Package List Discussion

[Josh Boyer]

On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 7:25 AM, Kalev Lember <kalevlember at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/29/2014 09:24 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
>> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:16 PM, Michael Cronenworth <mike at cchtml.com> wrote:
>>> Elad Alfassa wrote:
>>>> Personally I think having virtualization that works out-of-the-box is an
>>>> excellent selling point and we should keep gnome-boxes (and libvirt) by
>>>> default.
>>>
>>>
>>> Could you provide a reasoning that isn't based on opinion? Based on the WS
>>> PRD and other wiki pages virtualization isn't covered by "providing a
>>> platform for development of various types of applications."
>>
>> Read use-cases 2 and 3 of the PRD.  Virtualization is highlighted there.
>
> Yes, it's in the PRD and I very much agree that virtualization and
> well-working gnome-boxes is a must have. But that doesn't mean we have
> to install everything by default. Not any more, now that we have a
> working application installer.
>
> In contrary, I would say that we should install _less_ apps by default
> and instead make sure those extra apps are properly advertised in the
> application installer and tested and supported.
>
> In the past we needed to install a lot of apps by default to overcome
> the shortcomings of the installer. This is no longer the case.
>
> Even though we are putting more emphasis and developer effort into
> producing a good platform for app developers, it doesn't mean we aren't
> still producing a distro for general consumption. And I'd say that
> people who need virtualization are more than capable of installing an
> additional app for that. But people who don't are likely going to find a
> Boxes launcher confusing.

I disagree.  We aren't targeting people that find virtualization to be
a confusing concept.  Workstation is targeting developers and students
with a reasonable degree of technical competence.  I believe working
virt out of the box should be installed.

> In general, what I'd like to ship by default is a good base platform. A
> platform that has enough applications and tools to cover the most common
> use cases: web browsing, email, document editing; one that supports most
> common file formats. And most importantly, it needs to come with
> _excellent_ tools for installing additional applications.

I think that describes what the existing desktop spin was aiming for,
not what Workstation is setting out to do.  Or, more specifically,
what you describe is indeed a good base platform and Workstation is a
superset of that.

>> Space really isn't an issue at the moment.
>
> I disagree with that statement. Space and the number of packages always
> comes with a cost. Sure, it probably won't matter that much for the
> initial installation as long as it's going to fit on a 2 GB USB stick,
> but it can matter for updates. Having more packages means updates take
> longer to install; more downtime while the offline updater runs. Also
> more packages means more frequent updates, which can be frustrating for
> users if they are nagged about updating apps they never ever use.

The live iso is ~1.2 GB right now.  In the context of having space to
fit libvirt/kvm, it's fine.

As for updates, I agree there are too many.

josh