gmane.linux.ubuntu.devel.desktop

Re: {Desktop 12.10 Topic] Holistic approach to Ubuntu documentation

David — 2012-05-25T05:50:18

Maybe an every increasingly obvious banner at the top of every wiki 
page.

"This wiki was last edited 12/12/2012" - Green
"This wiki was last edited 12/12/2011" - Yellow
"This wiki was last edited 12/12/2010" - Red
"This wiki was last edited in 2009/8/7/6 and may not be accurate" - 
Dark gray

- David

On 2012-04-24 22:17, Chris Wilson wrote:

Visual Design Assets

Ted Gould — 2012-05-22T19:49:10

Hello,

We were talking about project management today and how to get work items
on the list for needing visual design.  Previously we have assigned
tasks and bugs to design, or individual designers, but in talking with
Nick what he'd prefer is that we assign those tasks and bugs to him --
and he'll ensure that they stay up-to-date with their internal list of
tasks.

He claims his e-mail inbox can handle the task ;-)

So, in the future, if you could please do that hopefully it'll result in
better coordination of work items.

--Ted

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driverinstallation

Matthew Paul Thomas — 2012-05-11T22:38:46

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I didn't see this message until after the UDS session today, but I
thought I'd explain quickly why my draft design
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareAndUpdatesSettings#drivers> isn't
like the Device Manager in Windows.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote on 23/04/12 10:35:

First, because "We have to provide proprietary drivers" does not
logically lead to "we should also show the Free Software drivers". And
second, because no-one has provided use cases for it.

A quick analogy. Last month on Reddit, someone suggested that Ubuntu
should show -- in the Power settings on each computer -- whether the
Hibernate function on that computer is (a) certified working, (b)
reported working, (c) unknown, or (d) known bad. The problem with that
suggestion was that any communication of states (a) or (b) would make
sense only if you had a complete mental model of the battlefield --
only if you knew that there were some computers for which Hibernate
works and some where it doesn't. Otherwise, it would look like random
boasting: "Oh, by the way, this function works on your computer, just
like thousands of other functions do".
<http://www.reddit.com/r/fossworldproblems/comments/se3u6/ubuntu_1204_infringes_on_my_right_to_achieve_data/c4diyry?context=3>

It's the same here. That there are thousands of devices that work well
on Ubuntu is great. Yay kernel developers, and yay us. But it's the
sort of victory that we celebrate amongst ourselves. We don't need to
run the GUI equivalent of a ticker-tape parade, listing all the
devices that work, to downplay the few that don't. (We do that on
Ubuntu's Web site, but only so people can check compatibility *before*
they install.)

Microsoft's Device Manager exists because some devices have drivers
that need to be downloaded from the Internet, and many devices have
drivers that aren't made by Microsoft. So if Plug and Play goes wrong
- -- whether through a failed Internet connection, or an incompetent
vendor -- it is a legitimate troubleshooting use case to find the device
and try reconfiguring it.

In Ubuntu, driver configuration is useful only when you have a choice
of drivers, and Ubuntu can't tell which will work best on your
particular machine. Usually that's when at least one of the drivers is
proprietary, but it doesn't have to be. Conceivably we could also list
devices for which there are no proprietary drivers, but multiple
maintained open-source drivers. That just doesn't often happen.

Maybe after another 14 years kernel developers will decide that the
current driver model doesn't scale, and switch to a model more like
the Windows one. Or maybe there are other use cases for a full Device
Manager. But right now, this isn't one.

- --
mpt
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAk+tlPYACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecr/FwCfcolht8WzQw2zOGOBgwl9Pv9L
Ta4AnRz7iz5zmIOu9MVdDGXWNiVf8No8
=5anZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [Desktop UDS topic] Regional/national applications

Malin Krosby Bruland — 2012-05-02T11:25:50

Hi, David

I have an idea of this.

When you install Ubuntu you have to select which region you live in. I
think it would be a good idea if you then got package-suggestions for
region-specific softare. An example is bank-id as is used in Norway too,
but also region-specific scopes and lenses.

[Desktop UDS topic] Regional/national applications

David Henningsson — 2012-05-02T09:36:32

As I understand it, several countries have "special apps", that are very 
useful to that country.

As an example, for Sweden, we have BankID, which is used to log on to 
several government sites, declaring taxes etc.

