Re: Proposal: (No?) email client for Ubuntu 17.10

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I think it's a very bad idea for Free Software distributions to stop
distributing Free Software based on the argument that a lot of people use
proprietary software. That used to be the whole point; most people use
proprietary software, so we should make an effort to get people to use Free
Software.

If the argument is that a lot of people use webmail and Gmail in
particular, then why stop there? A lot of people use Google Docs too, so
maybe ditch LibreOffice? Online streaming continues to grow in popularity,
so local media playback might no longer be a technical requirement. People
can just install it if they want to.

There's very few desktop applications in Ubuntu that needs to be shipped
once we accept the argument that the proprietary clouds are a suitable
replacement.

On 18 April 2017 at 22:07, Jeremy Bicha  wrote:

> In 2011, we switched Ubuntu's default email client from Evolution to
> Thunderbird. Six years later, I think it's time to take another look.
>
> Should we even install an email client by default? The question is not
> whether it's useful, but whether it's useful enough to enough people
> to justify it being installed for everyone.
>
> - Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 included Evolution but 17.04 has no email client
> installed at all. The decision disappointed a few people but there
> hasn't been much negative feedback at all yet.
>
> - GNOME Release Team member Michael Catanzaro recommends not
> installing an email client by default since there isn't an app that is
> both well-maintained and very well-integrated into the GNOME 3 style.
> [1]
>
> - It's believed that most people just use web mail now, often along
> with apps on their smart phone.
>
> - A problem is that those who do prefer to use an installed email
> client do not all prefer the same one!
>
> If we do include an email client, which one?
>
> Thunderbird (TB)
> -
> 1. TB is still built with GTK2.
> 2. TB is a community project now and Mozilla no longer pays developers
> to work on it.
> 3. It looks like TB will have a lot of work to do next year once
> Firefox drops traditional extension support with FF57. This work might
> be shared with other apps that use Mozilla code.
> 4. TB does not integrate with GNOME Online Accounts.
> 5. TB has better Unity integration than Evolution.
> 6. There was a proposal a year and a half ago to turn TB into a web
> app but I don't think that went anywhere. [2]
>
> Evolution
> --
> 1. The UI doesn't fully embrace GNOME3 app design style, but it is
> closer than TB.
> 2. Small development team.
> 3. Evolution is not available on other operating systems.
> 4. Evolution is relatively easy to co-maintain with Debian.
>
> [1] https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2016/09/21/gnome-3-22-core-apps/
> [2] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-planning/h97q9cDUZOU
>
> Thanks,
> Jeremy Bicha
>
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Re: Ubuntu 14.10 onwards: Convergence is coming...

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 17 April 2014 16:22, Marco Trevisan marco.trevi...@canonical.com wrote:


 It's also true that at some point we have to deliver that, and put it in
 production in a point release, in order to get things to work in the
 real world. So, the point is: if an user prefer to keep the status-quo
 until the converged experience is not completed, then we suggest to
 stick on the LTS, which will stay in shape for a lng period.


Sure; as long as you're absolutely certain that there will be no problems
with LTS-to-LTS upgrades, then do in-place development. Of course, when the
development model is based upon removing things people care about and use
every day, then the next two years are going to be an everlasting torrent
of negativity. We know this from experience, don't we? Has there ever been
an example of replacing a default app that hasn't resulted in FUD, panic
and anger in the Ubuntu community?

On the other hand, look at elementaryOS. People are enthusiastic,
optimistic and impressed. The only negative responses I've read, is that
some people think it looks too much like MacOS. They've started with an
empty desktop and then add new components that are designed for eOS. If you
want to use that system for everyday purposes, then you'll have to install
non-eOS apps for that, but that's ok. And you can install eOS-apps in
Ubuntu. That's cool too. No reason to be angry, but plenty of reasons to be
curious and enthusiastic. I think Ubuntu is in a very comparable situation.
We want a new desktop and on top of that, we want new system services and
apps that are designed for Ubuntu, for as many things as possible. It'll be
a plain desktop with only a few default apps. After all, it makes perfect
sense that a system designed to handle both phones and desktops doesn't
come preloaded with lots of desktop-only apps. If you want to use it for
you everyday life, you'll have to install stuff. I think people are ok with
that and that a lot of people would want to choose to live in the exciting
world of the New Ubuntu Desktop.

But LTS users, like an enterprise, might wish the next LTS upgrade to not
be such a radical step. After all, two years is not an enormous amount of
time and time is necessary when you want to build confidence. Allowing the
current desktop to stay alive in maintenance mode into the next LTS will
allow people to choose between excitement and confidence and I think that
can be of some importance. I really do think that developing the new
desktop in-place rather than in parallel is a huge gamble. Because let's be
honest. Nobody knows what 16.04 is going to look like. Right? Well, that's
a decision.

Well, that's my views anyway. Thanks for reading.
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Re: Ubuntu 14.10 onwards: Convergence is coming...

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 16 April 2014 07:47, Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com wrote:

[snip]



 It's a much bigger and urgent problem to be able to provide a
 phone/desktop image which can work with click apps and image based
 upgrades but at the same time allows you to install classic Ubuntu
 packages. That problem is never going to go away, so solving that
 seems much more urgent to me.


That sounds like a dangerous idea to me. To my mind, Ubuntu needs to have
two different desktops for quite some time. One is the Desktop install,
which is primarily for PCs. The other is the desktop that you can use when
you dock your phone. The PC-desktop (for lack of anything better) should
contain the apps we're used to; Nautilus, Rhythmbox, Transmission, etc. On
the phone, we should have apps that does the job beautifully when running
as a phone, but also not too shabby when running as a desktop. In other
words; the PC Desktop needs to be the best PC desktop there is. The Phone
desktop does not.

The Phone needs to be compatible with the desktop, but the desktop doesn't
have to be identical with the phone. Because the phone will act as a
desktop, but the desktop will never act as a phone. That's something I hope
everyone remembers. Let the phone be the future of Ubuntu Desktops, but
don't merge them too soon. That would most likely have some seriously nasty
side effects. If the phone desktop can start to compete with the PC desktop
by April 2016, I will be impressed, but I think that's a good goal. I think
16.10 is the proper time to unite the images.
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Re: Ubuntu 14.10 onwards: Convergence is coming...

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 17 April 2014 04:00, Robert Park robert.p...@canonical.com wrote:

 On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Jason Warner
 jason.war...@canonical.com wrote:
  When I read Jo-Erlend's email, this stuck out at me:
 
  but don't merge them too soon
 
  We are going to be certain to merge when ready and not before.

 Yes, sorry I wasn't clear, I'm not trying to suggest that we merge
 them immediately or prematurely. Just stating the end-goal, that they
 must be the same. Making a distinction between PC and Phone desktops
 is precisely what we don't want to be doing for longer than necessary.


Nobody on the planet wants that more than I do. I ditched my desktop for
six months for an IGEPv2 (OMAP3) running as a thin-client against a KVM
guest. That was in 2009. I knew right there and then that Ubuntu Desktop
was going mobile. That was completely evident from my experience. I knew
something like Calxeda was coming too, and the whole MaaS-thing. It was
simply a way too powerful experience that nobody would pick up on it.

I'm not a mobile geek. I'm pretty much the most novice smart phone user on
the planet. I can't really contribute anything to that. But I was raised as
an IBM-compatible-kid. I was born in 1980, built my first PC in '86 and I
remember the time when Windows was not the preferred GUI for MS-DOS, but
GEM was. This is to say that desktop is a real passion for me. It's not
just just an app; it's a way of life. I might replace the mouse, because I
didn't have one when I started using computers, but I will never replace my
keyboard with a touch screen and I won't do my office work in a couch or a
bean bag.

There is nothing I want more than to move my large box into the basement
and replace my desktop with a phone. I want to contribute to that, from the
desktop side of things. I just don't want people to confuse app convergence
with device convergence. My desktop will never be a phone, even if my phone
can be my desktop. I want the New Desktop to be developed concurrently with
the existing one. Sure, we'll get a replacement for gcalctool that's
suitable for both, and that's fine – replace those things ad libitum.  At
some point in time, we'll get a marvellous new file manager that can handle
both scenarios as well, but I don't want to replace Nautilus before the
replacement is _better_ than Nautilus. That's the Redmond Mistake. If you
try to replace Evolution with a fanatastic PhonePIM that is promising on
the desktop, then the desktop loses and the phone loses as a consequence
of that.

I want to remind everyone that Microsoft _had to_ switch quickly. It was
apparent that ARM was here to stay and they had no defence. With all the
third-party apps, created around the proprietary ideals, they could never
have competed on ARM as a traditional WIMP system. They had to create
something very different just to explain why people could no longer run
their apps. Ubuntu is in a very different situation. We have mostly all our
apps on ARM and x86. Ubuntu can be fantastic on the phone with an
impressive desktop addon without competing with the PC desktop. We can have
both.

I was very happy to read the main from Jason Warner, by the way. I'm just
not entirely sure what he means. I hope it means giving us desktop users a
period of calm, like the Gnome desktop used to be for ten years before the
whole Unity thing started. I love Unity, but the transition has been
complely exhausting. If they can move it off main stage for a couple of
years, I'll be happy as a kite.
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Re: Ubuntu 14.10 onwards: Convergence is coming...

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 17 April 2014 05:01, Robert Park robert.p...@canonical.com wrote:

 On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 7:44 PM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad
 joerlend.schins...@gmail.com wrote:
  I was very happy to read the main from Jason Warner, by the way. I'm just
  not entirely sure what he means. I hope it means giving us desktop users
 a
  period of calm, like the Gnome desktop used to be for ten years before
 the
  whole Unity thing started. I love Unity, but the transition has been
  complely exhausting. If they can move it off main stage for a couple of
  years, I'll be happy as a kite.

 I'm not sure what you mean by main stage, but Ubuntu Trusty is our
 latest LTS, it will be supported for 5 years, and has the standard
 desktop Unity experience. Nobody is going to force you to use a phone
 interface if you don't want to.


You're very correct about that. After spending about 17 years in the
GNU+Linux community and about eight of them in the Ubuntu community, I
pretty much understand the basics of how it all fits together. But do you
think that this is an intelligent and respectful reply to my proposal that
the development of a new desktop is kept seperately from the continuation
of the past? To be honest with you, if an experienced user had made such a
comment to a new participant in any Ubuntu project I've been part of, I
would've told him or her that this was inappropriate and unacceptable.

If someone tells you that they're deeply passionate about an Ubuntu
project, then you don't go telling them if they have different ideas, then
they should go use something else. This is not how we do things.
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Re: Should Delete recent history in Privacy settings also delete thumbnails?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 19 January 2014 11:33, Adam Dingle a...@medovina.org wrote:

 On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad 
 joerlend.schins...@ubuntu.com wrote:

 In the Privacy settings, you can choose not to store things you do in
 Zeitgeist or you can delete entries based on time, such as delete all
 entries from the last hour. However, this does not delete associated
 thumbnails.

 Would it make sense that if you've chosen not to log a specific directory,
 then thumbnails also aren't saved to ~/.cache/thumbnails/ and if you delete
 past history, then the thumbnails for those files are also deleted from the
 cache?


 Yes, I think that makes sense and I agree that users would probably assume
 that this is the case already.  Someone else has noticed this in comment 10
 at this bug:

 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libgnomeui/+bug/94230

 adam



That's interesting. Thanks for the reference. I'm not entirely sure
libgnomeui and eog are the right packages for this bug though. I'd rather
connect it to thumbnailers such as totem-thumbnailer, Unity Control Center
and possibly Zeitgeist. After all, this might be a useful feature in most
cases where Zeitgeist is used for this.

In any case, it seems obvious to me that the thumbnailer (totem-thumbnailer
in our case) should be connected to this bug. Because if you don't want
thumbnails for a specific directory, then you certainly want to first
create them and then delete. Perhaps you might want the thumbnailer to
create the thumbnails in the specified directory and then create links for
them in ~/.cache/thumbnails/? It probably wouldn't solve the problem
entirely, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Perhaps at a later time, folder encryption could be added, which would be
nice.
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Pipelight in 14.04LTS?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've used Pipelight for some time now, and I've found it to be one of the
most valuable new packages I've come across this year. It enables the use
of the Silverlight plugin in native Ubuntu browsers.

In my opinion, if this plugin could be made easily available in 14.04LTS
without adding a PPA and so forth, I think this could be considered a
killer-feature in 14.04LTS.

Has this been up to discussion at all? What are the chances it'll make it
into official repositories in time?
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Re: Pipelight in 14.04LTS?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

That is a valid point, Pipelight depending on a patched version of Wine. I
hadn't actually considered that when I wrote the original email.

So I guess that'd be the challenge if anyone was up for it. I still don't
understand why it would have to block anything, though, if it enables you
to do stuff on its own. There would be no real-life competition between
compholio and upstream wine. It should be possible to have both if that's
necessary in order to accomplish something major. And I think Pipelight
does exactly that.


On 21 December 2013 22:26, Bryan Quigley gquig...@gmail.com wrote:

 It definitely needs a good number of patches.. They are working to get
 them upstream though:
 http://fds-team.de/cms/pipelight-compile-wine.html
 http://www.compholio.com/wine-compholio/

 https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~pipelight/netflix-desktop/wine-compholio/files/head:/patches/

 I have not investigated which page is the most up-to-date  I'm pretty
 sure they would be open to help upstreaming some of their patches...

 Stable branch does not appear to be an option for this number of patches.

 Thanks,
 Bryan


 On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Kai Mast m...@kai-mast.de wrote:

 On 12/21/2013 04:09 PM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
  I've used Pipelight for some time now, and I've found it to be one of
  the most valuable new packages I've come across this year. It enables
  the use of the Silverlight plugin in native Ubuntu browsers.
 
  In my opinion, if this plugin could be made easily available in
  14.04LTS without adding a PPA and so forth, I think this could be
  considered a killer-feature in 14.04LTS.
 
  Has this been up to discussion at all? What are the chances it'll make
  it into official repositories in time?

 Hi,

 if I see this correctly Pipelight depends on a patched version of Wine.
 Will these patches be upstreamed at some point?
 The compholio PPA also seems to build wine 1.7. Does it also work with
 the stable branch?

 Thanks,
 Kai

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Re: Bad experience with Ubuntu

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Consider how it's done in the Microsoft world. The hardware manufacturer
writes a driver for their hardware, signs it and sends it off to Microsoft
and grants them permission to distribute this driver to Windows users.
Windows doesn't magically support hardware. It's supported by the hardware
manufacturer and Microsoft distributes it.

