"Default" spin of Fedora

[Juan Camilo Prada]

On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 20:45 +0200, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> The redesign mockups by Juan Camilo Prada 
> (http://juankprada.livejournal.com/7682.html) raised 2 important issues for 
> which this is apparently the right venue for discussion, so let me state 
> them:
> 
> 1. Do we really want to highlight a "default" spin on the front page, 
> effectively hiding the others? While I realize the niceness of being able to 
> download Fedora in one click from the fedoraproject.org front page, this 
> means many users (in particular, exactly those targeted by this convenience 
> measure) will miss the fact that the others even exist. We already do a very 
> bad job of advertising all the possible ways of installing Fedora (e.g. 
> network and HDD installs), hiding 2 of the 3 main ways to install Fedora 
> (DVD, GNOME "Desktop" Live CD, KDE Live CD) will only make this worse. :-(
> 

I must accept that i have no idea which one is the main release if was
the Desktop Live media or the DVD, i just received a comment on my blog
from Mike who mentioned that Gnome the official release although i still
dont know anything about the media...

The idea is not to hide anything from the user. I realize i made a
mistake by only showing one single media and not providing information
about the other spins and that's something that's easily fixed. Also
please remember that Get-Fedora section is still there and it wont only
show the Desktop Live media...

> 2. Assuming the answer to "1." is "yes", I think the installer DVD would be a 
> much better default than the GNOME-only Desktop Live spin, for several 
> reasons:
> * Live CDs cannot be used to upgrade existing Fedora installations (without 
> reinstalling from scratch, which is often not possible without deleting user 
> data), the installer DVD can. Attempts to upgrade from a live CD can even 
> lead to data loss (if the user doesn't realize this fact), IIRC this has 
> already happened at least once to someone on the mailing lists.
> * As the name says, Desktop Live is only targeted at the desktop, whereas the 
> DVD also contains some server and development packages.
> * The installer DVD also contains popular desktop applications such as 
> OpenOffice.org which are not included on the live images for space reasons.
> * Desktop Live is GNOME-only, the installer DVD contains both GNOME and KDE. 
> That's why there are 2 main live CD images, the DVD is a nice compromise, 
> whereas defaulting to a GNOME-only spin really sends a message that we don't 
> care about KDE. :-( As one of the KDE maintainers in Fedora, I consider it 
> really unacceptable that my work gets hidden under the carpet that way, while 
> a GNOME-only spin gets presented on the silver plate. There are far more 
> Fedora KDE users than some of you would expect, do you really want to 
> alienate that huge part of your user base? (Now, I also think the installer 
> DVD should make it easier to select KDE, not just through the custom package 
> selection for advanced users, but that's off topic for this list, and the 
> point still stands that with the DVD, at least you _can_ select KDE.)
> * Most computers these days have DVD drives.
> * The installer DVD is the actual "Fedora" spin. :-) (And considering all of 
> the above points, I'm definitely not suggesting changing that.)
> 

you're probably right... but then... i would suggest going for the
official release rather than the most useful one (let the ones deciding
the official release also decide if it should be the most useful one or
no)... the idea is to have one core product (either dvd or live media)
and that is not for the websites team to decide imo.


> By the way, while only partly related, there's one more thing which I think 
> could really be improved: it should be made more clear that the Desktop spin 
> is GNOME-based (i.e. includes GNOME as its only desktop environment). Right 
> now, only the GNOME foot in the icon is a subtle hint at that and can be 
> easily missed. This is a disservice to users of KDE (and XFCE, too) who may 
> be misled into downloading a spin which does not contain the desktop 
> environment they intend to run. Some possible solutions (while still keeping 
> the "Desktop Live" name, which as I understand it is set in stone, even if I 
> disagree with it for the same reasons):
> * changing the heading to "Desktop Live (GNOME-based)"
> * keeping just "Desktop Live" as the heading, but adding a one-sentence 
> description for every spin (as in Juank's mockup) and mentioning GNOME in the 
> description of "Desktop Live"
> I'm open to other solutions as long as they make the word "GNOME" appear in a 
> noticeable way next to the "Desktop Live" spin.

you are right... i'd also like to make more noticeable the fact that the
Desktop live media is actually based on gnome... 

thanks for all your comments and interest on this :)


-- 
Juan Camilo Prada <jprada at fedoraproject.org>