Debian Desktop Subproject Launched 387
MrOutlander writes "The Debian Project is now officially addressing its usability on the desktop with the launch of the Debian Desktop subproject. Great to see usability being recognized as a very important part of debian. Other than the sometimes daunting install process, Debian is one of the best linux distributions."
Isnt Linux Customizable? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Required Reading... (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who's used OS8, OS9, Linux, and all the video variants, let me tell you that OS8 comes pretty damn close to being *golden*. Apple spent a lot of time making OS7-9 pleasant and easy to use and it shows.
Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
As soon as Linux is recognized as a userfriendly, easy-to-use desktop with lots of free (as in beer) software by the average user Windows will get into real problems. Such an opening would generate a *huge* increase in the number of users and thus in the interest in supporting Linux from different companies.
Two points to avoid flaming: 1) I know that Linux is only the kernel, simply sed 's/Linux/Gnu\\Linux/' and be happy, 2) "as in beer" is how the average user will see it, my mother don't care for open source, she wants to use it as a tool!
Re:System Management for User (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're going to deploy this in any kind of serious setting, you'll have admins to set up scripts to remove the glaring security holes in any case.
I Have No Problems. (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally I have no problem with Debian's installer. In fact, it is the best I have seen yet. In a desktop situation you can (with the exception of partitioning a disk and one or two other places) just continually hit [ENTER] and come out with a base Debian install.
Which installer is better?
Ximian Setup Tools (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone...?
Re:Daunting? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just try to replace a videocard - what will Debian with default xdm do?
Re:Required Reading... (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Menus (Score:4, Interesting)
WHY the Graphical Debian installer focus? (Score:4, Interesting)
SO WHAT!?! It installed fine.
Some of my minor complaints include:
Ease of install of Xwindows
X installation has always been a bitch for me irregardless of the distribution Linux or BSD. It seems that it's something that always needs tinkering. I did get this going fairly quick after some help from my BSD admin guru--thank the Gods for buddies!
Ease of install of sound
I still don't have sound working, but I haven't given it the one two punch!
Ease of install of APM support
I probably haven't looked in the right place or good documentation doesn't exist. And I'm lazy?
Up to date install documentation
Let's face it, I think that once most people get their configuration working they don't think about giving back to the community. Something that should definately be reconsidered.
Package Manager selection at end of install
Aggravating. I don't want to sit and select then download and install 200M of software after I get it installed, but I DO want an easy way to get back to package management once I hastily exit out if it. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.
Overall though, my Debian install was a pleasant experience.
If I didn't have ~10 years of XP working with *NIX as a user and ~20 years of XP working with computers I certainly wouldn't know where to begin. That's why I think better documentation is certainly in order.
OVERALL, Debian is everything that I would expect it to be for what I consider to be a non-commercial distribution of Linux.
Re:Co-ordination please (Score:3, Interesting)
It's called the Bazzar. Not the Cathederal. It seems to have worked very well so far to create some really good software. Sorry it might not work as quickly as you or I might like.
Remember, your competitioin is Microsoft, they have 95% of the desktop market (or there abouts).
The Bazzar model of development is what will hurt Microsoft. They cannot compete with that.
Choice is what will undermine Microsoft. They do not offer that.
Example: hardware vendors should all work together and cooperate. There should be only one single kind of CD drive, one kind of each size of monitor, one kind of CPU, etc.
The Bazzar seems to work there quite well. Look at hardware prices.
I agree that it would be bad if the open source world spread its resources too thin. But I don't think it is. Even if it were, there is little you or I can do about it. That is just another condition of the Bazzar.
You should be teaming together to fight them, not amongst each other.
I don't think there is any "fighting" going on. I suppose we have seen some bickering amongst KDE and GNOME advocates. (But amongst the developers?)
Re:Daunting? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Yellow Dog Linux installation has a graphical installer (using the Blackbox WM) and it requires you to click through about 10 screens. If you live in the USA, most of the default settings are accaptable.
After installing both Mac OS X and Windows 2000 many times, I can honestly say that the YDL installer is the most directly functional and the least obtrusive.
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/ydl_home.shtml [yellowdoglinux.com]
Libranet Has Done This (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Daunting? (Score:3, Interesting)
Shut down, swap network cards, boot up. On init, it says something like "Your network card has changed, do you you want to copy your old settings to the new card?"
Then it does it, and you boot up.
Same thing with video cards/etc.
Re:How about making the apt sources... (Score:3, Interesting)
In Debian, there is kdebase. It only installs the essentials for KDE. I think it's reasonable to assume that if someone asks for kde, they'd want most of the stuff kde.org [kde.org] offers.