This is how Ubuntu works as well. So why isn't it working properly? Because
the hardware manufacturer isn't really all that interested in customer
care, in the sense that they just don't create, or make readily available,
the necessary drivers for Linux, which handles hardware compatibility in
Ubuntu. In many cases, the situation is even worse; not only will the
manufacturer not write the necessary software, but they will also withhold
required information about the device so that it becomes very difficult for
anyone else to write drivers as well.

Sad, but true – though, possibly somewhat simplified. Luckily though,
there's lots and lots of hardware that's properly supported. I for one,
haven't had a real hardware issue for quite a few years. Ask for Linux
support when you purchase hardware, and you can be sure it works perfectly
with Ubuntu and Windows.

Hope it helps. :)

Jo-Erlend Schinstad
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Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 23. april 2012 08:55, skrev Martin Pitt:
 Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2012-04-20  1:56 +0200]:
 If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware
 manager.
 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. :-)


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


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[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Application startup time (AKA Please use my RAM!)

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

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

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

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Absolutely. Indeed it should. Not only for different types of users, but
for different trails as well. Again I use Unity as example. Suppose
you want to start developing. You've covered the basics of the language,
and now you want make something you can show your friends. So you do to
the docs page  developing  Python  Desktop  Unity. There you find
the Unity Specification 1.0 Documentation, with Indicators, Launcher,
and everything. You learn how to make lenses and scopes, and there's
lots of them to make in your area, so you just keep going and become
really good at it. Then you begin to wonder how it works under the
scene. So you go to the next level, which is the DBus architecture.
You're still on the same trail, mind you. So you lean how the DBus
bindings work in Python and then you move on to the DBus Unity API
itself. That's the exact same document you'd end up with if you'd
started with Vala, because after all, it's the same thing. If you've
followed the Python trail already, you'll just get the Oh, I know
this! feeling, which isn't a bad thing.

So the main documentation tree might be grouped in libraries and then
under language, as is the case on dev-u-c now, but to the user, it'll be
presented by their interests, as trails. The documentation isn't just
something that comes with the tools. The documentation itself is its own
product with its own goals. 

Here's an example for you; I recently switched to BtrFS in Precise. I
needed to learn, and I ended up here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/btrfs. As far as I can tell, there's
nothing particularly wrong with that information. But then, this stuff
is new to me, so how would I know? It doesn't inspire confidence.
Ubuntu-specific subvolume layout in 11.04 and later? I'm using 12.04!
But I'm very familiar with this, so I scrolled down towards the bottom
of the page to see when it was last updated. Just a few days ago. Nice.
And I can see the page history. On my way there I noticed that most of
the information is for 8.10! This is a filesystem we're talking about. I
really need to be confident about this information, and the mere mention
of 8.10 makes me suspicious.

This page was marked out of date nearly four years ago:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOnMac. Why does it even exist? I assume
it's simply because noone has the overview to systematically make sure
pages like that is either updated or deleted. If noone has an overview,
then it's difficult to attract contributors as well. Specific tasks
makes it much easier. And by update, I don't mean adding new info on
top, leaving older info below. One page per version. Reviewed. Obviously
Valid.

Facts aren't good enough anymore. We need to design documentation for
the user. And that can't just be about deleting old wiki pages. We need
a goal. A new way of thinking about documentation as a whole.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad



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

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 18. april 2012 09:14, skrev Martin Pitt:
 Hello Desktop fans,

 We have had Jockey for quite a while now to perform the installation
 of proprietary (e. g. NVidia), alternative (e. g. fglrx vs.
 fglrx-updates), third-party (e. g. from openprinting.org) drivers.

Hardware! Yes, that's an area where large improvements can be made.

The ability to easily install third-party drivers is obviously quite
valuable. But how do people actually look at drivers? I don't think most
people understands the difference between open drivers and proprietary
third-party drivers. Nor do I think they care. And why should they? What
they want, is for their hardware to work properly.

If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware
manager. Ubuntu is currently promoting drivers as an optional extra.
But that's not true; drivers are always necessary for all hardware. One
problem with doing that, is that when you're missing an important driver
and it's not available in Jockey, then you get the impression that
Ubuntu has no drivers for your system. Reality is that Ubuntu has nearly
all of your drivers, but missing one. Users should see that. Otherwise,
we're always reinforcing the negative without showing anything positive.
The moon looks smaller when it's near the horizon, because you have
something to compare it to. So let's compare the one thing that doesn't
work with the huge number of things that does.

If changes are to be made, I would propose that it displayed all your
hardware, what drivers it is currently using and then make it easy to
install other drivers. From this application, you should be able to
export your hardware info so that you can easily provide this to
support. (System Info  Hardware Manager  Send To: pastebin | email |
IM | etc).

That is to say, even if your computer doesn't require any proprietary
drivers, the application should still be useful. It would then display
the drivers, the developer being listed as Linux. If there are
alternatives, or third-party drivers are required, then you should be
able to easily install them. As a service to the user, this application
should also provide links to the manufacturers website for further
support. This would both be helpful to the user, and show who's
responsible. In other words; We have installed all your drivers for you
automatically, except that one.

Perhaps this application could also be used to try and find out which
computer model you have, and provide some kind of forum where you can
connect to other users with the same hardware? That way, people can
share their experiences, and support would be able to help a large
number of people at the same time, instead of each user having to begin
with a Google search and go from there. That would enable automatic
detection of some troublesome hardware as well, because it would
automatically get many posts.

This wouldn't have to be fully automatic, but it should be possible to
limit the number of possible models based on the hardware. Then you can
look through a photo album to make it easier to spot your model. If you
can't find it, then you can upload an image of your own, and then people
could help identify that computer, enabling you to more easily get
support – improving Ubuntus database of models at the same time.

Right now, driver support seems bad in Ubuntu. It's actually awesome. We
need to display it as such. When drivers can't be provided at all, it
must be obvious to the user who is responsible for that and preferably
how to contact them.

Don't you think?

Jo-Erlend Schinstad








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{Desktop 12.10 Topic] Holistic approach to Ubuntu documentation

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I think it's necessary for Ubuntu to take documentation to another level.

When I first started with Ubuntu, I really wanted to learn how it all
fit together. I have used computers most of my life so I'm accustomed to
reading documentation and I was perfectly willing to dive right in. But
it just wasn't that easy, not necessarily because of the information
itself, but because of how it was organized and presented. There were no
clear starting point and no trails to follow. There were broken links on
wikis, and outdated information lying around. Much of the documentation
would only use version numbers, and have no easy way to see when it was
last updated, or if it had been superseeded. Confusion reduces peoples
ability to learn.

To me, this is The Issue with Ubuntu. If we're really going to succeed
in taking Ubuntu «across the chasm», then we must make it easy for the
curious to become users and for the enthusiasts to become power-users.
For this to happen, we need to do something drastic about the way
documentation is presented. I think Ubuntu Documentation must:

* Have an obvious starting point
* Lead to the next step
* Be instantly recognizable as valid or invalid
* Be grouped when applicable
* Primarily focused on LTS
* Reviewed for each release (hence the point above)
* Easy to contribute to by reporting issues
* Be not only API docs, but contain readable text.

developer.u-c and help.u-c has improved a lot in this regard, but not
enough. Look at this page first:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/resources/platform/api/12-04/. As a reader,
I can come across issues that I'm not able to read, but will help
improve the documentation. I should have a very easy way to report it.
There's no way at all on that site, though at the very bottom, I can
submit a tutorial.

Another example, look at this page:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/api/ubuntu-12.04/python/Unity-5.0.html.
Right, but that's Ubuntu 5.0. I was looking for 5.10. Is this still
valid? There's no way to know. We shouldn't rely on people to trust that
if not stated otherwise, it is valid. This is the web. There are
millions of old and unmaintained documents out there. It must be obvious
that it is valid. This also helps anyone recognize invalid
documentation, enabling them to report it or fix it.

And what if my primary focus is developing an application for LXDE and I
want to use only an indicator? In this specific case, I'd use a separate
version for the API docs and call it Unity Specification 1.0 for 12.04.
Then if there are any changes between now and 14.04, I'd call that 2.0.
For versions in between I'd add 1, 2 or 3. So, if there are API changes
i 13.04, I'd expect to find a Unity Specification 1.2 and that it would
clearly show the differences between 1.2 and 1.0, considering the newest
LTS the 

In the case of Unity-5.0 for Python above, I'm not sure I'd call that
Documentation. That is the convention, but I'm not sure that's what
people expects. I'd call that document a Specification. For
Documentation, I would expect more readable text, explaining what it's
for and how it is used.

Enum: Unity.FilterRenderer
CHECK_OPTIONS_COMPACT 4

Right. How do I use it? .)

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

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 19. april 2012 03:11, skrev Jeremy Bicha:
 Your topic mixes developer docs, entry-level user docs, and power
 user docs. Each of those needs a different approach and I think it's
 simpler to tackle them as three mostly separate things. Also, if
 you're going to discuss documentation, you should probably include the
 docs team (CC'd now) as that's where people interested in that read. 

The point is the exact opposite. We shouldn't split documentation up
into completely unrelated pieces. That is the problem. We should
consider it a whole. One single tree of knowledge. Before a release, we
should be able to walk the entire tree and make sure all documents are
Obviously Valid. You don't have to specialize in a single topic in order
to do that. It just requires effort, and for that, it must be obvious
what to do.

With different docs being at different places, organized in different
ways, maintained by unrelated teams and mixing versions, it's very
difficult to do any kind of quality assurance or to do anything in a
systematic way – as a whole.

But for documentation to be seen as a whole, related software must
sometimes also be seen as connected. That's why I replied here, since
Unity is my main example. It's not simply about documentation. For
instance, if I want to learn how to write a Python application for
Unity, I have to read this:

Unity-5.0
AppIndicator3-0.1
Indicate-0.7
...

They are obviously connected, but it's not at all obvious in versioning
or documentation. I'd like to see something more like Unity
Specification 1.0 Documentation, which would include those technologies.
I'd like to see a Vala/GTK implementation of the Dash, for instance. And
it'll have completely different versions than those listed above.

This means that we can't just adapt documentation to software, but also
adapt software to be more documentable in a way. I don't think this has
to be very difficult, but it requires discussions and decisions. Seeing
the bigger picture.

The desktop is the most visible, most important aspect in this regard.

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Re: lots of things

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 17. mars 2012 07:48, skrev Pedro Bessa:

[snip]

3. if an update is impopular, do not keep me stuck with a bad feature 
for 6 months

Ubuntu kept me stuck with the global menu for 1 year.
An update from the Update Manager should have removed the global menu.


[snip]

In the future, I recommend you use AskUbuntu.com and ask questions. 
Don't wait years, just ask. It is, and always has been, very easy to 
disable the global menu. Just set UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0. However, you 
should know that this technology also enables things like the HUD, which 
then won't be available to you.


In 12.10, we should have the option to enable space efficient menus 
connected to the window.


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Privacy pane in Nautilus folder properties?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

The new privacy settings for Zeitgeist are cool and something I think 
many users will appreciate.


Would it be cool if we got a privacy pane in the folder properties in 
Nautilus? It would contain the possibility of encrypting the folder, but 
also choose whether or not activities in that folder should be recorded 
by Zeitgeist. It should also have a button to open the privacy applet in 
System Settings.


There might also be other privacy settings that affects folders.

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Re: Why don't we use Mozilla ESR in Precise?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 06. feb. 2012 10:22, Jason Warner wrote:

Hi All -

Firefox ESR is indeed interesting, and it would seem to answer some of 
the question corporations might have about Firefox, but I think it is 
less interesting for Ubuntu.




You have to understand that my original post was not meant as a 
proposal, but as an open question. If Ubuntu now prefers the rapid 
release pace of Firefox and Thunderbird, then it doesn't bother me that 
much. But it does represent a shift in strategy. 10.04 has used 3.6 
until very recently when it became unsupported. The reason that was 
given for not upgrading it, was the SRU process. The reason that was 
given for starting to upgrade Firefox in a rapid pace afterwards, was 
that Mozilla had changed their support strategy and that it wouldn't be 
feasible to backport the necessary security patches to old versions. But 
now, Mozilla has changed their support strategy again, making it 
unnecessary to circumvent the norms.


Now this becomes a question of communication, which to me is the biggest 
weakness Ubuntu has that we can do something about. If this is an active 
decision, then I would be interested to know when it was made and why we 
haven't heard anything about it. This is a significant shift, and though 
I try to pay close attention to what's going on, it came as a complete 
surprise to me. I looked for blueprints, but I couldn't find any; 
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise?searchtext=firefox. It 
is bad communication, and we need to improve. I really don't like those 
surprises. I spend a fair amount of time writing articles and 
participating in discussions, in an effort to reduce some of the 
misunderstandings that will always be a part of FOSS. Because 
development is high pace and developers doesn't always have time, or 
even skills, to write comprehensible non-tech articles explaining why 
and how. When things like that suddenly changes without notice, then it 
can easily make what I write, wrong. In that case, my contributions, 
instead of being a small part of a small solution, becomes a bigger part 
of a big problem. I don't think I have to explain why that's demoralizing.


Consider documentation writers. You've spent a few hours writing some 
paragraphs or pages explaining why Ubuntu doesn't use the newest version 
of Firefox. You're satisfied that your explanation really does explain 
and is comprehensible by anyone. That's not easy. It's hard work. So you 
commit. Then translators begin working on it. And translating single 
strings is not always that difficult, but translating an article, is. 
You finish two months ahead of schedule.


But then someone makes a silent little decision, and instead of being 
two months ahead, you're suddenly two years outdated. Bad communication 
hurts both enthusiasm and the finished product. We need predictability.


As usual, this has become much longer than I had intended. Let me finish 
by making a proposal. Let's use the ESR versions by default in LTS 
versions of Ubuntu, and add a package called something like 
firefox-fastpace for those who want that. This way, we don't disrupt the 
stability and predictability that is so attractive to those who chooses 
LTS versions, but also make it easy for those who do want to be on the 
cutting edge of the browser developments. When upgrading from an LTS to 
a non-LTS, the user should be asked if the ESR version should still be 
used, or switch to the fast pace version.


Thanks for reading,

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Re: Remove unnecessary objects from the indicators (mainly messages indicator)

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 01. feb. 2012 21:44, Petko wrote:
Right now there are way too many things on the messages indicator , 
and I'm only using mail :


Messages:
status changes
..
..
..
..
Chat
Evolution
Broadcast
mail
mail
mail
Ubuntu One
Clear

 I wanted to start a discussion before filing it as a bug or idea . 
Anyone with me ?




I can understand your point of view. But I think it's important to show 
people that the message menu is not simply an email notifier. Do you 
have any suggestions on how we can reduce the clutter in the menus, and 
still show users the things it supports?


