems with a publicly know password. :-)
Best regards, Christian Lanig
Cheers. -- Ancor González Sosa YaST Team at SUSE Software Solutions