Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 09:59:28 -0800 (PST) From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net> To: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status)) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.43.0302060943430.8779-100000@pilchuck.reedmedia.net> In-Reply-To: <20030206155440.M43637-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Narvi wrote:
> Btw,its interesting there is nobody putting together a coherent
> well-designed BSD based desktop as a single package. While there
> is most probably no money in this, it would be an interesting
> excerice/project.
Have a look at the *BSD-based CD-based, memory-based projects. Several
people have made reasonable desktops.
In fact, I made mine almost a year ago and have used the CD many times for
teaching classes (for myself and my students), giving presentations, and
for general BSD advocacy. It includes XFree86 with several default
configurations for a wide variety of video/monitors (using VESA/IBM
standards) which is useful since I sometimes don't know what type of
hardware/video projection I will be using. Also includes a couple window
managers with ready-to-use menus, Abiword, and various other desktop
(and rescue) tools. (Daemon News was selling my CD bundled with a past
NetBSD release.)
Other live CDs have KDE and other software.
On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Narvi wrote:
> * find similarily minded people who want to see it happen
Check the mailing list archives; a few others have started projects,
websites, and discussions for doing this for a few years. (Search for
homebsd and zebsd, for example.)
> * *DECIDE* (and later keep to the decision) as to what exactly
> your target audience is
My wife. My mom. My sister-in-law. :)
(My wife already uses X, blackbox, vnc, and sylpheed. My mom's been using
open source Unix for several years for everything. And my in-laws have
been unknowingly and entirely using NetBSD for a year.)
> * and then you just deal with the needed decisions that come from
> the first two parts to end up with a desktop package
The software is already available. The packages/ports are done.
> But really its a huge amount of work and includes many quite quirky
> decisions even when starting for a well-known base like GNOME/KDE
> (alphabetical ordering).
It is not a lot of work (unless done by one person). I think it only needs
a few things:
1) Nice-looking GUI installer. But it can be very simple: don't give the
user very many choices. (If they want choices, let it fall back to
sysinstall.) For example, no fdisk slicing or disklabeling. Just tell
the user that it will be installed on entire disk. Or tell the user that
certain partitions are available and ask which to use.
Don't ask the user (during install) to choose software. Just install!
Do ask the user for username, password and for a password for doing
"administration tasks". ("Some computer tasks will require an additional
administrator password. Please enter ...")
2) Make sure all menus are clearly preset.
The software to install should be decided, but not too many options.
Then make sure it works correctly, such as double-clicking on a mpeg
should play it.
Jeremy C. Reed
http://bsd.reedmedia.net/
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.LNX.4.43.0302060943430.8779-100000>