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Re: Remove unnecessary objects from the indicators (mainly messages indicator)

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 05. feb. 2012 15:05, Petko wrote:


And for Ubuntu One - I'm pretty sure its place isn't in the Messages 
menu .




Category indicator menus are for actionable indications that belongs to 
a category. When I send you an invitation, it is not just a notification 
that something is happening. You need to respond to the invitation in 
order to make use of it. But such an invitation is also a message, which 
means it is an actionable indication raised by the message you receive 
from another user. For that reason, it does belong in the message menu.


The type of invitation I'm talking about, is when someone shares a 
folder with you. You can then accept and sync the folder or not.


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Reintroducing Ubuntu Classic in 12.04? (Example project for Ubuntu Developer Week?)

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've written about Gnome Panel in Ubuntu before. I was wondering if 
anyone is working on this, or if there are any plans to do so? My 
thoughts (very short this time, I promise:));


Upstream Gnome has rebranded Gnome Panel as a fallback for Gnome Shell. 
This includes default theme, the clock is at the center, you have to 
hold the alt-key to customize it, etc. This is all fine from a Gnome 
perspective, but in no way does it reflect the classic Ubuntu 
experience. And a lot of users do want this.


As I see it, this is what must be done in order to achieve that objective:

  1) The indicator-applet-complete must be added to official Ubuntu 
repositories. JContis PPA has a working port. I've tested it for quite 
some time, and it works very well.


  2) We should have a meta package called ubuntu-classic that uses a 
different default configuration, including the correct panel 
background color and applet layout (which should include the 
indicator-panel-complete). LightDM should display this as Ubuntu 
Classic, not as Gnome Fallback.


 3) If possible, the press-and-hold-alt-to-customize behavior should be 
made configurable in Gnome Panel, and when installing Ubuntu Classic, 
this should be deactivated.


Except for 3, this shouldn't require too much effort, I think. But if 
nobody is working on this, then might it be a good idea to use this as 
an example project for Ubuntu Developer Week?


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Re: It's time to jettison CCSM

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 26. jan. 2012 17:28, Jorge O. Castro wrote:

With tools like MyUnity now in universe, and didrocks putting basic
configuration in the control panel I'd like to propose the removal of
compizconfig-settingsmanager.

I don't mean stop telling people to use it or add a warning, I
mean total removal from the archive until the tool is either better
tested or doesn't break people's configuration. Here are some of the
problems with the tool.


I am opposed to that kind of enforcement. I think the best way to handle 
these kinds of situations in general, is by creating better alternatives 
and then educating the users.


However, an acceptable compromise would be to remove Unity from ccsm. 
Since Unity currently seems to be the main attraction to ccsm, this 
might solve the problem without creating any problems for other Compiz 
users.


That's my tuppece.

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Re: What I love about Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 30. des. 2011 15:28, skrev Nenad:


A story about indicators, etc. sounds as really good set of 
architectural choices. Having said that, architectural cleanup should 
not negatively affect existing user base by removing some workflows. 
Backward compatibility might slow down overall progress but green 
field development results in own set of problems. Ironically, 
technical people who would otherwise support architectural changes 
introduced with Unity are resistant to these changes because of some 
user interface shortcomings.




I completely agree with that in some senses. Unity does not take 
anything away. Nothing is lost because of Unity. I often compare desktop 
shells to the web browsers. They can be considered web shells. They're 
not technically comparable, but from a users point of view, they do the 
same thing. When Google entered the scene with Chromium and Chrome, they 
added to our choices. Some distros use it by default, and that's fine. I 
think it's a good browser. My preference is still Firefox and I would 
always install it as quickly as possible. Unity adds to the number of 
desktops you can choose from and does not remove any choices.


However, I disagree with the notion that Unity should depend on the 
workflow from Gnome Panel. I would much rather that Gnome Panel 
continues to be developed with respect to itself and that Unity is 
developed with completely different goals. The world has changed a lot 
since the mid nineties. I think Unity reflects that, Gnome Panel not so 
much. But that's fine. We don't all have to be modern and walk in lines. 
Nobody has the legal power to remove any free software. But if software 
should be kept, it must be maintained, or it must be deemed to be 
perfect. That's difficult. If you want it to evolve, then you also need 
someone to actively develop it. If you want that to happen, then you 
need to give it attention. You should not focus on why you think Unity 
or Gnome Shell is bad, but on why you think Gnome Panel is good. Because 
that's what counts.
According to your description these specs are easy to implement for 
remaining panels, then why support for look  feel of Gnome Panel was 
marginalized remains unclear.




It's not unclear to me. Someone is paying the bills. Those someone have 
a different view of what the future should look like. The only thing 
they agree upon, is that it should not look like the past. Nothing wrong 
with that. Gnome wants to focus on the future of Gnome Shell and 
Canonical wants to focus on its vision, which is Unity. We cannot expect 
any of them to focus much on Gnome Panel, because that is not their 
vision of the future. So, if we want to keep Gnome Panel around, then we 
need to find some developers who are willing to keep maintaining and 
developing it. Perhaps people like Vincent Untz can be persuaded. If 
not, then we either need to find new developers, or let the old software 
die in peace.


Just keep in mind that _anyone_ can start developing Gnome Panel. If all 
the anyones on the entire planet choose not to do so, then users should 
begin to wonder why.


All of them contributed in serving some user groups, and none of them 
fulfilled One size fits all promises. The same will happen to Unity 
I guess.




It's not comparable. You can use any programming language to interact 
with Unity and it's very high level. Literally. If you wanted to, you 
could write it by hand and not require a programming language at all. 
It's DBus. By the way, Gnome Panel switched to that from Bonobo a few 
versions back. I think maybe in 10.04 or something. It was a radical 
switch then, too. Most people didn't notice it, though. I didn't, even 
if I knew it was going to happen. That's how it should be. We should do 
these things from time to time, but we should do them because it needs 
to be done, not because of hype. Whenever something dramatic happens, we 
must always have a large number of users who can explain why it is so. 
Otherwise, we get massive amounts of speculation, conspiracy theories 
and general disarray. It's not a matter of who's right and who's wrong. 
We just have to learn from this and never repeat this mistake. Proper 
communication would have ensured that all the nonsense would've never 
happened.


Users should never be expected to understand the difference between 
Bonobo and DBus, GTK2 or GTK3, GConf and Dconf...As a consequence, they 
shouldn't care about Gnome 2 or Gnome 3. It's Gnome. It really isn't 
that much different.



And I think that concludes todays pontification. :)

Happy new year, everyone!

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Re: Ubuntu usability is significantly decreased with Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 30. des. 2011 17:53, skrev Kevin Hunter:


Yikes!  I personally hope that this feature does /not/ go away.  I've 
come to (very much) appreciate the focus-follows-mouse feature; 
similarly, I've fine-tuned almost 10 installations of Windows to do 
this for some friends who asked if they could get that feature after 
shoulder-surfing me.  I do see that it wouldn't play nice with the 
global menu, but I'd hope there's room for compromise.


With respect to the controversial topic of Unity, I'll say no more on 
this subject; I've been staying out of any conversation in regards to 
Unity because I've only used it vicariously through my advisor (I'm 
yet on 10.10).


Kevin



Where did you get the idea that I had suggested to remove anything? When 
you add new features, then you should understand how it affects other 
features. That means adding them relatively slowly. To me, that makes 
sense, because you won't always have to fix yesterdays problems. But 
even if one of the shells in Ubuntu isn't designed for maximum 
scriptability, I see nothing wrong with that. We have loads of other 
shells that are designed for that.


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Re: Ubuntu usability is significantly decreased with Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 31. des. 2011 19:45, skrev Kevin Hunter:


As I mentioned earlier, I haven't yet moved from 10.10, and thus any 
questions I have on this front are not properly researched before 
asking ... that said, this is the first I've been aware of loads of 
other shells.  Do you mean the various Gnome2, XFCE, LXDE, Unity 2d, 
etc?  Or is this referencing something else?




Well, the other desktop environments also use other shells. For 
instance, what we used in earlier versions of Ubuntu is called Gnome 
Panel. We have Unity, Unity 2D, Gnome Shell, Lxpanel (from LXDE), 
Xfce4-panel (from Xfce), Avant Window Navigator, Cairo dock, Plasma 
stuff from KDE, Enlightenment... There are many.


Desktop environments contain a lot more than just the shell. But most 
shells can be used in most environments. For instance, there's nothing 
wrong with using Xfces panel in Gnome 3.


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Re: What I love about Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

. As a provider of software, it's done a great work. It's not 
enough. Now, people blame Canonical for everything, because it is 
somehow regarded as the creator of Ubuntu. That would never have 
happened before, because it is obvious that Canonical does not have the 
position of Apple or Microsoft. Should never want to, either. Canonical 
should be the beacon of knowledge that makes it easy to learn and become 
part of the community. The moment that Ubuntu depends on Canonical, we 
have lost. Even the perception is destructive.


We desperately need to improve Ubuntus communication. If we do not, then 
we _will_ fail. If you want me to, I'll be happy to spend any amount of 
time helping Canonical in private, but everyone must always know that 
they are different things at all times. Otherwise, Ubuntu becomes an 
ideological product instead of societal effort. The difference is radical.


Oh, I seriously didn't intend for this to become so long winded. Thanks 
for your patience. :)


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Re: Ubuntu usability is significantly decreased with Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 29. des. 2011 04:14, skrev José Celestino:

well, I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 and found really annoying to use Unity.
Open several windows (e.g. Netbeans, firefox, nautilus and gitk and try
to work efficiently with menus of each application, minimize/maximize
window, etc., Unity is just driving me crazy.
Now try to do that with focus follows mouse :)


That is a very good reason to keep configuration options at a minimum, 
at least temporarily. Currently, most configuration tools require a lot 
of knowledge about the system. It is not immediately obvious that 
enabling focus follows mouse will make it nearly impossible to use the 
mouse to access menus. That kind of configuration makes things 
unnecessarily complicated. We need to thoroughly understand how each 
config option affects other options. There are several examples in 
Nautilus, for instance. It's quite possible to configure your system to 
become almost unusable.


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What I love about Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

 
in all future. This is part of what Unity does, and is probably one of 
the things I love most about it. The implementations are not perfect, 
but the specifications are really good. I would much rather use a bumpy 
implementation of a good specification than to use a perfect 
implementation of a bad idea.


Thanks for reading.

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Re: Ubuntu usability is significantly decreased with Unity

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 28. des. 2011 20:40, skrev Nenad Lecek:

Dear all,

as I don't know where to put my comments about Ubuntu 11.10 usability, 
I'm posting here. My apologies if this is not the right place, and I'd 
be grateful if you point me where to post my comment.




This list is ok to use for discussions about the desktop, but you should 
back up your claims with facts. It is not a fact that Unity doesn't 
serve users well. It serves me well, for instance. Claiming that Ubuntu 
is no longer user friendly because you don't like one of the 
applications it provides, is pure nonsense.


Some reasons are explained below. This is not a full list, just the 
key points.


1) Appearing/disappearing left side toolbar doesn't bring anything 
compared to Gnome Classic Ubuntu desktop and menu. Why? Simply put if 
you know that you have couple of menus where you programs are, this is 
much better/faster than unnecessary dynamic/uncertainty which Unity 
provides. BTW, Classic gnome desktop we had in previous Ubuntu 
versions was really well structured. Unity doesn't provide that. 
Personally, I do not see the point of promoting Unity as the only 
desktop on Ubuntu, because classic gnome desktop was well structured 
and good enough. Eventually, only search capability like in Unity 
could have been added, although this functionality in Unity is far 
from good, currently is just minor convenience.




Promoting Unity as the only desktop in Ubuntu would be a lie. Who is 
doing that? The idea that classic gnome desktop, which is called Gnome 
Panel, by the way, is no longer available in Ubuntu, is a misconception. 
It's still there.


2) The application menu is shown in main menu toolbar. This is 
annoying at best, and from usability point of view very it is a really 
poor choice. Why is considered good to force the user to search where 
the menu for her/his application is.


You're claiming that you now have to search for the menu because it's 
always at the same place? That doesn't make sense to me. In any case, 
you can disable the global menu if you prefer it that way.


3) Performance consideration: seems so that Unity eats performance and 
batteries on laptops. Again, no value in service it provides in return.




Of all the components in Ubuntu, you just assume that Unity somehow 
reduces performance? Correlation does not imply causation. I see no 
reason why Unity would impact performance in any way.


4) Search applications capability in Unity is really poorly designed 
and of limited usage. In some cases, you almost have to know exact 
name so that application you are searching for could be found. In 
others searching application itself has confusing, complex user 
interface. This could have been done much better.




If you can do better, then do so, or at least explain how. You don't 
even provide an example so that others can understand your problem.


Finally, my proposal is to return to classic gnome desktop as default 
Ubuntu desktop.
In addition, if new fancy user interface is for whatever reason 
needed, one can keep improving alternative user interface designs 
until one of them reach maturity needed for such broad user base. And 
make it optional, not mandatory.


Unity has never been mandatory in Ubuntu. It's extremely unlikely that 
it will ever be. Gnome Panel is still around if you want to improve it.


For example, in case main menu taskbar of classic gnome desktop 
contains the short, google like edit line for entering search 
expression for finding application, the Unity will be completely 
unnecessary. Simple as that.


Google searches public information. Unity scopes searches your personal 
information and online information. Completely different things. I would 
not want to give Google direct access to my personal computer in order 
to search for things. Unity is not primarily a look. It is primarily an 
infrastructure that enables applications to connect to the system. Parts 
of Unity is implemented for both Windows, LXDE and Xfce, for instance. 
The components will look different in KDE and Xfce, since they're 
different desktops.


You seem to have many questions, but you formulate them as accusations 
and unsubstantiated claims instead. It is not an effective way of 
attaining information. In fact, you're reducing the likelihood that 
people will be willing to help you.


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Re: Providing a less dramatic upgrade for LTS-users.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 20. des. 2011 09:36, skrev Martin Pitt:

Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2011-12-15 12:20 +0100]:

Many of these users will be presented with a New distribution
available upgrade for the very first time. It is likely that many
will just go right ahead and install the upgrade. When they reboot,
they will log into a completely new environment. As we've seen, this
can upset people when they don't expect the change.

This sounds like we should perhaps address this in update-manager? It
could show a slideshow similar to the one in Ubiquity, and/or also
point out that the default desktop changes?


Having some interesting slides while doing a distribution upgrade would 
be nice in any case. I don't think that solves the issues I'm pointing 
out, though.



My proposal is that users who _upgrade_ from 10.04 should be
presented with a Gnome Panel desktop, kept as close to the setup in
10.04 as possible.

