Interested in helping improve the Fedora desktop experience?

[Máirín Duffy]

On 10/21/2009 02:37 PM, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 14:30 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote:
>>
>> If I'm a consumer and I see "Live Image" with no other context - I say
>> as opposed to... "dead?"  And of course, we know that isn't the case.
>> It is, actually, as opposed to the "older technology that just runs an
>> installer but not in the familiar desktop environment but may be
>> better for servers but we don't know exactly why and no one looks at
>> anymore and oh yeah it does upgrades" CD/DVD.  Oh yeah - silly me.
>>
> 
> Selectable filesystems, selectable packages, updates at install time,
> install over the network, upgrades, yeah that image.

So here's a list of installer requirements I've extrapolated from some
of the discussion here and from some past experience I've had with the
installer:

- I need to be able to pick what file system the computer will use.
- I need to be able to indicate whether or not the file system will be
encrypted.
- I need to be able to indicate some file systems be encrypted and
others not.
- I need to be able to install the latest software available even if
that involves installing software that isn't on the install media but
available online.
- I need to be able to install without an internet connection, or at
least without taking up too much bandwidth.
- I need to install over the network.
- I would prefer to install using a familiar desktop environment.
- I need to install to advanced storage devices, including networked
storage devices.
- I need to install Fedora on a dual- or triple-boot machine. That may
involve Windows, or other Linuxes.
- I need to be able to install to a virtual host (the machine in front
of me.)
- I need to be able to install to a virtual host (a machine in my data
center over there)
- I need to be able to install in an unattended and reproducible manner.
- I need to be able to install to one machine today.
- I need to be able to install 500 machines in a number of days.
- I need to be able to install 50 machines daily. (eg computer lab)
- I don't know much about hard drive partitioning and I'd prefer to be
able to install without digging into that.
- I need to be able to set up a very specific partitioning layout.
- I need to be able to set up a specific LVM configuration during install.
- I need to be able to set up RAID on my install.
- I need my system to use a static IP.
- I don't speak English, and I need to install.
- I don't have a us_en keyboard and I need to install.
- I don't need to create a non-root user.
- I don't know much about security and would prefer my computer to be
set up to be as secure as possible out-of-the-box (non root user?)
- I need to be able to configure a custom bootloader.
- I need to set a password on my bootloader.
- I need to install packages from a third-party repo during install.
- I need to be able to verify my install media.
- I need to install to removable media.
- I would prefer to upgrade my system in-place so I don't need to set
everything up from scratch again.
- I'm a visually-impaired user and need to be able to install.
- I need to interactively install a machine over the network.

These statements are clearly being made by people with different needs /
contexts. Can we call out which ones are more general and which ones are
more specialized? (Do you think that would be a useful exercise?)

~m