Re: here i come !

[Mikael Hallendal <micke codefactory se>]

mån 2002-06-24 klockan 05.30 skrev Bastien Nocera:
> Heya lads,

Hi!

Thanks for some great input. I'm cutting the Debian commercial (We can
get bet to that in a while :)

<snip>

> Here are my thoughts on the requirements for the distro:
> * sudo integration for administration (Apple does it very very well)

Yes!

> * using ALSA ! OSS might be very good, but ALSA is the way to go, as it
> would mean we wouldn't need a sound server if all apps needing sound
> were to use native ALSA. A patch to libgnome, the correct versions of
> most libraries/packages (like SDL for example) and we're done. It also
> supports more soundcards than OSS/free

Yes, we very much want ALSA. Can the Debian binary packages be
configured to use ALSA instead of OSS or do we have to rebuild them with
ALSA support?

Another thing I was thinking about was to use Jorns patch to get
libgnome use GStreamer instead of esd. GStreamer can be somewhat painful
to setup but if we integrate it well in the platform the user will just
have it working. It would also be cool if we could get the GStreamer
guys interested in the project which would make them help integrate it
as well as possible.

> * Easy "sharing" setup: ssh, samba, appletalk, http, and ftp. All
> optional, all already configured with nice defaults, and a simple GUI
> that says "Click here to start sharing". (yeah, just like MacOS X) This
> is a week-end's work with the Debian infrastructure.
> That's something that's very easy to do, and it would definetely give us
> an edge.

Yes, I've thought about this too since I saw how it was done in Mac OSX.
This should be about as easy in any of the discussed distributions.

> * GUIs for command-line apps. Users shouldn't have to launch a terminal
> to do a ping or traceroute or such.

Agreed.

> * A repository for "this-country-doesn't-have-sucky-patent-laws" with
> things like lame, libdvdcss included, so that the user can get access to
> these programs with a minimum of problems.

Hmm .. I don't know about libdvdcss but for example hinting in freetype
will be a problem since you are not allowed to ship binaries with it
enabled. Are these restrictions not valid in
non-sucky-patent-laws-countries?

> * A working automounter, and feedback for hotplug and such.

Yeah, that is a must.

> * use of devfs, murasaki for hotplug, choice between ext2 and ext3, etc.
> (this might be a little too low-level for this discussion i must admit).

The user should not be able to choose. Let's just use ext3 and be done
with it :)

> * Using the XST could make sense, for the boot-loader configuration for
> example, as different archs will use different bootloaders.

I think it would make sense for most of the things? I haven't looked at
the Mac OSX tools for doing those kind of settings.

> * GUI hacking on apps that we need. I'm thinking GPA for GPG
> configuration, which looks like arse, but does what we would want.

Yes, things like this we can start working on when we have the stuff in
place.

> * Gnome architectural improvements: password manager, decent file
> selector, etc.

Yes :)

> If you're not already, you could subscribe to Apple's weekly developer
> newsletter which shows you what can be done with their APIs. We won't
> get as much integration, but it show how much the OS infrastucture
> should help the developer.

Ah, interesting, do you have a pointer to where I can subscribe?

Regards,
  Mikael Hallendal

-- 
Mikael Hallendal                micke codefactory se
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