At some point we need to switch those users to the current stuff
anyway, we can't keep the old panel stuff forever. Even today, only
few people are still working on it. Also, if you upgrade to a totally
new OS version, it is really not realistic to not expect any change.


Why can't we keep the old panel stuff forever if people want them, they 
don't cause any conflicts and developers develop them? I spoke to 
Vincent Untz about the panels, and he confirmed my impression that the 
panels were mostly finished. So, while it may be true that few people 
are working on the panels themselves, it is also true that there is 
little work that needs to be done. It makes very little sense to me to 
remove programs _because_ they are stable, mature and finished. Some 
things just doesn't need that much more innovation, and that should be 
considered a good thing. So most developers move onto more modern and 
challenging projects, and take most of the users with them -- and that's 
a good thing too -- but I see no reason why we can't have both. The nail 
gun didn't replace the hammer, even if it's a lot more efficient for 
many use cases.


I do agree that people should expect changes when upgrading to a new 
operating system. However, many LTS users are actively trying to _avoid_ 
changes, but are being forced to upgrade in order to keep their systems 
safe. In any case, I think upgrading users should _choose_ to switch to 
Unity, and switching should be dead easy.



I do agree that the change is indeed quite big, and I've heard a few
complaints and how do I do X now? questions myself, but if Unity has
some discoverability/usability issues (and it does), we need to
address those for all people, not just for LTS upgraders.
Sure, but that's a completely different issue. I don't think Unity will 
ever be automatically understood by everyone, and I don't think that 
should be a goal either. I used to think that, but I no longer do. The 
main goal should be to make the system comfortable and efficient to use. 
I really love the way Unity hides UI cruft when it's not actually 
usable. It does make the desktop a little less didactic, but most users 
are going to spend a lot of time using it, so even if it should require 
spending a couple of minutes browsing a small pamphlet, it's worth it.


But no matter how friendly Unity becomes, there will be users who are 
afraid of changes. By giving control to that user, you're reducing the 
fear.



Also, from a purely technical perspective, changing the configuration
for all existing users by packages or even update-manager is a no-go
area. u-m could switch the default session at the system level, but
then new users/guest session would also use the old one, and you would
never see the desktop which we actually support anywhere.
Changing the users configuration is the current situation. The user has 
Gnome Panel, which will still be available in Precise. After the 
upgrade, the users configuration will be changed to use Unity instead. 
Or have I misunderstood something? Because my suggestion is that we 
_don't_ change the configuration. Instead upgrading users keep using 
their familiar shell, but will be presented with a dialog that tells 
them about Unity at the first boot after upgrade.



If users see the GNOME-3 variant of GNOME panel, they will rightfully
have the impression that there's nothign really new, just a lot of
stuff has stopped working. Is that really the experience we want to
convey? I think not.


The users I've used in my scenario won't have lots of stuff stop 
working. Only heavy users of third-party panel applets will experience 
that. Those users will by necessity have some background information, 
which means they'll probably understand the situation. All the default 
applets that were used in 10.04 is still available, and someone has 
ported the indicator applet.


But you do have a point, though I have an opposite view. Replacing the 
shell at the same time that underlying technologies were changed, has 
created more confusion than anything else I can recall. Now

Re: Providing a less dramatic upgrade for LTS-users.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 15. des. 2011 14:25, skrev Chris Wilson:

I don't think turning off Unity after the upgrade is the way to go,
partly because there isn't anything to replace it with since Gnome 2
is no longer maintained, but mainly because any disruption to the
user's workflow caused by the transition (and you're right in thinking
there will be) will only be temporary until they learn how to use
Unity, which isn't too difficult once you get down to it.


First of all, you're wrong. The classic desktop is available and 
supported in Ubuntu. The indicator applet is also available, though from 
a third-party repo, but that's easily handled.A few weeks ago, I made 
this screenshot, for instance. It is Gnome 3 in 11.10: 
http://ubuntuone.com/0FQKR9MBQp5lMTgtg3jRg5. I did that in only a couple 
of minutes. Not a big deal at all. Otherwise I wouldn't have suggested it.


But the notion that it is easy to learn how to use Unity is only valid 
when people are willing to learn. A lot of people are not. I've taught a 
number of really basic users how to get stuff done in Ubuntu, for 
instance. I feel confident that a high percentage of those will stop 
using their computers until I can teach them Unity. LTS users are 
special, and I am only recommending this for LTS-upgrades, only for 
upgrades and switching to Unity should be possible by the click of a 
button at the center of the screen. Fresh installs should use Unity.



I think a better solution would be to notify the users of the new
interface during the upgrade process, preferably as close to the
beginning as possible, but of course spin it in a positive manner,
such as Ubuntu's had a facelift and now looks even better then ever.
Preferably, users should've read the release notes before upgrading to 
begin with, so such a notification should be pointless. But we don't 
live in an ideal world, and as I said in my original post, a large 
number of users are either afraid or unwilling to explore their systems. 
I don't think that should be required in order to keep using Ubuntu. I 
agree that most people should find Unity easy to learn, but I think the 
friendly thing to do is to let the user choose. For those who know what 
it is, it'll be one click. For those who doesn't, it will be one click 
to try it and one click to keep the classic or switch to the new one. 
This gives a sense of control that tends to dispel the fear and 
uncertainty that some users do feel when things suddenly changes.



Then provide a link to a resource where the user can learn all about
Unity while their system upgrade, perhaps the Ubuntu Tour website with
an added interactive tutorial to lead the users through their new
workflow for the first time.


The upgrade was successful. Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04LTS. Click _here_ to 
RTFM :)


Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: EOL for couchdb and desktopcouch

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 22. nov. 2011 16:45, skrev John Rowland Lenton:
I don't know where you got the impression I or we were proposing or 
suggesting that the distribution do that. Ubuntu One, as upstream of 
desktopcouch, is letting Ubuntu know that we're not going to go on 
working on desktopcouch, and the service is going away from our 
servers. This is the next step after letting the more prominent 
stakeholders know in person at UDS. 


Well, in your original email, you did recommend that it be moved out of 
main, didn't you? Coming from a developer who is both the upstream and 
the primary distro sponsor, how do you think the audience -- who happens 
to be the app developers you seek to attract -- should interpret it?


The email you responded to was the warning. Had you talked with the
Ubuntu One developers at UDS or since then, we would've told you. We
individually talked with the main stakeholders at or before UDS. We had
U1DB sessions at UDS, and we have openly talked about the status of
couchdb with developers since around that time.


I hadn't actually considered DesktopCouch to be dependent on Ubuntu One. 
I considered Ubuntu Ones database synchronization service to be 
dependent on the DesktopCouch, but not vice versa. Much the same way, I 
don't expect my home directory to be dependent on Ubuntu One file 
synchronization service.


While I can understand the reasons why you feel it necessary to pull the 
plug on the db sync service, it is not immediately obvious to me why 
that would necessarily result in you dropping support for local storage 
in personal databases on the desktop. I don't see anything wrong with 
DesktopCouch itself. By the way, what is going to happen with the 
server-side software that you're now abandoning? Will you GPL it and 
release it so that others can benefit from the work? After all, even if 
you couldn't make it scale to millions of databases, it might still be 
useful as a residential sync service, for example.


It's interesting that you mention this, because the drive to enable
Ubuntu to be that platform is one of the things that is pushing us to
fix things. CouchDB wasn't working for us to do what we and you want to
do with the platform, so we're swapping the component out for one that
*will* work.

No, I don't think our goals are the same. My goal is to create software 
using tools that are available for many platforms, such as Python, GTK 
and CouchDB. I would then like to enable the users to sync their data 
between all their devices, across platforms. Your goal is similar, but 
from a completely different perspective. You want to build a public 
service for millions and millions of users. That makes sense to you, 
because that's your business. But it doesn't make sense to me, because 
most families and businesses doesn't have millions of members. From my 
perspective, the stack I referred to earlier, which you until very 
recently have been advocating, _does_ work.


Tell me you're going to GPL and release your server-side db-sync stuff, 
and I'll have all my enthusiasm back and stop nagging. :)



Thank you for caring,

Likewise. :)

Jo-Erlend Schinstad



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Re: EOL for couchdb and desktopcouch

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 22. nov. 2011 17:17, skrev Rick Spencer:


DesktopCouch performance on the client, and failures to sync on the 
server have been have both major thorns in my side. Not to mention 
suffering through writing javascript map/reduce statements, ug!




First of all, you can write that stuff in Python, and that's not ugh. 
That's woo hoo! -- Homer Simpson style. :)


What exactly is the bottleneck with DesktopCouch? I've never used it for 
very large databases, but I did test CouchGrid with 50k rows once, and 
that was fairly smooth. I think that was on my IGEPv2, which is a 
single-core, 720MHz OMAP3 board with 512MB RAM. In real applications, I 
don't think I'd want to load that many results at once in any case though.


I, therefore, welcome this move. I really want the ability to have a 
local but synced store with an easy API, but DesktopCouch was just not 
able to provide this. I am very grateful that the team is going to 
apply what's been learned to a new generation of such functionality, 
and I will be the first to write a DictionaryGrid that uses it! :)




Sure, being able to turn any database solution into an offline/syncable 
solution that can be used with any other type of database on any other 
device, platform or operating system, seems absolutely fantastic. 
Actually, it does sound fantastic, in the proper sense of the word. I 
find it a little difficult to believe that anything like this can be 
accomplished in only a few months. I don't really understand how it 
would be possible at all, but then there are lots of people who are 
smarter than I am. Tell you what, though. If anything close to this is 
available by the time Precise is released, I'll definitely find the time 
to help you write that grid. That's a promise. :)


The blueprint for all this doesn't say much, except, mostly,  that 
anything should be possible on everything, anywhere. And it's very hard 
not to agree with that. But I would love to read something a little more 
specific, if anyone has a nice link?


Jo-Erlend Schinstad





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Re: ubuntu lacks ideas, firefox is full of ideas

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 18. nov. 2011 21:14, skrev Alexander Etter:
I am glad I found this email. I can relate to it in many ways. I've 
tried to get involved in developing Ubuntu, but nobody has reached 
out. 11.10 is so bad on my machine I reverted to 10.04. I never liked 
Unity, it's silly and implies heavy use of the mouse. I want to use 
the keyboard to navigate everything.

And I like firefox too.
Just my thoughts on this matter; I don't intend to start a war but a 
thoughtful discussion if anything.

Alexander


You should ask more questions. The thing I like the most about Unity, is 
how efficient it is to use without a mouse. I nearly only use the mouse 
for web these days. There are keyboard shortcuts for nearly everything. 
There are a few I would've wanted, such as using alt+num to choose 
between workspaces in the switcher, and  between windows in super+w 
instead of using arrow keys, but since there are other keyboard 
shortcuts available, such as alt+ctrl+arrows, and shift-alt+ctrl+arrows 
to move windows between workspaces, it's not very annoying.


I would advise you to look for answers the next time you get frustrated 
by something, instead of just reinstalling the operating system, which 
is a fairly radical choice.


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Re: ubuntu lacks ideas, firefox is full of ideas

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 19. nov. 2011 18:47, skrev Alexander:


You should ask more questions. The thing I like the most about
Unity, is how efficient it is to use without a mouse.


I appreciate your comments. Thanks for the advice. I enjoy hearing 
diverse opinions; for example I prefer the keyboard but you prefer the 
mouse! I like that.

--
Alexander



I would be very interested in hearing how you reached that conclusion. I 
don't use a mouse, except on the web. I do all my desktop stuff using 
the keyboard. This is something I've never been able to do in a desktop 
shell before. Can you give one example of a desktop task that cannot be 
performed without a mouse? I'm talking about window management and other 
things Unity provides.


I feel quite confident that you won't be able to come up with many, if 
any. If you do, then that's very valuable information. After all, Unity 
focuses on keyboard use.


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Re: ubuntu lacks ideas, firefox is full of ideas

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 19. nov. 2011 20:51, skrev Alexander:

Sorry for the confusion. Anyway I don't understand your double negative:

This is something I've never been able to do in a desktop shell
before.

Can you give one example of a desktop task that cannot be
performed without a mouse?


 What are you asking? I'm confused about /giving an example of a task 
that cannot be performed without an object./






You claim that you have to move to 10.04 because you cannot use Unity 
because it focuses only on mouse use. My claim is that this is your 
claim. My claim is provable because the emails exist. I say that isn't 
true, and that we have a large array of keyboard shortcuts that is far 
beyond anything available in 10.04. This means that Unity is _less_ 
dependent on using the mouse than the thing you've switched to for that 
purpose.


Not underestimating you, I ask if you have any concrete examples of 
things you can do with the keyboard in 10.04 that you cannot do in 
11.10. You are making the claim that this is so, which means the burden 
of evidence is on you. I tried to make it easy for you. If you can prove 
that Unity is less keyboard-friendly than the default shell and WM in 
10.04, then we will all learn and it'll get fixed. If you cannot, then 
your claim is false. This is the beauty of peer review.


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Re: ubuntu lacks ideas, firefox is full of ideas

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 19. nov. 2011 21:36, skrev Mr. Alexander Etter:


My claim is false.
Mr. Etter


Great, so we have confirmed that at least we haven't lost features wrt 
keyboard use since 10.04 and that we have attained some new ones. Now we 
should find out which are still missing. Luckily, this is one of the 
primary focuses for 12.04. Since we're obviously both interested in the 
subject, we should get started. :)


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Re: [Desktop12.04-Topic] Deeper Zeitgeist integration. Installation of datasources for default applications etc

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 19. okt. 2011 08:24, skrev Didier Roche:

[snip]

Now some questions:
- do you have automatic testsuite for them, running on different 
versions of upstream projects?
- how do oyu work with firefox in particular, where we update the 
released version through release life? We generally avoid shipping 
plugins for this reason.
- can you elaborate on one of the major flaw of zeitgeist which seems 
a bigger priority to me: when you plug an usb key, or have a 
windows/ubuntu partition, as zeitgeist isn't a indexer, we can't see 
them in the file lens in particularly. I know that Seif has a script 
for that, but it doesn't seem to be suited for indexing and Mikkel has 
some concerns about it. Can we put that on the table as one of the 
priority for Precise?


I don't think this is simply a technical issue. It's first and foremost 
a design issue. When I have opened a file, then you can know that the 
file is of some interest to me. The fact that I haven't open a file, 
doesn't prove that it isn't interesting, but you just can't know. I 
regard Zeitgeist is a logger that enables applications to learn from my 
actions, not as a general indexer like Tracker. In order for the dash 
and lenses to be effective, I think it should primarily display files 
I've shown some interest in. Similarly, the web lens should only display 
sites I've actually visited, not intermingle results from Google, since 
I haven't shown any interested in all those other sites.


