Hey,
Having just taken a look at the live CD, here are a couple of specific changes that would make that experience better.
- The initial gdm screen is a bit of a hack. The message that you can click on the Fedora feels ugly. If we must have the GDM screen for keyboard or language, we might want to go through firstboot or something.
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me for a keyring password.
- nautilus shows the Live CD on the desktop, and lets you try to eject/unmount it.
- Just as a minor annoyance, not all the default applications are installed (dasher is missing) Any other suggestions?
Thanks, -Jonathan
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:07 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
Hey,
Having just taken a look at the live CD, here are a couple of specific changes that would make that experience better.
- The initial gdm screen is a bit of a hack. The message that you can
click on the Fedora feels ugly. If we must have the GDM screen for keyboard or language, we might want to go through firstboot or something.
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me
for a keyring password.
- nautilus shows the Live CD on the desktop, and lets you try to
eject/unmount it.
- Just as a minor annoyance, not all the default applications are
installed (dasher is missing)
Any other suggestions?
What you mentioned earlier (but forgot to add to this email, apparently): the live cd contains a number of system-config utilities that we would rather not see in the menus of a polished desktop spin, such as system-config-rootpassword. Most of them are dragged in by anaconda/firstboot.
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:34 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
What you mentioned earlier (but forgot to add to this email, apparently): the live cd contains a number of system-config utilities that we would rather not see in the menus of a polished desktop spin, such as system-config-rootpassword. Most of them are dragged in by anaconda/firstboot.
How do you propose that anaconda/firstboot have the functionality without having to bring their own copy of tools in?
Jeremy
On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 10:19 -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:34 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
What you mentioned earlier (but forgot to add to this email, apparently): the live cd contains a number of system-config utilities that we would rather not see in the menus of a polished desktop spin, such as system-config-rootpassword. Most of them are dragged in by anaconda/firstboot.
How do you propose that anaconda/firstboot have the functionality without having to bring their own copy of tools in?
By using conditional dependencies. E.g. anaconda itself shouldn't pull in system-config-keyboard on the live CD (the keyboard is assumed to already be configured through gdm). However, for non-live-cd anaconda use you probably want to pull it in and use it. That's fine.
In a similar fashion, anaconda/firstboot shouldn't automatically pull in system-config-rootpassword. Because that's not needed for Live CD's that are configured to not have a root password at all (Ubuntu, Mac OS X style).
Does it make more sense now?
David
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:07 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
Hey,
Having just taken a look at the live CD, here are a couple of specific changes that would make that experience better.
Great, this is exactly what we need. The Live CD is pretty slick but there's still a lot of low hanging fruit...
- The initial gdm screen is a bit of a hack. The message that you can
click on the Fedora feels ugly. If we must have the GDM screen for keyboard or language, we might want to go through firstboot or something.
Euw, gods no. Please. I don't want to click many times on a task driven interface just to get started whenever I boot the live CD. Perhaps if you could qualify a bit more why the gdm screen "is a bit of a hack" it would be useful.
Either way, gdm _needs_ this functionality (think shared computer with users having varying language preferences); punting this to Fedora specific tools is in my view a much greater hack. This is the old mantra: do the work upstream etc. etc.
Another reason for gdm is if you ship a live image with both GNOME and KDE. Then you'd have several faces to click on.
The alternative is to have language/keyboard selection in the boot loader (isolinux); to be honest I prefer that to firstboot any day of the week. As an added bonus it means that we would booth straight into the desktop without gdm. Still, I think gdm is a much much better solution.
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me
for a keyring password.
This is a good point, maybe the live cd initscript should set a blank password for the fedora users keyring. Even better, perhaps the gnome-keyring bits can detect a blank password (probably harder since it would require to init the pam stack and check the conversation is empty).
- nautilus shows the Live CD on the desktop, and lets you try to
eject/unmount it.
By design. The idea is that the Live CD itself can contain promo / information / foreign apps that is also visible when mounting it on foreign OS's (Windows, Macs). We just haven't used this feature (we should).
Further, having the icon is a good indicator for people they're running a live OS. Maybe the eject/unmount should be greyed out; then again, you can't actually unmount/eject it; you are given an error message if you try.
- Just as a minor annoyance, not all the default applications are
installed (dasher is missing)
Any other suggestions?
Yes. Anaconda pulls in a lot of the system-config-* tools that are not very useful neither on the live cd nor on the installed system. There's also like three SELinux icons or something in the menus. All of them really needs to go on the desktop live cd.
David
On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 10:12 -0500, David Zeuthen wrote:
- The initial gdm screen is a bit of a hack. The message that you can
click on the Fedora feels ugly. If we must have the GDM screen for keyboard or language, we might want to go through firstboot or something.
