hey, comments inline. On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:30:23 +0530, Kedar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi All, > I was just thinking what things would be nessesary to create a Ideal > Desktop Linux Distro. When I say "Ideal" I mean that a Newbie should be > able to operate it and should feel that it is more easier/as easy to > operate as Windows. > I found current Desktop Distros lacking certain features . I have listed > them below.
> 1) Lack of a graphical application installers (aka Installsheild) and a > Add/Remove option in Control Panel (control panel discussed below) > Install Shield X is available but what about a GNU tool. > 2) Dependency Problems > How about a installer that bundles all the required dependencies and > installs them if needed. I think I have heard of a installer called > Autoinstall, but cant confirm it. Both 1 & 2 are concerned abt pkg management, lets address both of these together. Probably every disto has understood the concern and they have come up with distro specific tools.For mandrake you have urpmi( rpmdrake as the gui front end), urpmi resolves dependencies automatically. Other distros come with similar tools for managing pkgs and most of them have GUI frontends,. Apt-get for debian, emerge for gentoo are just 2 more examples. Open Souce community has initiated many projects to solve these probles. Probaly the one which seems most promising is Smart Package Manager (http://smartpm.org/). Othe good initiatives include Zero-Install (http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/) >From their home-page : "The Zero Install system makes software installation not merely easy, but unnecessary. Users run their applications directly from the Internet from the software author's pages. Caching makes this as fast as running a normal application after the first time, and allows off-line use." havent tried it but seems like they are saying forget package management. > > 3) Office Apps (heavy OO) > I havent checked out OO 2.0 beta , but OO is pretty heavy on the system. > A lighter Office suite (need not have all the feature that OO has, 80 to > 90 % of OO features will do). Should be fast Another area which many agree to is lacking in linux. Try StarOffice. More on office suits is addressed here. http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialOfficeSuites.html > 4) A light webbrowser and Mail Client (Mozilla was earlier bundled) > Firefox has taken care of this :-). Evolution and thunderbird shine here. > > 5) Application in MSWin that allows Access to a linux FS. (A tool is > available for ext2..cant remember name) > Could any body point to a Tool that allows Access to ReiserFS from win. RFSTOOL : http://p-nand-q.com/download/rfstool.html and its GUI Frontend here : http://yareg.akucom.de/ > 6) A light window manager (KDE and GNOME are still heavy for a 128 mb > ram system) > XFCE/ IWM rock. Enlightment,AfterStep,BlackBox,FluxBox,MetaCity,FVWM,...etc etc etc a comprehensive list here : http://www.linux.org/apps/all/GUI/Window_Managers.html and here too: http://xwinman.org/ > > 7) Media Player with capablity to play all/most media files. > Mplayer with plugins is great (Licensing issues have to be taken care of) Xine is other alternative. amaroK as a good replacement to XMMS. > > 8) No need to edit any config file (Control Panel) > This has been taken care off properly by modern desktop distros but some > distros still have multiple control panels > YAST is great in this regard but extremely slow. Most of the time Webmin works great. > 9) Behavior and look and feel a bit like MSWin. > This is what I think is not actually nessesary. Linux WM's can do a lot > more but This is for those Windows USers who like operating windows. > XPDE is good. But could do better. XPDE guyz deserver thumbs up. :) > 10) One app for one job. > Desktop Distros once again shine here. But choice of apps not always good. > > Please let me know any comments/suggestions . Please also let me know > what you would like to see in a "Ideal Desktop Linux Distro". > > Regards, > Kedar Koppikar --Navtej -- ______________________________________________________________________ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List: (plug-mail@plug.org.in) List Information: http://plug.org.in/mailing-list/listinfo/plug-mail Send 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for mailing instructions.