Searching for the unknown is completely different from searching your 
personal history. The thing I like most about the current way the lenses 
work, is that no results are ever entirely irrelevant, since at some 
point, I've chosen to use them all. I'm very concerned that mixing these 
types of searches will introduce many false positives, which will reduce 
the user experience. Searching for things you've never used is obviously 
quite useful, and an interesting field that should be treated as a 
separate topic. Because of its nature, you'll want the ability to define 
a lot of parameters for such a search, and I'm not convinced that lenses 
are ready for that. These are some of the parameters that the lens would 
have to have in order to provide a good search for unused things:


*  Name (duh)
*  Time created (from and to)
*  Time modified (from and to)
*  Specific folder(s)
*  How deep to search
*  Specific servers (nfs, samba, ftp, etc)
*  Size (to and from)
*  User or group the file belongs to
*  File type
*  Whether or not to search file files content
*  Source (did you download it from the web, received it in email, 
bit torrent, etc)


These are only the parameters that immediately comes to mind. I'm sure 
there are many more. But already, this has become a fairly long list, 
and it's likely that you'd want the ability to store that search. From 
my perspective, it seems that forcing these types of searches into the 
dash will both reduce the quality of results from my log, and reduce the 
ability to search for things I've never used. For that reason, I would 
recommend that the dash be used only to search for things that are known 
to be interesting because it's been used, and that a more powerful 
desktop search engine be developed separately. Obviously, this 
application would be able to use the same data sources that are used in 
the dash, but would provide much greater level of detail. Then the dash 
could use stored searches from that app as a source, because then you 
have defined an interest, so it's no longer random data, and the results 
will still be relevant.


Does it make sense to you? :)

Jo-Erlend Schinstad








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Re: Does Ubuntu upload personal information by default and without permission now?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Den 12. okt. 2011 19:52, skrev David Barth:
I don't know either. But I suspect that would take some previous space 
on the CD and then local install. Not to mention the need for very 
frequent updates. And an out-of-date database would be even worse, ie 
not returning any of the new music hits.


I feel the online mode is the only one really making sense.


Well, unlike software packages, released albums usually aren't updated, 
so only new albums would have to be downloaded. I don't think it would 
be useful to download all the song titles in the world just for the sake 
of privacy though. Most people wouldn't mind searching for music online, 
as long as they know they're doing it.


But I do think the online search should be opt-in instead of opt-out. 
It's better to err on the side of caution in cases where privacy is at 
all an issue.


Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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Does Ubuntu upload personal information by default and without permission now?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I was a little bit surprised to read that the Music Lense will actually 
send your searches to an online database by default and without asking 
any permission beforehand. In earlier versions of Ubuntu, things like 
popcon have not been activated by default and you've always been 
confident that there are no open ports and no data being transmitted 
unless you've asked for it.


I had difficulties believing this to be true, so I tested it. I searched 
for an artist of which I have no records, and sure enough, the music 
lense told me I could purchase it. I then disconnected from the network 
and searched again and this time, I got no advertisement. A very simple 
test that anyone can perform, and it indicated to me that the search was 
indeed being sent to some online service. Does this apply to all my 
searches? What else is being uploaded about me?


I was just about to sniff my network to see for myself when I came to my 
senses... If people even get the impression that they are being 
monitored by their own system, then Ubuntu has certainly lost. 
Technologies like Zeitgeist are great, but they also mean it's more 
important than ever that absolutely no information is being transmitted 
without asking permission first and that user always knows what is being 
sent. The feeling of loosing that confidence was not a good one.


I think the advertisements in the lenses, whether it's for software or 
music, needs to be deactivated. Not only does it validate the notion 
that Ubuntu is free for a reason, just like GMail, but it might also 
cause users to loose confidence in their own privacy.


It just isn't worth it.

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Unity panic button in Oneiric?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I'm still experiencing nasty bugs with Unity, and I'm not alone:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/871584
(I think I've seen other bugs similar to that one. If anyone knows
which one, please mark it as a duplicate of that one. I couldn't find
it)

Another issue I'm facing several times a day now, is that LightDM
sometimes won't reload after logging out and that the screen stays
black after automatic screen-locks due to inactivity. All of these
cases are detrimental to the user experience and we're three days from
release. I think all of these issues are fixed by running a compiz
--replace. Unfortunately, this is not easy to do when these problems
occur, unless you know exactly what to do. Even then, it might/will
seem scary to casual users.

If Oneiric have to be released on Thursday, I think it's prudent to
have some sort of panic button to restart Unity. Perhaps something
like alt+ctrl+shift+F12 or something else that is uncomfortable enough
to not be widely used for anything, and still easy enough to serve the
purpose.

I mean, obviously, it would be better if the bugs were fixed and
thoroughly tested before then, or even if Oneiric could be postponed a
little for these things to be really polished, but if this is not
possible, then such a keyboard shortcut might act as some sort of
remedy at least.

With challenged optimism,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Better link for Ubuntu Help on the startpage.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I just read an interesting blog post about a sixty year old who used a
computer for the first time.
(http://jboriss.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/user-testing-in-the-wild-joes-first-computer-encounter/)
He tried to get started, but couldn't find a way to easily get help.
To me, it was fairly obvious that a clearly visible link to a help
page on the start page would've been very helpful to him. So I had a
look, and sure enough, we have one.

But that link points to https://help.ubuntu.com/. That means that the
user needs to first choose his version. He might not know that.
However, we do, so we should link directly to the version the user has
installed and directly to desktop, so the link should have pointed to
https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/ubuntu-help/index.html in 11.04.

That page has a small notice at the bottom: «This help applies if you
are using the default Unity desktop. Help is also available for the
Ubuntu Classic desktop session.» We know what shell the user uses. The
user might not. We should have a way to point the user in the right
direction at once.

In this particular case, the user was trying to use the web. First of
all, he needed help using the browser, but then he would need some
help understanding the web itself. I think that might have been a nice
thing to have. I had a look for that in the help site and I eventually
arrived at this page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/ubuntu-help/net-browser.html. It
explains how to Switch to another browser and how to install Java,
Silverlight and Flash. But it does not explain how to browse the web.
That seems to me a fairly obvious topic to have. That would've been
frustrating to Joe from the test.

In other words; there is room for improvement.

I realize that it's a bit too late to fix this in 11.04, but if we
could make this happen for 11.10 and all future versions, I think it
would be a usability improvement. It would also be very nice if that
page was translated into more languages and was used by default for
the users current language settings. Is anyone working on that?

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Re: Dropping tomboy from the CD at least for part of the oneiric cycle

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 15. juni 2011 10:24, Piotr Drozdek wrote:

Dnia 2011-06-14, o godz. 21:00:31
Sebastien Bacherseb...@ubuntu.com  napisał(a):


Since that work has been stalling for a while, we need CD space and we
want to get ride of the deprecated library we decided during the
meeting to drop tomboy from the CD at least until it's ported to
gsettings.

Hi.
When we are going to switch to default DVD release? Users really don't
like to install system and realize, that all their default small apps
and programs are gone, and they have to look for them in Software
Center. Many times users just don't remember proper app name.
You wanna cut Tomboy from Oneric - but any other notetaker app will be
there (by default)? If no, that's mean we gonna again to cut system
functionality just because to fit CD's 700MB.


I agree. I've never quite got comfortable with Tomboy after having
used Evolution for my notes for such a long time. But that's beside
the point.

A PC that only has a CD drive might still be very useful. If the user
has internet access, then software can be easily installed. If the user
only has a CD drive and does not have internet access, then it does
not make sense to spend CD space on things like remote desktop
clients, P2P software or maybe even an email client. However, an
application for taking notes might be very useful.

Perhaps other things should be removed before Tomboy?

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People expect the backlight colours on the unity launcher to mean something.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've tested Unity on some innocent users. By that, I mean people who
have little or no experience with Ubuntu or other distros and aren't
coloured by politics or expectations from previous versions of Ubuntu.
The two most common questions I get is 1) what does that blue point on
the Ubuntu button mean and 2) what do the different colours in the
launcher mean? Once I've explained that blue dot, they all say oh,
ok and that's the end of it. It does require an explanation though,
and I think that means it isn't obvious enough. The identifier showing
which window is calling for attention, certainly is not obvious
enough.

But I had no answer to what the different background colours on the
launcher meant. I had to investigate it. It seems that the background
colour is chosen by the most dominant foreground colour of the icon.
Firefox, Nautilus, Xchat and Ubuntu One all have orange as a dominant
colour, so they get an orange background. Gcalctool, Gedit and Totem
have grey as a dominant foreground colour, so they get a grey
background. This doesn't seem like a good solution to me. People,
including myself, expect the background colour to have some sort of
meaning. Since I didn't have the answer myself, I thought it'd be
interesting to see what people would guess those colours to mean. Most
had no idea and had no basis to even make a guess, but I did get some
replies from current users of Ubuntu. These are some of the answers
I've received, from various people:

* It depends on the vendor. Free software gets one colour and
proprietary apps get another.
* It depends on the toolkit. Gtk apps get one colour and Qt-apps a
different colour.
* It depends on category. Office applications get a grey background
colour and communication applications are orange.
* It depends on Ubuntu One. Synced apps are orange and non-synced are grey.

I think these ideas are all interesting, mostly because absolutely
no-one guessed the correct answer; that it's only aesthetics. It seems
to me that this has to be reconsidered. I think I believe that the
best solution is for all apps to have the same background colour when
running and another when they're not running. Orange and grey seems to
be fairly decent choices. I'm not sure about this. But I am completely
convinced that the colours should either be the same for all apps or
have a deducible meaning,

Has this been discussed at the UDS? What are the current thoughts?

Best regards,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Suggestions for Ubuntu 11.10

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

 on
your computer on your way to work or from office for the opposite.
Now, one day, your boss, Jill, calls you and asks you about that
spreadsheet she sent you about a month ago, or maybe two. That's what
bosses do. You do not remember what filename she used, where you
stored it or if she sent it using email, IM or shared it on Ubuntu
One. You do, however, remember that you were on your way home from
work, that you were tired because you had been working overtime and
that it was a monday, because you were looking forward to your
soccerteams match that day.

Because _that's_ how the mind works. So, you quite simply press super
(or winkey, if you like) and type train from office overtime
spreadsheet from Jill on monday. Hopefully, that will result in a
single document. Otherwise, I'd seriously consider applying for a
different job.

This email became much longer than I had intended. I lost myself in my
own words. Can you please remind me of the reasons why using drive
letters would make Ubuntu more user friendly? I completely forgot.

Thanks for your patience,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Thoughts about Unity and some ideas for improvement

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

It'd be interesting to know how left-handed people feel about Unity.
It's very dominated by super-num, super-w, super-s, super-a, super-t,
etc. This is very nice for right-handed people, since you'd usually
use the right hand for the mouse. But left-handed people would
probably prefer to use the left hand for the mouse, forcing them to
move between the mouse and keyboard fairly often.

This is another good reason to use the alt-key in super-w and super-s,
etc, since that would reduce the necessity of using the mouse so you
don't have to move your hands as often.

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GNOME Shell has been removed from the repositories?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've noticed that gnome-shell is not provided in the repositories for
Natty. It used to be available in universe, from Karmic to Maverick.
Why is this no longer the case?

I strongly believe that GNOME Shell should be available in the
repositories, and preferably in main. There is already too much talk
about Ubuntu moving away from GNOME. Removing gnome-shell from the
repositories will encourage that misconception. I personally remain
somewhat sceptical about both Unity and GNOME Shell, but I loudly
applaud the efforts of both projects to innovate and modernize the
desktop. I also think both projects show great promise, and I'm really
looking forward to see how they progress as they mature and are
exposed to a greater audience.

And I am a little concerned that by both switching to use Unity by
default and removing the main competitor -- GNOME Shell -- from the
repositories, it may seem like Ubuntu is using its power as the most
popular distro to eliminate competition. You will get Unity for free,
it will be installed and used by default. GNOME Shell, on the other
hand... You'll need to search the web, try to find a good PPA, add the
repository and then install it -- if you're really that interested. I
am really hesitant to mention the comparison that automatically
springs to my mind: Microsoft killed Netscape by providing Internet
Explorer for free and, more importantly, installing it by default. No
doubt, it's quite an efficient means of ridding oneself of
competition, but it really doesn't seem to be in the spirit of Ubuntu.

I don't want to come across as accusing anyone of doing that. But I am
concerned that's the way people will interpret it and that it'll help
fuel tribalism. I strongly believe that the competition between GNOME
Shell and Unity will bring out the best in both of them, but that will
require both of them to be exposed to as vast an audience as possible.
I'm not saying that GNOME Shell should be promoted or installed by
default, only that it should be available from the repositories, at
the very least in universe. I think that by promoting it to main, that
would send a strong signal that Canonical and Ubuntu are not in
conflict with GNOME. Also, if people are able to easily try GNOME
Shell, then if people do stick with it, developers of Unity has a much
better chance of learning why they do so, which will enable them to
improve. The same would be true for GNOME Shell, of course: if people
try it and chooses to use Unity instead, then they will have the
opportunity to learn. The question, therefore, is is Ubuntu going to
enable the community around it to be able to improve?. These are the
important things in the free software community, and if Ubuntu can do
that, then it will have done something important, that will be
appreciated... :)

In summary: The current situation makes Unity a symbol of conflict and
an excuse for tribalism, which is as ironic as it is sad. The best
solution is to promote it to main.

Thanks for reading,

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Should gnome-panels enable_animations key be true by default?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Why are we animating everything? Does it make Ubuntu look cool and
professional when the panels slide into the screen at login? I don't
think so. I think it looks cheap, especially since it doesn't always
work as intended. It also makes our desktop less useful for
terminalserver environments, which I think is a very important stage
for Ubuntu to shine. My question is written in the subject. My
personal opinion is that no,
/apps/panel/toplevels/panelname/enable_animations should be false by
default.

What do you think?

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Default panel applets are not translated and not translatable!

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I filed a bug regarding this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/549758
The panel applets for messaging and notifications, are not translated
to Norwegian and other languages. I thought I'd do that, but there are
no translations available on Launchpad.

How do I proceed

Thanks.

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Re: Beautiful awesomeness ---stupidity?---

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 7 March 2010 19:10, Rick Spencer rick.spen...@canonical.com wrote:
 While I look forward to your continued contributions and support of
 Ubuntu, note that using the word stupidity to describe the
 contributions of people who dedicate so much effort and heart and soul
 to Ubuntu is not appropriate or acceptable on this list.