Other countries have other favorites which are local to that country but 
still very important to have. I've heard Brazil has something similar 
but different, for example.

The degree of Linux support of these are of course varying, but in the 
BankID case there is a Linux version, but it could be easier to install, 
if we could get it into either Ubuntu Software Center as an app, or 
maybe into the partner repository. That would also bring the advantage 
of automatic updates, which would be attractive to the app developer (in 
the case of security related applications, even more so).

So, how do we
  - Identify what applications are important for a particular country?
  - Reach out to the developers of that application?
  - Help them out with integrating their apps into Ubuntu?
  - Get them into Ubuntu Software Center, the partner archive, or 
something similar?

The LoCo teams could be a valuable resource here, I assume.

(unknown)

Prudhvi Tella — 2012-04-27T12:58:45

http://www.maquinavisual.tv/portafolio.old/wp-content/plugins/extended-comment-options/mylove.php?instrument143.jpg

Re: {Desktop 12.10 Topic] Holistic approach to Ubuntu documentation

Chris Wilson — 2012-04-24T12:47:16

Perhaps some mechanism to archive obsolete yet relevant wiki pages would be
useful here. I'm not sure if the current wiki engine has such a feature, or
what sort of effort would be required to hack one in if it doesn't, but
being able to classify wiki pages into separate tiers of importance could
be helpful.

I also think that keeping the docs for average users, power users,
contributors and developers (there seems to me to be four sets of users,
not three as has been mentioned earlier) makes sense since all of those
groups have different needs. I as a developer would like to know how to
navigate the Unity source code, or how to quickly learn the process for
submitting a patch (from start to finish), without having to wade through
pages of configuration file tweaks aimed at power users. A single landing
page for everyone starting out may be appropriate, but after that I think
they should diverge.

Chris

On 19 April 2012 08:30, Matthew East <mdke-GeWIH/nMZzLQT0dZR+AlfA< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: [Desktop12.10-Topic] Default application selection process

Jeremy Bicha — 2012-04-23T21:34:07

One significant distinctive of Ubuntu since the beginning has been
that it tries to ask as few questions as possible during install while
including the "best" web browser, document editor, music player, etc.
Somebody new to Linux probably won't know what the best music player
is for them and asking them is just going to frustrate many of these
beginners and leave them thinking Ubuntu is difficult to get started
with. Advanced Linux users can easily install Banshee or VLC or
Clementine or mplayer or whatever. It's the same reason GNOME Shell or
GNOME Fallback or KDE aren't on the main CD either.

It also allows Canonical to focus their development efforts on a few
core apps to make the experience the best possible.


I like the cheese-for-webcam-computers idea. It used to be on the
Netbook image, right? I think we should start a thread on "If we ship
an 800MB image or so, what would we use the extra space for?".


Great! We'd be glad to have you! I didn't know a bit of programming
when I first installed Ubuntu.

Jeremy

Re: [Desktop12.10-Topic] Default application selection process

Jonas Platte — 2012-04-23T20:58:10

Am 23.04.2012, 21:09 Uhr, schrieb Iain Lane <laney-GeWIH/nMZzLQT0dZR+AlfA< at >public.gmane.org>:

I, as a Ubuntu user and individualist like the not-yet-current version,
12.04, very much. It has some huge improvements regarding Unity, and I
also like Rhythmbox as the new standard music player because Banshee
really took long loading. Firefox and Thunderbird are also good programs
and I think there are many ones who would install them first if they
weren't standard.
So, big thanks to the developers who made this version that good ;)

But there are still many people who don't think that those are "the
perfect" programs. I, for example don't use any of those programs. I like
them, but I know ones that fit my needs better. So what I would suggest is
to improve the installation process so that everyone has the choice not to
install special programs one doesn't need, and, if there is a working
internet connection, choose to install alternatives, because the very
first thing I do after upgrading / installing Ubuntu is to remove unwanted
packages and to install new ones. It think it would also be a little
"wow-factor" because that would really be something new.
How do you like that idea and does this sound convertible for you?

