Bug 14045 - ditch Gnome Live for a lighter, more stable, desktop environment
Summary: ditch Gnome Live for a lighter, more stable, desktop environment
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Release (media or process) (show other bugs)
Version: Cauldron
Hardware: All Linux
Priority: Normal enhancement
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: ISO building group
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-09-03 13:37 CEST by nikos papadopoulos
Modified: 2017-03-08 21:39 CET (History)
8 users (show)

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Description nikos papadopoulos 2014-09-03 13:37:15 CEST
Description of problem:
Gnome 3 Live had problems in the past, and seems to have problems in the present.
Furthermore Gnome 3 seems to be, almost, as "resource hungry", as KDE.

The solution:
Ditch it and use a lighter, more stable, window manager.

This way, you would have the main KDE Live,
and the lighter, alternative Live Media, for older, weaker computers.

The things someone would consider for the alternative desktop environment would be,
in order of importance...
 1. How stable it is.
 2. How "light" it is.
 3. Available translations.
 4. If it's being developed regularly.
 4. any other?

Maybe this proposal comes too late for Mageia 5 ?
In Mageia 6, then...


Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:
Manuel Hiebel 2014-09-03 21:15:47 CEST

CC: (none) => ennael1, tmb

Comment 1 nikos papadopoulos 2014-10-01 17:19:57 CEST
Alternatively, maybe you should consider this option,
if it is technically possible:

Only 2 Live media.

One "light" Live CD, no more than 600+MB, with a light window manager.
   for weaker computers, 
   computers with only CD drive and no USB connection,
   people with slow internet connections

One "heavy" Live DVD, up to 3+GB, with all the window managers, and all the translations available.
   for all other cases
   provided that such a live media can be made
Comment 2 Aurélien Murith 2014-10-28 14:36:24 CET
In my opinion, the best solution would be to have one live image with KDE and one with MATE.

KDE is by far the most used desktop environment on Mageia, so it is normal to have a live image including it.

A "heavy" one would not be a good idea because most people do not want to download a huge 3.5 GB ISO in order to test just one or two desktop environments.

Then I agree that the GNOME live ISO is not really necessary, because you already have plenty of other distros that ship GNOME on their live ISOs (and GNOME is not really customised on Mageia). Even GNOME provides its own testing ISO.

That is why I think MATE would be a great choice. It is quite good-looking on Mageia (it looks far better than Mageia Xfce) but not as heavy as GNOME or KDE. In addition, there is not a big choice of live ISOs shipping MATE.

CC: (none) => aurelienmurith

Comment 3 nikos papadopoulos 2014-11-14 23:45:59 CET
(In reply to Aurélien Murith from comment #2)
> 
> 
> A "heavy" one would not be a good idea because most people do not want to
> download a huge 3.5 GB ISO in order to test just one or two desktop
> environments.
> 

I see your point of view.
Mine is more "distribution centered",
while yours is more "desktop environment" centered.
Meaning, that in my mind, 
the "main dish" of a Live Media, is the linux distribution,
while you seem to care more about the Desktop suite.

Even so, I think a "huge" DVD is a good idea,
because it would give you the option to test, in action,
multiple desktop environments,
and choose the one that best fits your needs...
without having to install them all !!!

!!! Does any linux distribution has such a feature ? !!!

The only time a "huge" DVD is a bad idea,
it is when you just want to test only one desktop suite.

Because if you want to test Gnome and Kde,
with the current system,
you need...
  1.5 + 1.5 = 3.0 GB
That's not far from 3.4GB !!!

What if you choose the smaller CDs?
That's...
   0.7 + 0.7 = 1.4 GB
A little lass than half the "huge" DVD.
But...
   1st
You don't get to use your native language.
   2nd
Think of the time it will take you 
to write, and delete, the Live media,
separately,
in your USB stick.
And think of the time it will take you 
to kickstart the live media,
separately.
And, if you have to use a CD drive... oh boy...

So, downloading, and using, a, single, "huge" DVD,
it will actually save you time!!!

In addition,
there are many descent desktop suites,
for Linux, nowadays.
We can "afford" to have a live media
for each, and every one of them.