 In terms of the feedback that you requested for your communication
 style, I can say that when I hear someone use a word like stupidity in
 a public list or other forum, I assume the person fears change, or
 worse, is simply a troll. You would have made your point more
 effectively without insulting the contributions of others.

 Cheers, Rick

You're right, of course, and I apologize. But it seems extremely unwise
to me, to upset a large portion of the community just before the release
of the most important Ubuntu ever. It seems to me, that such a radical
change would warrant some prior discussons and explanations.

But maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps new users coming from Windows won't
notice the difference, or be tricked into thinking Ubuntu requires you to
learn everything from scratch. Perhaps I'm overestimating the value of
making new users feel comfortable. And after all, it's not that difficult to
tell new users to simply change theme and then press alt+f2 and paste
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout \
--type string menu:minimize,maximize,close.

But why should this be necessary? What's so important about moving
the buttons to the left, that people should have to retrain their muscles
in order to get comfortable with Ubuntu? Are these changes written in
stone, so they will persist no matter what the users think, or is it possible
that they'll be reverted? How do we explain this in our marketing brochures,
and when will it be safe to upgrade manuals, screenshots, screencasts,
etc?

Jo-Erlend

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Re: Beautiful awesomeness ---stupidity?---

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 7 March 2010 22:56, Alex Launi alex.la...@gmail.com wrote:
  I don't think that new users will crap their pants over the window controls
 being on the left, I think we've all seen OSX before.

Perhaps you're right, though I personally know lots of people who have never
seen OS X, and much less used it. Doesn't OS X arrange their buttons in a
different order, by the way? I hope you're right that average Windows-users
won't be put off by this, though all my experience with normal Windows users
tells me, it will.

I've only tried this change on ten normal users, but I had to explain this to
eight of them. I never had to explain how to close a window when karmic
was released. But you're right. The window looks much cleaner on the right
side now, which is very good news for all those who read from right to left and
therefore focus more on the right side than on the left. I'm also interested to
see how many people will close the  window instead of opening the applications-
menu because of this, but if that becomes a problem, then we can just move
the applications menu to the right side in the next release, right?

But I'm sure extensive usability tests in the real world have proven that left
is more efficient and user friendly than right, so perhaps I shouldn't worry so
much.

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Beautiful stupidity?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've been reading up on the new design philosophy and it sounded nice
until I saw some actual screenshots on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brand.

Are we really going to move the window buttons (minimize, maximize and
close) to the left hand side of the window and then rearrange them?
The themes look really nice, but this is going to hurt. Most of us
have a strong muscle memory that tells us where those buttons are. New
users will feel even more uncomfortable, as this indicates further
that their old knowledge from Windows isn't applicable anymore. Most
of us are also right handed, which makes the right hand side of the
screen a good placement for such a common action.

People have suggested for a long time, that Super-L should open the
applications menu. I've been against that, since it didn't make sense
to begin with. It's stupid to copy Windows' mistakes just in order to
be similar, but in my opinion, it's even more stupid to change
something good just in order to be different.

In my opinion, this is the worst design change since the decision to
hide incoming IMs and phone calls from the user, and instead just
subtly changing the color of a small icon.

One of the things I've always touted when speaking of Ubuntu, is that
is looks ok, but that it's really user friendly, and efficient to work
with. You get much done by few clicks. Now, when someone calls me, I
have to first examine where the sound comes from, then look for the
envelope to see if it's light grey or dark grey. Then, if it's dark
grey, I have to click it to see if it's just because I've received an
email or if someone has sent me an IM while I was away, or if someone,
in fact, is calling me right now. If so, then I can open that dialog
and then, finally, I can accept the call. And now I'm supposed to
retrain my muscles to hit buttons on the other side of the screen, and
remember that minimize is now maximize and vice versa?

I'm sorry if I come across as overly critical, but this really upsets
me. It looks nice, but it's a pain to work with. Please prioritize
functionality before aesthetics.

My two cents,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Desktop annoyances #1: gray display, extremely slow web

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 5 February 2010 16:42, David A. Cobb superbis...@cox.net wrote:
  I'll start by identifying my primary suspect for the source of the problem:
 I have only 256MiB of real memory (slightly less than 2GiB virtual).
  Remember what Bill Gates once said -- no one will ever need more than 65 K
 of memory.  The installation notes say this is the bare minimum to do the
 install, but that the system should function satisfactorily  once installed.

 My wife experiences this far more than I do, even though I can't identify
 any reason her account should be different from mine.  When she is browsing
 (usually Galeon, sometimes Firefox) the color bleaches out of the display,
 leaving everything in shades of gray.  During this condition, the UI becomes
 unresponsive.  My suspicion is that the system is thrashing pages at these
 times, so the screen is not correctly refreshed.  This also happens within
 OpenOffice.org.

 Possibly directly related: complex web pages just CRAWL!  Her favorite site,
 one that demonstrates the painful experience, is
 http://www.susanboylefanclubusa.com.  RSN, I plan to point out to the
 webmaster there that the page would be more pleasant to load if the default
 index.html  just pointed out to various articles.  But that is opposed to
 the trend in web pages, so I just sound like the dinosaur I am.

 --
 David A. Cobb -- computing t-rex

The grey screen you're talking about, is a feature from a plugin for
Compiz. It shows you that the application isn't responding. You can
swith off that plugin if you like, by installing
apt://compizconfig-settings-manager
or something similar.

I'd also recommend installing flashblock plugin for Firefox. Flash
really slows down Firefox, specially on sites with many ads.

Hope that helps,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Desktop annoyance #2: Everything is very very slow after any package upgrade

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 5 February 2010 17:07, David A. Cobb superbis...@cox.net wrote:
  Again, recall I have only 256MiB real memory.

 Because of another problem, I can only do software upgrades from Recovery
 Mode -- single user console.  If I try it while Gnome is running, the
 network speed is cut to around 1/60 of the speed I get from the console.  I
 can't wait for two days to download the update packages.

You don't have to reboot in order to shutdown X. Simply open another
console by pressing alt+ctrl+F1, log in and run «sudo service gdm stop».
That will shutdown X.

 Anyway, when I reboot after an upgrade, it takes around 5 Minutes(!) to get
 the GDM login screen, and I have timed the system from the password entry to
 a functioning desktop at up to 15 Minutes.  Yes, I can get up and brew a pot
 of coffee, and drink my first cup, before I can use the computer.

 As a user experience, this just sucks!  And it doesn't help to have my dear
 wife looking over my shoulder and saying Shirley doesn't have this problem
 with her Windows program!  (of course, Shirley also has a 2GiB memory)

 We are, supposedly, maturing to the point that Linux is a viable desktop for
 average users, not just 'puter-geeks like me.

You're not complaining about Linux here, but Ubuntu and GNOME. Linux
itself uses very little RAM. I agree that the spesified minimum requirements
for Ubuntu could be set a little higher, or be more specific, but I don't think
it's fair to call this a usability issue.

If I were you, I'd try LXDE. It's _much_ less resource demanding and will
make your desktop fly in comparison to GNOME. It's a small download and
you can choose between GNOME and LXDE in the GDM login screen.

Best wishes,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Proposal: change Remote Desktop to Desktop Sharing

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I frequently encounter people who misunderstand this, and I don't blame
them. In Windows, you can connect to your remote desktop as long as
you're allowed to do so. You don't have to be logged in before you can
log in. This seems obvious for a remote desktop solution. In Ubuntu,
however, the user who owns the desktop you wish to see, have to be
logged on first. This solution is quite appropriate, but the naming
should be altered to reflect the difference between sharing your desktop
with someone else and being able to work from a remote location.

Let me underscore that I'm not proposing this because of Windows. I
actually think the name Remote desktop itself implies that I can
connect to my own desktop from somewhere else. Desktop sharing would
be much more intelligible, I think. I share my desktop with someone, so
obviously, I have to be logged on first.

What do you think? 

Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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Re: Proposal: change Remote Desktop to Desktop Sharing

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I filed a bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vino/+bug/509818


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Re: Why is Tomboy permissible in the default Ubuntu Desktop?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

2009/12/27 Emilio López buhitoesco...@gmail.com:
 I wonder the same. I don't even take notes, and if I were to take, I
 would use something simpler, like Gedit.

Oh, I did that for years and I'm really not missing those days. Having
all my notes in one application, automatically synced with my phone,
other computers and webservice, is much better for me than using
.txt-files on some desktop.

 Also, from all the Ubuntu users I know, none of them actually take
 notes. They are all home users, maybe a note-taking app is more
 enterprise-oriented? And if this is the case, maybe the evolution tool
 for that is more useful and more integrated with the rest of the tools
 they use?
 Like Jo-Erlend Schinstad, I'll also be glad to know why is Tomboy
 still in the default install.

 --
 Emilio López

In my personal life, I take notes all the time. _All the time_. This question
has been in my Evolution memos for a while, until I converted it to a
task and finally decided to empty the task list by the end of the year.
Using notes, tasks and calendars properly, really has improved my life.
I hope everyone who doesn't use these tools, learn to do so in the new
year. I'm sure they'll feel as I do :)

In other words, I'm not in any way proposing that we don't need a notes
manager. I'm simply curious what makes Tomboy a valid exception to the
rule of one application per feature, that's so integral to Ubuntu design
philosophy.

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Why is Tomboy permissible in the default Ubuntu Desktop?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've never used Tomboy much myself. To me, it seems like a cool
prototype, showing what's possible, but for my daily note management, I
use Evolution. And that's where my question pops up: an important part
of Ubuntus design philosophy, is that there should be only one
application per feature. As I understand it, that's the reason why we
don't have any special application for RSS-feeds, for instance, since
Firefox already supports feeds and is installed by default. What is the
reasoning behind making Tomboy an exception to this rule? I would think
that adding Liferea for feed management, would be less overlapping than
adding another note manager besides Evolution? I've always accepted not
having a good feed manager by default, because I feel that the concept
of not having overlapping features in different applications has more
positive sides than negative. But I really don't understand what makes
Tomboy so special that it warrants an exception to this rule. 

I'm not looking to fire up a discussion about Mono or anything like
that, though that dependency makes the exception even stranger to me. 

Thanks, 

Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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Re: Congrats on karmic, looking forward lucid

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

ma., 02.11.2009 kl. 14.45 +0100, skrev Sebastien Bacher:
 Hey everybody,
[snip]
Hey Seb :)

 - try to be conservative in the changes which will land in lucid, GNOME
 upstream will likely rework some component in the GNOME3 optic and other
 teams or upstream will probably keep working on changes to improve the
 user experience, while the work they do is great it would probably be
 good to wait until lucid+1 to bring those in the default installation.
 I expect we will have some of those discussions at UDS too

[snip]

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this. The LTS releases
should be the main releases for new users and companies. That means they
should not only be stable from day one, but should have high quality
documentation, books, and support both commercial and free. One way to
accomplish this, I think, is to consider the last release before the LTS
a QA release. Between Karmic and Lucid, there should be as little change
as possible. Documentation written for Karmic should require only minor
changes in order to be applicable to Lucid. One of the key strengths
Microsoft has (especially for Win XP), is that everyone knows someone
who knows all the secrets and workarounds since they've used it for some
time themselves. (I can still do blind support of XP over the phone even
though I haven't used it in a year -- I cannot do that with Hardy). If
we consider Karmic a QA release to Lucid, we'll have a lot of users who
can help their neighbours once Lucid is released. It will also give less
technical users more confidence when recommending Ubuntu. We really need
that in order to reach the crucial tipping point. 

I really wish the development of Ubuntu could become something like
this:

LTS+1 (first release after LTS): time for changing lanes. Radical
changes can be done, if it makes sense. I hope we'll refrain from
changing stuff for the sole purpose of elevating the fancyfactor. We
really push the limits in this release and everyone knows that chances
are high that regressions are introduced. This is where we pave the way
to the future, and new users aren't made to expect this to be flawless.
It should still be useful to normal users of Ubuntu, of course. 

LTS+2: Push further in the direction set in the previous release,
learning from the experiences of the previous cycle, and work on
stabilizing the system. Sometimes, good ideas just don't work in
practice. This is a good place to revert if we find examples of those. 

LTS+3: The way forward is now clear. Refine the changes from the two
previous cycles, preparing for the LTS. We now know mostly what the LTS
will be like, so greater resources can be put into writing long-term
documentation, books, screencasts, etc. Since we have six months to do
this work, we can try to make this available in more languages in a more
consistent way. People have been expecting this six-month QA period, and
have planned for it so they have time to work on marketing and docs for
the LTS. 

LTS: After three cycles of high pulse and intense work on features, this
is a good time to catch our breath. It is a time for philosophy,
debating and figuring out what the future should be like. 

These are of course just some ideas, but I think it's very important
that users know what to expect. Karmic has been labeled ME of Ubuntu
and Vista of Ubuntu, etc. The reason is not that Karmic is bad, it's
just that the expectations were sky-high without the users knowing about
the big changes behind the scene. This is really bad marketing. Yes,
this is free software, but more users still mean higher potential, and
higher potential means more effort. 

What do you think? 

Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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Proposal: Ubuntu is not intuitive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I've always felt that calling a computer system intuitive is, at best,
misleading. My understanding of the word intuition, is that it's some
vague and abstract understanding of something. The use of a computer
system should be based on a clear and precise understanding of what's
going on. 

From http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=intuitive:
«(adj) intuitive, nonrational, visceral (obtained through intuition
rather than from reasoning or observation)»

This does not at all resemble any computer system in the world of fact,
such as I know it. I propose that we stop saying that Ubuntu is
intuitive and leave that kind of sillyness to others. Instead, we should
say that Ubuntu is a _didactive_ system. The user isn't expected to rely
on intuition to be able to use the software -- that's not user friendly.
Instead, the system _teaches_ the user to use itself. If you want to
launch an application, for instance, we have a menu that's always
available that holds launchers for all the applications. The menu is
properly named Applications to _teach_ the user where to click in
order to find the available applications. The applications are
categorised into sections, teaching the user where to look for a certain
program. Furthermore, the applications are properly labeled using a
didactive name; we don't simply call it Transmission, for instance. We
call it Transmission BitTorrent Client. This _teaches_ the user to
launch that program if they wish to use a bit torrent client. 

The list of examples could be made endless, but I think this should
suffice. Now, there might be arguments against using the phrase
didactive and an argument for using instructive instead. I think
both are better than intuitive, but I think didactive is better
because it's more unique, giving us a buzzword to combat the usage of
intuitive. 

The way to a lucid computing experience, is a didactive environment. 