To talk about specific packages, I think the gnome-media package is
something quite nobody uses nowaday, because the most people don't record
audio and if they do, they use their cellphone for that. Furthermore, the
most people who have a microphone also have a webcam, so I would suggest
to have a preinstalled cheese (perhaps it also would be good to only
install it if a webcam is detected). I don't am the biggest fan of cheese,
but it works as it should and it seems to be the best webcam app available
in the Software Center.

btw: Even though I wrote that I'm just a user, I'm also learning C++ in
school, and I think if I get over these 100-line programs in a year or so
I might call myself a developer and I'm also willing to join the Ubuntu
development ;)

Re: [Desktop12.10-Topic] Default application selection process

Iain Lane — 2012-04-23T19:09:30

Hey,

Thanks for the ping. I meant to reply to this but it slipped away.
Here's some relatively uncoordinated thoughts.

On Tue, Apr 03, 2012 at 02:06:11PM +0200, Sebastien Bacher wrote:

Right. I think that having a session named like that is probably not the
most constructive use of time. Like you say it's probably better to have
more focussed discussions on particular areas.


Yes, and the distribution developers involved too.

It would be a bad idea if upstreams were forced to defend their
application in long mailing list threads every six months. The desktop
team can act as a filter here, vetoing choices and selecting those which
should go ahead for further discussion. There should be no (if
avoidable) surprises coming out of UDS sessions.


It would be nice if issues could be communicated with upstreams /before/
it got to the stage of ditching / switching applications. Say some user
testing or a survey or bug analysis or something 2-3 months after
release to figure out what's working and not.


Yeah, it'd be good if we could come up with some usecases that we want
the default desktop to support and then review and change this list
which would then affect the choice of shipped software. Sort of one step
removed.


If we can find out earlier on what's not working well then we'll be able
to feed this back to upstreams so that they can plan accordingly. It
shouldn't be a case of "fix this in the next six months or we're
dropping you". UDS timing is a bit unfortunate in this regard because it
comes too soon after release to have real user feedback but we're
trying to make decisions for a release which is happening in only six
months time.


Yes. If there's to be a general session then I think it shouldn't be
about default application selection, but rather about the quality of the
desktop in the previous release and what we should tweak, and the
session lead should be strong in stopping unproductive discussions from
happening.

Thanks for your input,

Re: Ubuntu 12.10 Call for Topics

Kevin Hunter — 2012-04-23T18:22:54


Please pardon me as a silly (power) end-user/poor 
administrator/non-programmer who is lurking on this list: I can mention 
some things that would be helpful to my experience, skill, and use-case:

1. Wireless Stability: In the laptop realm, I still regularly get 
reports from my end-users of (and occasionally experience myself) either 
temporary network loss, or a network condition "requiring a reboot". 
I'm hoping it's Launchpad bug 548992, which claims to be fixed as of 
March, but it has been plaguing our network and users for the last 3 
years.  In any event, it's beginning to rise on our priority list of issues.

2. When you say firewall, is this in relation to G/UFW?  If so, then a 
couple of suggestions:

   - G/UFW: make certain actions usable by non-root users.  Like the
     status command.  I have a few interested users on my network who
     would just like to know the rules of their machines, and not have
     to ascertain them via nmap <localhost|self_ip> or an email to me.

   - GUI: immediate update when something changes via an external
     measure, á là my command line tinkerings.  The GUI is nice to have
     for viewing the current status, but since it doesn't update, it's
     minorly more cumbersome to type ufw status, or Alt+Tab, F5.  This
     would be handy if I need to iterate on the command line, as for
     example when I'm debugging a random network issue.  (i.e. It would
     be handy to have an open window that automatically updates when a
     change is made.)

   - GUI: Add an (optional?) column for rule number, since the rule
     numbers are referenced in a couple of places in the GUI.

   - The ability to block or allow incoming and outgoing commication /per
     program/.  I gather from various conversations that this is not
     possible b/c of lack of support from the kernel.  However analogous
     to what SELinux does in terms of "as much ability as warranted for
     the job", it would be nice to only whitelist certain types of
     conversation to certain programs.  This is alluded to via the "ufw
     allow CUPS" (for example), but as far as I'm aware, that's a mere
     proxy for "allow port 631" rather than specifically 'cupsd'.  I
     wonder if some tie-in or communication with the init daemon would
     be the ticket here?

   - In a similar vein, it would be helpful if the log could be parsed
     to a per-protocol and per-port information (as I believe it already
     is), but with a filter for such.  Major bonus points if it had a
     PCRE (perhaps optional) interface, so that I could define the exact
     match definition as sometimes multiple protocols are in the mix.
     As it is, this is clearly low priority as I /can/ do this already,
     just in the roundabout terminal method of pipes, greps, and such.

