Fwd: Debian live, Debian Desktop and tasks.

[stratus at debian.org (Gustavo Franco)]

Forwarded to you because it's not showing up in alioth. Haven't
mailman discarded my message because i'm not subscribed, you can
configure the list this way to avoid too much spam manual filtering?
Btw, there's no awaiting moderator approval message for me.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gustavo Franco <stratus@debian.org>
Date: Nov 17, 2006 2:30 PM
Subject: Debian live, Debian Desktop and tasks.
To: debian-live-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org


Hi buddies,

I just tested the current Debian live (GNOME) and i'm quite impressed
with the result. How it boots that fast?

Well, i would like to invite you to join the Debian desktop project.
Actually, we're a team composed by members of: pkg-gnome, pkg-kde,
pkg-xfce, tasksel groups in alioth and others. Recently the former
debian-desktop in alioth admins give us the group control there too.
There's the public mailing list[0] and the development page[1] with
some more information.

In terms of the Debian live invitation to participate in the Debian
desktop, i would like to tell you what we will have for Etch for sure,
what is still being worked on, and what we should do for Lenny
(Etch+1), there we go:

* Desktop environment today:
- When the user installs Debian Etch using d-i etch rc1, after the
base install he will be prompted about install tasks (set of
packages). There's 'Desktop environment' as an option. If selected, it
will install both desktop[2] and gnome-desktop[3] tasks. If the user
wants to install KDE, he needs to pass 'tasks=desktop,kde-desktop'
before the installer boot

* What's being worked on for Etch:
- There are some tasksel changes that will be included in RC2 (eg.: we
will have network-manager by default). The new task xfce-desktop will
join the desktop family too

- The three desktop environments are working on to ship basic artwork
elements from the same template. In other words, eye candy and
consistency between them in terms of default splash screens,
wallpapers and backgrounds

- I've asked Joey Hess if we can build official GNOME, KDE and XFCE
images (CDs). These images would contain only the related tasks, its
dependencies and a small set of language tasks. Today, the "Desktop
environment" doesn't fit in the first cd due to the language tasks,
both GNOME and KDE fits in the first dvd though.

* Stuff for Lenny
- We're not sure that we will be able to use desktop-base as the
source package for that artwork item cited above for Etch. We're
considering turn stuff easier for CDDs in the process

I've some questions about Debian live:
- Couldn't you change the build process a bit to create the images
based on gnome, kde and xfce tasks content plus a live task (listing
casper and some more stuff you need) ?

- What do we want to push in Etch that isn't there yet in terms of
packages or patches ?

- With everything needed to build the live images in Etch and that
tasksel oriented stuff change, we're ready to ask Joey to create
official live images. I'm sure that it won't be that hard but we don't
have too much time. :)

[0] = http://lists.debian.org/debian-desktop/
[1] = http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-desktop/
[2] = http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?task=desktop
[3] = http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?task=gnome-desktop

regards,
-- stratus