Fedora core suggestions

[Arthur Pemberton]

 On 4/21/06, Alo Tsum <alotsum at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Fedora Core 5 is a truly amazing OS and one I think has the potential to
> really do great things.

Tell that to the guys at /.

[ snip ]
>
> First suggestions has to do with the software side of things. We users need
> a competent software installer which is graphical based.

The problem here is that there are several options, and Fedora has
chosen to stick with Pirut. I am personally not a fan of the GUI style
used by Pirut, but it is quite possible that I am in the minority in
this regard.

> One that functions
> much the same way that the windows installer works.
> This installer should track dependencies naturally and place icons on the desktop or give the
> option to have icons for the software just installed to be placed on the
> desktop of the user as well as in the applications menu. Also when watching

This is somewhat impossible, the software is installed very much
different than on Windows. The last thing i think we in general want
is for packagers to take it upon themselves to get packages to put
icons on the desktop. In all fairness though there there are
multiplatform GUI based software installers available: InstallShield
has one, this company also has one: http://www.installjammer.com/

> the Boston Linux conference the suggestion was made to offer a hard disc
> manager much like windows offers for formating and receiving hard drivers
> etc after installation.

I agree here, however, it would have to be much better, Windows
(natively) only supports a few file systems.

>
> My second set of suggestions will deal with the over all focus and structure
> of the fedora project. I was listening to a pod cast interview with the head
> of the fedora project where in, the topic came up of some how generating
> revenue to put back into the project and make it more self sufficient. So I
> have a few suggestions which I think the Redhat company itself should take
> note of. Firstly Redhat while promoting Linux among enthusiast is also in
> the business of making money. On that front I believe that they should not
> only attempt to evangelize Linux in the government, education, and corporate
> sectors; they should also attempt to get Linux in each and every home.

I wish Redhat would approach my home government and make them an offer
they can't refuse. But people hate change.

> The
> reason being is if people are starting to use Linux in their homes and they
> are comfortable with it, employers will be more likely and willing to deploy
> a operating system which is different in many ways to windows on the
> interactive level. Reason being is when people have to stop to learn new
> technology this cuts down on productivity and as a person who works for a IT
> department in a major university I can also vouch for the fact a IT team
> will not be willing to suggest an infrastructure restructuring when they
> know, supporting users on something foreign to them is going to increase
> their workload 10 fold.

I do not totally agree here. A properly setup Linux distro used for
simple end user tasks should be easier to admin that a similair
Windows system.

> So bottom line, more users both advanced,
> intermediate and beginners need to be converted to the Linux faithful but
> now the question becomes how?
>
I disagree with you fully here. I hate Windows (except for playing Age
of Empires) and I love Linux (esp. KDE and associated apps) but I do
_not_ think anyone people in general _need_ to be converted to Linux,
that seems very much a pipe dream. To each their own, I used to spend
hours fixign peoples Window's machines, I have simply decided to never
do that again unless I get paid. So everyone should use what they feel
does the job for them. I used Windows since 3.1, and I can't imagine
going back from Fedora/KDE fulltime right now.

> The Fedora project is the perfect tool for this and here is how. The fedora
> team should focus SOLELY on making the operating system run as smoothly and
> as fast as possible, interacting with a HUGE number of hardware
> configurations.

See now, here you have a problem. This is not the M.O of the Fedora
Project. Fedora was not intended to be a "pretty" desktop/home user
operating system.

>  Installation needs to be as smooth as silk and upgrading
> needs to be fail proof from version to version.

That is a very tall order IMHO.

> Previously installed drives
> with personal user data needs to be able to be retained without fail from
> upgrade to upgrade if the user isn't doing a clean install.

Another tall order, but I think this is very important myself however.

[ snip ]

--
As a boy I jumped through Windows, as a man I play with Penguins.