#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America -----------------------------+------------------------ Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Keywords: | Blocked By: Blocking: | -----------------------------+------------------------ FAmNA decided we will produce a DVD-9 (AKA Dual Layer DVD) with Gnome(Desktop), KDE, LXDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, and MATE-Compiz
Please create an ISO with 64 bit only of those live desktops.
We need this ASAP so we can get Fedora 23 media ordered.
Thank you.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by nb):
OK, I will rephrase this:
FAmNA decided we will produce a DVD-9 (AKA Dual Layer DVD) with Fedora Workstation and the KDE, LXDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, and MATE-Compiz spins.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by mattdm):
I'm not opposed to having this media for where it's appropriate/useful for advancing Fedora, but I have some concerns.
First, it seems out-of-alignment with the overall Fedora marketing strategy, where we want to advance based on our strengths in certain areas. We want to _really_ succeed in those areas and then grow outward from there, and I'd really like Ambassadors' efforts to be centered around that.
I know those areas — developer desktop, easy-deploy server, cloud computing — aren't everything to all audiences Ambassadors address, so "there's more to Fedora!" is important too, but it'd _also_ be nice to have Ambassadors largely focused on promoting our collective strategy. Especially when we're spending collective money.
We don't even _have_ a "GNOME (Desktop)" spin; Fedora Workstation is based on GNOME, but that's not the same thing. Is there a plan here to create one, or is the idea for Fedora Workstation to stand in as "GNOME Desktop"? I'm concerned about, as it confuses the message we're working to build around Fedora Workstation as having its own identity.
Continuing along those lines, Fedora in general doesn't work by telling people to do things. There have been changes in the release engineering infrastructure, and I'm not sure that doing this is as easy as pushing a button and waiting. Are there people interested in helping with any new releng changes that are needed? And after media is produced, are there plans for QA for all of these environments? Since this was dropped from QA's radar, I'd really hate for this to go out with our name on it and have some embarrassing flaw.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by nb):
All it requires is for releng to run a script and then upload the result somewhere. This shouldn't require them to make "changes" except to run a script which spot wrote a while back.
We have made this media in the past, but haven't for a few releases now. FAmNA decided we would like to produce it again, since we have requests for other desktops when we are at conferences. We have people who can test it, and in fact, kk4ewt/jbwillia has offered to produce the image himself, but in the past we have been told that "releng has to do it"
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by parasense):
From releng perspective I'd like to see the script used to generate these. Does anybody know where that lives? I quick peek in the releng scripts and nothing jumps out at me.
From Ambassador perspective I think these multi-spin DVD's continue to be a great tool in our mission to talk about Fedora in public. Being able to provide somebody their preferred choice in desktop environment is a good sell. That said I agree with Matt that ambassadors need to be aligned with the project. I'm just not sure that offering a multi-spin DVD goes out of alignment? It would contain the workstation variant, so we're good, right? Worst case scenario physical media is spun with workstation ISO I guess.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by ausil):
https://pagure.io/multiboot-media-creator is where we have the copy of the program we use. The issue is not so much that the request has come in and that it is super hard. It is that when I reached out before f23 was done I was told that we will no longer be doing multiboot media. If it is something that we are going to continue to do then we need to have the creation of the media integrated into the compose process and it needs to not be some after thought.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by pfrields):
When nb asked me about this yesterday, I didn't realize there wasn't agreement at the leadership level about making a multi-boot ISO. As Dennis pointed out, the mechanics aren't difficult. But if Matthew and the Council have concerns with offering that vs. a standard edition, we're not moving together as a project.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by mattdm):
Like I said, I'm not automatically opposed. I just have concerns, enumerated above.
Parasense, I do agree that offering multiple desktop environments is a good sell to certain audiences. But, I think that the pool of people "shopping" for an operating system in that way is very small, and that if we focus on that, we end up really limited, even if it feels like success when talking to those people.
Additionally, if the sell is that we provide desktop environments, well, so does every other distro. It's good that we do that, but it doesn't seem to draw people in to Fedora specifically, just as a commodity vendor. Part of the Fedora.next strategy is to do Fedora-first innovative things with Workstation, Server, and Cloud. This is why I'm emphasizing that Fedora Workstation *isn't* the Fedora GNOME spin. It's more than just terminology slip, that's why I think putting it on a DVD where it's naturally promoted that way is detrimental to the messaging.
If our event strategy is going to include significant investment in going to events where we're talking to people where desktop choice is a big factor, then making some multi-offering DVDs makes sense. But I'm not at all sold on that being a good event strategy.
Anyway — this is a better thread for Ambassadors list (see the conversation I started there).
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by pjp):
Hello,
We recently discussed this at "FAD Singapore 2015".[*] The topic of Fedora adoption did come up and it was observed that maybe having alternate desktop DVDs could help. New workstation users may not readily find the Gnome interface matching their intuition, and many give up before they build new habits. Alternative Desktop DVDs could come handy in such cases. Maybe It'll help to do some A/B testing with the different desktops to evaluate which one gives best adoption rate to Fedora.
Thank you.[[Br]] [*] https://pjps.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/fad-singapore-2015/
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by rdieter):
It seems to becoming increasingly difficult (impossible?) to get media created for spins.
With my kde-sig member hat on, I find some of the dialog here extremely frustrating: "it seems out-of-alignment with the overall Fedora marketing strategy..." That has been used as an excuse to deny creating media (that includes kde) now at least twice.
It is clear (to me) there is sufficient demand for this, from contributors and users. That should be enough to justify doing it. Frankly, if marketing gets in the way of this demand, then I think there's something wrong (with the marketing strategy).
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: new Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by rdieter):
Reading that over, my final complaint about marketing being to blame may be overly negative.
To put another way in a more constructive (and non-accusatory) way I hope: by not providing spin media (for whatever reasons), the needs of fedora contributors and users are not being met.
One visible and concrete impact is that ambassadors/contributors attending events don't have the media they've requested.
One way forward: It's my understanding that EMEA folks are creating some sort of "Alternative Desktops" media (I'm not privy to the details), and that sounds like one approach that may be a good compromised between meeting this request and not running afoul of marketing.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: closed Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: invalid | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+----------------------- Changes (by till):
* status: new => closed * resolution: => invalid
Comment:
IMHO the discussion whether or not to build the images is not a release engineering problem but a marketing problem. From what I understood releng will create the images if it is asked for them early enough. For the F23 cycle there was no demand for the multi desktop ISO from the EMEA ambassadors anymore and nobody told releng that they ISOs would be needed for America back then. Now it is too late for F23. Therefore I close this ticket here.
#6312: Make Multidesktop ISO for Fedora Ambassadors North America ------------------------------+----------------------- Reporter: nb | Owner: rel-eng@… Type: task | Status: closed Milestone: Fedora 23 Final | Component: other Resolution: invalid | Keywords: Blocked By: | Blocking: ------------------------------+-----------------------
Comment (by kkofler):
This is ridiculous. Fedora 23 has 4 more months of lifetime left, and there are several events in that time frame. A multiboot image can easily be spun from the regular GA images at any time. So I don't see how it is too late.
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