Remaining issues for the multi desktop DVD (was: Re: Dear Fedora board, please open your trac)

[Máirín Duffy]

On Wed, 2011-01-12 at 14:09 -0500, Jared K. Smith wrote:
> 2011/1/12 Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org>:
> > I'd like to make it clear that the unpolished menu is not a problem for
> > ambassadors themselves to use home-burnt multispin media in usage for
> > demo machines. I do personally take issue with Fedora funding media that
> > includes an unpolished syslinux menu with the purpose of distributing
> > said media far and wide to would-be users for the promotion of Fedora,
> > as I strongly believe it would compromise our brand.
> 
> I respectfully disagree.  I think this is being blown entirely out of
> proportion.  I've attached two screenshots -- one of the current
> syslinux boot menu from Fedora 14, and the other from a sample
> multi-boot DVD image Christoph provided me.  I don't see how the one
> Christoph provided compromises our brand in any respect.
> 
> (Please note that the names in the attached screenshot will change --
> they had dates in them to make it easier to see which images were
> being used.)

Putting aside the noise introduced by the timestamp and
gratuitous-hyphenation-making-the-individual-entries-less-readable, GRUB
introduces a lot of useless spew about memory along the top and overly
verbose and unnecessary language in the four lines below the menu. GRUB
only allows 14 colors, which is why you see more severe dithering and
banding in the second screenshot than the current Fedora screenshot
(syslinux supports a much larger palette.) It would be nice to drop the
GRUB menu borders as well. I don't know if GRUB allows for this;
syslinux does.

Each instance of putting our name on something that is clearly
unpolished compromises our brand. Why risk this when it is so easy to
clean it up?

Please also recognize that when we've seen something release after
release we get a bit immunized to it and that if we're seriously trying
to spread software freedom by bringing free software to more and new
groups of users, their eyes are untainted in this aspect and they will
notice and not care that things have been that way since back in Fedora
$VERSION.

Is it GRUB or syslinux being used for the proposed multispin DVD?

~m