Re: utnubu-desktop for the masses
On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 07:40:08PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
> David Nusinow wrote:
> > I think a fundamental problem is that we're seeing is that tasksel hasn't
> > generally been sold very well to anyone. I've tried myself to push it
> > towards users in #debian, but immediately people hop up and cry out that
> > it's crap, despite my protests. Whether it's ignorant bullshit or not, it's
> > advertising like that which keeps people from using the software.
>
> Most of tasksel's target audience are not aware that it's called
> tasksel. The others know what it does and don't want to have to fiddle
> with putting all the bits together themselves today or on that
> particular machine.
>
> > Given that aptitude already shows tasks in its browser, is there a way to
> > make tasks integrate even better with the normal package lists? Is there
> > some way to make tasks look just like a metapackage? If someone installed a
> > hypothetical kde task by simply running "aptitude install kde" it might
> > solve the problem. We could feasibly shift all the major metapackages to
> > tasksel and do away with the problems you've mentioned.
>
> Most of the people who don't like tasksel are unhappy with anyone making
> any choices for them, which is fundamentally contrary to the idea of
> selecting a task. Unless Unbuntu makes the choices for them. I don't
> know a solution to that problem, aside from becoming a multi-millionaire
> and hiring my own marketing department.
I don't think the target market for tasksel is fundamentally different from
that of the large metapackages like kde or xorg. People make exactly the
same complaints about metapackages. What I'm proposing is that we eliminate
the distinction entirely and just move the major metapackages to tasksel if
this can be done transparently and give actual benefits. Aside from the
fact that it would take work to do it, is there a fundamental reason why
this can't or shouldn't be done?
> > Just as a side-note to this discussion, I absolutely loathe the fact that X
> > needs this.
>
> That makes 2 of us. Make it go away and we can share a case of beer
> instead of continually dealing with the mess it causes.
ASAP.
- David Nusinow
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