Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Gentoo Desktop - Proposal

[James William Dumay]

On Sun, 2004-03-14 at 13:14 +0100, dams@×××.fr wrote:

> James William Dumay <i386@××××××××.org> said:
>
> > Yeah, I sat down and thought about it some more. Heres what I have come
> > up with. I welcome flames, comments and changes to the document.
>
> ok, below are my comments
>
> >
> > Gentoo Desktop
>
> The name cannot be Gentoo Desktop, there is already an official gentoo desktop
> project.

We can call it what ever we want.


>
>
> >
> > Overview
> > ===
> > The purpose of the "Gentoo Desktop" to to provide a different and Customized
> > version of the vanilla desktop environment. The desktop will be a
> > modification of not only applications and Desktop Environment, but small
> > changes in the Gentoo core, to raise the level of usability and improve ease
> > of use.
>
> ok, why not
>
> >
> > Target Audience
> > ===
> >  "Hobbyist" users coming from other distributions, such as RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc.
> > Small to Medium Enterprise Desktop Roll outs
> > Educational Institutions (Universities, Collages, Secondary and Grade
> > Schools)
>
> the goals are missing : is it just coolness, or security? polishness?
> professionalism? ease of use? etc. redhat is polished, professional, but not
> the easiest to use, for instance.
The goal is to make the modification so simple that my grandmother can use it and as well as it seeming proffessional and easy to use.


> >
> > Desktop Environments - Why GNOME?
> > ===
>
> I'll cut the rest : for me gnome is NOT the dominant desktop environment. KDE is
> a lot more widely used, more powerfull, more integrated, has more extensions.
>
> [...]
Its also got most of the major companies backing it aswell as the best
accessabile and inclusive applications around.

>
> >
> > End Product
> > ===
> > The end product will be a Gentoo Desktop Livecd and Documentation for installation and configuration of the system. User would boot into a preconfigured and polished GNOME Environment.
> >
> > Customisation rundown
> > ===
> > A quick rundown on the type of customisation for for future discussion.
> > Base System
> >  - Some kind of "Kernel Profile" with additional device modules using Genkernel or similar tool.
> >  - Hardware detection and configuration scripts and services.
>
> that part is going to be done anyway in the core.
>
> >  - Tools for rolling out system and desktop configuation settings.
>
> same, I think this should go mainstream
There is some work for 2.7/.8 being done so that gconf settings can be
rolled out over the network.

>
> [...]
>
> >
> > Gentoo Desktop - The First Step
> > ===
> >
> > Milestone 1
> >  - Report on the Applcation and Services needed on Desktop System
> >  - System Services - Hardware Detection Services, File/Print Sharing, Printing, etc
> >  - Applcations - Office Productivity Tools, Internet Tools, Gaming, etc
> >  - Decide on the appropriate virtuals and USE flags needed for user customization of the desktop.
> >  - Create gentoo-desktop-x86-2004.0 profile based on the decisions made.
> >  - Build system with new profile and report on system usability from an end users perspective, noting specific issues to be discuss and delt with in Milestone 2.
>
> this is a good way to do it. Maybe we should decide before that,
>
> - do we need/want that
Well, if this project was a sucess and went ahead, this could allow
Gentoo to become a prefered and major platform for educational and
enterprise computing.

> - how should it be integreated/handled by gentoo
For the project itself (initally), we keep it localised as a gdr-project
untill we have ran some trials on the system structure.
As for infransture, we keep the customised desktop componenet away from
the main tree, in its own cvs rep.

If/when the project comes more mainstream, we can offer a stage/livecd
along with the rest of gentoos releases.

We should also release as often as the mainline gentoo releases to keep
version numbering in sync as well as the improvments in the mainline.

Comments and suggestions?

~James


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