Just a thought, thanks for reading, 

Jo-Erlend Schinstad


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Re: Grouping Windows in the Taskbar

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I have to agree with Corey. I never used this feature in Windows XP,
and the first thing _I_ did, was to deactivate it. I think this
feature is one of those that are either loved or hated. Hasting such a
decision would be a bad thing. And since most of the applications are
now using tabs, I think the need for it is smaller than it was before.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Empathy and Ekiga in Karmic Koala.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I'm very enthusiastic about Empathy taking over for Pidgin in Karmic.
I also think it would be great if we could collect all live
communication channels in one client, also making Ekiga redundant.

Testing Karmic Koala Alfa 3, I see that Ekiga has been removed from
the default desktop and that Empathy doesn't depend on
telepathy-sofiasip, meaning that Empathy doesn't support SIP out of
the box at all. I installed it and SIP was added as an account type in
Empathy. However, I'm not in any way able to connect to my SIP-PSTN
provider, which is quite easy with Ekiga. This means I'm going to have
to use Ekiga for the time being in any case.

Empathy also doesn't have a GUI for entering normal phone numbers and
dialing like Ekiga does. I think this would also have to be present
for Empathy to replace Ekiga. Having an applet for that and for
receiving calls, using Telepathy, would be great.

I understand the one-app-per-task philosophy, but I think it's too
early to remove Ekiga from the default install. I think we should have
both Empathy and Ekiga in this cycle. Hopefully, enough progress has
been made for LTS+1 to let Telepathy/Empathy take over. If the
assumption is, like the wiki suggests, that people doesn't use VoIP as
a replacement for normal phone calls, that assumption is just wrong
and we should have a good tool for users like me. :)

Best regards,

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Re: [Fwd: [Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines]

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Will Empathy be setup to allow presence to be set in the FUSA and if
so, will it also allow you to set custom status messages?
Thanks,

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Re: R: [Fwd: [Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines]

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

2009/7/3 Mark Shuttleworth m...@ubuntu.com:


 It is easy and fast to detect the messaging indicator (by design, so that
 apps can check and behave accordingly). I agree that upstream will want to
 think carefully about how to behave when the indicator isn't there, and we
 should support them in that, but focus our design conversation on the
 standard experience in Ubuntu which is the one with the messaging indicator.

 Mark

To begin with, I was very happy with the indicator applet. But now I've tested
it with a few more users, and most doesn't notice it. Actually, I feel
that a new
IM conversation should popup a chat window directly, as long as you're set
as Available in FUSA.

Or, if possible, it would be nice if users on a spesific group or groups would
popup automatically, while all others would not. All messages should be
indicated in the applet though. In an office environment, for instance, IM is
great for asking questions while you're on the phone with a customer. I'd like
something a bit more instant than something resembling a mail notification
icon.

That is; all messages should be indicated in the applet. Messages from users
in the Boss-group, should popup immediately regardless of my status. Messages
from users in the Colleagues-group should popup immediately as long as I'm
set as Available, but for everyone else it should not popup.

That would be nice! I think we do need some configuration options for this
though. Peoples preferences may vary wildly.

In any case, the icon for Indicator applet should be more visible when there
is something to notice, but please don't use animations. There are too many
of those as it is.

Thanks,

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Don't be stupid: Super-L should be as it is.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Search the web. Investigate. We've had this discussion a thousand
times before. It's not that we want to be different from Microsoft
Windows. It is that we want to do things right. There is no logic in
placing a button in the middle of the keyboard that will launch an
application! We could make it so, that pressing the 'e'-key ten times
in less than an hour, launches a disk sanity check. We don't. Why?
Because it doesn't make sense! It won't make any more sense if a
billion people sais it makes sense. People are being fooled into
thinking it's the way it should be. People have been fooled that way
before, and history have judged them accordingly.

We want a system to survive the challenges of time, and the challenges
of a free society. We want to build a platform that can rival the
platforms of the ancient Rome, only in the realm of thought and
electronics combined. We want a system to match our beloved Terra
Mater -- she deserves nothing less. We want to evolve, not repeat.

I understand your wishes to attract the Microsoft Windows users, but
what I want is to create a hypersynaptic humanity. A sensible reality,
far beyond the realms of Excel and Word. Communication is not a tool,
it is a way of life, it is a way to achieve our global goal of
survival. We're not imitating anyone, even if we're actively trying to
be pragmatic. We want to use our expertise in such a way that the
world can forget the old ways of the ancient ones and focus on
building a communication platform on which the Goddess can rearrise,
whether we realise it or not. Most of the world now demand regard for
Gaia; the religious and the atheists alike. We want to make it so,
just because we can. We are planning the ressurrection of our Tellus,
as a blend of the religious and the scientific way of thinking. I do.
I suspect most of the Ubuntu community does. Ubuntu is a chain of the
link, although mostly an unknown name to the masses of the uninformed
ones.

We want logic to prevail. How would we win by imitating previous errors?

Microsoft rejected the Information Super-highway for such a long time.
We've evolved far beyond that. We want software to be like salt is in
the blood of all humanity; the glue that combines our thought and our
collective cognitive skills, in such a way that we can evolve further
in the eternal realm of change. We are change.

Thank you for for taking the time to read my ridiculous response to
these ridicuouls ideas. We want to end ridicule. Come on. Let's focus
on real issues.

Best regards,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Urgency-display-bar in notify-osd

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

2009/5/7 Mark Shuttleworth m...@ubuntu.com:
 Mirco Müller wrote:

   According to the wish/request for urgency-display in the bubble I've
 patched notify-osd trunk (and put the result in a different non-trunk
 branch) to provide just that.


 Rather than having a separate PPA for this, can we add a --debug config
 option, or something similar, which displays the urgency? That way the
 platform team can turn this on in Karmic, where we can actually easily
 change apps. So everyone running Karmic will see these. When Karmic goes
 into beta, we could turn off the debug behaviour.

 Mark

Is this a proposal to make it easier to see how important a notification is?
Like jabber users coming and going are normal notifications, while a failed
SMART test failed or a critical update would be flashing red notifications?

It would be very nice if we could get different levels and configuration options
for the notifications. If I'm watching a movie on my laptop, I'd
probably want to
be notified if the power cord had been unplugged, or if I had little
battery power
left, whereas messages from my nagging ex should not be displayed over
fullscreen applications.

Jo-Erlend

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Re: Fwd: Could we have the panel menu patched? Charitable bounty included.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Oh, yes, please make it configurable or remove that feature
altogether. It's really annoying, though I do see the arguments for
adding it. A gconf key would be nice.

Thanks,

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Re: [ubuntu-web] Girl gets Ubuntu on a Dell by mistake, absolutely hates it...

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

She really wanted Windows, didn't she? We should focus on making the
operating system good for people who actually want something else, not
people who receives the wrong product. There are guides for new users
and these should obviously receive continuious attention, though I
feel they're already quite nice. It's not likely that users expecting
Windows will ever be happy to get Ubuntu instead. I certainly wouldn't
be, if I thought I'd ordered Windows.

Kind regards,

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Re: Call for testing empathy

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I think Jaunty is a good place to start the transition to Empathy to give us
a couple of cycles to deep test it and shake out the bugs before 10.04 LTS;
the Leaping Lemming? :)

But Empathy is still in universe, right? It should at least be moved to
main!

Happy new year everyone!

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Re: Hover highlight effect inconsistency with GNOME applets.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

2008/12/11 Otto Kekäläinen o...@sange.fi

 to, 2008-12-11 kello 15:22 +0100, Tomasz Dominikowski kirjoitti:
 
  Any thoughts, suggestions, explanations?

 I haven't noticed this before, but you are right: the highlight
 behaviour is inconsistent. At the moment I'd suggest we try to highlight
 everything that is clickable in the panels.


I have noticed this, but I haven't given it a second thought. I think I may
have
found a commonality; the applets that has an immediate effect when clicked
lights up on hover, while those that display a menu, slider, etc, does not.
This is not true for all applets, however. The System Monitor applet, for
instance, does not work this way, though a single click will open the System
Monitor.

If it isn't designed that way, I think maybe it should; it makes sense to
warn
about clicks that has an immediate action. That way, the menuline, volum
control, power manager and FUSA should not light up, since they'll only
display
sliders or menus. Launchers, window switchers, show desktop, etc should.
Following this philosophy, I think the clock applet shouldn't light up,
since it
doesn't really perform any operations, only displays the calendar. The
system
monitor applet, however, should light up.

My two cents;

Jo-Erlend Schinstad
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Thoughts on getting File Browser Applet into main and ubuntu-desktop

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Hello everyone.

I recently became aware of the applet called File Browser Applet, formerly
named Gnome Menu File Browser Applet. This is an applet that lets you add
one or more folders as menus on your panel, similar to the ones provided by
the gnome menu that is default in the Ubuntu Desktop. After using this for
only a few days, I've become totally dependent on it. I don't understand how
I could ever live without it, almost.

The filebrowser-applet package is now in Intrepids multiverse repository,
which is good, but I feel this applet should not only be in main, but
ubuntu-desktop should also depend on it.  Hardy-users who'd like to try this
out, can download a deb from their project site at
http://code.google.com/p/gnome-menu-file-browser-applet/

I'm not only writing this in order to promote it, though I do feel it
deserves a lot of attention, but I was hoping that as many people as
possible could try it out. If lots of people love it like I do, then it
should be made available in the Add to panel-list of applets, which would
require it to be in main and ubuntu-desktop.

Best Regards,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad
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Re: New system sounds.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

(Is it just me, or doesn't Gmail handle mailinglists very well?)


 Yes, I use Ubuntu on my laptop and I've deactivated the login sounds since
they're a bit too long. If we could find a very distinctive, recognizable
and short login sound, I think it should be limited to 2-3 seconds max, it
would be better. You don't hear the Windows XP login sound very often from
laptops either, I think. When I login to my laptop, I do so in order to
work, not to attract everyones attention, which I think the current sound
does. It should be less intrusive when you're on a train, for instance, I
don't want those drums making everyone turning their heads.

My couple of cents.

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Re: Call for testing empathy

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

2008/8/8 Laurent Bigonville [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 Hello everyone,

 Empathy[1] will be part of the upcoming GNOME 2.24 desktop.
 The ubuntu desktop team considers using it instead of Pidgin for
 intrepid as default IM client. If you are running intrepid, please give
 empathy a test and report bugs to launchpad[2]. It may be installed by
 running synaptic and installing the empathy package or by running
 sudo apt-get install empathy.
 If you experiment a bug have a look at [3] before reporting.



With all due respect, that's a very, very bad idea. I didn't have very
high expectations when I first installed it to try it out.I think Pidgin
does an excellent job, and that it would take a very strong argument
for it to be replaced at all. However, I still felt disappointed. The GUI
felt awkward, it seemed to be missing a lot of features compared to
Pidgin. What surprised me the most, though, was that it wasn't even
in main!

I think the project is on the right track. It has some interesting
proposals, and in the future, I'm sure it's features will make it a good
replacement for Pidgin, but not yet. By all means, promote it to main
and make it available to the mainstream users, but _please_ don't
replace Pidgin with this in Intrepid. It's way too soon.

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Re: .....

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

2008/8/16 Vishal Rao [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 6:15 PM, Exsecrabilus Exsecrabilus
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Please tell me you aren't going to include Pidgin 2.5.x, GIMP 2.6.x and
  Transmission 1.3x even if they're released after Intrepid's feature
 freeze?

 You mean are going to...?

 Also, OpenOffice 3 and Firefox 3.1 for me :-) I guess it looks like
 I'll stick with Hardy on my home desktop while updating my HP Tablet
 PC to Intrepid for wireless driver + NetworkManager 0.7.

 Although I might update my home desktop too if NM 0.7 VPN (OpenVPN)
 setup works, I'm looking forward to Alpha 5 to try that out...


Perhaps you two should have a look at the backports repository?
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Re: [Intrepid Ibex][wishbug] separate icon view zoom for desktop and nautilus

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 01/04/2008, (``-_-´´) -- Fernando [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 This is a wishbug for Hardy+1 (Intrepid Ibex) and upstream GNOME.

 It should be possible to use different icon view zoom for desktop and
 nautilus, so that the default icon view zoom for nautilus can be for
 instance 150% and the Desktop 100%.
 Nautilus should/can keep the setting in Nautilus Preferences-View, and
 the Desktop on System-Preferences-Appearance.


   affects ubuntu/nautilus


Well, the desktop is drawn by Nautilus though, and really is just a folder.
Why shouldn't default folder options
apply to that folder as well? However, I do feel that the settings for
~/Desktop when viewed in Nautilus also
should apply when view as the desktop. I filed a bug on launchpad about
this. You might want to have a look
at it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/210268

Kindest regards,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad
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Re: Please remove Software Sources from the menus, it's destructive.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 26/02/2008, Andreas Schildbach [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:

 There is also the graphical Add/Remove Applications, which I think is
  much easier to use if you want to install an application.

  Also, Software Sources has more use-cases, like enabling or disabling
  automatic security updates, selecting how often it should look for
  updates, adding authenticaton keys and allowing statistical information
  to be sent. This is all unlikely to need a package manager in the same
  usecase.

  Personally, I'd prefer if the Software Sources would stay in the menu.
  However, I would not mind for Synaptic to go away...

  Regards,

  Andreas

I think you may have misunderstood. The Software Sources dialog is
part of Synaptic. The Software Sources menu item is just an extra way
of opening it. It saves you three mouse-clicks, granted, but it also
leads to misunderstandings like this. Synaptic and Add/Remove serves
two different purposes. You cannot use Add/Remove to install a single
package, like you do in Synaptic. You also cannot install a number of
services easily, like Mailserver, LAMP and SSH in one go, like you can
in Synaptic. Synaptic is not comparable to Add/Remove at all,
actually. It's competitors are the commandline tools aptitude,
apt-get, tasksel and editing /etc/sources.list(.d) manually.

You're a good example of why Software Sources should be removed. You
had to learn how to use that too, but if you'd used the three extra
mouse clicks, you would have had a better change of discovering what a
wonderful application Synaptic is. We have to have a graphical tool
for package management, and Synaptic does a great job.

With best regards,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Please remove Software Sources from the menus, it's destructive.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 25/02/2008, (``-_-´´) -- Fernando [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Monday 25 February 2008 04:46:32 Tony Yarusso wrote:
   I appreciate having the option there, since I don't actually use Synaptic,
   but like having a handy way to edit the sources list.  Going through
   Synaptic just takes more clicks...


 I am of the same opinion.
  There should be an easy and quick way to edit the sources.

There is a quick and easy way to edit the sources.. Just open Synaptic
and access Software Sources from there. It's the same dialog. Editing
sources isn't something you do every day, so speed isn't an issue.
This is a feature of Synaptic, so why shouldn't you open Synaptic to
access it?

