Proposed F18 feature: MiniDebugInfo

[Kevin Kofler]

Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
> Sounds more useful to me to just have a single live image which has
> multiple desktop environments included, so you don't have the common
> bits multiple times at the dvd ...

That sounds nice in theory, but is just not practical:
* The per-desktop live images are what we develop and test. Nobody is 
testing an "everything" live DVD (with all merged into one image, as opposed 
to the Multi DVD we're doing now).
* The live images also have different display managers. An "everything" live 
DVD would most likely end up with GDM, which makes it particularly hard to 
select a non-GNOME session. (Many users complain about not finding the 
session type selection in GDM.) Using GDM might also otherwise degrade the 
experience for the non-GNOME desktops. (We try hard to make things like 
shutdown, restart or user switching work for KDE Plasma sessions in GDM, but 
upstream always lags behind the current GDM/ConsoleKit/systemd/… in support, 
and it doesn't get the kind of testing KDM gets. I still don't know whether 
user switching from KDE Plasma Desktop with GDM actually works now in F17, 
and if it doesn't work, whether it's a bug in my code or in systemd/GDM/…)
* The menus would get crowded with up to 4 (or even 5 if Sugar activities 
start registering in menus as well) applications for each task. And no, 
OnlyShowIn is not a solution because some users WANT to use the "foreign" 
apps. It's just installing them all by default which would lead to a poor 
user experience.

I think the current system is a much better solution. It also allows doing 
both CDs and the Multi DVD with the same development effort.

        Kevin Kofler