Actually, since I started using Debian again, I've been fairly impressed by the work that goes into just pulling in what you actually need.
Re:Wrong focus? (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect that the reason it's not in testing is because someone found a bug in it that's considered release-critical.
Oh, and GNOME2 (the bits that aren't already in unstable, cf gnome-terminal) is apparently going into unstable this weekend (according to the gtk-gnome list archives). The holdup was transition scripts so that it wouldn't completely throw away all your existing configuration settings from GNOME1 (remember that the two can't coexist cleanly!). They're going to hold it out of testing artificially until these transition scripts have been tested a little more.
Personally I'm extremely glad of that, because I use GNOME to get real work done and I went so far as to artificially downgrade my sid machine to sarge specifically to avoid gnome-terminal and other GNOME2 packages. If GNOME2 had gone into Debian any sooner, I'd have been terribly unhappy.
I'd like to see xft/fontconfig make it into Debian, but the X maintainer has made a good case for holding off on that until X 4.3ish. When you're Red Hat and do one release a year, ongoing changes aren't a problem because you can ignore them until your next release. When you're Debian and do one release a day, ongoing changes hurt!
Stuart.
Re:Start Here: (Score:3, Interesting)
On the first page of the report, I noticed something odd. All of the study's (largely non-hacker) participants rated themselves as "expert" Windows users but utterly helpless at UNIX. Interesting thing is, to a pure end user, CDE/GNOME/KDE aren't too far removed from Windows as far as available tools, etc., go--the main difference is that Windows is flashy and expertly marketed. I think that people, in general, perceive UNIX as "hard" regardless whether it actually is. This psychological barrier is artificial, yet it makes up the biggest obstacle to getting through to most people about UNIX and Linux.
Me thinks Sun and the GNOME foundation need to crank up their respective marketing machines to further dismantle Microsoft's dominance in the global perception about computers and software. Whenever Sun is ready with their GNOME/Linux business PCs, they should get full page ads in the major PHB-oriented and business-oriented periodicals. The word really needs to get out there.
Re:X-Windows? Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah sure, you claim that X* will never cut it in the desktop world. Why? OK, network transparency is not imporant to you, but it doesn't hurt you either! What's so wrong with X that it needs to be replaced?
It's got support for lots of video cards, 2D graphics, 3D hardware acceleration (OpenGL/DRI), hardware YUV acceleration (XVideo), video mode switching (XVidMode), translucent rendering (Xrender), antialiasing (Xft), and soon root window resizing (RandR) and perhaps translucent windows.
And most important of all: X is designed to be extensible!
All the other 'replacements' are big jokes. DirectFB/GGI/Berlin don't support nearly as many video cards and aren't nearly as mature.
* It's the X window System, or just X! NOT "X-windows", "X-window", "X windows" or "X window".
Re:X-Windows? Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
X-Windows is going to totally kick ass in the desktop world. Network transparency is the BIGGEST deal ever. Why?
You can run thin clients - for corporates this is a good thing, as it means they get control of their own machines again. Thin client setups are easier to administer, and can work out cheaper than having thousands of breakable PCs that have to be upgraded by hand every few years.
People can try out Linux with only an X server. No really, I've done this several times for people on IRC - they install a Windows X server and I launch a few apps to them to play with. It's a first taste, and often gets them interested. It's how I started
People can "swap" apps between machines on home networks. Well, OK, right now xmove is slightly broken, but the XFree developers are definately considering repairing it and then integrating it into X. Let's say you have 3 computers. One of them has a music setup, as a member of your family is a musician. Another is in the lounge, and another is in a bedroom. You're working on a document in the study, when your eldest daughter wants to come in and write some bangin' tuneage. No problem, you just click in the control button in the window and "Move screen" it to the computer in the lounge, where you can talk to your wife at the same time. A few hours later, she wants to watch TV, so you move again to the bedroom. No need to restart the app. This is easy with X, near impossible with anything else.
You can have logins within a window. XNest lets you do this easily. Can Windows or MacOS do this? No, I think not.
Dude, X-Windows is going to cut up the desktop market. Network transparency is useful to everybody, it's just we've never really had it before so nobody can think of why it's useful to them.
Re:Isnt Linux Customizable? (Score:1, Interesting)
First: Debian is the only FREE Distro, that is distributed as Open Source/Free Software and assembled by volunteers.
Second: Debian is a special distribution that is famous for its stability. For professional servers many high qualified people use Debian.
Thrird: Lindows, Xandros, Knoppix are based on Debian. So Debian is a good meta platform
fourth: Debian is very famous for its package format. apt get is said to be easy for professionals.
5th: Debian provides very high quality and a text based installer. Many professionlas dislike graphic installers.
6. Variety is strength.