If you don't use Synaptic for package management, then why would you
use it to edit sources? If you only use the commandline tools, then
it's just as easy to do it manually, by adding or removing repos in
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/

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[Bug 161960] Re: Add function to WinKey button on keyboard

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Have you ever seen the disbelief on Windows users faces when you tell
them there aren't any viruses for Linux? They're so used to it, they
think it's completely natural for an operating system to have viruses.
But it's not. The question isn't why Ubuntu doesn't have the same
default keyboard shortcuts as Windows. The question is, why would Super
L be a good choice for the Applications menu? The fact that Windows has
a similar menu pop up when someone presses it, is not a good reason. Why
should it need to be learned? Because if we mimic Windows too closely
just to be similar, people will make other assumptions too. Ubuntu is a
different system with its own philosophy. It must be learned.

-- 
Add function to WinKey button on keyboard
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/161960
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Desktop, which is a direct subscriber.

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Chromium by default? :)

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Hello everyone.

There are a few games that comes with the default Ubuntu install,
mosly card games and snakes. I was thinking that too could use an
upgrade. Chromium is a really cool and addictive game, that is easy to
play and has abit more graphics.

With regards,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Why isn't gconf-editor in the menus by default?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Hello everyone.

I have a question that's been bothering me for quite some time.

gconf-editor is a really powerful application when you want to tailor
your system. Even though it has about a million configuration options,
I think it's very user friendly, offering sensible key names,
descriptions of their functions and easy navigation (apps  appname 
preferences).

The question is, then; why isn't it available in System  Preferences
by default?

Thanks for your attention,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Use a general ~Downloads-folder for all applications.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

It would be nice if we had one directory for downloads, whether you
download using Firefox, Transmission, or something else. Now, when you
download, it's automatically sent to the root of your home directory,
causing a lot of unnecessary clutter, unless you manually configure
the applications to use a specific folder for this. It should work
with xdg-user-dirs like the other well-known directories, and the
default applications should be configured to use it, at least Firefox
and Transmission, but maybe also Pidgin (and xchat, if it should make
it into ubuntu-desktop). It would be nice if all downloading
applications in the repositories would use Downloads too, but that
isn't necessary to begin with, I think.

Best regards,

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Re: Xchat: the exception that confirms the rule?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 28/01/2008, Corey Burger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Jan 27, 2008 3:47 PM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  XChat isn't included in Ubuntu by default, and I guess that's because
  of the rule of one application for each task. However, I feel that
  even though Pidgin can be used for IRC, it does the job so poorly
  compared to XChat, that it isn't a real option. Most users quickly
  install XChat anyway. I therefore think XChat should be included by
  default, and not XChat-GNOME, but the standard one. IRC, after all, is
  a very important tool in this FOSS world of ours.

 Xchat was removed quite deliberately because although IRC is used a
 great deal by us geeks, it is not really something mom/pop and the
 more recent generation use, as they mostly use IM, SMS or increasingly
 Facebook.

 Corey

They also doesn't use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, they don't
use Ubuntu instead of Windows, and not XMPP instead of MSN. Why is
that? They're never exposed to it. People don't learn what they never
get a chance to learn. The fact that Microsofts IRC client was a flop,
causing them to force their proprietary chat protocols on us instead,
is no good argument for removing peoples opportunity to use real,
standards based, chat protocols. In fact, I'd say quite the contrary,
of that reason we _should_ make IRC accessible. There is also the fact
that help.ubuntu.com in numerous places refers to IRC as the best
place to get help, which is true. Newbies, of all people, should have
easy access to IRC in general and our beloved Freenode in particular.
Xchat's standard configuration should open a connection to freenode,
automatically join #Ubuntu-welcome, which should offer them some
introduction, preferably in their own language, and suggest, or
forward to help channels.

Are Facebook, Microsoft Network, and the SMS really good alternatives to IRC?

Some polite greeting,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Xchat: the exception that confirms the rule?

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 28/01/2008, Sebastien Bacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On lun, 2008-01-28 at 00:47 +0100, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
  XChat isn't included in Ubuntu by default, and I guess that's because
  of the rule of one application for each task. However, I feel that
  even though Pidgin can be used for IRC, it does the job so poorly
  compared to XChat, that it isn't a real option.

 Could you describe why you think that pidgin doesn't do an acceptable
 easy to use IRC client?

 Sebastien Bacher

It's very difficult to configure it. What is a screen name, what's
local alias? Where do I enter my nickname? Ok, I enter the same in all
the fields, and hope that'll work. I now seem to be connected. I have
a window called freenode-connect, which sais «freenode-connect:
Received CTCP 'VERSION' (to aintmynick) from freenode-connect» and I
have another window that's called NickServ, telling me that my
nickname is owned by someone else. Ok, so I've read RFC 1459 and know
that there is a command called NICK that's used to change nicknames. I
also know of a command named JOIN, which will enable me to join
something called a channel, which Pidgin doesn't seem to know anything
about, until you type /join #some channel.

I'm now in the channel, which pidgin has renamed Room. I have a list
of 1300 users, each having their own color, so it's impossible to read
the text. Pidgin has changed my nickname to aintmynick2 internally,
while people on IRC see my nickname as aintmynick. So, if someone
calls me by my Pidgin-nickname, then the message comes out golden, but
if someone calls me by my IRC-nickname, then the message comes out so
light-green that I cannot see their nickname. Actually, only the
nickname of the user sending it, not the entire message, like in
xchat.

...

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love Pidgin, and I use it for
everything related to IM, but let's be honest: it's _horrible_ when it
comes to IRC! IRC and IM are two different things in any case. Let's
have good tools for both. Especially when we recommend it to new
users...

I hope that was descriptive,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Proposal: include Brasero by default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 16/01/2008, Corey Burger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 The difference here is that burning a cd of files is basically the
 same as managing files, as where as managing your music/photos is a
 very different thing, with defined tasks, etc. For that matter, Fspot
 and RB should make it trivial to burn photo/music/mp3 cds within their
 interfaces, leaving NCB for burning random files.

 Corey

I couldn't disagree more. Should xchat have its own CD burner, for
instance? To burn logs or downloaded files to a cd? No, what we need,
is a single, available and reasonably simple way of doing things, not
one way for each conceivable application. It would be impossible to
manage, and making the system alot less clean. Or would it be possible
to convert all open source applications this way? I don't think so,
even if we wanted to.

Brasero is easy to use. I think it should be moved from Sound  Video
to Accessories or System Tools though. Backing up data doesn't have
anything to do with sound or video, even if it's possible to backup
music too.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Yes, it would be very interesting to know how many actually uses
gnome-btdownload. I don't know anyone. Most people I know, have it
installed, but uses other, more modern clients, like Azureus and
Utorrent using wine. It's quite common to seed for a long time, and
it's common to have alot of torrent files. Gnome-btdownload imposes a
limit to how many torrents you can have open, because each torrent
represents its own client instance and its own window. Of course, you
could dedicate a few workspaces to bit torrent, but that's not pretty.
And you'll have to manually open all torrent files each time you log
in. I see _no_ reason why we should have an application as default,
that people doesn't use. We should have sensible defaults, not
defaults that everyone has to replace when they first install the
system.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 10/01/2008, Andrea Veri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Jo-Erlend Schinstad ha scritto:
  One question I can't find an answer to in this discussion, is why we
  want to have gnome-btdownload.
 

 Maybe because it fits fine into the GNOME Desktop? Maybe because it's
 easy and simple to use, it doesn't have tons of different configurations
 and does the work for a newbie, who just joined Ubuntu (e.g right click
 on a torrent and the trick is done). I would like to remember you that
 the torrent protocol is not well-known and usually a great number of
 people prefer to use other applications like Amule and so on. What do
 you think?


 Andrea


Like you, I think it's important to have a usable client. Transmission
is not any more complicated than gnome-btdownload, but it's usable for
more advanced users too.  Transmission works just the same way, except
you have one window for all torrents. The number of configuration
options is low, and sensible. I also got the impression that it's
faster, but that's just an impression.

I asked in #Ubuntu on freenode now, if anyone could recommend a bit
torrent client for Ubuntu. People actually recommended all the other
clients, except gnome-btdownload and Transmission. I thought that was
interesting. I then asked in #Ubuntu-OffTopic how people felt about
replacing gnone-btdownload, and the response was a unanimous yes.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

On 10/01/2008, Martin Ahnelöv [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 tor 2008-01-10 klockan 03:47 +0100 skrev Jo-Erlend Schinstad:
  Hello,
 
  On 08/01/2008, Flávio Martins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client
   with a focus on being lightweight yet feature-filled.
  
   I propose we replace, in the default installation, the packages
   gnome-btdownload with transmission-gtk.
 
  I'm all for it.
 
   I think Transmission is very user friendly, and currently is the perfect
   choice of BitTorrent client for the Gnome Desktop.
   The Gtk+ client has a well-designed and simple user interface.
 
  Yes, it's perfect for the Gnome Desktop, providing the feeling users
  are looking for in a bit torrent application, while not complicating
  things.
 [snip]
  We do need something better than
  gnome-btdownload and this is by far the best candidate I've seen.

 I would actually argue that if we would replace gnome-btdownload, it
 should be with Deluge [1], and not Transmission.

 Why?
 1. It's developed in Python with PyGTK.
 2. it's aimed intended to
 be The Choice of bittorrent client on the gnome desktop, and follows
 the gnome HIG.
 3. Very active and fast development. Monthly release cycle.
 4. Deluge is very modular, and every feature is it's own plugin: You can
 have something very simple that just works, or you could use a
 fullblown feature-set that's almost comparable to Azureus.

 [1] http://deluge-torrent.org/

 But just for the record, I don't think we need anything else than
 gnome-btdownload.

 Gasten

Well, I do see your point. However, the number of features isn't the
most important aspect, I think. Many of the more modern clients have
alot of different settings, that people also doesn't use. What I liked
best about Transmission, was the small number of sensible
configuration options. Deluge, for instance, uses configuration GUI
space to ask if you want to password protect the system tray icon. Who
uses that? It's just annoying. Fine, if people want those advanced
options, nothing is keeping them from installing Azureus or something
like that, but they certainly aren't normal users.

One question I can't find an answer to in this discussion, is why we
want to have gnome-btdownload. Because it's there? We could use that
as a point in any argument; We don't have to fix this.. People have
always managed without it.

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Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

  Well, I do see your point. However, the number of features isn't the
  most important aspect, I think. Many of the more modern clients have
  alot of different settings, that people also doesn't use. What I liked
  best about Transmission, was the small number of sensible
  configuration options. Deluge, for instance, uses configuration GUI
  space to ask if you want to password protect the system tray icon. Who
  uses that? It's just annoying. [snip]

 Sure, it's just annoying. it's still just a option in a configuration
 file.

 Also, you can't decide where Transmission should save the completed
 downloads (at least not by default). That is annoying. (I can imagine
 users go huh, where's the file?)

That's not true. You can decide that when you open the torrent file.
However, I feel that all downloads, no matter where they come from,
should go in /home/user/Downloads, but that's another issue.

 Transmission is also pretty ugly, and don't look good in the rest of the
 gnome-theme. On a related note, I closed it, and not until later I
 discovered that it was hiding in the systray and leaking bandwidth. Not
 nice.

 Gasten

Are you talking about the version in Gutsy or Hardy? There is a rather
significant difference. The version in Hardy has some improvements. I
agree, you should be notified when such an application is minimized to
tray and you think it's closed. However, that's just a minor bug,
which could be fixed in no time. Did you report that bug btw?

When Bit Torrent was first conceived and released, it was meant as a
way to help webservers reduce their upstream bandwidth usage. That is,
it should be similar to a normal download dialog from Internet
Explorer. However, that's not the way bit torrent is used anymore.
People use bit torrent much more like they would use eMule, Limewire,
or any other p2p application. Gnome-btdownload does not reflect this
change in behaviour. Ubuntu should make available software to fit
peoples uses, not the other way around.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. --
Albert Einstein.

Jo-Erlend

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Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Hello,

On 11/01/2008, Charles Kerr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 As one of the Transmission developers, I wanted to speak up and
 make myself available for questions and feedback.  I like gnome-bt
 but, as you'd expect, I'd love for Ubuntu to use Transmission.

Good to have you with us. :)

 Like gnome-bt, Transmission tries to be simple and just work,
 but Transmission also has MSE/PE encryption,
 supports port forwarding for UPnP/NAT-PMP routers,
 has the ability to choose which files in a torrent to not download,
 has the ability to prioritize which files to download first,
 and provides a gui for creating new torrents.
 Transmission 1.00 has been downloaded 234,014 times since it
 was released five days ago.

That's quite a few downloads, and it's probably not counting those
coming from distro repositories? Congratulations on your success :)
You answered several of my questions, however, I have one more for
you. Does it support DHT for trackerless torrents? That seems to be
important to people.

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Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Hello,

On 08/01/2008, Flávio Martins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client
 with a focus on being lightweight yet feature-filled.

 I propose we replace, in the default installation, the packages
 gnome-btdownload with transmission-gtk.

I'm all for it.

 I think Transmission is very user friendly, and currently is the perfect
 choice of BitTorrent client for the Gnome Desktop.
 The Gtk+ client has a well-designed and simple user interface.

Yes, it's perfect for the Gnome Desktop, providing the feeling users
are looking for in a bit torrent application, while not complicating
things. I've been using uTorrent for this for a good while, because it
provides exactly that; a simple, but effective user interface. It's a
download application. I don't want one that uses half my system
resources either. uTorrent also forced me to install wine, which I'm
not really interested in. I'd much rather have a pure and clean
system. This is a perfect client for me. Well.. You could say that
since Transmission is already in the repositories, it's my own fault
for not taking the time to get a proper overview of the applications
available before taking the radical step of installing a proprietary
Windows application. But people use either software that they already
know, or software that's already available. Bit Torrent is important
and it deserves some attention. We do need something better than
gnome-btdownload and this is by far the best candidate I've seen.

Thanks.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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Live-CD hardware check java applet

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Hello everyone.

Lately, I've been thinking it would be very cool to have an applet on
the download page that could examine the users hardware, compare it to
values in a database and offer advise based on that. Will I be able to
just reboot into the live-session? Maybe I'll have to run
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg in order to see gdm? Do I need to use
proprietary drivers, and if so, are they included? Things like that.
In order to fill the database with as much information as possible, I
think the users should be asked permission to run the Ubuntu Device
Database application at first boot and after a dist-upgrade. I can't
see any reason why a user would refuse, but the option should be more
available than it is today. I don't know how the Java applet would
collect hardware information, though, but I can't imagine it to be
impossible. The real work would probably be to maintain the database.
Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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