3. When connected to a network

   - including the IP address in the mouseover text of the NM-applet
     icon would be of use to me.  I don't know how this will work given
     the lack of mouseover capability in Unity ... but I digress.  The
     point is to have "quick, at-a-glance" access to basic informations,
     (e.g. the IP address) without having to open yet another window.

   - In concert with the above, the ability somehow copy to clipboard
     then entire text of the connection information (as for getting
     basic user info when they call in); perhaps a "copy-to-clipboard"
     button, or allowing all fields to be simultaneously selected for
     copy-and-paste.

   - Another real-handy thing to have would be a "per-session" or
     "until cable disconnects" feature, perhaps through NetworkManager
     and nm-applet.  There've been a number of situations where I'd've
     liked to have set the (for example) DNS lookup only for "this"
     session while I work on a client computer, and have it revert to
     another setting at some event (e.g. logout/login, unplug the cable).

4. While IPv4 still reigns

   - Having some indication -- either in the nm-applet icon or in the
     connection information -- of if the network is in a non-routable
     network, or is "fake" connected (i.e. has an IP address, but can't
     actually talk to the world-wide internet, or perhaps some
     configurable address).  However, short of a ping test, the
     immediate implementation to me is non-obvious.  Regardless this
     would be a "nice-to-have".

All-in-all, please take my above, err, ramblings as a sign of respect 
for the work done so far.  I'm admittedly not a programmer, and _maybe_ 
a weak administrator, but offer these as my mere 2c of what *I* would 
find as helpful modifications to the various networking utilities of the 
desktop.

Cheers,

Kevin

Re: [Desktop12.10-Topic] Default application selection process

Sebastien Bacher — 2012-04-23T14:23:54

Le 03/04/2012 14:06, Sebastien Bacher a écrit :

Hey again,

That discussion didn't get lot of traction, did anyone had an opinion on 
what was suggested? If we want discuss topics at UDS it seems about time 
to build a list so we can get feedback in advance for the discussion...

--
Sebastien Bacher

[Bug 983363] Re: Unity obscures edges of some fullscreen applicationwindows

Sebastien Bacher — 2012-04-23T11:36:50

Thank you for your bug report, do you use unity-3d or unity-2d? Could
you make a screenshot showing the issue?

** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Low

** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Incomplete

** Changed in: unity
       Status: New => Incomplete

** Changed in: unity
   Importance: Undecided => Low

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driverinstallation

Jo-Erlend Schinstad — 2012-04-23T09:35:11

Den 23. april 2012 08:55, skrev Martin Pitt:

Right. I remember back in 1998 or something. I asked about drivers, and
people told me there's no need to think about that. The drivers are
built into the kernel. And for the most part, they were. Fourteen years
later, however, drivers are still an issue. Things are improving. When
10.04 was released, I had to use proprietary drivers for my Radeon HD.
Now it's optional. I still choose to, because they're so very much
better than the built-in ones.

Perhaps when 20.04 is released, all of these problems will have been
forgotten. In the meantime, we need to provide proprietary drivers. As
long as we have to provide proprietary drivers, we should also show the
Free Software drivers. It's a little difficult for me to understand why
anyone in the Ubuntu community would disagree with this.

Sadly, reality is that people are going to have issues with their
hardware for a long time to come. All of this is currently because
"Ubuntu sucks". And, to be honest, it does. Fixing hardware issues in
Ubuntu is very complicated. Even finding out how to find out where to go
to try and get some help, is complicated.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driverinstallation

Martin Pitt — 2012-04-23T06:55:02

Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2012-04-20  1:56 +0200]:

That's exactly what I want to avoid. If anything, the UI should become
easier, not more complex. Large trees with lots of technobabble and
incomprehensible hardware parts names, properties, and drivers is
just about the last thing we need to improve usability IMHO. :-)

Martin

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driverinstallation

Martin Pitt — 2012-04-23T06:53:25

Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2012-04-20  4:01 +0200]:

The only case when it does that right now is when there are open
source printer drivers available on openprinting.org for a printer you
are about to set up.

But the general answer to your question is "because there is no need
to". We already ship pretty much all free drivers that are available,
and Linux uses them automatically.

Martin

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driverinstallation

David — 2012-04-23T06:43:17

Could imagine a 'Click here to send an email to the manufacturer!'

Which then loads up gmail/thunderbird with a pre-written email asking 
the manufacturer to support the hardware that is without a linux driver.