Euw, gods no. Please. I don't want to click many times on a task driven interface just to get started whenever I boot the live CD. Perhaps if you could qualify a bit more why the gdm screen "is a bit of a hack" it would be useful.
Surely we can get it to once per task, no? Anyway, the current gdm screen does feel like a hack to me. I think it's the "click on the fedora icon to log in" aspect. It would be nice to see a screen that's dedicated to the Live CD here.
Either way, gdm _needs_ this functionality (think shared computer with users having varying language preferences); punting this to Fedora specific tools is in my view a much greater hack. This is the old mantra: do the work upstream etc. etc.
My fault. I was jumping ahead in my head to the brave new world of gdm where firstboot and gdm are integrated, and language/accessibility are part of the environment. I'm basically proposing an extra mode to GDM just for that.
Another reason for gdm is if you ship a live image with both GNOME and KDE. Then you'd have several faces to click on.
Hrm. Is that enough in the cards that we should design for it?
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me
for a keyring password.
This is a good point, maybe the live cd initscript should set a blank password for the fedora users keyring. Even better, perhaps the gnome-keyring bits can detect a blank password (probably harder since it would require to init the pam stack and check the conversation is empty).
Yeah. You're bound to trigger that dialog one way or another during the session.
- nautilus shows the Live CD on the desktop, and lets you try to
eject/unmount it.
By design. The idea is that the Live CD itself can contain promo / information / foreign apps that is also visible when mounting it on foreign OS's (Windows, Macs). We just haven't used this feature (we should).
Can't we just have the promo appear as part of the image? Also, isn't the user name on the f-u-s applet 'Fedora Live'? As implemented right now, the CD is strange.
Further, having the icon is a good indicator for people they're running a live OS. Maybe the eject/unmount should be greyed out; then again, you can't actually unmount/eject it; you are given an error message if you try.
I would vote to make it insensitive at a minimum.
Yes. Anaconda pulls in a lot of the system-config-* tools that are not very useful neither on the live cd nor on the installed system. There's also like three SELinux icons or something in the menus. All of them really needs to go on the desktop live cd.
Agree, though I think you mean go _from_ the live CD. (-;
Thanks, -Jonathan
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:07 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
- The initial gdm screen is a bit of a hack. The message that you can
click on the Fedora feels ugly. If we must have the GDM screen for keyboard or language, we might want to go through firstboot or something.
GDM also gives us the benefit of being able to enable a11y. I don't feel very strongly one way or the other, but davidz did at one point
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me
for a keyring password.
Once we have an ability to make changes that you've made (especially including your home directory) persist by storing them to a USB stick or similar, this will make more sense to be able to do probably. But the dialog could use some love
- nautilus shows the Live CD on the desktop, and lets you try to
eject/unmount it.
I thought this got fixed at one point in hal
- Just as a minor annoyance, not all the default applications are
installed (dasher is missing)
dasher isn't a default app [katzj@aglarond comps]$ grep dasher comps-f8.xml.in <packagereq type="optional">dasher</packagereq>
Jeremy
On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 10:18 -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:07 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
- The initial gdm screen is a bit of a hack. The message that you can
click on the Fedora feels ugly. If we must have the GDM screen for keyboard or language, we might want to go through firstboot or something.
GDM also gives us the benefit of being able to enable a11y. I don't feel very strongly one way or the other, but davidz did at one point
[ Commented in the other post ]
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me
for a keyring password.
Once we have an ability to make changes that you've made (especially including your home directory) persist by storing them to a USB stick or similar, this will make more sense to be able to do probably. But the dialog could use some love
Oh, interesting. Are we going to password enable those USB sticks at all?
- Just as a minor annoyance, not all the default applications are
installed (dasher is missing)
dasher isn't a default app [katzj@aglarond comps]$ grep dasher comps-f8.xml.in <packagereq type="optional">dasher</packagereq>
It's selected as the default mobility device in the Preferred applications dialog. As I said, minor annoyance.
Thanks, -Jonathan
On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 23:25 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 10:18 -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 22:07 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
- While signing up for a wireless network, it gnome-keyring prompts me
for a keyring password.
Once we have an ability to make changes that you've made (especially including your home directory) persist by storing them to a USB stick or similar, this will make more sense to be able to do probably. But the dialog could use some love
Oh, interesting. Are we going to password enable those USB sticks at all?
It's definitely something that should be an option. Exactly how persistence is going to work is still a bit hand-wavy, unfortunately as all the options kind of suck :-/
- Just as a minor annoyance, not all the default applications are
installed (dasher is missing)
dasher isn't a default app [katzj@aglarond comps]$ grep dasher comps-f8.xml.in <packagereq type="optional">dasher</packagereq>
It's selected as the default mobility device in the Preferred applications dialog. As I said, minor annoyance.
Then we should install it by default! :-) Committed the appropriate comps change
Jeremy
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