Re: On GNOME 3.0 features

[Giovanni Campagna <scampa giovanni gmail com>]

Il giorno mar, 14/09/2010 alle 14.35 +0100, Bastien Nocera ha scritto:
> On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 11:45 +0200, Giovanni Campagna wrote:
> > [Resending because the first message seems lost]
> > 
> > Today the set of expected features for GNOME 2.34 / 3.0 System Settings
> > (former Control Center) has been revealed on the wiki.
> > 
> > As expected, some functionality was moved, some was added, and some was
> > killed. Unfortunately, as a daily GNOME user, I find some removal
> > questionable.
> > In particular:
> > 
> > - why all the theming stuff is optional?
> > All operating systems and desktop environments, including the most
> > minimal wms, have some theming support.
> 
> No, they don't. Some of them only have those as add-ons, which is what
> we're trying to do here.
> 
> The default will come with a minimal amount of personalisation, such as
> backgrounds and colours, but not "theming" per se.

Why changing colors should be allowed and made easy, while changing the
full theme should not?
Are those actions so different?

> > Also, not all people have the same tastes: some like Clearlooks, some
> > like Humanity, some use Murrine, some use QtCurve. I for example like
> > the current GNOME 2.0 default, and would like to use it even for GNOME
> > 3.0 if the future theme doesn't suit me. 
> > Thirdly, different distros have different defaults, and the theme is one
> > of the most prominent detail in the UI, but users should not pick their
> > distro based on the theme!
> 
> The code to switch themes will still be available in the widget set, we
> just won't be shipping a tool to change that by default.

Which is exactly what I am saying: you should not be a geek to change
the desktop theme!

> [...]
> 
> > - you cannot ditch the Preferred Applications panel
> > 
> > Not only the EU mandated multiple browser choice in a competing OS,
> > people want to choose among Epiphany (GNOME default), Firefox (distro
> > default), Chromium (or Chrome, if they don't care) or even Konqueror.
> > Terminal selection may be less of an issue, but on the other hand people
> > want the choice between Rythmbox or Banshee, Totem or MPlayer. I agree
> > that the accessibility tab is not needed now (handled by Universal
> > Access panel).
> 
> I agree that some of that functionality should be available, but that's
> not the right way to do it. Will need some thought.

What is the exact problem with current Preferred Applications
capplet/panel?
You can choose your browser/media player/mail reader with a simple drop
down list - how would you make it better, beyond showing applications
that are not currently installed (doable with PackageKit support)?

> > Actually, I would like to see this panel extended with default
> > application setting for every file type, so that an existing file and a
> > nautilus property page is not needed for this. (Command line setting is
> > even worse, unless you know the application desktop id).
> 
> Again, this needs some thoughts, but I don't really see the point in
> making this possible when a file isn't present.

Well, you don't expect to use File properties to change the user setting
for the default application. And you cannot change the system-wide
setting through it.

> [...]
>
> > - will Samba shares and NFS mounts handled by Privacy and Sharing?
> 
> Probably not.

Why?
While NFS is only used in enterprise deployments, Samba is commonly used
for home networks, where GNU system are mixed with Windows systems, so
mDNS+WebDAV cannot be used.

> [...]
> 
> > - are there plans (long term) for a Security panel, including PolicyKit
> > configuration, firewall (iptables) and the like?
> 
> Firewall, probably not.

And PolicyKit?

> [...]
> 
> > - similarly, will Users Accounts be tied to the accountservice or will
> > it use the System Tools Backend? Or maybe it will use a system tool
> > backend itself using the accountsservice instead of going directly
> > to /etc/passwd?
> 
> The accountsservice is purpose built for the user accounts dialogue.
> You'd be better off adding support for your distro to it, rather than
> relying on the system tools backend, which has a too coarse
> authentication model for the purpose.
> 
> > - how do you plan the Services capplet will work with systemd, upstart
> > and sysvinit, each having a different model and implementation of what
> > is service, how it is started and how it is configured?
> 
> Not planned, and I don't know anyone who's interested in that,
> short-term.

So what about the "Edit which applications and processes are started at
boot time" feature on the feature list?

> > - in the end, are the GNOME System Tools about to die?
> 
> That's really up to them.

Well, it is not them, it is you the GNOME Project, endorsing one way to
change settings or another, right?

Thanks for your time anyway,

Giovanni