That'd get a few hits.

- David

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] Application startup time (AKA "Please usemy RAM!")

Jo-Erlend Schinstad — 2012-04-22T14:14:13

Den 22. april 2012 10:36, skrev Milan Bouchet-Valat:

No, I'm not talking about suspend and resume. That's something entirely
different. If you install upgrades and have to reboot, for instance, you
can't just suspend and resume. You have to actually reboot the system.
Then it's just as slow as it always has been.

What if you have hundreds of users and people  sit down on different
computers every day? Suspend won't fix that. You can still load
applications into RAM at boot so that when a user sits down, it doesn't
have to be retrieved from the network, processed and loaded into RAM.
That will increase the load speed for the user, but it will also reduce
the network traffic when people show up.

Different concepts altogether. There are lots of things that can be
improved.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] Application startup time (AKA "Please usemy RAM!")

Milan Bouchet-Valat — 2012-04-22T08:36:35

Le samedi 21 avril 2012 à 23:13 +0200, Jo-Erlend Schinstad a écrit :
Looks like you're asking for something like suspend or hibernate to me.
What's the point in replicating features that do this perfectly? Better
spend your energy in fixing them if they don't work on your box.

FWIW, GNOME upstream considers suspending the normal way of stopping
your session - even to the point where it's very hard to reboot, which
is debatable...

My two cents

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Application startup time (AKA "Please use myRAM!")

Jo-Erlend Schinstad — 2012-04-21T21:13:59

Application startup time is unnecessarily slow in a large number of
instances. Can we see some improvement in that area in the Q cycle? The
price of RAM has dropped dramatically, and usage has not increased all
that much. Can't we use it for something when it's available?

We now have Zeitgeist. This means we can know what users will do after
login. It's possible to tell not only what applications will be started,
but also what files will be used. In many cases, there's only a single
human user in the system. I would really like it if I could set my work
desktop to boot automatically in the morning, and it'd load my stuff
into RAM while waiting for me to log in. There's also a few websites I
always check first thing while I have my first cup of coffee. Load them
too so I don't have to wait for it. I'm the only human user on my
desktop, so why not log me in automatically, but in the background,
keeping the login screen as it is?

To my mind, these are all attainable goals:

* Sub-second login
* Instant loading of frequently used applications
* Zero-delay access to most frequently used websites.

Everyone is telling me to go buy a fast SSD. But that's expensive and in
my case, it doesn't provide any benefits that can't be achieved by
software. RAM is extremely cheap, and much faster than any SSD on the
market. What currently happens is that the login screen sits there
idling, waiting for me to pay attention to the computer before it starts
doing work it knows I'm going to want it to do. That's rude, isn't it?

In networked environments of diskless desktops, such as schools and
offices, the effects can be even greater. It might not be possible to do
background logins for the user, but a lot of things can still be loaded
in advance, providing a significantly improved experience. And of
course, the older the computers are, the greater the effect will be.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driverinstallation

Matthew Paul Thomas — 2012-04-20T16:57:38

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Martin Pitt wrote on 18/04/12 08:14:

"Ubuntu uses third-party software to display Flash, MP3 and other
media, and to work with some wireless hardware." I wrote that sentence
in Ubiquity, but now we need to be more specific.

A team is working right now on letting you reinstall Ubuntu with
exactly the same software you had installed before. To do that, you
will need to sign in and download the inventory of software you had
installed before.

To sign in and download anything, you will need to have an Internet
connection. Unless you have Ethernet, mobile broadband, etc, this
means you need a working wi-fi driver.

You usually won't know that you don't have a working wi-fi driver,
unless Ubiquity tells you. So it needs to tell you specifically, "You
need to install this wireless driver to complete this task".


Here's a design I prepared earlier: Jockey would become an "Additional
Drivers" tab in a "Software & Updates" panel of System Settings.
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareAndUpdatesSettings#drivers>

(I need to update that design to incorporate feedback from Alex
Chiang. <https://bugs.launchpad.net/jockey/+bug/660669/comments/2>)

Questions to consider when evaluating that or any other design:
<https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2012-January/013472.html>

- -- 
mpt
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAk+RlYIACgkQ6PUxNfU6eco/jgCdFce9s61qsXL3L+lfpkTaVkRf
p10Amwa+zVhilNnURbW5QuQs/MEa4XbF
=KKM6
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----