--- --- ---
--- --- ---

Why do I bother to write all this stuff, here
(which you might find annoying, or just... "too much information")
?

Because, the more I think about it,
the more it seems to me, 
that a Live DVD,
with multiple desktop environments,
is the "future"
(in this small matter, in the world).
As long as it is technically feasible, of course.
Comment 4 nikos papadopoulos 2014-11-14 23:51:14 CET
(In reply to nikos papadopoulos from comment #3)
> !!! Does any linux distribution has such a feature ? !!!
!!! Does any linux distribution haVE ...

> 
> We can "afford" to have a live media
We can'T ...
Comment 5 Samuel Verschelde 2016-10-15 23:44:18 CEST
Assigning to iso builders for decision.

Assignee: bugsquad => isobuild

Comment 6 Neal Gompa 2016-10-15 23:59:04 CEST
This doesn't make any sense. If there's interest in producing a Mageia live media "Spin" (or whatever we want to call this) for a lightweight desktop environment, there's no reason it couldn't be maintained separately from the flagship live media options (Gnome 3 and Plasma 5). This is not an "either/or" scenario. The people interested in this would obviously have to maintain it themselves, but it can still be done.

CC: (none) => ngompa13

Comment 7 Martin Whitaker 2016-10-16 00:57:11 CEST
This is too big a change for the ISO builders to decide by themselves. It would benefit from being discussed more widely, but in the end it should be the council that decides.

I would be in favour of a Live ISO with a lightweight DE, for use on older hardware. But if we include full language support (which I would argue for, despite being English!), it won't fit on a CD.

CC: (none) => mageia

Comment 8 Thomas Backlund 2016-10-16 18:52:09 CEST
Yep, supported isos gets decided by council.

"unofficial builds" can be provided on mga mirrors if we find testers for them...

In the past I've offered to build "unofficial" ones, but usually the interest to do the "QA work" has been vague...
Comment 9 Ben McMonagle 2016-12-20 21:10:37 CET
(In reply to Thomas Backlund from comment #8)
> Yep, supported isos gets decided by council.
> 
> "unofficial builds" can be provided on mga mirrors if we find testers for
> them...
> 
> In the past I've offered to build "unofficial" ones, but usually the
> interest to do the "QA work" has been vague...

I am currently an .iso tester.
Due to changes in my personal life I have less time to devote to this.

I am prepared to trial / test a Live Light DE.
hardware I a have is:
1/ a real 32bit desktop with DVD + USB boot function (not sse2 capable, 512M ram).
2/ 64 bit lappy with DVD and USB boot function. (1.4G ram)
3/ 64 bit Desktop UEFI capable with DVD and USB boot function. (8G ram)

CC: (none) => westel

Comment 10 Marja Van Waes 2017-01-10 17:42:11 CET
I'd like to change this proposal to:

Ditch the 32bit Plasma and Gnome Live DVDs in favour of two 32bit Live DVDs with a light DE on them (one with a qt light DE and the other the same, but gtk).

The main reason is that end-user systems (I'm not talking about e.g. servers) which can only run 32bit, will usually (if not always) be too old to nicely run Plasma5 or Gnome in Live mode. A lighter DE would really help.

It wouldn't harm users who have a powerful enough system to run those fat DEs in Live mode. They will as good as certain have a 64bit capable system, so they can use the 64bit Plasma and Gnome DVDs. The few possible exceptions weigh less than the large amount of users in less wealthy countries who're in need of lighter Live DVDs.

Are there objections against changing the summary of this proposal into:

"Ditch our 32bit live DVDs for two 32bit Live DVDs with light DEs" ?

CC: (none) => marja11

Comment 11 nikos papadopoulos 2017-01-12 11:14:51 CET
I think Marja's proposal is right on the spot!
Comment 12 Martin Whitaker 2017-03-08 21:07:48 CET
Council have agreed to drop the 32-bit Plasma and GNOME Live DVDs and instead release a 32-bit Xfce Live DVD. A final decision has not yet been reached on whether to release a 64-bit Xfce Live DVD. Both are available in the recent sta2 release. So I think we can close this now.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED

Comment 13 Aurélien Murith 2017-03-08 21:39:51 CET
Very good! You should keep the 64bit Xfce ISO in the final release.

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