Projects/Desktop Domination
From Mandriva
Contents |
Foreword
To dominate you don't have to be the best. Sometimes being good enough, soon enough, is enough.
Incremental improvements are nice, but if dominance is the goal the Mandriva community might want to focus on problems that haven't been solved yet by anyone. Free software is successful not only because it is a cheaper alternative, but also because it has provided a better alternative in terms of freedom, reliability and security.
Question of dominance is not a question of catching up!
Accessibility
Accessibility must be present at all the levels of the user interfaces.
Applications
Usability
The name of GUI applications in linux are not very useful for normal people. Examples: KMix, Kopete, Konqueror, krdc, krfb, Dia, Kivio, RoseGarden, GIMP
Games
Real games would make linux become mainstreet.
Multimedia
- Tools to manage sound (MP3 and other formats) and video players.
- iTunes for Linux
- Video:
- better tools to edit video
Office
- Perfect MS Office compatibility in export and import.
- Templates
Wine
- Make it work correctly
- Install it by default now that it supports more and more applications nicely
Configuration's tools
- User and adminstrator's consoles adminstration (common to all desktop, MCC is a good base to archieve this goal)
- Allow one or more users (users, not root) to use one or more configuration tools without use of the root password but instead using it's own password
- Revamp XFDrake to have an X configuration tool more simple to use
- Revamp PrinterDrake to have a printer configuration more simple to use.
- Publicize Smart package manager more than nowadays - many users will just _love_ the unified interface for installing/updating/removing packages (including those who may dislike the design decisions behind rpmdrake - no flame intended).
- Better ksmarttray integration, with some kind of tool to set a few options?
- At the first boot a graphical interface to select mirror and configure all medias (main, contrib ...)
Easier Bug Management
- Tool or wizard for submitting bugs would be great. Especially if it does mostly all the work for the user.
Fast startup
Graphical environments
Common requirements
- Give feedback on what appends. If it is not possible to communicate about what application is currently doing, give at least feedback to inform the user that applications are not dead. Some examples of what can be done: display an undetermined progress bar, display a message like "Loading message", etc.
- Full and complete common theme (widgets, icons, fonts, etc.)
GNOME
IceWM
KDE
- Burn using drag'n'drop
- Allow to save documents directly on a CD or a DVD
Hardware
Put your missing parts here:
Modems
Wireless
Wireless support needs to be improved and integrated with KDE/Gnome. Mandriva focuses too much on their own tools, some of this effort should be redirected to improve or develop KDE/Gnome native solutions that will have longer life and less cost for Mandriva development in the long run, giving the distribution access to a larger user base.
Video card
Make video output just work on overhead projectors (especially with video cards from the two main market actors). Easy setup for two screens for laptop users and desktop users is a nice improvement, without having to stop X server or run configuration tools, every time.
Memory card reader
Focus the Mandriva community team to contribute to KDE/Gnome projects that improve these and USB/FireWire autodetection, automount and umount.
Non supported file formats
This can be for technical issues or legal issues.
- Crypted DVD
- MP3 encoding
- NTFS support
- NTFS write support
- Allow at least read access to users in "High security" mode (write access could be nice too)
OEM
To be successful on the desktop we need to be attractive for OEM. This joins the hardware issues but it also means to be adapted for industrial preloading on systems in the factory.
Software installation
Commercial apps
LSB doesn't deliver its promise because ISV aren't using it but this is the only viable way so we must continue in this direction.
Partnerships
Finding companies that develop software that works on Mandriva and promote that to the Mandriva comunity, improving the sales of these companies, and increasing the visibility of Mandriva OS.
Mandriva Club
- Allow easy search and find of Club's packages on Mandriva Club Web site
- Allow easy search and find of Club's packages from RPMDrake (so, integrate Club in RPMDrake)
- Allow easy installation of packages (like click on package)
The Mandriva Club Suggestion (Idea)
- Mandriva registration for binary drivers/demos and third party tools does not work for everyone. Using a more on-demand approach will improve Mandriva usability and increase company revenue. For example: if a user needs acrobat reader, flash player, nvidia drivers, skype, some linux games, or something else, he might be willing to pay 5$ for a one time automatic download of all these packages with a single click to his desktop. Without having to worry with Mandriva subscription, expiration, feeds or configuration issues. But of course he needs a simple well designed web catalog of applications and tools to perform all of the installation and configuration for him, and maybe an initial web-how-to for the application.
- When this user spends up to the amount of the Club subscription in less than a year, Mandriva would give him a Club subscription for the rest of the months, this would become an incentive for the user to make use of the service more often.
Suspend
Suspend to disk and to ram is a must have for laptop users as well as for desktop users willing to have some silence and energy control over their computer.
Usability
We'll need to conduct usability evaluations of our components to have a coherent environment. Use the separate page to report usability issues in the previous Mandriva Linux version: Usability Problems In Mandriva Linux 2006.
Web navigation
Missing plugins
Add and enable video player plugins by default (some critics report that we have a Real Player package, but streaming videos won't be played in browsers).
